Articles
Adventure Gaming on the Go
by David Dolan
February
26, 2004
INTRODUCTION
Are you a seasoned adventure
gamer who is getting tired of being tied to your
desktop PC? Do you have a lot of time to kill on airplanes, in
the doctor’s
office or waiting for your car to be fixed? Or would you simply
like to play a
good adventure game (AG) curled up in your favorite easychair or
even lying on
your bed? Well, here for the first time in one place is the answer
in the form
of a brief guide to portable/handheld adventure (and it’s close
cousin,
interactive fiction) gaming on the PocketPC. It is surprising how
many otherwise
experienced adventure gamers still don’t know about this tremendous
and often
free resource! We will rectify that now!
First, of course, you’ll need a PocketPC (PPC). Almost any model
will do in a
pinch, but among the most highly thought of and most reasonably
priced ‘gaming’
PPCs at the moment are: the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Ipaq P1915,
HP1945, Dell Axim,
and the ASUS A620. Each can be had for under $300. Next in cost
is my current
favorite PPC, the HP2215, available for $350-400; it is an exceptionally
well-designed compact PDA with a beautiful screen and sports
both compact flash
and secure digital memory card slots. If you have more expensive
tastes, you can
also go with the HP4155, HP5555 or the Toshiba E750 which go
for $500 and up. Or
if you’re on a strict budget, a good choice is to look for used
PPCs such as the
(no longer manufactured) Casio Cassiopeias on places like eBay.
The Casio EM500
can be had for as little as $80-$100 and its big brother, the
E125, for
$100-$130. The Casio EM500 and E125 have gorgeous, bright screens
(indoors) and
gameboy-like d-pad and button placements that gamers appreciate,
but be warned:
These models use the MIPS cpu (as opposed to the current standard
ARM cpu) and
won’t be able to play recently released ARM-only games. However,
they will still
play over 95% of the adventure games mentioned below and, for
what it’s worth,
they are among my favorite gaming PPCs, second only to the HP2215
which wins out
because it is compatible with all recently-released programs.
Next, of course, are the programs, the games and the means to
play them:
A: THE POCKETSCUMM GAMES (THE SCUMMVM PROJECT GAMES PORTED TO THE
POCKETPC)
Don’t be confused by the funny name. Simply put, PocketSCUMM is
a free utility
that allows you to play all of the most popular of the LucasArts
games (plus a
view additional games) from the early to mid 1990s, using game
files that you
already own. The term SCUMM (Scripting Utility For Maniac Mansion)
refers to the
gaming engine used to write the LucasArts games of that era. The
SCUMMVM project
refers to the development of a program to allow these games to
be played on all
current PCs; PocketSCUMM is simply a port of that program to the
PocketPC. These
are the main games that are currently completable using PocketSCUMM:
Maniac
Mansion, Loom, Zak McCracken, Day Of The Tentacle, Monkey Island
1 & 2, Curse of
Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3), Indiana Jones and The Fate of
Atantis, Sam &
Max, and The Dig.
But the excitement doesn’t end there: In a relatively recent change
in direction
of the SCUMMVM project, some popular non-SCUMM games can now also
be played with
PocketSCUMM: Simon The Sorcerer 1 & 2 and Beneath A Steel Sky.
Moreover, the
games, Broken Sword 1 & 2 and Flight Of The Amazon Queen, should
be completable
using PocketSCUMM in the not too distant future.
PocketSCUMM is very easy to set up. First you download it (available
for all 3
PPC processors: SH3, MIPS, and ARM) here:
PocketSCUMM
download site
Then you can refer
to SirDave’s
PocketSCUMM Mini-Manual for setup instructions.
In addition to SirDave’s
Mini-Manual, the following site will tell you which files are required
from your games:
Required
Game Files
And here is the site that
keeps you up-to-date as to the current status of the SCUMMVM project/PocketSCUMM
games:
SCUMM
Game Compatibility List
As mentioned above, PocketSCUMM setup is not a big deal. Generally,
all that is
necessary is to place the PocketSCUMM executable (EXE) program in
a directory on
a memory card on the PPC. Then you place the required game files
(from your own
LucasArts games) as described in the manual in separate directories
on the
memory card. Note that some of the games allow for some flexibility
as to how
much space they take up. With these games, if you remove cutscenes,
music files
or even the voice files you can markedly reduce memory card space
use if space
is at a premium. For instance, The Dig can occupy over 600mb if you
wish to run
everything; however, the game can be run in voice-only mode in 208mb
or as
little as 85mb without music or voice. The good news is that many
of the games
require relatively little space without leaving out music or voice
files. Some
examples: Monkey Island 2 9mb, Indiana Jones FOA 10mb (non-talkie)
or 55mb
(talkie), Sam & Max 52mb, Day Of The Tentacle 53mb. (All of this
is explained in
SirDave’s Mini-Manual.) You should be able to fit 3 or 4 games on
a 128mb memory
card (eg. compact flash or secure digital card). However, if you
really want to
do it right- go for a 256mb or even a 512mb card and pile on 5-6
games! By the
way, a particularly nice feature of PocketSCUMM is that you can play
the game in
both portrait and landscape mode.
Okay, you’re saying, ‘My friend, I have the PocketPC and a 128mb
memory card and
I want to play a game right away, but I don’t own any SCUMM games
and, at the
moment, I’m flat broke!’ No problem, go to this site and download
the
legitimately-free Revolution Software game (yes, Revolution of the
Broken Sword
games!), Beneath A Steel Sky, currently selling in boxed form for
$15-$30 or
more on eBay (scroll down to the bottom of the webpage):
Beneath
A Steel Sky free download site.
B: POCKETSARIEN FOR SIERRA AGI GAMES
Similiar in concept to PocketSCUMM is PocketSarien which is the
PocketPC port of
Sarien, an open-source, portable implementation of the Sierra On-Line
Adventure
Game Interpreter (AGI). Pocket Sarien will play games using the
AGI format; they
include: Leisure Suit Larry #1, King’s Quest #1-#4, Space Quest
#1, and Police
Quest #1. Unfortunately, PocketSarien plays only in portrait mode,
but is still
very playable and enjoyable, nonetheless. It can be found (available
for SH3,
MIPS and ARM processors) at:
PocketSarien
downloads
(Note: Don’t be confused by the presence of Pocket Atari at the
top of the
webpage- look at the bottom of the webpage for Pocket Sarien.)
C: ADVENTURE GAMES WRITTEN FOR OR PORTED TO THE POCKETPC
While PocketSCUMM and PocketSarien are free programs that you use
with game
files from your own games, the following games are stand-alone commercial
releases and sell from $15-$30.
1. FADE
The most popular Myst-like
adventure game for the PPC is Fade available for all
3 PPC processors at Handango and here:
Fade
purchase site
Overall, Fade is a very polished, fun PPC adventure game and is
the closest
thing to a first-person, point & click Myst clone on the PPC.
It is occasionally
a little quirky and betrays its French roots in spots (eg. The main
character
talks about his ‘magic pills’ which are supposed to be for headaches
and
sleep-walking. However the pills are listed in the game inventory
as Zantoic
while the name on the pill bottle is correctly given as Zantac. The
problem is
that Zantac is a drug for dyspepsia/heartburn!), but is well worth
getting and
playing.
Reviews of Fade are at:
Fade
review #1
Fade
review #2
A walkthrough for Fade is available at:
Fade
walkthrough
2. DEJA VU
1&2
and THE UNINVITED
The excellent first person
adventure games, Deja Vu 1&2 (ICOM
release for the
PC: 1986) and The Uninvited (ICOM release for the PC: 1989), ported
in
true-to-the-original form from the PC versions, are available for
all 3
processors at:
The Uninvited
and Deja Vu 1&2 homesite
These are challenging,
addictive games with excellent graphics; a review of The Uninvited
is here:
Uninvited
review
A review of Deja Vu 1&2
is here:
Deja
Vu 1&2 review
3. GILBERT GOODMATE
Gilbert Goodmate was
only recently released (January 2004) and is an absolute
gem! It is a true port of the PC game (Prelusion Games of Sweden
english version
originally released June 2001) and will give you hours of enjoyment.
The
original PC game was vastly underrated perhaps because it was reminiscent
of the
Monkey Island games and therefore judged to be outdated. What a
mistake! This is
a game that translates particularly well to the small screen. The
beautiful
graphics are sharp with excellent detail and the interface and
inventory system
intuitive and easy to use. The writing is humourous and clever
and guaranteed to
entertain. Here’s an example of the humour in Gilbert Goodmate:
At one point,
Gilbert sees some biscuits on a table. Since you can interact with
many items in
the game by looking at them, talking to them or picking them up,
you can have
Gilbert ‘talk’ to the biscuits. He says ‘Hi biscuits!’ and then,
on his own
says, ‘Hey, isn’t that some kind of plant?’. Well, it gave me a
good laugh!
Gilbert Goodmate runs automatically in landscape mode on the PPC.
You can check out
information about Gilbert Goodmate at its home website at:
Gilbert
Goodmate homesite
And you can purchase it
(ARM processor only) at Handango or at PocketGear:
Gilbert
Goodmate purchase site
An in-depth review of
Gilbert Goodmate is at:
Gilbert
Goodmate review
4. CLASSIC ADVENTURE
A little known, but great
little game is Classic Adventure, a combination point
& click graphic/text-based game somewhat in the tradition of the older
Sierra
games eg. King’s Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. The graphics are
a little on the
primitive side, but it’s still well worth purchasing and playing.
Classic Adventure is available for all 3 processors at Handango
or at
PocketGear:
Classic Adventure
is available for all 3 processors at Handango or at PocketGear:
Classic
Adventure purchase site.
D: INTERACTIVE FICTION FOR THE POCKETPC
Finally for the
PPC is a tremendous, relatively untapped source of Interactive
Fiction (IF) games. There are 3 main IF PocketPC formats
supported: Z-code, TADS and Rogue.
Z-code games are essentially
the early Zork games (Zork 1 to 3) and the many Zork-like games
that are available with the file extension such as Z5 or Z8. There
are 2 PPC Z-Code interpreters that will play the Z-code games:
FrotzCE and ZipCE, both available free at:
FrotzCE
and ZipCE downloads
ZipCE is the one to get.
It will play the regular Z-code games, but also the more advanced
Z-code games including Return to Zork (which FrotzCE can’t play).
TADS is similiar in concept
to a Z-Code interpreter but plays TADS IF games which have the
extension GAM. It can be found at:
Pocket
Tads download
A tremendous site (Baf’s
Guide to the IF Archive) for a countless number of free, excellent
Z-Code and TADS IF games is at:
Baf’s Guide
On the main webpage of
the above website, look to the left for ‘Game Listings’ and select
under it, ‘by Rating’ and you will find many 5-star games that
will run under Pocket ZipCE or Pocket TADs.
Another source of TADS
games is at: free
TADS games
Finally, in the PPC IF
category are the Rogue-like games. Rogue is a game originally played
on the PC and is in the tradition of the great Colossal Cave game.
You can find Pocket Rogue (now called NanRogue) at:
NanRogue download
site
So, now you have several
reasons to look into adventure gaming on the PocketPC and if you’ve
been complaining that you don’t have as much time as you’d like
to play adventure games, it just may be that you actually have
the time if you don’t have to wait to play them on your desktop
PC! Finally, here’s a good site to keep you abreast of the latest
PPC adventure (and other) game releases:
PocketGamer
site.
E: ADVENTURE GAMING ON THE GAMEBOY ADVANCE
There isn’t anywhere
near the selection of adventure games available for the
gameboy system that there is for the PocketPC, but if you’re an
adventure gamer
and already have a Gameboy Advance, you may be missing out on yet
another
portable adventure game resource. At present, there are 3 ‘pure’
adventure games
available for the Gameboy Advance system: Broken Sword (The Shadow
of the
Templars), Nancy Drew (Message in a Haunted Mansion) and The Fish
Files. The
first two mentioned can still be found fairly easily at stores
with a large
gameboy game selection or at several gameboy game websites, however
The Fish
Files is a little harder to find. One source is: Playing
Games Interactive or
occasionally you’ll find it on eBay. All three games are worth getting
and if
you’re interested in them, I wouldn’t wait too long since they will
likely be
harder to find in the not too distant future. Broken Sword is true
to the
original desktop PC version and the developers have made every attempt
to make
the controls effective and easy-to-use within the limitations of
the gameboy
system. The Nancy Drew game is surprisingly good and will be enjoyed
by both
Nancy Drew fans and those who’ve never played the Nancy Drew PC games
(and that
from someone who formerly wasn’t a big Nancy Drew adventure game
fan!). The Fish
Files is a neat little game in the humorous tradition of Monkey Island
and Sam & Max (it is only available as a Gameboy Color cartridge
but works just fine on
the Gameboy Advance system.).
The Radica Games Gamester
GameChanger:
Speaking
of 3 gameboy adventure games: Here is just the device to give you
immediate access to all three games at once. The Radica Games
cleverly-designed
Gamester GameChanger attaches to the Gameboy Advance and allows
for insertion of
up to 3 game cartridges at once so that you can switch immediatedly
between
games. This is just the right gizmo to justify buying all 3 games
mentioned
above for that next long trip or vacation! Check out the Radica
Games products
at: radicagames and
the GameChanger here: Gamester
GameChanger for the Gameboy Advance system
The Gameboy Advance
Adventure Game Interpreter Project (GBAGI):
Finally, here is an interesting new development just for die-hard Gameboy Advance
adventure gamers. The GBAGI project is essentially a program that can allows
you to play the early Sierra AGI adventure games (eg. King’s Quest 1-4, Space
Quest 1-2, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry) on the Gameboy Advance. However,
it will take some technical know-how that involves purchasing something called
a flash linker which includes a rewriteable cartridge and connection hardware
to write a game ROM (created from Sierra games that you already own) from your
PC onto a Gameboy Advance cartridge. It may not be for everyone and the fact
is that the PocketPC PocketSarien mentioned above already provides this Sierra
game pocket capability, but you can read all about it at: GBAGI.
