SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) is a scripting language developed at Lucasfilm Games for creating adventure games.
History[]
A primitive precursor to SCUMM was used in the LucasArts game Labyrinth.
It was designed by Ron Gilbert (who had background in doing languages and interpreters) after Chip Morningstar suggested to make a specialized language to ease development for the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion. Debugging MM proved to be too slow and Gilbert created a debugging system to check each instruction step by step. As the developers cleaned each bug appearing on the screen, they named the tool "Windex".[1][1]
Maniac Mansion and subsequent SCUMM games follow the point-and-click two-dimensional adventure game formula; players direct the controllable characters around the game world by clicking with the computer mouse. To interact with the game world, players choose from a set of commands arrayed on the screen and then on an object in the world.
Loom also used the SCUMM engine, however it's control system is unique among the games.
Day of the Tentacle was the last SCUMM game to use the original interface of having the bottom of the screen being taken up by a verb selection and inventory; starting with the next game to use the SCUMM engine, Sam & Max Hit the Road, the engine was modified to scroll through a more concise list of verbs with the right mouse button and having the inventory on a separate screen. This formula carried on to later to the The Dig.
Full Throttle used a pop-up interface with visual commands, something that was repeated in the The Curse of Monkey Island.
Verb List[]
- Maniac Mansion
- Push, Pull, Give, Open, Close, Read, Walk to, Pick up, What is, New Kid, Unlock, Use, Turn on, Turn off, Fix
- Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
- Push, Pull, Give, Open, Close, Read, Walk to, Pick up, What is, Put on, Take off, Use, Turn on, Turn off, Switch
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
- Push, Pull, Give, Open, Close, Look, Walk to, Pick up, What is, Use, Turn on, Turn off, Talk, Travel, To Henry/To Indy
- The Secret of Monkey Island (early version)
- Open, Close, Push, Pull, Walk to, Pick up, Talk to, Give, Use, Look at, Turn on, Turn off
- Monkey Island 1 (later version)/Monkey Island 2/Day of the Tentacle/Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
- Give, Open, Close, Pick up, Look at, Talk to, Use, Push, Pull
Technical details[]
- "So, a SCUMM script is built up of many little programs that all run simultaneously. And that's what we need to run our adventure games well. Plus there are specialized commands for dealing with objects and inventory and walking people around."
- ―Ron Gilbert[1]
It is somewhere between a game engine, and a programming language, allowing designers to create locations, items and dialogue sequences without writing code in the actual language the game source code would end up in. This also meant that the game's script and data files could be re-used across various platforms.
SCUMM is also a host for embedded game engines such as iMUSE (standing for Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine), INSANE (standing for INteractive Streaming ANimation Engine), CYST (in-game animation engine), FLEM (places and names object inside a room), MMUCUS.
SCUMM has been ported on the following platforms: 3DO, Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, CDTV, Commodore 64, Fujitsu Towns & Marty, Apple Macintosh, NES, MS-DOS/PC-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Sega Mega CD, and TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine.
External link[]
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