Introducing The SCream Engine

[Imari]

Thanks so much for doing this, guys. Most developers make a point of keeping their game engines a professional secret. Your generosity could potentially benefit the entire adventure community, because if there are more adventure games out there for us to play, then inevitably one of them will be of the caliber of Scratches. And really great games like Scratches attract cross-over players to the genre.

[Quill]

Hi Agustin,

Congrats on the release of the engine! I totally agree with Imari. There aren't too many developers who would open the doors to their game engine like this.

Can you give any details on updates you've made to the engine since the previous demo?

[uk_john]

Yes, now maybe a 'Union' of all adventure games where somebody (we would need a vote - I would volunteer!) could oversee it and writers could be organised to share costs and a powerhouse could be built, like an adventure EA. Except that a label could be created that all the adventures could be published under, creating a label like Sierra Adventures or Infocom in love and fame!

[Agustin]

Thanks so much for doing this, guys. Most developers make a point of keeping their game engines a professional secret. Your generosity could potentially benefit the entire adventure community, because if there are more adventure games out there for us to play, then inevitably one of them will be of the caliber of Scratches. And really great games like Scratches attract cross-over players to the genre.

That's certainly the intention - we want SCream to become a popular engine among adventure developers. We hope the community will keep growing and create great things with it. When we decided doing it, we did it because there were no panoramic engines out there back then. It may not be the only one now, but we certainly want to make it the best!

[Agustin]

Hi Agustin,

Congrats on the release of the engine! I totally agree with Imari. There aren't too many developers who would open the doors to their game engine like this.

Can you give any details on updates you've made to the engine since the previous demo?

Mainly some internal improvements that you won't notice, but the biggest feature is the move to SDL. I think the engine runs better now and, of course, this will enable us to keep working on the Mac and Linux ports.

Some big new additions to the engine are being worked on... these should be ready early next year. Like I said, this current version allows to create a game among the same lines of Scratches (except a few functions still need to be documented).

[Agustin]

Yes, now maybe a 'Union' of all adventure games where somebody (we would need a vote - I would volunteer!) could oversee it and writers could be organised to share costs and a powerhouse could be built, like an adventure EA. Except that a label could be created that all the adventures could be published under, creating a label like Sierra Adventures or Infocom in love and fame!

I think something like this has been often proposed in the adventure community (and sometimes a few steps were made) but it would be something incredibly complicated to achieve. We can only hope... we would be up for it! Sadly, I think it will take a while until a company such as Sierra or Infocom can be supported.

[Quill]

The way I see things heading for independent game development is very much like the way the movie industry works. You get your big budget block busters coming out that cost an arm and a leg (when did limbs become a form of currency?) but you also get the indy movies that have so much more to say. If you look at indy movies - they can be personal stories, intelligently scripted and, very importantly, original.

With the release of tools such as SCream, people can find their voices with small productions and begin to nibble at the heels of the big corporations. They might even wake up to realising that small indy productions are as valid to invest in as their huge releases.

[axelkothe]

There can never be enough easy to use adventure game engines that are free to use for non-commercial use. So thank you for releasing this engine to the public (even though I'm really not into the first person adventures and still have to play Scratches (which is sitting on the shelf right next to me))

[Agustin]

Great analogy - it is indeed the way it seems to work, just like the movie industry. Blockbuster titles are becoming more and more shallow and trendy, and indies want to make a difference. I think that in no time indy games will be just as respected as independent movies are nowadays (we're still not quite there though).

The case with adventures is so different because practically ALL of us are independents... let's hope SCream is an added bonus to this situation!

[axelkothe]

With the release of tools such as SCream, people can find their voices with small productions and begin to nibble at the heels of the big corporations. They might even wake up to realising that small indy productions are as valid to invest in as their huge releases.

Espacially since the possibilitys of distributing content digitally via the interneterases the need for a publisher in low budget productions.

[Agustin]

There can never be enough easy to use adventure game engines that are free to use for non-commercial use. So thank you for releasing this engine to the public (even though I'm really not into the first person adventures and still have to play Scratches (which is sitting on the shelf right next to me))

Well, it might be a great moment to start now! We hope you enjoy the game, and thanks for your comments.

[Agustin]

Today we're officially releasing a beta version of the SCream engine, which stands for Simple Creation Engine for Adventure Makers (and we're very serious about it), that is very similar to what was used for Scratches. While in beta stage, this has proven to be very stable and should be flexible enough to cover a wide range of projects.

SCream will be completely free to use in non-commercial projects. There are a couple of restrictions, namely leaving the logo of the engine as a splash screen and reproducing the copyright text where necessary, but that's about it. We're working on a very cool logo, so even that won't be an annoyance! For commercial exploitation of the engine, the licenses will be given on a project-to-project basis.

The goals of SCream are ambitious, and it's already covering much of the intended ground. The idea is to provide a simple-to-use language which allows the programmer to be pretty much abstracted of everything that doesn't have to do with the actual game. No worries about rendering graphics or bizarre algorithms � the SCream language is friendly and easily understandable (for instance, a few daring programmers were actually coding with it without any documentation).

This language is also persistent within the primary operative systems that SCream is going to support: Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. While this build is for Windows only, Mac and Linux versions are coming up soon. This means that anything you code with SCream will run on all of these systems. The engine currently supports panoramic graphics only (of the type seen in Scratches) or classic slide-show mode, but it's going to be easily extendable into other realms of adventures (such as, and not limited to, 2D third person view). Feel free to give it a try and ask any questions � our own developer's forum is very active and has been extremely helpful for the interested ones. For those that want to use it in a commercial environment, please feel free to get in touch with us.


Download the SCream demo here...

Visit the SCream developer's forum!