Engines

Every great studio had its own tool. Insert a cartridge into the console to read its spec sheet.

INSERT CARTRIDGE█
MUSEUM-STATIONEMPTY SLOT
See all engines as a list
Z-machine 1979 · Infocom

A virtual machine for text adventures. Each game was compiled once from ZIL and only needed an interpreter per computer. GAMES: Zork, Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. TODAY: Inform 7 still compiles to Z-machine and Glulx.

Wikipedia ↗ Inform 7 ↗

AGI 1984 · Sierra On-Line

Adventure Game Interpreter. 160 × 200 pixels, 16 colours, an animated character and a text parser. GAMES: King's Quest I-III, Space Quest I-II, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest. TRIVIA: depth was handled by a priority map drawn beneath each screen.

Wikipedia ↗

SCUMM 1987 · Ron Gilbert · Aric Wilmunder · Lucasfilm Games

Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion. A scripting language plus an interpreter with verbs, inventory and camera control. GAMES: Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1-3, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Full Throttle. TRIVIA: it ran several scripts at once, rare in 1987.

Wikipedia ↗ ScummVM ↗

DAAD 1988 · Aventuras AD

Aventuras AD's adventure designer. A database and "condacts" to write an adventure and ship it on Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX, Atari ST, Amiga and PC. GAMES: La Aventura Original, Jabato, La Diosa de Cozumel. TODAY: the community revived it and still uses it in retro competitions.

Wikipedia (es) ↗

SCI 1988 · Sierra On-Line

Sierra's Creative Interpreter. Object-oriented, with higher resolution and better sound. With SCI1 (1990) Sierra dropped the parser for mouse-driven icons. GAMES: King's Quest IV-VII, Gabriel Knight, Quest for Glory, Space Quest IV-VI.

Wikipedia ↗

Virtual Theatre 1992 · Revolution Software

Non-player characters followed their own routines: they walked, worked and reacted without waiting for the player. GAMES: Lure of the Temptress, Beneath a Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1-2.

Revolution Software ↗

AGS 1997 · Chris Jones

Adventure Game Studio. A free, now open-source editor designed for classic-style adventures. GAMES: Blackwell, Gemini Rue, Resonance, Unavowed, The Excavation of Hob's Barrow. COMMUNITY: thousands of free games released by hobbyists.

adventuregamestudio.co.uk ↗

GrimE 1998 · LucasArts

Grim Engine. 3D characters over pre-rendered backgrounds with Lua scripts, one of the first big uses of the language in games. GAMES: Grim Fandango, Escape from Monkey Island. TODAY: ScummVM reimplements it.

Wikipedia ↗

ScummVM 2001 · Ludvig Strigeus

Not a tool for making games: it reimplements dozens of old engines so the originals run on modern systems. SUPPORTS: SCUMM, AGI, SCI, Virtual Theatre, GrimE, AGS and many more. PRESERVATION: some studios ship their classics with ScummVM bundled.

scummvm.org ↗

Visionaire Studio 2003 · Visionaire Studio

A visual editor for high-resolution adventures with Lua scripting. GAMES: Deponia, Edna & Harvey, The Whispered World, Anna's Quest.

visionaire-studio.net ↗

Unity · Godot 2010 · Adventure Creator · Escoria

Many studios now use general-purpose engines with add-ons such as Adventure Creator (Unity) or Escoria (Godot). GAMES: Kentucky Route Zero, The Case of the Golden Idol, Kathy Rain 2. TREND: open tools and high-resolution pixel art.

Godot ↗ Adventure Creator ↗ Unity ↗

Image credits

Images belong to their owners. Each one links to its source.