SCUMM
More info
- Creator
- Ron Gilbert, Aric Wilmunder
- Released
- 1987
- Type
- Game engine and scripting language
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion — the scripting language and engine behind almost every LucasArts adventure for a decade.
Ron Gilbert and Aric Wilmunder built SCUMM in 1987 so they wouldn't have to write Maniac Mansion in assembly. The game was described as rooms, objects and scripts, and an interpreter ran them. The verb bar along the bottom — "Use", "Pick up", "Talk to" — was as much the engine's interface as the game's, and the same interpreter could be moved between the C64, Amiga and PC without rewriting the games.
A name that basically means "the tool for this one game" went on to carry Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle, up to The Curse of Monkey Island in 1997. Grim Fandango switched to a new engine. In 2001 Swedish programmer Ludvig Strigeus started ScummVM, which runs the old data files on modern systems — and today supports far more engines than the one it's named after.