If you’re a big fan of classic graphic adventures, or if you’ve just discovered them thanks to the Secret of Monkey Island special editions, ScummVM gives you the opportunity to play these classics on your Android phone.
Downloading and Installing
First of all, ignore the copy of ScummVM that’s on the market, and head over to the downloads page at the official ScummVM site and download the Android binary file. If you need any help installing the file, then take a look at our article about non-Market apps . As for the games, you’ll need to provide those yourselves, although there are a few available as freeware on the ScummVM site, so that might be a good place to start if you don’t have any old discs lying around. Put each game in a folder on your SD card, and use Add Game to set them up within ScummVM, then it’s time to play…
Secret of Monkey Island
Pretty much the definition of classic graphic adventure, the Secret of Monkey Island still stands up over 20 years after its original release. The tale of wannabe pirate, Guybrush Threepwood went on to spawn three sequels, and you can play all but the latest one using ScummVM. One of the first graphic adventures I ever played, I was hooked on the story, and the jokes, and it remains one of my most replayed games ever. Completable in around 3-4 hours, it’s a perfect pick up and play game for your Android phone.
Day of the Tentacle
I never played Maniac Mansion , but that didn’t stop me enjoying its sequel, Day of the Tentacle. You control three different characters, who are sent back in time in order to prevent the events that lead up to a tentacle taking over the world. Unfortunately, due to a “mishap” only one of your characters is sent to the past, another is sent to the now tentacle dominated future where humans are kept as pets, and one remains in the present. The three characters must then work together (you can pass items to each other, and altering something in the past/present affects the present/future), in order to get through the game. With its cartoony-style graphics and typical (for the time) LucasArts humor, this is another game, that I’ve enjoyed revisiting over the years thanks to ScummVM.
Sam and Max
Sam and Max introduces cartoon dog detective Sam, and his buddy Max, a rabbit with slightly psychopathic tendencies. This game does away with the typical verb/object style interface replacing it with a cursor, that you could change the context of by right clicking, unfortunately, there’s no right click button on the Android version, so the controls do become a bit untidy although not impossible (you have to click on the cardboard box in the corner to enter your inventory, click on one of the action icons, then click on the box to close it). This does spoil the game a little, but it’s still a very enjoyable humor-driven story, but unfortunately not as much fun as it could be when using ScummVM on your Android phone.
Other Titles
There are many other titles that can be played, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and its non-film based follow up Fate of Atlantis. Cartoon biker game Full Throttle features a great storyline, and The Dig was based on an idea by Steven Spielberg. The classic Sierra series’ Space Quest, Police Quest and Kings Quest can all be played as well (although I haven’t tried them on the Android version, so I’m not sure how the earlier ones deal with needing keyboard interaction). Getting slightly more recent, the Broken Sword games (the first two are compatible) also have fairly engaging stories, and the ability to save your game at any time means that you can pick up and play any of these classic games whenever you get a few minutes to yourself and your Android.
References
Images and Downloads from https://www.scummvm.org/
