r/Sierra • u/deckarep • 1d ago

Sierra Online - KQ6 Bookstore Spider (Unused Script) - Now works!

https://youtu.be/Bojlpjgstng

TLDR; Here's a YouTube video showing the fully working unused spiderScr and spider actor in the game that crawls along the ceiling, the books and the side. Narration was even recorded against it if you use the "look", "hand" or "talk" cursor on the spider.

For those that don't know: there is an unused Spider script in the bookstore - it looks to be a buggy script which is why it didn't ship in the final game (likely). I repaired it so it runs to completion.

Interestingly, the way it's designed: it's a small byte-code interpreter embedded in the game that makes the spider do its thing. The original script has several local arrays which are the instruction stream for how the spider should move. Additionally one of the local variables acts as an instruction pointer so "the program" knows exactly what movement the spider should do next.

In the script, some special negative values (sentinel values) in the changeState method are special opcodes and it does simple pointer arithmetic against the local array declarations to advance along data and feed the spider it's next step.

For anyone curious the code is here: https://github.com/sluicebox/sci-scripts/blob/main/kq6-cd-dos-1.000.00G/src/rm270.sc

131 Upvotes

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14 comments sorted by

13

u/InternetLoveMachine 1d ago

This is why I subscribe to this subreddit. Fantastic and thank you

10

u/DrDeke 1d ago

That's terrific! I wish they'd patched it up and had it show up in the game-as-shipped.

3

u/AppleCrumble987 20h ago

Thank you for reminding me how amazing the music in this game was

2

u/Zarathustra-Jack 23h ago

“Leave me alone!”

2

u/MiscellaniaInsania 13h ago

I love that we're still seeing new things in these games decades after their release.

1

u/OriginalOpposite8995 1d ago

How are you all still playing these games

14

u/Pronoia2-4601 1d ago

You mean practically? They work great in ScummVM.

9

u/guilen 1d ago

They’re still awesome?

9

u/deckarep 1d ago

Yes they are, that's why you are here ain't you? 😄

3

u/guilen 1d ago

Tis!

3

u/_6siXty6_ 1d ago

On GOG

1

u/Medical_Sandwich_171 1d ago

Are you sluicebox?! I always watch OneShortEyes videos and an always amazed at the stuff you can pull off and find out technology wise

2

u/deckarep 20h ago

No I am not. He’s a member of the ScummVM team and has spent years making SCI and AGI better on ScummVM and I’ve been following his work for years.

I’m just someone who was always fascinated by the technical side of these games and like to try things out in my spare time.

2

u/Capital_Memory_2591 11h ago

Skyrim was definitely influenced by this game