Games - Sierra's Creative Interpreter

Home > Listing Index > Games > Sierra's Creative Interpreter

	Games - Sierra's Creative Interpreter

Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI) refers to

the scripting language created by Jeff Stephenson of Sierra On-Line
for its adventure games after the older AGI
. While AGI was a procedural language, SCI is completely object-oriented.
the run-time environment for such adventure games. Although ports for the Amiga
, Atari ST
and Macintosh
platforms exist, the primary development was for the IBM PC
platform; this article only focuses on the PC versions.

Although continuously developed between 1988 and 1996, five major versions can be isolated:

SCI0 (0.000.xxx)

First used for King's Quest 4 in 1988, this version allowed for 320x200 graphics with 16 colors as well as a music-card compatible soundtrack. It also supported parser-based keyboard input which a game could be scripted to use if it wishes to do so (non-adventure games usually didn't).

Games using SCI0 (in order of release):

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella
Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)
Police Quest
II: The Vengeance
1988 Christmas Card
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon
Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 1
Quest for Glory
: So You Want to Be a Hero
Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals
The Colonel's Bequest
Codename: Iceman
Conquests of Camelot: King Arthur, Quest for the Grail
Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 2
Mixed-Up Mother Goose (Version 1.011)

Later versions of SCI0 added bilingual support for international versions; their version string reads "S.OLD.xxx". Games include:

King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown (1990 remake)
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon (international versions)
Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals (international versions)
Jones in the Fast Lane (disk version)

The last SCI0 game, "Jones in the Fast Lane", already used the graphics engine from SCI1 and thus was available in a 256 color version.

SCI1 (1.000.xxx/T.A00.xxx)

Released in 1990, the most notable improvement was the support of 256 color graphics, still at a resolution of 320x200; EGA 16 color graphics were still available (games were usually sold in separate 16 and 256 color versions). Some people prefer to call the 16-color SCI1 interpreters "SCI01".

Most SCI1 games are completely mouse-driven, using an icon-based interface; contrary to popular thought, it is up to the game's script code, not to the interpreter, to implement the user interface. For example, even though "Quest for Glory 2" is parser-driven and "King's Quest 5" is mouse-driven, they use compatible interpreters, as it is possible to use the interpreter from QFG2 with the EGA version of KQ5.

The version numbering scheme is somewhat confusing for the reason that the third number in the version string (the build number) has only three digits, even though four are needed. For example, the game "Space Quest 4" Version 1.052 ships with an interpreter labeled "1.000.753", whereas the game "Conquests of the Longbow" Version 1.0 ships with an interpreter labeled "1.000.168"; nevertheless, the latter interpreter is newer because the build number is actually 1168, not 168. Also, in some cases the "1.000" is replaced with "T.A00", which however does not indicate a separate development fork.

SCI1 Games include:

1990 Christmas Card - The Seasoned Professional
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 3
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! (disk version)
Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (enhanced remake)
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (disk version)
Mixed-Up Mother Goose (CD-ROM version)

Interpreters with build numbers >1000 have slightly modified file formats and improved foreign language support (resulting from a code merge with SCI0's S.OLD fork), but are otherwise like earlier SCI1 versions. Games include:

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sierra's Creative Interpreter ]

Searches on eBay

sierra's creative interpreter