               Sarien Sierra Adventure Game Interpreter
                             Version 0.8

What Is Sarien?

Sarien is a Sierra AGI resource interpreter engine that enables you to play early Sierra On-Line(tm) AGI version 2 and version 3 games, as well as AGI games written by other people.

It is being written to be very portable. See doc/README.ports for a list of current supported platforms.

Sarien is covered by the Free Software Foundation's GNU Public License and is an open source development. Up to date information, bug tracker and daily development snapshots are available at http://sarien.sf.net/.

Command Line Switches

Syntax is: sarien [switches] [gamedir]

Where [switches] are optionally: -a --agds Enables sarien to play AGDS created games. -A --amiga Forces the game to be seen as an Amiga word padded game. -C --crc CRC and identify the game files and stop. -c --cga-palette Use PC CGA video mode emulation. -d --list-dictionary List dictionary words. -e --ega-palette Use PC EGA palette instead of amiga-ish palette -L --list-games List all the games in the ID file -F --full-screen Run in full-screen mode if allowed by the graphics device -g --no-gfx-optimizations Disable optimized graphic driver hacks (if available). -H --hires {0|1} Enable/disable hi-res mode. -h --help Display this help screen. -m --agimouse AGI Mouse 1.0 compatibility mode. -n --no-sound Disable sound output. -p --picture-viewer Interactive picture viewer. -o --list-objects List objects. -S --scale {num} Window size scale (only for windowed graphics). -s --emulate-sound {type} Emulate the sound of Sierra AGI running in different computers. Valid emulations are pc, mac and amiga -r --aspect-ratio {0|1} Adjust aspect ratio to match the PC EGA 320x200 screen. -v --emulate-version {version} Force version to emulate. Valid v2 game versions are: 2.089, 2.272, 2.440, 2.917, 2.936. Valid v3 games are: 3.002.086, 3.002.149. -V --version Display version information. -x --no-x-shm Disable X shared memory extension (if available).

[gamedir] is optionally the directory the game is in, if no directory is specified, the current directory is assumed.

Playing Games

In order to play games, you will need,

1) A Game or Demo
2) A binary of Sarien.

For a AGI V2 games you only need the following files

logdir
object
picdir
snddir
viewdir
vol.*
words.tok

For an AGI V3 game you need;

*dir	(eg: bcdir, dmdir, grdir, kq4dir, mhdir)
*vol.*	(eg: bcvol.*, dmvol.*, etc)
object
words.tok

Version Emulation

Sierra Games currently ID'd:

IBM-PC versions
Black Cauldron (2.00)		2.439		 6/14/87
Kings Quest 1 (2.0F)		2.917
Kings Quest 2           	2.411
Kings Quest 2 (2.2)    		2.917
Kings Quest 3 (1.01)    	2.272		11/08/86
Kings Quest 3 (2.00)    	2.435		 5/25/87
Kings Quest 3 (2.14)    	2.936		 3/15/88
Kings Quest 3 (2.14)    	2.936		 3/15/88
Larry 1 (1.00)          	2.440		 6/1/87
Mixed Up Mother Goose   	2.915
Police Quest 1 (2.0A)   	2.911		10/23/87
Police Quest 1 (2.0G)   	2.917		12/03/87
Police Quest 1 (2.0G)   	2.917		12/03/87
Space Quest 1 (1.0X)    	2.089
Space Quest 1 (1.1A)    	2.272
Space Quest 1 (2.2)     	2.426
Space Quest 2           	2.912
Space Quest 2 (2.0A)    	2.912
Space Quest 2 (2.0C)    	2.915
Space Quest 2 (2.0F)    	2.936
XMAS Card 1986          	2.272
Demo 1                  	2.915
Demo 2                  	2.915
Demo 3                  	2.917
Demo 5                  	2.425
Kings Quest 4 (v2.0)		3.002.086	 7/27/88
Kings Quest 4 (v2.2)		3.002.086	 9/27/88
Black Cauldron			3.002.098
Demo 4				3.002.102
Kings Quest 4 demo		3.002.102
Manhunter 1 (1.22)		3.002.107	 8/31/88
Manhunter 2 (3.02)		3.002.149	 7/26/89
Gold Rush (5.25)		3.002.149
Gold Rush (3.5)			3.002.149
GR (Cracked) (3.5)		3.002.149
GR (Cracked) (5.25)		3.002.149


Apple IIgs versions
Kings Quest 1 (1.0S-88223)	2.272
Mixed Up Mother Goose		2.917
Police Quest 1 (2.0A)		2.917
Demo Disk 1.0C (Censored)	2.917 (guessed)
Black Cauldron 1.0O		3.002.149	 2/24/89
Manhunter New York 2.0E		3.002.149	10/05/88


Apple Macintosh versions
Kings Quest 1 (2.0C)		2.440
Kings Quest 2 (2.0R)		2.440
Larry 1 (1.05)                  2.440		 6/26/87
Space Quest 2 (2.0D)		2.936


Atari ST versions
Donald Duck's Playground 1.0C	2.272		 8/08/86


Amiga versions
Kings Quest 2 (2.0J)		2.440
Space Quest 2 (2.0F)		2.936
Leisure Suit Larry 1 (1.05)	2.440		 6/26/87


AGDS games
Groza, AGDS sample game		2.440


Notes
	Space Quest 1 v2.426 and v2.917 are 100% identical with the
    exception of the version of the interpreter used to play them.
    Since 2.917 is the same as 2.426, I use 2.426 as the
    emulation.

Leisure Suit Larry 1 v2.440 and v2.917 have 100% identicle
    files, just 'agi' is different. Since they are the same, I
    choose to emulate v2.440, even for the 2.917 version of the
    game.  Since they are the same it should work ok.

Copy protection

Original Sierra adventure games employed copy protection in various different schemes on several architectures.

Key Disk

The most common for of copy proection most Sierra gamers will be familiar with, is the key disk copy protection of 99% of the early AGI games.

Since this copy protection was part of the Sierra interpreter and not a part of the actual game data files (defeating it required creating a hacked version of sierra.com/sierra.exe), when these games are played by Sarien, there is in effect, no copy protection at all.
Manual Protection

Some later games required information that was part of the documentation that came with the games, which included games such as Police Quest 1, Gold Rush, Kings Quest 4, Manhunter and Space Quest.

Games such as Police Quest 1 and Space Quest made the copy protection part of the game itself and can't be bypassed (ie: Drink Driving procedures in Police Quest 1). You will still need the manuals/ documentation to complete these games.

For other games mentioned such as Kings Quest 4 AGI, Gold Rush etc, Sarien can activly detect and bypass this protection if compiled witj the "Logic Patching" option. This can be tested by running sarien with the '-V' option.

Unidentified Games

Unidentified games are emulated with the 'standard' system for that AGI version.

	For V2 AGI games its v2.917
	For V3 AGI games its 3.002.149

These are the most 'common' versions around for v2 and v3 games.

Differences between Sarien and Sierra AGI

"Fastest" speed is not available. Reasons: the effect is quite silly and potentially dangerous -- in modern computers it makes ego run at light speed and makes the game unplayable anyway. In multitasking systems "fastest" throws the system load at 100%. As a side effect, the "SIERRA" word in the Sierra demopack intros will pulse in a gentle, pleasant rhythm instead of the epilepsy-inducing stroboscopic effect of the "fastest" mode.
System console. A transparent "Quake console" is available pressing the key. SHIFT- toggles game input when the console is active. AGI commands can be issued directly in the console, use "help" for a list of available commands.

Credits

Sarien is being written by a loony bunch of people working in their spare time to squash bugs and add new features. See the AUTHORS file for the credits list.