[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Many "oldtimers" recognize the name of the game developer / publishing company Sierra. They have published several games since 1978.

As their games are, generally, very cool, there have been a lot of efforts to make an interpreter to run their files, as is the case with other, well-known adventure companies like Lucasfilm (ScummVM) and Magnetic Scrolls (see related article HERE)

There are two interpreters for Sierra games: PocketSarien and FreeSCI. In this guide, I explain everything you'll ever need to know about these titles. I also recommend the generic forum for all platforms at AGI Games (despite the name, it also discusses SCI games and interpreters!) for a quick read after reading this guide.

PocketSarien

One of the results of these efforts was the multiplatform Sierra Sarien (which has, in the meantime, merged with ScummVM; interestingly, the Scumm compatibility list doesn’t list any Sierra titles), which is able to run all Sierra games (and, more generally, games written using the same AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) engine) released in the eighties (but not later).

Sarien also has a free Pocket PC port, which runs on all Pocket PC's (even MIPS/SH3 Pocket PC 2000 ones).

It also runs on VGA devices, but without the on-screen keyboard, as can be seen in the following screenshots: 1 2 3 4 5).

It should be pointed out that PocketSarien will not run games released in and after 1990. That is, it won't run anything in the Larry series starting with part 2, in the Space Quest series starting with part 3, in the King's Quest series starting with part 4 etc. See the list of all supported games in the sarien.conf file included in the distribution ZIP file.

Note that they are NOT compatible with the AGDI (Anonymous Game Developers Interactive) remakes (see THIS; right now, KQ1, KQ2 and Quest for Glory II) either! (Incidentally, if you're a fan of free (!) adventure games, make sure you give these games a try.)

Getting and running PocketSarien

Go HERE; it’ll be listed at the bottom. Direct link HERE.

Unzip PocketSarien.exe to anywhere on your Windows Mobile device. As explained in the readme.txt in the same ZIP file, you may also want to create a directory named etc in the root of the built-in storage of your device and copy the file sarien.conf in there.

Now, copy all the files from the original AGI games to anywhere on your Windows Mobile device (make sure you install Mad Programmer’s File Dialog Changer to be able to navigate anywhere on your device. See THIS for more info on this). You can safely leave out *.ovl, *.com, *FONT files and the AGI file to save storage.

Now, just run PocketSarien.exe and select any file from your games, let it be VOL.0, VOL.1 or anything else visible. The game will start.

Getting the original AGI games

Unlike with some Lucasfilm games or all Magnetic Scrolls ones, it’s not possible to acquire all games off the Web because of the copyright issues. However, some of them are still (legally) downloadable; for example, The Black Cauldron (also see THIS) and Donald Duck's Playground on Al Lowe’s personal homepage (Note that the other games don’t seem to be compatible!)

(A personal remark: I really recommend the above-linked Donald Duck's Playground; back in the eighties, my little brother’s favorite game.)

Also, the two compatible fangames, Space Quest 0 – Replicated and Space Quest - The Lost Chapter (also see THIS) are freely available.

Finally, you can also download LSLI and SQI off the Web.

Unfortunately, the well-known abandonware site Underdogs doesn’t list many AGI (and, as far as FreeSCI is concerned, SCI0) titles.

Verdict

I can only recommend Pocket Sarien. It runs just great on all QVGA devices (and also VGA ones if you do have an external / built-in hardware keyboard; unfortunately, it’ll always use Portrait, which isn’t the best with landscape keyboards). Highly recommended!