SWORD1: Subtitle-only languages cannot be selected in 2.7.0

[vpelletier]

Note: the present ticket is compiled from an on-going discussion on the following merge-request:

​https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/game-data-packager/-/merge_requests/79

While refreshing GOG-related rules in the game-data-packager project (​https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/game-data-packager) I noticed that starting the GOG-installed (English audio version) of Broken Sword 1 (the legacy version available as an extra on the "Disector's Cut" version) with a non-English language requested from the command line (ex: scummvm --language fr) scummvm would fail to start the game with the error message:

Error running game: Game data not found

While this game only has English audio, it does contain several other text-only languages: cz, de, es, fr, it.

Up to scummvm 2.6.1 it was possible to request those languages, although requesting non-available languages resulted in a segfault.

Is this change intentional and/or unavoidable ?
Is it a mistake in the game's detection entry ?

[antoniou79]

I can reproduce this with ScummVM 2.8git and 2.7.0 on Windows 10 with the Steam version of the Broken Sword 1 (Original, provided as DLC) and the GOG version as well.

I wonder if this applies to all of the versions of Broken Sword, ie. being able to provide subtitles for these languages regardless of the official localization of each version.

A few extra observations:

• The languages that seem to be included (text only), are: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech.
• It seems like ScummVM uses hardcoded text for the Menu options for these languages (see: ​https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob/deb8317c206b8742a17736a1a1652557779b39c0/engines/sword1/control.cpp#L1466). It also seems that a few of those texts are left untranslated (in English) eg. "Start" (for German and Czech) or "Text" (for "German")
• Adding multiple copies of the segments for detection of the Steam (Anniversary Re-release) and GOG versions, only changing the language to one of the above seems to work, and the "--language=" command line (or configuration key in scummvm.ini) starts working too. The changes I made were in engines\sword1\detection_tables.h, copying the segments: ​https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob/deb8317c206b8742a17736a1a1652557779b39c0/engines/sword1/detection_tables.h#L128 and ​https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob/deb8317c206b8742a17736a1a1652557779b39c0/engines/sword1/detection_tables.h#L154
• Since the movie cutscenes do not have subtitles (unless the ScummVM addon for subtitles is "installed"), this "feature" could cause confusion to an end user (eg. choosing French as the language and then starting the game with English voiceover and no text).

Others things to consider:

• Does this also happen for Broken Sword 2?

[criezy]

I wonder if this applies to all of the versions of Broken Sword, ie. being able to provide subtitles for these languages regardless of the official localization of each version.

Yes, even the original CD releases had subtitles for multiple languages, and being able to switch to a different language for subtitles was something I implemented a long time ago. Sadly this feature was lost when the detection code for the game was changed for the 2.7.0 release. This is a know issue, and I still have it on my list to bring this back.