Implement engine for Media Station, Inc. games

[TRR95]

While testing games from my childhood to see if they run on and are at least recognized by ScummVM, I found an unknown engine that needs to added to ScummVM

Almost all of games made Media Station, Inc. use a proprietary engine that I'm calling Tonney. The name comes from the fact that it was manly used to make Tonka & Disney games. of course, If the name the developers used can be found, It will be the name ScummVM will use.

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Looking at these games at first glance, you would think these games were made in Macromedia \ Adobe Director and the fact it has .cxt files would seem to back it up but ScummVM doesn't see as game made with Director, ScummVM doesn't even recognize there even is a game in the file directory.

Looking further into the game files, there are no files related to Lingo nor are there any other files with extensions associated with Director.

Files associated with this engine:
BOOT.STM
INSTALL.CXT
PROFILE._ST

Additional Files associated with this engine:
IMTWIN.DLL - Not every game has this file.
(Game Name).WRI - if a game has a readme file, it going to be a ​.WRI file.

Other:
​MediaStation asset extractor and Decompiler GitHub link

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There are 18 Games use this engine

• Puzzle Castle
• Tonka Garage
• Tonka Raceway
• Tonka Workshop
• Tonka Search & Rescue
• Lamb Chop Loves Music
• Jan Pienkowski Haunted House
• Stuart Little: Big City Adventures
• Magic Fairy Tales: Barbie As Rapunzel
• Fractured Fairy Tales: The Frog Prince
• Arthur's Adventures With DW: D.W. The Picky Eater
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Interactive Storybook
• Disney's Animated Storybook: Hercules
• Disney's Animated Storybook: Pocahontas
• Disney's Animated Storybook: The Lion King
• Disney's Animated Storybook: 101 Dalmatians
• Disney's Animated Storybook: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Disney's Animated Storybook: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
• Disney presents Ariel's Story Studio

NOTE
All the games listed above can be found on the internet archive, I'm not going to post any links for copyright reasons.

Games i can't confirm are using this engine

• George Shrinks Interactive Storybook
• Haunted Hotel (​Unrealese?)

[npjg]

Yup, I am the author of that asset extractor you referenced. These Media Station titles are in fact not at all related to Director, as you discovered. I ultimately want to create a ScummVM engine for Media Station titles (I contributed to Director a few years ago and that's how I re-discovered these - I loved Dalmatians as a kid), but who knows when I'll have time for that, haha.

I don't know if there was an official name for the Media Station engine. A pre-Media Station company with some of the same folks had a development suite for NeXT called "Callisto". The very first retail titles I know about, like George Shrinks, use "WinToon"(​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Animated_Storybook#Series_conception_(June_1994). But later titles just have generic strings like "Title Compiler" and "Interactive Multimedia Title".

If you want some interesting reading, pick up Newton Lee's books referenced in that Wikipedia article. He's the original author of the engine, and he also shared some helpful knowledge with me. Unfortunately, none of about the 10 folks I've contacted has actual documentation or sources anymore :(

I have George Shrinks. I think the Haunted Hotel is actually just the Haunted House, that article might have bad info. I'm checking with a former Media Station dev.