SCI: QfG4 diskette version - Baba Yaga is weird

[tomexplodes]

There seem to be some missing cues or something around her place. Basically you can do the steps to go inside, and she'll give you the quest to make a pie, but then it boots you back to Bonehead outside without any animation, and he sort of acts like you haven't gone in yet. You can't tell him what she said and he doesn't give you the recipe. If you go back inside at this point, she acts like it's the first time you've come in, but you die no matter what you say. You can still make the pie, if you already know how, and complete it, but there's definitely some weirdness going on. I would attach a save file but it appears I don't have one near that happening. Hopefully someone can check it out anyway, but if a save will help, I will get back to that point with all the things you need, just let me know.

[antoniou79]

Hello,

A saved game would help a lot yes. If possible, please replay up to the point where this weirdness occurs (hopefully reloading from an earlier saved game, and not completely restarting) and attach the saved game here.

Also please clarify which version of ScummVM you're testing with and on what platform (Windows, Linux, Android, other), and any other details that could be useful (eg. the game's localization, any third party/fan made patches being used)

[tomexplodes]

On windows, QfG4 disk version, 1.1, scummvm version was a daily build from June 25th originally, I have since attached a save game.
EDIT: still broken on today's daily build

You just have to give Bonehead the hat, click the corn on the hut, go inside, click talk on self, tell about the gnome, and the bugs start from there.

[i30817]

Sierra fixed a lot of bugs in the cd version of this game, it's possible this is a original bug or something newrisingsun patches fixed and you installed it in your game files digital stash, until scummvm required the original files and it appeared again 'new' to you.

[tomexplodes]

Replying to i30817:

Sierra fixed a lot of bugs in the cd version of this game, it's possible this is a original bug or something newrisingsun patches fixed and you installed it in your game files digital stash, until scummvm required the original files and it appeared again 'new' to you.

I installed from the disks, NRS patches are only for the CD version, as far as I can find online.

[sluicebox]

All of this is original behavior in the disk versions. There are many script bugs in the room outside Baba Yaga's hut (room 480) that were only fixed in the CD version. Here's a video of the CD version: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFfxTxqKIEI

This ticket has identified three issues:

1. Abruptness of the room change from 490 to 480. Sierra added teleport animation to this scene in the CD version, so indeed the disk versions are abrupt.
2. Bonehead doesn't say anything after the room change from 490 to 480, and talking to him results in the same options as before going into the hut. He should say "Well, what have we here? Back in one piece? ..." and then have different talk options, such as the pie recipe. Sierra forgot to write code to set the global variable to the value that enables this room state. This missing code was added in the CD version, so these things never happened in any disk version.
3. You can walk right back into the hut without the pie. Sierra forgot to write code that kept the hut walking away from you after being told to get a pie. This missing code was added in the CD version.

By comparing decompiled scripts, I can see that there are many more oversights, logic holes, and missing pieces of code in this room that were only fixed in the CD version by adding more code.

We have the ability through script patching to somewhat fix issue 2 and make Bonehead respond as intended, but I'm not sure we should. The scene will still be broken in other ways that immediately confused me when I tested it, like being able to walk back into the hut, and these are all situations that Sierra forgot to handle, so their fixes required new code beyond what we can achieve with inline script patching.

If Bonehead was the only problem here, I'd be happy to patch in setting a global variable correctly, but it just scratches the surface and we can't go much further. And that global variable unlocks other code that never ran on the disk versions, so is likely to have further breakage because it was untested, and does seem to have been changed further in the CD version. Altering any of this mess would be high risk and low reward, plus unsatisfying since the other related details stay broken.

I feel like it's better to just leave this particular mess the way it is for consistency; it's all original behavior and doesn't crash the game, and it's only in the disk versions which are infamous for these things. I wrote about our SCI script patching scope, and why QFG4 is a pathological case we have to treat differently: ​https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=SCI/Script_Patching_Scope