Wait, how? What is the background technology? I need more explanation. Is this a tool to recompile these games?

AGI is here and its first task is obviously completing the C64’s game library.

Not really. AGI is a game interpreter, like LucasArts’ SCUMM or Infocom’s z machine. Games are shipped as portable code and a machine specific AGI interpreter runs them. Looks like they’re preprocessing the graphics first, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Interpreter

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skissane 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sierra released most of their AGI games on the Apple IIc/IIe. Given C64 is a roughly equivalently specced machine, there is no reason in principle why they couldn't have ported AGI to C64 as well – it just, for whatever reason, never happened. (One AGI game, "Donald Duck's Playground", was originally developed as a native C64 game, then AGI was used to port it to other platforms.)

Also, given different AGI platforms had different graphics capabilities, I expect even the original Sierra AGI games had somewhat different graphics assets on different platforms – so whatever preprocessing of graphics they are doing to make them C64-friendly, Sierra quite possibly would have done something like that anyway had they made a C64 port back in the day.

	▲	Firehawke 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If I recall correctly, the art is done with a form of early vector drawing so that they can use one set of assets on all platforms. They're designed to 16 colors but get downsampled for 4-color CGA mode or monochrome mode.
	▲	TMWNN 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Given C64 is a roughly equivalently specced machine, there is no reason in principle why they couldn't have ported AGI to C64 as well – it just, for whatever reason, never happened. Agreed about the issues not being (completely) technical. <https://np.reddit.com/r/c64/comments/1r8hgwk/kings_quest_i/o...>

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noufalibrahim 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think the first instance of games being separated from the "engine" so that you could make the game and it would run on all platforms that the engine ran out without porting was Infocom's Z-machine. http://maher.filfre.net/if-book/if-4.htm

There was an interesting article which I read a long time. It's linked to from the post above called "How to Fit a Large Program into a Small Machine" published in 1980.

AGI, SCI, Scumm etc. were all larger and more capable versions of this.