Screenshots

Screenshots Project Service
URL(s)	https://scummvm.org/screenshots
Purpose	Provide a repository of screen shots of supported games.
Maintainer(s)	Eugene Sandulenko (Sev)

Introduction

We try to have screenshots on our website for all games that we support. The purpose of this page is to describe how new screenshots are to be made to ensure uniform overall quality. In particular, what scaler you should use, how files should be named etc.

For each game, our goal is to have a small number of screenshots (no more than 5) which give users a good idea of what the game looks like to play. If the game is available in different languages or versions (e.g. EGA and VGA), our goal is to have no more than 2 additional screenshots per version showing the differences of those versions.

Take a look at our existing screenshots of The Secret of Monkey Island as an example.

Screenshot criteria

Games

Screenshots should only be added for:

• Commercial games
• Fan games notable enough to have a Wikipedia article (e.g. Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back)

We unfortunately cannot accept screenshots for other types of games.

Content

Screenshots should not show game spoilers, such as surprise plot details or puzzle solutions. A good guideline is: if it appears in a game demo or would appear in a hypothetical "movie trailer" of the game, it's fine.

Nudity, gore, or other potentially objectionable content are not permitted in screenshots. We want the website to be appropriate for all ages.

List of screenshots we need

• Ms. Astro Chicken: Flight of the Pullet (*)
• AGS Games (only supported games)
• Blue's Birthday Adventure
• Blue's Reading Time Activities
• Blue's Treasure Hunt
• Director Games (only supported games)
• Crazy Nick's Software Picks: King Graham's Board Game Challenge (*)
• Crazy Nick's Software Picks: Leisure Suit Larry's Casino (*)
• Crazy Nick's Software Picks: Parlor Games with Laura Bow (*)
• Crazy Nick's Software Picks: Robin Hood's Game of Skill and Chance (*)
• Crazy Nick's Software Picks: Roger Wilco's Spaced Out Game Pack (*)
• Fun Seeker's Guide to Eastern Madera County (*)
• Hades Challenge
• Unrest
• All the QdEngine games

(*) these games are not on the website compatibility list

List of game category icons we need

Check the website for missing category icons

How to make screenshots

Here are additional rules on how to make screenshots which were settled in the last couple of years: (Of course any suggestions are welcome!)

• Check if this particular screenshot hasn't already been committed.
  • If there is no visual difference between an already submitted screenshot and your game version, don't submit it.
  • If you are submitting screenshots for non-English game, use only those which have visual difference (changed graphics) or have something written in that language.
• ScummVM settings
  • Pick an interesting scene to take the screenshot of.
  • 320x200 games should be run with HQ2x (Ctrl+Alt+3) mode and with aspect correction (Ctrl+Alt+a) mode on. I.e. it should be a 640x480 image.
  • 640x480 games should be run without a scaler.
  • On platforms which use the SDL backend (Win32 and *nix included) Alt+S creates a screenshot file called scummvmXXXXX.png inside the screenshot directory. The default location for screenshots depends on the OS. See the documentation portal for details.
  • Make sure your screenshot is at least 640x480 and was made with HQ2x scaler (if originally 320x200). Otherwise it won't be accepted.
  • If the game runs at a different resolution (such as 512x384, or 800x600), use the normal mode (no scaling) and make sure your screenshot is at the original resolution.
• Screenshot file details.
  • Screenshots should not contain any window decorations.
  • The only supported file format is PNG with maximum compression.
  • Preferably run OptiPNG and advpng after that. Use default parameters for OptiPNG and -4 parameter for advpng for best results. If you don't, we'll have to do it later.
  • File name is gametarget[_platform][_lang]_V_X_full.png where:
    • gametarget is the game target name, see our compatibility page for the full list
    • platform is an optional parameter for cases when you submit non-PC game version screenshots
    • lang is an optional parameter when screenshot for non-English version
    • V is the variant number for the game.
    • X is a sequental number.
  • Create a .txt file containing the file names followed by full game name and optionally provide the platform name and language in parenthesis. For example "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Amiga German)"
    • There is no need to provide titles for every file if they're all the same. Use your discretion.
• Thumbnail file details.
  • Currently, thumbnails that correspond to the PNG screenshots have to be created manually.
  • This is done using ImageMagick's convert command line tool.
  • There should be a mkthumb.sh script available in the scummvm-web repository, which includes the required convert command call and which you could run as:
    ./mkthumb.sh gametarget[_platform][_lang]_V_X
  • The above command assumes there is a screenshot file (PNG) named gametarget[_platform][_lang]_V_X_full.png in the same folder. See above for valid values for each part of the name.
  • Alternatively, and assuming you have the ImageMagick package installed (tested with ImageMagick 7.0.9-17) you could directly run the command:
    convert gametarget[_platform][_lang]_V_X_full.png -interlace line -quality 66 -thumbnail 256 gametarget[_platform][_lang]_V_X.jpg

How to make game icon

On screenshots page you may see the set of nice 'headshots' used for the games. If you are submitting screenshots for a new game, you may help with creating the icon too.

Don'ts:

1. Use an image that has been scaled up with a filter
2. Avoid scaling down unless absolutely necessary, if you do scale down, always scale proportionally and try both Nearest Neighbor or Lancoze to see what looks better
3. Keep shadows. Shadows will be done dynamically in CSS.

Dos:

1. Start with our icon template to frame your icon. The image should be centered on the white dot and never flow outside the black rectangle.
2. Be creative
3. Pick a distinguishable image from the game or series. Either a sprite of the main character, a portrait, or a recognizable item/icon from the game
4. Scale up as needed. Only scale up in 2x increments using Nearest Neighbor to preserve pixel art
5. Have sprites and portraits face to the right
6. Erase necessary pixels around the object
7. Save the result as PNG

How to submit screenshots

• If you have write access to our web source repository, you can commit it directly to the relevant directory.
• Alternatively, you can submit it via our bug tracker.
  • There is a restriction on 250kb per file. There are 2 options you can do:
    1. Submit several files (you may add them one by one)
    2. Upload somewhere in one archive and provide link in the bugreport
• If you didn't perform some actions with the screenshot file, for example if you didn't compress it or were unable to produce thumbnails, please mark your submission accordingly.