The Fool's Errand
| The Fool's Errand | ||
|---|---|---|
| No Screenshot Available | ||
| First release | 1987 | |
| Also known as | N/A | |
| Developed by | Cliff Johnson | |
| Published by | Miles Computing | |
| Distributed by | Miles Computing | |
| Platforms | Macintosh | |
| Resolution | 512x342, monochrome | |
| Engine | Fool | |
| Support | Since ScummVM 2026.4.0 | |
| Available for Purchase |
No | |
The Fool's Errand is a critically-acclaimed narrative puzzle game based on characters and arcana from the tarot. Help the Fool as he uncovers the lost fourteen treasures of the world, averts all-out war between the four kingdoms, and defies the wrath of the evil High Priestess. Each puzzle solved reveals a new piece of the story, and builds to an overarching metapuzzle that ties all of the threads together.
At present, ScummVM supports the original Macintosh edition of the game. The later DOS/Amiga/Atari ports use a different engine written by Synergistic Software and Manley & Associates.
Code
The Macintosh edition of the game was written using ZBasic 3.01 for Macintosh. It was compiled to M68K machine code, and uses a mixture of ZBasic runtime features and direct calls to Macintosh Toolbox APIs (such as QuickDraw).
moralrecordings wrote a custom disassembler to decode the ZBasic memory layout and runtime calls, then did a straight port of the game to C++ along with a ScummVM-backed implementation of the necessary Macintosh Toolbox APIs.
Installation
Required data files
The Dumper Companion tool is the easiest way to convert the game files to a ScummVM compatible format. Simply provide a raw disk image, either the original floppy disks or a HFS-formatted hard disk containing the game files, and the tool will return a Zip file containing MacBinary copies of everything you need.
For more information on how ScummVM uses game data files, see the user documentation.
ScummVM requires MacBinary copies of the following game files:
- The Fool's Errand (sometimes named "The Fool's Errand™" or "the fool's errand")
- Prologue - Finale (sometimes named "Prologue-Finale" or "Prologue & Finale")
- Fool's Puzzles
Demo
ScummVM requires MacBinary copies of the following game files:
- Fool's DEMO
- Demo Puzzles
Save format
Save games produced by ScummVM are MacBinary files which should be compatible with the original game.
If you have an original save file that has been encoded as MacBinary, you should be able to copy it into the ScummVM save files directory with a correctly-formatted filename ([gameid]-[name].[NNN]) and open it.
Differences from original
- The original Macintosh updates the screen at 60fps on an interrupt; not really possible in single-threaded ScummVM. ScummVM's QuickDraw uses Graphics::FrameLimiter to vsync at 60fps; the code now yields by calling Toolbox::Delay(0) to update the screen and delay until the next page flip.
- For drawing operations, most parts of the original code used a delay checked against the tick counter (necessary for synchronising slow hardware), but occasionally there were sections which ran as fast as possible. Those sections have been fixed to have page flips and render at the appropriate speed.
- The iconic prologue and finale sequences have been ported over. The original used a separate program for these, in ScummVM they are accessible through the wadjet eye menu.
- The game includes a replacement for the Chicago system font, including custom characters that are used in the menu (e.g. wadjet eye instead of the Apple logo, roman numerals for the chapters). Version 1.1 and 2.0 hotpatch font ID 0 so that the menu uses the custom typeface instead of regular Chicago. This hack doesn't work on System 7 and up - possibly because of the move to TrueType, so Version 3.0 changes the menu to use normal characters. As the custom font is included in all editions of the game, ScummVM always shows the menu with the custom characters.
- The game has basic sound effects using the original Macintosh Sound Driver API. Version 3.0 removed these for compatibility reasons, but they are included in all versions.
- The save system uses the stock ScummVM GUI instead of replicating the Macintosh Finder.
- The original game had an autosave system, which would overwrite the most recently-saved game if there was any puzzle progression or upon exit. This has been modified to match the autosave behaviour for the other engines; there is a dedicated autosave file which gets overwritten on puzzle progression.
- Version 1.1 has full-screen load/save modals with no cancel button, and a slightly different About screen. These are not implemented.
- Some sections flash the entire screen using a XOR operation. The 1987-era Macintosh hardware is not fast enough to do this at 60fps, and it is unclear what the speed is expected to be other than as fast as possible. In the interests of improving accessibility, the full-screen flashing has been reduced to the WCAG recommended limit of 6 full screen changes per second.
- The demo has a carousel feature, where a few minutes of inactivity will cause the puzzles to start switching every few seconds. This is not implemented.