ScummVM
Hacker ApprovedRanked 11 of 20 game engines by recommenders
Free engine that runs many classic adventure and RPG games on almost any platform, including older games sold on GOG.
Free engine that runs many classic adventure and RPG games on almost any platform, including older games sold on GOG.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Runs on many platforms and OSes
“Just have a look on Scummvm on how many platforms and OSes can it run”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Clean-room implementation of Half-Life 2 on the Quake 1 engine” “works great on a ton of different OSes/platforms”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Adventure Game Studio: OSS software for creating adventure games” “You can play it on almost anything by now”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2” - Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: I Made Loom for Mobile”
- Comment from 19 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: I Made Loom for Mobile”
Plays classic adventure and RPG games
“to play some gems such as Broken Sword and Lucas Arts adventures”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “My favourite PowerMac is a Nintendo Wii” “SCummvm itself supports tons of graphical and text adventures”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux” “And I say this as an ScummVM user and sometimes I like debugging some old adventure and RPG games under it...”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU” Plays GOG and free games
“Numerous games avaiable on GOG are playable via ScummVM. Just install it on Mac and download the installer.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Windows GOG DOS Games on M-Series Macs” “it works great for a number of free/commercial games”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Adventure Game Studio: OSS software for creating adventure games” Still gets new releases
“ScummVM still makes releases so you can totally play Blade Runner in a PSP”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “I Bought a "Junk" PSP from Japan: Here's How It Went” “with better controls and support”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Ultima VII Revisited”
Other game engines people recommend
The four most recommended other game engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Godot | 213 | 57 | 79% | 12 | 2 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Unity | 110 | 165 | 40% | 12 | 16 yrs8 owners | — |
| Unreal Engine | 104 | 89 | 54% | 12 | — | — |
| Bevy game engine | 50 | 18 | 74% | 11 | — | Approved |
| ScummVMThis page | 11 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“to play some gems such as Broken Sword and Lucas Arts adventures”
“You can play it on almost anything by now”
“compile Scummvm with these options from git”
“SCummvm itself supports tons of graphical and text adventures”
“And I say this as an ScummVM user and sometimes I like debugging some old adventure and RPG games under it...”
“ScummVM has effectively done this.”
“Numerous games avaiable on GOG are playable via ScummVM. Just install it on Mac and download the installer.”
“ScummVM still makes releases so you can totally play Blade Runner in a PSP”
“can run tons of Macromedia Director based games and software”
“Just have a look on Scummvm on how many platforms and OSes can it run”
“it works great for a number of free/commercial games”
“works great on a ton of different OSes/platforms”
“you can still play the original game with ScummVM, available on many platforms, including Android”
“it plays nicely on iOS and Android under ScummVM”
“pretty sure scummvm pulled in one of the ultima remake projects”
“with better controls and support”
“I think it should all be bundled into scummvm, or an extension of this such as scummvm-history or scummvm-preservation.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.