SCI: LONGBOW: Game gets stuck when changing screens at fair

[Kurufinwe21]

This is using ScummVM 2.8.0 on Windows 11.

Playing Conquests of the Longbow (English, DOS, VGA, from GOG).

In the attached save, when trying to move to the right, the game gets stuck, with nothing happening. This makes it impossible to proceed. This happens when moving right to the top or bottom of the screen.

Moving through other parts of the fair worked fine until this point. Moving left works, but moving right is necessary at this point to meet the scholar.

[sluicebox]

Hello! Thank you for reporting this and including a save and version info.

I am getting the same results with this save file. Leaving the fair with the map icon and returning and walking left also locks up.

I'll make some tea and take a look!

[sluicebox]

Here is a workaround so that you can keep playing.

Bring up the ScummVM debugger by pressing CTRL + ALT + D. (If that's not the shortcut then check under Global Options \ Keymapper to see what it is.)

Enter this case-sensitive command into the debugger and press Enter:

send Fair walkingOut 0

Press Escape to close the debugger. You should now be able to change rooms.

Somehow, you've got the "I'm walking out of the fair" flag set when it shouldn't be. I'll try to reproduce that later. If you have some earlier saves at the fair and want to upload those, it might help.

[Kurufinwe21]

The debugger command did the trick. Thanks a lot!

I'm attaching a save from just before going to the fair.

If I recall correctly, here's what I did at the fair before encountering the problem:

• Talked to Marian
• Explored the fair clockwise (so I was a little over halfway done when the bug struck)
• Talked to basically everyone on the way
• Talked to the old scholar, rejected his coat-of-arm
• Gave money to the perfume seller, scarf merchant, fortune teller, 2 beggars

[sluicebox]

Thank you! I did a little investigating earlier, and your information will be a big help on the next round.

This is an original game bug, and even though I don't yet know how *you* tripped it, I've found easy ways.

The problem is with the wandering scholars. When they transition between rooms, they briefly set a flag (Fair:walkingOut) and that flag prevents you from changing Fair rooms. They're trying to prevent some kind of conflict if both of you change rooms at the same moment. Great, unless a scholar gets interrupted somehow, and never completes the transition to clear the flag. That's what's happened to you, the bearded scholar is somehow stuck invisible in the lower right corner in an interrupted transition.

When the flag is set, your room transition waits for it to clear forever, because it assumes they're just briefly in the middle of it.

That means all you have to do to break this is leave the fair while a scholar is walking between rooms! Walk to the archery contest, walk out the entrance, or even click the map. Come back and walk between rooms and you're stuck. I bet this has gotten tripped a lot over the years. Great find!

[Kurufinwe21]

I'm 99% sure that I didn't go to the archery contest, leave the fair or use the map, so, yeah, I guess there must be some other way to trigger the bug.