Technology and computers amaze me. I use the things every day but I only understand a fraction of what they're capable of and how they actually work. Behind the scenes, there are many people who write programs that make our lives easier (and often fun), whether it's the coding for a favorite website, the word processing or picture editing software we use and the games we like to play. With the ever increasing power of computers, so many older adventure games have become difficult to run on modern machines. Some gamers have an old computer at home for these situations. For many of us, we rely on the people behind the scenes who have written programs like DOSBox and ScummVM that allow us to easily run those old games on our fancy machines.

While many of you know these emulators well, others may not be aware of how useful they are. The people over at ScummVM seem to constantly be at work to ensure their program supports more and more games. For those newer to the genre, the SCUMM engine was originally developed for the LucasArts adventure games, but has been tweaked to support games made with different engines. Titles like Beneath a Steel Sky and Flight of the Amazon Queen not only run using the emulator, they are legally free and can be downloaded at their site. Most do require that you own game, however, but if you do, ScummVM can be used to run them without any tinkering. There are many Sierra games on the list as well. Check the complete list out for yourselves.

The newest title to make its way onto their list is I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream , Harlan Ellison's disturbing adventure game. While it's been in the works for a while and on their website, its compatibility status is now official. So if you've been lamenting the fact you may never get to play some of your old favorites again, take heart! Adventure game nostalgia may just be an emulator away.