An anonymous reader writes: Game Almighty as posted a retrospective piece looking at some of the most important game engines in the history of gaming. Included is discussion about SCUMM, Source, Renderware, and other engines that have left a mark on the industry. Here's an excerpt from the SCUMM section:
"Created by Ron Gilbert in 1987 while at Lucasarts (then Lucasfilm Games), the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion was a hybrid game engine and programming language for adventure games. SCUMM allowed the creative minds at Lucasarts to design puzzles, locations, items, and branching dialogue sequences without having to directly modify the game's source code. Their endeavors turned out to be some of the most memorable adventure games of all time, including Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, the Monkey Island series, and Full Throttle."