Scratches

Key points

Both GOG.com and Steam versions are fully compatible with Windows Vista and later.

Retail versions are fully compatible, but require patching and configuration to get working.

Game removed from GOG.com and Steam in January 2015.^[1]

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Senscape Forum

Senscape Discord Community

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Has 3 Releases, The Original, Director's Cut, and some copies of Director's Cut came with an extra disc with patches to fix problems in the 1-disc version.
GOG.com (unavailable)		Director's Cut.
Steam (unavailable)		Director's Cut.

Game removed from GOG.com and Steam in January 2015.^[1]

Steam version can be run without Steam running, and is DRM-free.^[2]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Nucleosys\Scratches\ %APPDATA%\Nucleosys\Scratches Director's Cut\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/46460/pfx/^{[Note 1]}

The scream.cfg location differs between releases.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Nucleosys\Scratches\ %APPDATA%\Nucleosys\Scratches Director's Cut\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/46460/pfx/^{[Note 1]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Options Menu

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		1024x768 only. Editing in custom resolutions into `scream.cfg` causes major issues.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Achievable through editing `scream.cfg`. Windowed mode is only playable by turning off "alternate control" from the settings.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Can be manually toggled by editing `scream.cfg`
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Game uses software rendering, resulting in absurdly high frame rates. Affects camera speed. See Run the game at screen refresh rate.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Editing scream.cfg to custom resolutions is not recommended as it can cause major issues.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Function keys are reserved by the game. It is necessary to re-bind F12 to F3, F6 or F11 to take a screenshot via Steam.

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Spanish				Retail version, download.

Issues fixed

BSoD on modern Windows (Retail)

Attempting to run the original Scratches or Scratches: Director's Cut on Windows Vista or above will cause Windows to crash to a blue screen.

This issue is caused by how modern Windows handles an outdated call for the monitor refresh rate.

Manually the edit configuration refresh rate^[3]

Go to the configuration file(s) location.
Open scream.cfg.
Change RATE 0 to RATE 60.
Save the file.

Notes

The explanation for the problem and how it can be fixed was provided by the original developer of the game.

Crashing in-game (Retail)

The original version of Scratches is prone to crashing on modern computers.

This issue was initially due to features that were added to Intel CPUs at the time, features that have since become standard in all Intel CPUs.

Download and install an official patch^[4]

Download and install this patch for Scratches. A mirror of this patch is available here.

Notes

This patch was provided by the original developers during this game's original run.

This patch will break compatibility with existing save files.

Crashing during The Last Visit (Retail)

The initial release of Scratches Director's Cut came with only one disc, which contained a game breaking bug that would cause the game to crash during the additional content chapter of the game.

Future releases had two discs, with the second disc containing copies of the patches below, as such this issue should not be present on those copies, so long as the patches on Disc 2 are installed.

Download and install a patch and an update^[4]

Download and install this patch for Scratches Director's Cut. A mirror of this patch is available here.
Download and install this update for Scratches Director's Cut.

Notes

Only a mirror is available for the update because of Wayback Machine's file size limit.

The update dramatically improves the visuals of the game overall, and fixes some minor visual bugs.

Run the game at screen refresh rate

Fullscreen mode defaults to 60 Hz, even if the screen refresh rate is set higher than that.

Set screen refresh rate^{[citation needed]}
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open `scream.cfg`. Change `RATE 60` to the screen refresh rate (e.g. `RATE 120`).

Camera speed is too fast / Movement problems (Windows 10)

Cap the frame rate at 60 FPS^{[citation needed]}

Set Windows compatibility mode to "Windows XP SP3"

Change in-game options
Set Camera speed to Slow. Set Slideshow to Off. Set Alternate controls to Disabled.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c	Steam release
OpenGL

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	OpenAL

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP	Vista, 7
Processor (CPU)	1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	500 MB
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM OpenGL 1.2 compatible DirectX 9.0c compatible
Sound (audio device)	Sound card with DirectX 9.0c support

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz
System memory (RAM)	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM OpenGL 1.2 compatible

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/46460/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (46460) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Game removed from steam - last accessed on 2016-09-27
↑ Verified by User:Cheatfreak47 on 2016-09-27
↑ Problems running Scratches on Win 7? - last accessed on 2016-09-27
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Mirror of the Nucleosys downloads page - last accessed on 2016-09-27

[Proton_path_note-3] 1.0 ^1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/46460/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (46460) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[availability-1] 1.0 ^1.1 Game removed from steam - last accessed on 2016-09-27

[2] Verified by User:Cheatfreak47 on 2016-09-27

[fix1-4] Problems running Scratches on Win 7? - last accessed on 2016-09-27

[fix2-5] 4.0 ^4.1 Mirror of the Nucleosys downloads page - last accessed on 2016-09-27

[1]

[2]

[Note 1]

[3]

[4]

Developers

	Nucleosys
Publishers
	Got Game Entertainment
	Meridian4
Release dates
Windows	March 8, 2006
macOS (OS X)	July 28, 2011
Reception
Metacritic	67
Taxonomy
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Relaxed
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Adventure
Art styles	Realistic, Pre-rendered graphics
Themes	Contemporary, Horror