It has also been ported to console systems. Ports of ScummVM are available for Microsoft Windows, macOS and a variety of Unix-like systems including Linux (based on RPM, Debian, or source), members of the BSD family ( FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD) and Solaris. Portability is a design goal of the project. The ScummVM team consider this an improvement over simply running the older games and their executables through an operating system emulator, such as DOSBox, since ScummVM's implements are more lightweight and require less processing power and memory, allowing use on more limited processing environments like mobile devices. Outside of some subsystems like audio engines which they are forced to rely on emulation, ScummVM recreates game engines from older languages into more portable C++ code, so that the high-level opcodes in a game's assets will execute in the same manner as their original release, while improving the portability of ScummVM to numerous platforms. While ScummVM appears to function equivalently as a game emulator, the ScummVM team does not consider it as such. It has also begun to work at providing alternate controls for newer devices, such as mobile devices with touch screens, which work atop the original games.

Atop reimplementing the game executables in portable form, ScummVM enables players to save and load the state of the game at any time, enabling a save system atop whatever the reimplemented game may provide. The official project website offers games that are freeware that work directly with ScummVM. ScummVM provides none of the original assets for the games it supports, and expects the user to properly own the original game's media so as to use the software legally. ScummVM is a program that supports numerous adventure game engines via virtual machines, allowing the user to play supported adventure games on their platform of choice. The team behind it also add improvements such as bug-fixes and translations and works with commercial companies such as GOG.com about re-releases. ScummVM is a re-implementation of the part of the software used to interpret the scripting languages such games used to describe the game world rather than emulating the hardware the games ran on as such, ScummVM allows the games it supports to be played on platforms other than those for which they were originally released. Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, ScummVM is free software.

It was originally written by Ludvig Strigeus. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies like Revolution Software and Adventure Soft. Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine ( ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations.

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