8 ms·

I really wish game companies would publish their old source for really out of date games. I really wish I could see what went into making the games I love like

I really wish game companies would publish their old source for really out of date games. I really wish I could see what went into making the games I love like Fallout 1/2.

andrewstuart2 10y ago
It's not like they'd lose sales either. Depending on the game I'll bet it's pretty hard or even impossible to compile the source into a working game. I'd much rather pay the $5 it's going for on Steam than spend 8 hours playing with compiler settings, library versions, etc. Not even close to worth my time, but exploring the code on the other hand would be really interesting.
- kibwen 10y ago
  Bethesda (maker of the Elder Scrolls games) provides binaries of the first two games in the series, Arena and Daggerfall, for free on their website (you need to find a DOS emulator to actually run them, they recommend DOSBox). It's not quite the source, but it's enough to suggest to me that financial concerns aren't the reason they don't release the source for these old games.
  - cderwin 10y ago
    Perhaps it's internal tooling/libraries? I wouldn't be surprised if derivatives of projects from back then were used in more recent games.
    - gravypod 10y ago
      That's almost definetly it. Tim Cain, the "original" developer of Fallout, talked about a lot of the features of the engine. These are things that are either in use now in the GameByro engine, currently used by The Artist Known as Black Isles, or would be valuable to current day game developers.
stephancoral 10y ago
One of the issues is that modern source control practices weren't really in play for 90s game development. The code for many Origin games, for instance, were stored on floppies that are long gone.
- rootw0rm 10y ago
  Nooooooooo. Strike Commander was the shit.
  - anjc 10y ago
    Man I loved that game. I think it was the first CD game I ever played, having gotten it on a compilation with Syndicate, Ultima 8 and Wing Commander 2, when my family got a Sound Blaster 16 in what...1993? Great games.
stevenwoo 10y ago
How could one release source code anonymously? I am asking for a friend. /s
- qumemx 10y ago
  This is a really good question. We have wikileaks etc, but nothing to make it easy for digital preservation of things like this. Perhaps for games a site like abandonia.com could setup a git server? I bet there are a ton of people reading this page who have access to old code that if they deleted it, it would be gone forever.
- hota_mazi 10y ago
  Create a new user on github, `git push`.
  - kibwen 10y ago
    Not a long-term solution, companies are entirely willing to DMCA Github repos.
- Munksgaard 10y ago
  A torrent?
- kefka 10y ago
  IPFS, use a junker VPS you buy for a month. And share the IPFS link via Hacker News. It should end up in enough caches to be self-replicating after an hour or 2.
- i336_ 10y ago
  - One or more burner MEGA.nz accounts - Share via multiple of the many infamous "file sharing" sites - but pay close attention to the file size limits for free/anonymous downloads - A torrent, seeded via VPS (as another user suggested). I haven't heard of people using UrDN for this specifically but I think that could be interesting. - Share via DC++, use the chat system to tell everyone about the TTH at least 5 times within 2 days. (You could run a VPN between said VPS and your PC or use Xvnc/RDP and run DC++ directly from the VPS.) - Find the underground community most closely related to the source code in question, or just general hacking forums, and share the link(s) there - Carefully maintain your seed(s) (replacing dead links with new ones, etc) until the link(s) go solidly viral, then to be sure wait the same amount of time again. By this point you should have reached minimal saturation. - Include SHA256sums of all the files on the website(s) you link to. Make a lot of noise about the checksums, particularly the checksum of the main archive (eg .7z) file. This will help minimize the number of people who try to latch onto/jump on top of your release and claim it as their own - they'll want to include their own message, which would alter the checksum. This is mainly for security, not vanity. - If you ever think you want to provide updates, write a short message that describes yourself as the original source of this information, SHA512sum that string, and include the checksum in the release. You can then prove your authenticity by including the short message in the update; anybody can verify the SHA512. - If you want to appeal to the warez scene or you think appealing to that demographic will help spread this, use the .rar format. It's not technically competitive anymore but scene groups traditionally continue to use it.
kibwen 10y ago
Rather than attributing this to typical corporate behavior, I think there's a simpler explanation: the source code simply doesn't exist anymore. Source control wasn't especially distributed, pervasive, or reliable in the 90s (at least compared to modern standards). And it's unlikely that anyone official had the foresight to keep a copy around for the sake of digital preservation twenty years in the future, especially given the licensing/copyright issues that would probably prevent legal dissemination anyway. And even if a rogue developer had the foresight to take a copy home and stuff it in a box in the attic, that media has probably degraded to unreadability by now unless they've been actively backing it up for the past few decades.
- groby_b 10y ago
  Even if it hasn't degraded, or got meticulously backed up: Who wants to deal with the potential legal ramifications? For many now-defunct gaming shops, "who owns the assets" might be an interesting question for a JD thesis, but not something many people would like to spend time on. That's the real issue. I'd be very surprised if much of the source code didn't still exist, but the entities owning it have been sold, bankrupted, chopped into pieces, and resold so often that it's impossible to legally release.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    If it's so difficult to determine ownership, shouldn't it be easier to release? Throw it up on a free service somewhere and respond to DMCA takedowns in the rare event the owner shows up out of the woodwork. I suppose one difficulty is that DOS games were released before the DMCA, or before the DMCA's process was clear. And the old system wasn't so forgiving.
    - kristofferR 10y ago
      > If it's so difficult to determine ownership, shouldn't it be easier to release? Throw it up on a free service somewhere and respond to DMCA takedowns in the rare event the owner shows up out of the woodwork. You just described archive.org ;)
WalterBright 10y ago
Enjoy! https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10 https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
Jordan Mechner released the source of the 1989 Prince of Persia. https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II "Code review" http://www.fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/index.php http://www.fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/index.php
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  How it was saved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnEWBtCnFs8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnEWBtCnFs8 I'm sure there was an article about it on ascii.textfiles.com but I can't find it.
lapfi 10y ago
One such game is Jagged Alliance 2. See here: https://github.com/dariusk/ja2 https://github.com/dariusk/ja2 Some fine folks have also made a version that works on modern computers: https://github.com/ja2-stracciatella/ja2-stracciatella https://github.com/ja2-stracciatella/ja2-stracciatella
pilom 10y ago
The Freespace developers released the source code to Freespace 2 (a game from 1999) in 2002 when they were bought by another studio. That game has since become the gold standard (imo) of space flight simulators and the engine and graphics have been improved every since as Freespace Open so it still to this day feels like a AAA title. http://scp.indiegames.us/ http://scp.indiegames.us/
pkAbstract 10y ago
id Software does this: https://github.com/id-Software https://github.com/id-Software

I really wish game companies would publish their old source for really out of date games. I really wish I could see what went into making the games I love like Fallout 1/2.

andrewstuart2 10y ago

It's not like they'd lose sales either. Depending on the game I'll bet it's pretty hard or even impossible to compile the source into a working game. I'd much rather pay the $5 it's going for on Steam than spend 8 hours playing with compiler settings, library versions, etc. Not even close to worth my time, but exploring the code on the other hand would be really interesting.

kibwen 10y ago
Bethesda (maker of the Elder Scrolls games) provides binaries of the first two games in the series, Arena and Daggerfall, for free on their website (you need to find a DOS emulator to actually run them, they recommend DOSBox). It's not quite the source, but it's enough to suggest to me that financial concerns aren't the reason they don't release the source for these old games.
- cderwin 10y ago
  Perhaps it's internal tooling/libraries? I wouldn't be surprised if derivatives of projects from back then were used in more recent games.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    That's almost definetly it. Tim Cain, the "original" developer of Fallout, talked about a lot of the features of the engine. These are things that are either in use now in the GameByro engine, currently used by The Artist Known as Black Isles, or would be valuable to current day game developers.

stephancoral 10y ago

One of the issues is that modern source control practices weren't really in play for 90s game development. The code for many Origin games, for instance, were stored on floppies that are long gone.

rootw0rm 10y ago
Nooooooooo. Strike Commander was the shit.
- anjc 10y ago
  Man I loved that game. I think it was the first CD game I ever played, having gotten it on a compilation with Syndicate, Ultima 8 and Wing Commander 2, when my family got a Sound Blaster 16 in what...1993? Great games.

stevenwoo 10y ago

How could one release source code anonymously? I am asking for a friend. /s

qumemx 10y ago
This is a really good question. We have wikileaks etc, but nothing to make it easy for digital preservation of things like this. Perhaps for games a site like abandonia.com could setup a git server? I bet there are a ton of people reading this page who have access to old code that if they deleted it, it would be gone forever.
hota_mazi 10y ago
Create a new user on github, `git push`.
- kibwen 10y ago
  Not a long-term solution, companies are entirely willing to DMCA Github repos.
Munksgaard 10y ago
A torrent?
kefka 10y ago
IPFS, use a junker VPS you buy for a month. And share the IPFS link via Hacker News. It should end up in enough caches to be self-replicating after an hour or 2.
i336_ 10y ago
- One or more burner MEGA.nz accounts - Share via multiple of the many infamous "file sharing" sites - but pay close attention to the file size limits for free/anonymous downloads - A torrent, seeded via VPS (as another user suggested). I haven't heard of people using UrDN for this specifically but I think that could be interesting. - Share via DC++, use the chat system to tell everyone about the TTH at least 5 times within 2 days. (You could run a VPN between said VPS and your PC or use Xvnc/RDP and run DC++ directly from the VPS.) - Find the underground community most closely related to the source code in question, or just general hacking forums, and share the link(s) there - Carefully maintain your seed(s) (replacing dead links with new ones, etc) until the link(s) go solidly viral, then to be sure wait the same amount of time again. By this point you should have reached minimal saturation. - Include SHA256sums of all the files on the website(s) you link to. Make a lot of noise about the checksums, particularly the checksum of the main archive (eg .7z) file. This will help minimize the number of people who try to latch onto/jump on top of your release and claim it as their own - they'll want to include their own message, which would alter the checksum. This is mainly for security, not vanity. - If you ever think you want to provide updates, write a short message that describes yourself as the original source of this information, SHA512sum that string, and include the checksum in the release. You can then prove your authenticity by including the short message in the update; anybody can verify the SHA512. - If you want to appeal to the warez scene or you think appealing to that demographic will help spread this, use the .rar format. It's not technically competitive anymore but scene groups traditionally continue to use it.

kibwen 10y ago

Rather than attributing this to typical corporate behavior, I think there's a simpler explanation: the source code simply doesn't exist anymore. Source control wasn't especially distributed, pervasive, or reliable in the 90s (at least compared to modern standards). And it's unlikely that anyone official had the foresight to keep a copy around for the sake of digital preservation twenty years in the future, especially given the licensing/copyright issues that would probably prevent legal dissemination anyway. And even if a rogue developer had the foresight to take a copy home and stuff it in a box in the attic, that media has probably degraded to unreadability by now unless they've been actively backing it up for the past few decades.

groby_b 10y ago
Even if it hasn't degraded, or got meticulously backed up: Who wants to deal with the potential legal ramifications? For many now-defunct gaming shops, "who owns the assets" might be an interesting question for a JD thesis, but not something many people would like to spend time on. That's the real issue. I'd be very surprised if much of the source code didn't still exist, but the entities owning it have been sold, bankrupted, chopped into pieces, and resold so often that it's impossible to legally release.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  If it's so difficult to determine ownership, shouldn't it be easier to release? Throw it up on a free service somewhere and respond to DMCA takedowns in the rare event the owner shows up out of the woodwork. I suppose one difficulty is that DOS games were released before the DMCA, or before the DMCA's process was clear. And the old system wasn't so forgiving.
  - kristofferR 10y ago
    > If it's so difficult to determine ownership, shouldn't it be easier to release? Throw it up on a free service somewhere and respond to DMCA takedowns in the rare event the owner shows up out of the woodwork. You just described archive.org ;)

WalterBright 10y ago

Enjoy! https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10 https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

Jordan Mechner released the source of the 1989 Prince of Persia. https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II "Code review" http://www.fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/index.php http://www.fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/index.php

voltagex_ 10y ago
How it was saved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnEWBtCnFs8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnEWBtCnFs8 I'm sure there was an article about it on ascii.textfiles.com but I can't find it.

lapfi 10y ago

One such game is Jagged Alliance 2. See here: https://github.com/dariusk/ja2 https://github.com/dariusk/ja2 Some fine folks have also made a version that works on modern computers: https://github.com/ja2-stracciatella/ja2-stracciatella https://github.com/ja2-stracciatella/ja2-stracciatella

pilom 10y ago

The Freespace developers released the source code to Freespace 2 (a game from 1999) in 2002 when they were bought by another studio. That game has since become the gold standard (imo) of space flight simulators and the engine and graphics have been improved every since as Freespace Open so it still to this day feels like a AAA title. http://scp.indiegames.us/ http://scp.indiegames.us/

pkAbstract 10y ago

id Software does this: https://github.com/id-Software https://github.com/id-Software