23 ms·

I wish more older games would have their source released, even if not under the GPL. I worry that for many games the source is simply lost forever. At least put

by tibbon 9y ago

I wish more older games would have their source released, even if not under the GPL. I worry that for many games the source is simply lost forever. At least put it out there for preservation in some way!

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ChrisSD 9y ago
A lot of old games have had their source code lost, unfortunately. Much source code of the day only existed on the hard drive of the developers.
Thaxll 9y ago
Usually you can't because of third party library ( physics ect ... ). Like many many games rely on Havok, you can't distribute that to the public.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  How much work would it be to replace Havok with something like Bullet?
Iv 9y ago
And their artwork! Often the code source is released but is more or less useless and obsolete while the images and sounds are still copyrighted.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  The difference there is that you can usually find a way to buy the game itself to get access to the game media. The source code here will be of limited use until it's heavily reworked to compile on modern systems. It's a lot of work, but not as much work as reverse-engineering the game and building an engine implementation from scratch, and this source seems like it has most of the Mac-specific stuff under a separate directory, which would make it easier than otherwise.
Freaky 9y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4pbc01/iama_founder_of_night_dive_studios_stephen_kick/d4jsq5r/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4pbc01/iama_founder_o... > Is there any plan to do a source-code release of any of the games you've re-released? > We have released the source to Strife: Veteran Edition[1] and we are planning on releasing more code in the future. 1: https://github.com/svkaiser/strife-ve https://github.com/svkaiser/strife-ve
khedoros1 9y ago
I've got a little bit of an obsession with Ultima Underworld (another Looking Glass game released by Origin). This gives me some hope that the source for that game (and/or its sequel) might someday see release.
krychu 9y ago
Agree, it’s been always surprising to me that companies don’t just release sources after say 10 years. I wish for Fallout 1 and 2 sources. I think there would be strong community interest in hacking it.
- openbasic 9y ago
  http://flarerpg.org/ http://flarerpg.org/
  - krychu 9y ago
    Great, thanks for sharing. I’m definitely gonna take a closer look at these. Now imagine that the effort went into advancing the original sources rather than rewriting things from scratch. I think that many companies would agree to release sources of abandonware games upon appropriate request from a fan base community, with the goal of preserving, maintaining and advancing the original title. In fact this is strategically beneficial action for the company, not from a financial perspective, but you can imagine some extra attention and buzz being created if the game was to be revived. It’s possible that many companies are not even aware of devoted communities around their older titles.
- openbasic 9y ago
  https://falltergeist.org/ https://falltergeist.org/
tdsamardzhiev 9y ago
Yeah, that reminds me of Ubisoft and Heroes 3 HD. "Guys, why haven't you done the expansions?" "Hurr durr we've lost the code."

by tibbon 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ChrisSD 9y ago

A lot of old games have had their source code lost, unfortunately. Much source code of the day only existed on the hard drive of the developers.

Thaxll 9y ago

Usually you can't because of third party library ( physics ect ... ). Like many many games rely on Havok, you can't distribute that to the public.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
How much work would it be to replace Havok with something like Bullet?

Iv 9y ago

And their artwork! Often the code source is released but is more or less useless and obsolete while the images and sounds are still copyrighted.

khedoros1 9y ago
The difference there is that you can usually find a way to buy the game itself to get access to the game media. The source code here will be of limited use until it's heavily reworked to compile on modern systems. It's a lot of work, but not as much work as reverse-engineering the game and building an engine implementation from scratch, and this source seems like it has most of the Mac-specific stuff under a separate directory, which would make it easier than otherwise.

Freaky 9y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4pbc01/iama_founder_of_night_dive_studios_stephen_kick/d4jsq5r/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4pbc01/iama_founder_o... > Is there any plan to do a source-code release of any of the games you've re-released? > We have released the source to Strife: Veteran Edition[1] and we are planning on releasing more code in the future. 1: https://github.com/svkaiser/strife-ve https://github.com/svkaiser/strife-ve

khedoros1 9y ago

I've got a little bit of an obsession with Ultima Underworld (another Looking Glass game released by Origin). This gives me some hope that the source for that game (and/or its sequel) might someday see release.

krychu 9y ago

Agree, it’s been always surprising to me that companies don’t just release sources after say 10 years. I wish for Fallout 1 and 2 sources. I think there would be strong community interest in hacking it.

openbasic 9y ago
http://flarerpg.org/ http://flarerpg.org/
- krychu 9y ago
  Great, thanks for sharing. I’m definitely gonna take a closer look at these. Now imagine that the effort went into advancing the original sources rather than rewriting things from scratch. I think that many companies would agree to release sources of abandonware games upon appropriate request from a fan base community, with the goal of preserving, maintaining and advancing the original title. In fact this is strategically beneficial action for the company, not from a financial perspective, but you can imagine some extra attention and buzz being created if the game was to be revived. It’s possible that many companies are not even aware of devoted communities around their older titles.
openbasic 9y ago
https://falltergeist.org/ https://falltergeist.org/

tdsamardzhiev 9y ago

Yeah, that reminds me of Ubisoft and Heroes 3 HD. "Guys, why haven't you done the expansions?" "Hurr durr we've lost the code."