9 ms·

Bob's Game

166 points by nonbirithm 5y ago

Taylor_OD 5y ago
Very good video on the topic. It's odd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI
- alickz 5y ago
  Great channel I particularly liked the Ulillillia and Nasubi videos
  - tombert 5y ago
    I watch the Ulillillia video whenever I feel depressed about the world. It's excellent and bizarrely kind of inspiring to me.
    - entelechy0 5y ago
      same af
    - redisman 5y ago
      I remember following him and Bobs game back in the day. Outsider art for video games
- GranPC 5y ago
  Take that video with a big grain of salt - some of the information there is incorrect and the timeline is somewhat wrong.
  - Taylor_OD 5y ago
    Do you have a better overview? The video did bounce around a bit but what was incorrect?
    - GranPC 5y ago
      I'd have to watch it over again but here are some details I remember being wrong: - The "live video feed" on the homepage was not actually a live video feed for a long time - it was the same images on a loop. - The Nintendo World Store was partially faked, with some of the scenes being actually filmed at his home and then spliced in. It was not as egregious as it looked - in fact, one of the corny details was that a police siren sound effect was added in post. - Bob adding himself and his struggles to "bob's game" was not a result of being rejected for the devkit, it was already designed to be like that. My understanding is that nobody really gets Bob and "bob's game" - it truly is quite hard to explain. You sort of need to have been there.
      - redisman 5y ago
        Agreed. I was there from the early days from one of the forums I was at. Probably something awful. He pivoted so many times, it was for the longest time supposed to be the most expansive and realistic (2D) RPG there ever was. Then the Nintendo drama and the pivots to puzzle games and at some point I stopped paying attention
genjipress 5y ago
Essentially, TempleOS, but a video game.
- imjustsaying 5y ago
  One might anticipate a racing sequel featuring alphabet agents that glow.
WoodenChair 5y ago
I had never heard about this, but my first reaction is that I feel bad for this guy, because if you consider that he was self taught he really was very talented. Checkout the gameplay videos. He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with seemingly no training. I'm not saying it would've been a great game, because I don't know that, just that he as an individual could've been successful. I read the book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels [0] last year and it includes the story of the guy who created Stardew Valley. He also spent five years on it, working alone. He also was self taught and did the graphics himself. It was even kind of a similar type of game. I actually think Bob could've made Stardew Valley. It sounds like mental illness got in the way. One question we have to ask ourselves is what came first—the mental illness or the game development. Did the whole experience of the isolated game development actually lead to the mental illness? By the way, I don't recommend Blood, Sweat, and Pixels as a whole, but I do recommend the chapter on Stardew Valley. It's inspirational (or fatiguing because that guy worked so hard with no clear reward coming) for indie developers. [0]: https://amzn.to/3ya9Y6A https://amzn.to/3ya9Y6A Edit Addition: I feel bad for writing about the developer in the past tense. There is no reason he couldn't still be successful in life.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  There's an Apple TV+ original show called Mythic Quest[1] about a video game company and they did a really great episode about game development and mental health. The show is mostly a comedy and written by some of the people from Always Sunny. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest
- sva_ 5y ago
  > He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with seemingly no training. From the Wikipedia article: > The author says that he wrote the game originally in C, switched then to Java, and later converted it with an automatic code converter to C++.
  - WoodenChair 5y ago
    Okay, whether C or C++ or Java, the point is writing the game without ever having an industry job or educational situation where you'd have mentorship is a huge accomplishment.
ddtaylor 5y ago
Repo: https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame/ https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame/ (deleted, see edit below) I looked at it a few weeks back and it's really strange. It has really weird restrictions that don't make any sense regarding the license - I'm not even sure if they even are legal. The author claims he is sharing the source but that nobody else can fork it, unless they fork it on GitHub?! Anyhow, within a few seconds of reading the source you'll find that the first thing the binary does is call home to download and extract a newer .zip file from the bobsgame.com website. It does this over HTTP and without any kind of signature/signing of the binary. Before it actually downloads the .zip file it actually tries to grab a version number from a PHP script on the website that doesn't exist. The website instead renders some HTML. The C++ casts this HTML to a number and gets 0, so it always assumes that the website does not have a newer version of the game to download. This means if someone on the local network can DNS spoof the website it will dutifully talk over unauthenticated HTTP, the attacker can actually provide a PHP script that responds with a high version number and then deliver the payload over a .zip file. It's a fascinating tale! EDIT: It does appear the author has been removing things =( His GitHub has been wiped clean https://github.com/robertpelloni https://github.com/robertpelloni If anyone is curious here is a fork of the repository I was trying to link: https://github.com/mpavlinsky/bobsgame https://github.com/mpavlinsky/bobsgame
- shawabawa3 5y ago
  Looks like the repo has been deleted
- WoodenChair 5y ago
  Your link is already 404ing a minute after you posted it. Is it possible Bob is reading this thread and already removed it?
  - ddtaylor 5y ago
    It appears so. I've updated the comment with a fresh link.
- dec0dedab0de 5y ago
dec0dedab0de 5y ago
Interestingly enough, I bet the idea of staying in a room with a shower, and food delivery for 100 days doesn't seem like that big of deal to most people anymore.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- shkkmo 5y ago
  It's the "no internet access" part that puts it outside of most people's experience still.
  - thih9 5y ago
    This was couple of years ago; at that time internet wasn’t that popular or practical (even though it was still extremely popular and practical). Perhaps today that rule wouldn’t be there.
- jgon 5y ago
  Isn't that basically solitary confinement, something we consider to be cruel and unusual punishment? I would actually challenge anyone to make it past 30 or even 50 days under those circumstances without losing it. I bet it is much, much harder than you think.
  - netr0ute 5y ago
    Most people did exactly that a year ago.
    - moate 5y ago
      "Most" people did not go through the pandemic entirely alone. The vast majority of people in the world live with someone (roommate, family, romantic partner, etc). Also, depending on where you live in the world, "most" people did not stay entirely away from all humans at all times for more than a few weeks. Plenty of people were buying their own groceries, and leaving the house for other tasks. "Many people were isolated from the outside world in ways they haven't been previously during the pandemic lockdowns' is a perfectly cromulent and accurate statement, but I don't get this "let's compare the pandemic to some man doing a dramatic publicity stunt for his game, possibly due to underlying mental health issues." /rant
shawabawa3 5y ago
from his website it seems like his protest might have caused him to lose his grip on reality... https://bobsgame.com/ https://bobsgame.com/ or perhaps a mental illness was what caused him to lock himself in his room for a 100 days in the first place
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  Oh wow, that smells a lot like Terry A. Davis v2.0. I'm looking forward to HolyC++.
  - GranPC 5y ago
    Bob did actually meet Terry A. Davis at some point, around 3-4 years ago!
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      Is it contagious?
      - GranPC 5y ago
        That's not a very nice thing to say about two individuals that you probably haven't ever spoken to.
- saiojd 5y ago
  Wow, that site is really quite something. Reads like an art piece.
msoucy 5y ago
Oh man. I remember this as it was coming out. It was certainly a wild ride... I was in high school at the time and didn't know how to react to the whole protest thing. I remember I played the heck out of the demo that he released for the Nintendo DS - the Tetris parody in-game, "Tetrid", was a bit of a mindbend, and could probably cause seizures, but the deformed block shapes made an interesting puzzle.
- stalco 5y ago
  this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jw8fv-XsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jw8fv-XsQ
  - GranPC 5y ago
    Nope, that's bob's game (the game that "bob's game" is about) - which is a mishmash of many different puzzle games into one. Tetrid is inside bob's game, and it's also the first minigame you encounter inside "bob's game". This is it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8nmaVWjDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8nmaVWjDE
stalco 5y ago
Is this part of the real game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzdVpfk7yLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzdVpfk7yLs
- GranPC 5y ago
  No, that video was produced only for the campaign.
umvi 5y ago
Wikipedia only touches on the true madness of the thing. See: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobsgame/bobs-game https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobsgame/bobs-game Highlights: > Developed from scratch in C and completely rewritten in Java as an MMO, as far as I can tell, "bob's game" may still be one of the largest games (if not the largest) by one person! > "bob's game" is a game about a puzzle game called 'bob's game,' developed within the game by the virtual "bob" character, the "final boss" of the game. It is a hybrid between Zelda, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and Earthbound, with massively multiplayer elements. > The 'bob's game' puzzle game inside the "bob's game" RPG is a puzzle game in which you can build your own puzzle games, including all existing types! It is the greatest puzzle game ever made, and the only puzzle game objectively better than Tetris." > "bob's game" blends the line between reality and simulation, and reality and extra-dimensional reality. "bob's game" breaks both the so-called "4th wall" and further yet- the "5th wall," unlocking the secrets of "the Matrix," or "the Womb" as it is referred to in some editions of the Bible. "bob's game" reveals the nature of the universe for what it really is to a generation that needs it the most. "bob's game" is the most important thing to happen to mankind in hundreds, if not thousands of years. > "bob's game" is the vehicle for a prophecy, written by a "self taught" "genius" "prophet." It carries within it a message that will revolutionize society and change the world. It is the beginning of a new era for mankind. > "bob's game" actually alters reality itself for those who play it. It is a key into another dimension. It teaches the secrets of the heart, the secrets of mind control and psychic power to a generation that has has the wool pulled over their eyes by criminal syndicates. > "bob's game" is the ultimate cult game. It is a new religion for the modern world, inspired by and intended as a natural spiritual successor to previous disguised religion games such as Earthbound and Zelda and movie retellings of an ancient spellbook (The Old Testament) such as "The Matrix." > In 2008, after demoing it to Nintendo and turning down a job offer (I'd rather work on my own game!), I showed it on the internet in hopes that I would attract some publishers. Several of them were interested! After deciding on one and moving near their headquarters in New Jersey, unfortunately, Nintendo was hesitant to license me- even though I had an office, funds, and met all the qualifications. knowing I would have to rewrite the whole thing to get it on other platforms, I threw a meta-protest viral ad thing. Trying to be like my favorite band Nine Inch Nails recent "Year Zero" viral campaign, I devised an intense and clever alternate reality website that tied into the game story to drum up some attention and try to get Nintendo to license me anyway. > I slowly learned how we are tricked by desire and greed and kept weak and blinded by criminal syndicates. I realized that is what I had been fighting against the whole time, subconsciously! Even more incredible, I learned what humans are truly capable of- discovering that we are indeed magical creatures with psychic powers! It's the greatest trick in history- we are all great wizards, reduced to spending our lives so distracted, we never even realize our own power! Also, apparently there was a $2 million stretch goal (since deleted) that said (according to reddit): > The Bob's Game Corporation will purchase and renovate a large gothic church in Detroit and surround it with green and purple spotlights, razor wire, and RoboCop "ED-209" style drone sentries as the "bob's game" headquarters and final tournament location. "bob" will establish himself as a real-life video game villain, dominating the world's children through the use of dark ritual magic infused technology. This guy is either one of the greatest trolls of our time or else he is very mentally unstable...
Brendinooo 5y ago
Has anyone here played it? How's the actual gameplay?
- GranPC 5y ago
  The full game was never released, only two/three demos. The first demo was distributed as Nintendo DS homebrew and contained a fetch quest, some dialogue and the first minigame. The second demo was released for the PC and included demo 1, some more roaming around & dialogue, two additional minigames, and an unskippable cutscene at the end where "bob" laughs for over two minutes. The third demo was also released for the PC, originally playable in an embedded Java applet in the browser, and doesn't contain much of the RPG - it's mostly just bob's game (the puzzle game inside "bob's game") So it's a bit hard to tell how the actual gameplay of the whole thing could have been, you don't get to explore the world much in these demos.
  - ghthor 5y ago
    We might get to play the whole thing eventually, hes still working on it!
andrewclunn 5y ago
I backed him on Kickstarter. Not the craziest or most dishonest failed project I backed. It was a coin flip on whether you'd actually get a finished product back in the day. No idea how it is now.
duxup 5y ago
This kinda seems like just someone throwing a fit that Nintendo didn't give them an SDK / support their game? There's more to making a game than just making the code and hoping someone supports your efforts. From the wikipedia page, I don't find the story all that sympathetic, at least as far as vs Nintendo. Story seems more like one of a troll or mental illness, and kinda sad.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  The sad/hopeful thing is that if this were to occur today, they'd likely have a much easier chance to publish on the Switch (or PS4/5 or Xbox). The big platforms have really loosened up access to their stores and SDKs.
  - duxup 5y ago
    Agreed, better chance to publish. Although, not sure what would get published, there's not much of a game that anyone has ever seen according to the posts on HN. Not sure access to an SDK was really the biggest challenge.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    > The big platforms have really loosened up access to their stores and SDKs. If by "the big platforms" you mean Nintendo and Xbox, then yes. Sony is still as shitty about it as ever. The only difference today is that it's certainly easier to find a publisher who has an SDK, so you don't have to apply for one yourself. IIRC, getting approved for a Sony SDK requires a hefty down payment, proof of a physical office space, and you have to submit the resumes of your development team and hope Sony thinks they're good enough. Then you have to wait many months to hear back. I think you even need to have a project under development, or at least a complete design document.
    - zxzax 5y ago
      How does that even work in practice? Does the team have to ship a bunch of successful Switch and Xbox games first before their resumes are viewed as good enough? And it seems like they would have to plan to ship the project under development on one of those other consoles, just in case they don't get approved?
overgard 5y ago
There's a lot of crazy in here, but I can relate in a way. When I was young (a teenager), I really wanted to be a video game designer. Well, more than a designer, I wanted to be a full on creator, a rock star like Sid Meier or John Carmack. So I started making a game engine. I didn't really know exactly what I was making, I just had various ideas that I was collecting and coming up with and attaching to this game engine. At first it was pretty impressive, I had written a 3d first person shooter game engine from scratch at like 13 years old. I had made all the art myself (badly). I made a few demos for competitions, even won some of them and got some prizes. At a certain point though, I was just too attached to all this work I had put into this game engine, but I had no idea what I really wanted to make with it, because I honestly kind of sucked at game design and writing and never really put in the time to learn those disciplines. So I became weirdly attached to my "game", even though it wasn't really much of anything concrete. And realistically my game engine was "impressive for a 14 year old" but not impressive overall. Luckily, I didn't fall into crazy mental illness like this guy. At some point after tinkering with it for a few years I realized it was a lost cause because I didn't know what to do with it. The trap a lot of creatives or potential-creatives fall into is falling in love with a project that isn't going anywhere. If you want to be a creative person, you need to know how to spin a lot of plates and let go of something if it has just run out of steam. I think in Bob's case, it's clear that this project was always attached to his identity rather than simply being a project. (I mean, it's in the name). That's really dangerous. You aren't your work. You should never let a project, an art piece, even a company, become your identity. Bob locking himself in a room as a protest is obviously crazy; but I think in a way it becomes more understandable when you realize that this wasn't just a project to him, it was his entire identity. Nintendo was essentially denying him what he thought to be his existence. That's totally bananas on his part, but I think that covers why someone would do something like that.
- SCNP 5y ago
  Your description reminded me a lot of TempleOS. Another project created from scratch by a single developer (possibly with mental illness) that is going nowhere.
  - 5y ago
smudgy 5y ago
Atrocity Guide has a video on Bob's Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI
AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
So...almost 20 years later (started in 2004 according to Wikipedia): do we actually have a game yet?
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
Previous discussion: 13 years ago Indie Game Developer does 100 day protest Nintendo https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412757 8 years ago About the Kickstarter https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6908321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6908321
dang 5y ago
We invited a repost of this article (related to the second-chance pool - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308) because HN loves stories of original single-person projects, especially where the developer has persisted over years and has some kind of unique vision. I didn't read it closely, and I hope we didn't accidentally bring unwanted attention to someone's personal struggle. Bob, if you're reading this, we wish you all the best. Commenters, if you're reading this, please be kind and let's not have any sort of garish spectacle.
moon2 5y ago
Here’s an interesting video by Atrocity Guide that talks about it. https://youtu.be/A47maEySTdI https://youtu.be/A47maEySTdI
vagab0nd 5y ago
Off-topic. So I have this cron job that scrapes this wiki page[0], and sends me a random article every day. Guess which one it sent me yesterday? "Bob's Game". How is this possible? 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles
_wojr 5y ago
u coo
Toutouxc 5y ago
Bob, if you're reading this, I hope you're doing alright. I respect your dedication and the amount of work that you did, even though I don't quite understand the reasons for your fight against Nintendo.
0dayz 5y ago
I'll admit everytime I read "horror"/exceptional stories like these with no good ending (the other being the ballad of yanderedev), it makes me feel very self conscious and stressed out I might fall into that trapdoor. The only way to counteract it from my experience is to work on multiple projects (and wrtie down and grade ideas based on how ambitious and time consuming said idea us).
mastrsushi 5y ago
Nintendo rejected his idea because it was 2004 and there was no market for niche artsy indie games. There was no app store, and indie games at the time simply weren't commercially acceptable. In 2004, gaming was still this relatively new industry. Products were either geared towards children, or violent games towards adults. I don't think he could admit to himself that Nintendo had no business attempting to sell his egomaniacal art project to a mainstream audience. At the time he was better off selling it on Steam. If he so badly wanted to get a Nintendo license he should've repurposed the engine into something less abstract. I think the game is an impressive accomplishment for one person. But compared to what else was coming out at the time on the DS, by multi person development teams, it really doesn't look that good. It almost reminds me of a Newgrounds flash game.
Sammy6 5y ago
Anyone have a download for the steam version now that it's been removed?

166 points by nonbirithm 5y ago

Very good video on the topic. It's odd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI

alickz 5y ago
Great channel I particularly liked the Ulillillia and Nasubi videos
- tombert 5y ago
  I watch the Ulillillia video whenever I feel depressed about the world. It's excellent and bizarrely kind of inspiring to me.
  - entelechy0 5y ago
    same af
  - redisman 5y ago
    I remember following him and Bobs game back in the day. Outsider art for video games
GranPC 5y ago
Take that video with a big grain of salt - some of the information there is incorrect and the timeline is somewhat wrong.
- Taylor_OD 5y ago
  Do you have a better overview? The video did bounce around a bit but what was incorrect?
  - GranPC 5y ago
    I'd have to watch it over again but here are some details I remember being wrong: - The "live video feed" on the homepage was not actually a live video feed for a long time - it was the same images on a loop. - The Nintendo World Store was partially faked, with some of the scenes being actually filmed at his home and then spliced in. It was not as egregious as it looked - in fact, one of the corny details was that a police siren sound effect was added in post. - Bob adding himself and his struggles to "bob's game" was not a result of being rejected for the devkit, it was already designed to be like that. My understanding is that nobody really gets Bob and "bob's game" - it truly is quite hard to explain. You sort of need to have been there.
    - redisman 5y ago
      Agreed. I was there from the early days from one of the forums I was at. Probably something awful. He pivoted so many times, it was for the longest time supposed to be the most expansive and realistic (2D) RPG there ever was. Then the Nintendo drama and the pivots to puzzle games and at some point I stopped paying attention

genjipress 5y ago

Essentially, TempleOS, but a video game.

imjustsaying 5y ago
One might anticipate a racing sequel featuring alphabet agents that glow.

WoodenChair 5y ago

I had never heard about this, but my first reaction is that I feel bad for this guy, because if you consider that he was self taught he really was very talented. Checkout the gameplay videos. He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with seemingly no training. I'm not saying it would've been a great game, because I don't know that, just that he as an individual could've been successful. I read the book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels [0] last year and it includes the story of the guy who created Stardew Valley. He also spent five years on it, working alone. He also was self taught and did the graphics himself. It was even kind of a similar type of game. I actually think Bob could've made Stardew Valley. It sounds like mental illness got in the way. One question we have to ask ourselves is what came first—the mental illness or the game development. Did the whole experience of the isolated game development actually lead to the mental illness? By the way, I don't recommend Blood, Sweat, and Pixels as a whole, but I do recommend the chapter on Stardew Valley. It's inspirational (or fatiguing because that guy worked so hard with no clear reward coming) for indie developers. [0]: https://amzn.to/3ya9Y6A https://amzn.to/3ya9Y6A Edit Addition: I feel bad for writing about the developer in the past tense. There is no reason he couldn't still be successful in life.

elliekelly 5y ago
There's an Apple TV+ original show called Mythic Quest[1] about a video game company and they did a really great episode about game development and mental health. The show is mostly a comedy and written by some of the people from Always Sunny. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest
sva_ 5y ago
> He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with seemingly no training. From the Wikipedia article: > The author says that he wrote the game originally in C, switched then to Java, and later converted it with an automatic code converter to C++.
- WoodenChair 5y ago
  Okay, whether C or C++ or Java, the point is writing the game without ever having an industry job or educational situation where you'd have mentorship is a huge accomplishment.

ddtaylor 5y ago

Repo: https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame/ https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame/ (deleted, see edit below) I looked at it a few weeks back and it's really strange. It has really weird restrictions that don't make any sense regarding the license - I'm not even sure if they even are legal. The author claims he is sharing the source but that nobody else can fork it, unless they fork it on GitHub?! Anyhow, within a few seconds of reading the source you'll find that the first thing the binary does is call home to download and extract a newer .zip file from the bobsgame.com website. It does this over HTTP and without any kind of signature/signing of the binary. Before it actually downloads the .zip file it actually tries to grab a version number from a PHP script on the website that doesn't exist. The website instead renders some HTML. The C++ casts this HTML to a number and gets 0, so it always assumes that the website does not have a newer version of the game to download. This means if someone on the local network can DNS spoof the website it will dutifully talk over unauthenticated HTTP, the attacker can actually provide a PHP script that responds with a high version number and then deliver the payload over a .zip file. It's a fascinating tale! EDIT: It does appear the author has been removing things =( His GitHub has been wiped clean https://github.com/robertpelloni https://github.com/robertpelloni If anyone is curious here is a fork of the repository I was trying to link: https://github.com/mpavlinsky/bobsgame https://github.com/mpavlinsky/bobsgame

shawabawa3 5y ago
Looks like the repo has been deleted
WoodenChair 5y ago
Your link is already 404ing a minute after you posted it. Is it possible Bob is reading this thread and already removed it?
- ddtaylor 5y ago
  It appears so. I've updated the comment with a fresh link.
dec0dedab0de 5y ago

dec0dedab0de 5y ago

Interestingly enough, I bet the idea of staying in a room with a shower, and food delivery for 100 days doesn't seem like that big of deal to most people anymore.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
shkkmo 5y ago
It's the "no internet access" part that puts it outside of most people's experience still.
- thih9 5y ago
  This was couple of years ago; at that time internet wasn’t that popular or practical (even though it was still extremely popular and practical). Perhaps today that rule wouldn’t be there.
jgon 5y ago
Isn't that basically solitary confinement, something we consider to be cruel and unusual punishment? I would actually challenge anyone to make it past 30 or even 50 days under those circumstances without losing it. I bet it is much, much harder than you think.
- netr0ute 5y ago
  Most people did exactly that a year ago.
  - moate 5y ago
    "Most" people did not go through the pandemic entirely alone. The vast majority of people in the world live with someone (roommate, family, romantic partner, etc). Also, depending on where you live in the world, "most" people did not stay entirely away from all humans at all times for more than a few weeks. Plenty of people were buying their own groceries, and leaving the house for other tasks. "Many people were isolated from the outside world in ways they haven't been previously during the pandemic lockdowns' is a perfectly cromulent and accurate statement, but I don't get this "let's compare the pandemic to some man doing a dramatic publicity stunt for his game, possibly due to underlying mental health issues." /rant

shawabawa3 5y ago

from his website it seems like his protest might have caused him to lose his grip on reality... https://bobsgame.com/ https://bobsgame.com/ or perhaps a mental illness was what caused him to lock himself in his room for a 100 days in the first place

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
Oh wow, that smells a lot like Terry A. Davis v2.0. I'm looking forward to HolyC++.
- GranPC 5y ago
  Bob did actually meet Terry A. Davis at some point, around 3-4 years ago!
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    Is it contagious?
    - GranPC 5y ago
      That's not a very nice thing to say about two individuals that you probably haven't ever spoken to.
saiojd 5y ago
Wow, that site is really quite something. Reads like an art piece.

msoucy 5y ago

Oh man. I remember this as it was coming out. It was certainly a wild ride... I was in high school at the time and didn't know how to react to the whole protest thing. I remember I played the heck out of the demo that he released for the Nintendo DS - the Tetris parody in-game, "Tetrid", was a bit of a mindbend, and could probably cause seizures, but the deformed block shapes made an interesting puzzle.

stalco 5y ago
this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jw8fv-XsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jw8fv-XsQ
- GranPC 5y ago
  Nope, that's bob's game (the game that "bob's game" is about) - which is a mishmash of many different puzzle games into one. Tetrid is inside bob's game, and it's also the first minigame you encounter inside "bob's game". This is it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8nmaVWjDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8nmaVWjDE

stalco 5y ago

Is this part of the real game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzdVpfk7yLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzdVpfk7yLs

GranPC 5y ago
No, that video was produced only for the campaign.

umvi 5y ago

Wikipedia only touches on the true madness of the thing. See: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobsgame/bobs-game https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobsgame/bobs-game Highlights: > Developed from scratch in C and completely rewritten in Java as an MMO, as far as I can tell, "bob's game" may still be one of the largest games (if not the largest) by one person! > "bob's game" is a game about a puzzle game called 'bob's game,' developed within the game by the virtual "bob" character, the "final boss" of the game. It is a hybrid between Zelda, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and Earthbound, with massively multiplayer elements. > The 'bob's game' puzzle game inside the "bob's game" RPG is a puzzle game in which you can build your own puzzle games, including all existing types! It is the greatest puzzle game ever made, and the only puzzle game objectively better than Tetris." > "bob's game" blends the line between reality and simulation, and reality and extra-dimensional reality. "bob's game" breaks both the so-called "4th wall" and further yet- the "5th wall," unlocking the secrets of "the Matrix," or "the Womb" as it is referred to in some editions of the Bible. "bob's game" reveals the nature of the universe for what it really is to a generation that needs it the most. "bob's game" is the most important thing to happen to mankind in hundreds, if not thousands of years. > "bob's game" is the vehicle for a prophecy, written by a "self taught" "genius" "prophet." It carries within it a message that will revolutionize society and change the world. It is the beginning of a new era for mankind. > "bob's game" actually alters reality itself for those who play it. It is a key into another dimension. It teaches the secrets of the heart, the secrets of mind control and psychic power to a generation that has has the wool pulled over their eyes by criminal syndicates. > "bob's game" is the ultimate cult game. It is a new religion for the modern world, inspired by and intended as a natural spiritual successor to previous disguised religion games such as Earthbound and Zelda and movie retellings of an ancient spellbook (The Old Testament) such as "The Matrix." > In 2008, after demoing it to Nintendo and turning down a job offer (I'd rather work on my own game!), I showed it on the internet in hopes that I would attract some publishers. Several of them were interested! After deciding on one and moving near their headquarters in New Jersey, unfortunately, Nintendo was hesitant to license me- even though I had an office, funds, and met all the qualifications. knowing I would have to rewrite the whole thing to get it on other platforms, I threw a meta-protest viral ad thing. Trying to be like my favorite band Nine Inch Nails recent "Year Zero" viral campaign, I devised an intense and clever alternate reality website that tied into the game story to drum up some attention and try to get Nintendo to license me anyway. > I slowly learned how we are tricked by desire and greed and kept weak and blinded by criminal syndicates. I realized that is what I had been fighting against the whole time, subconsciously! Even more incredible, I learned what humans are truly capable of- discovering that we are indeed magical creatures with psychic powers! It's the greatest trick in history- we are all great wizards, reduced to spending our lives so distracted, we never even realize our own power! Also, apparently there was a $2 million stretch goal (since deleted) that said (according to reddit): > The Bob's Game Corporation will purchase and renovate a large gothic church in Detroit and surround it with green and purple spotlights, razor wire, and RoboCop "ED-209" style drone sentries as the "bob's game" headquarters and final tournament location. "bob" will establish himself as a real-life video game villain, dominating the world's children through the use of dark ritual magic infused technology. This guy is either one of the greatest trolls of our time or else he is very mentally unstable...

Brendinooo 5y ago

Has anyone here played it? How's the actual gameplay?

GranPC 5y ago
The full game was never released, only two/three demos. The first demo was distributed as Nintendo DS homebrew and contained a fetch quest, some dialogue and the first minigame. The second demo was released for the PC and included demo 1, some more roaming around & dialogue, two additional minigames, and an unskippable cutscene at the end where "bob" laughs for over two minutes. The third demo was also released for the PC, originally playable in an embedded Java applet in the browser, and doesn't contain much of the RPG - it's mostly just bob's game (the puzzle game inside "bob's game") So it's a bit hard to tell how the actual gameplay of the whole thing could have been, you don't get to explore the world much in these demos.
- ghthor 5y ago
  We might get to play the whole thing eventually, hes still working on it!

andrewclunn 5y ago

I backed him on Kickstarter. Not the craziest or most dishonest failed project I backed. It was a coin flip on whether you'd actually get a finished product back in the day. No idea how it is now.

duxup 5y ago

This kinda seems like just someone throwing a fit that Nintendo didn't give them an SDK / support their game? There's more to making a game than just making the code and hoping someone supports your efforts. From the wikipedia page, I don't find the story all that sympathetic, at least as far as vs Nintendo. Story seems more like one of a troll or mental illness, and kinda sad.

jonny_eh 5y ago
The sad/hopeful thing is that if this were to occur today, they'd likely have a much easier chance to publish on the Switch (or PS4/5 or Xbox). The big platforms have really loosened up access to their stores and SDKs.
- duxup 5y ago
  Agreed, better chance to publish. Although, not sure what would get published, there's not much of a game that anyone has ever seen according to the posts on HN. Not sure access to an SDK was really the biggest challenge.
- bogwog 5y ago
  > The big platforms have really loosened up access to their stores and SDKs. If by "the big platforms" you mean Nintendo and Xbox, then yes. Sony is still as shitty about it as ever. The only difference today is that it's certainly easier to find a publisher who has an SDK, so you don't have to apply for one yourself. IIRC, getting approved for a Sony SDK requires a hefty down payment, proof of a physical office space, and you have to submit the resumes of your development team and hope Sony thinks they're good enough. Then you have to wait many months to hear back. I think you even need to have a project under development, or at least a complete design document.
  - zxzax 5y ago
    How does that even work in practice? Does the team have to ship a bunch of successful Switch and Xbox games first before their resumes are viewed as good enough? And it seems like they would have to plan to ship the project under development on one of those other consoles, just in case they don't get approved?

overgard 5y ago

There's a lot of crazy in here, but I can relate in a way. When I was young (a teenager), I really wanted to be a video game designer. Well, more than a designer, I wanted to be a full on creator, a rock star like Sid Meier or John Carmack. So I started making a game engine. I didn't really know exactly what I was making, I just had various ideas that I was collecting and coming up with and attaching to this game engine. At first it was pretty impressive, I had written a 3d first person shooter game engine from scratch at like 13 years old. I had made all the art myself (badly). I made a few demos for competitions, even won some of them and got some prizes. At a certain point though, I was just too attached to all this work I had put into this game engine, but I had no idea what I really wanted to make with it, because I honestly kind of sucked at game design and writing and never really put in the time to learn those disciplines. So I became weirdly attached to my "game", even though it wasn't really much of anything concrete. And realistically my game engine was "impressive for a 14 year old" but not impressive overall. Luckily, I didn't fall into crazy mental illness like this guy. At some point after tinkering with it for a few years I realized it was a lost cause because I didn't know what to do with it. The trap a lot of creatives or potential-creatives fall into is falling in love with a project that isn't going anywhere. If you want to be a creative person, you need to know how to spin a lot of plates and let go of something if it has just run out of steam. I think in Bob's case, it's clear that this project was always attached to his identity rather than simply being a project. (I mean, it's in the name). That's really dangerous. You aren't your work. You should never let a project, an art piece, even a company, become your identity. Bob locking himself in a room as a protest is obviously crazy; but I think in a way it becomes more understandable when you realize that this wasn't just a project to him, it was his entire identity. Nintendo was essentially denying him what he thought to be his existence. That's totally bananas on his part, but I think that covers why someone would do something like that.

SCNP 5y ago
Your description reminded me a lot of TempleOS. Another project created from scratch by a single developer (possibly with mental illness) that is going nowhere.
- 5y ago

smudgy 5y ago

Atrocity Guide has a video on Bob's Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47maEySTdI

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago

So...almost 20 years later (started in 2004 according to Wikipedia): do we actually have a game yet?

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

Previous discussion: 13 years ago Indie Game Developer does 100 day protest Nintendo https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412757 8 years ago About the Kickstarter https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6908321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6908321

dang 5y ago

We invited a repost of this article (related to the second-chance pool - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308) because HN loves stories of original single-person projects, especially where the developer has persisted over years and has some kind of unique vision. I didn't read it closely, and I hope we didn't accidentally bring unwanted attention to someone's personal struggle. Bob, if you're reading this, we wish you all the best. Commenters, if you're reading this, please be kind and let's not have any sort of garish spectacle.

moon2 5y ago

Here’s an interesting video by Atrocity Guide that talks about it. https://youtu.be/A47maEySTdI https://youtu.be/A47maEySTdI

vagab0nd 5y ago

Off-topic. So I have this cron job that scrapes this wiki page[0], and sends me a random article every day. Guess which one it sent me yesterday? "Bob's Game". How is this possible? 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles

_wojr 5y ago

u coo

Toutouxc 5y ago

Bob, if you're reading this, I hope you're doing alright. I respect your dedication and the amount of work that you did, even though I don't quite understand the reasons for your fight against Nintendo.

0dayz 5y ago

I'll admit everytime I read "horror"/exceptional stories like these with no good ending (the other being the ballad of yanderedev), it makes me feel very self conscious and stressed out I might fall into that trapdoor. The only way to counteract it from my experience is to work on multiple projects (and wrtie down and grade ideas based on how ambitious and time consuming said idea us).

mastrsushi 5y ago

Nintendo rejected his idea because it was 2004 and there was no market for niche artsy indie games. There was no app store, and indie games at the time simply weren't commercially acceptable. In 2004, gaming was still this relatively new industry. Products were either geared towards children, or violent games towards adults. I don't think he could admit to himself that Nintendo had no business attempting to sell his egomaniacal art project to a mainstream audience. At the time he was better off selling it on Steam. If he so badly wanted to get a Nintendo license he should've repurposed the engine into something less abstract. I think the game is an impressive accomplishment for one person. But compared to what else was coming out at the time on the DS, by multi person development teams, it really doesn't look that good. It almost reminds me of a Newgrounds flash game.

Sammy6 5y ago

Anyone have a download for the steam version now that it's been removed?