4 ms·

Would really like to know what makes a person (or group of people) invest the time and energy to do this? Is there a group of hobbyist gamers who work on title

by icu 1y ago

Would really like to know what makes a person (or group of people) invest the time and energy to do this? Is there a group of hobbyist gamers who work on titles they love? Is it about digital conservation?

jbverschoor 1y ago
I guess you’ve never kicked ass and chewed bubble gum
- morellt 1y ago
  It's hard to do when you're all out of gum
j1elo 1y ago
Same. Is there a project page or anything that explains the context, the reasons, the history behind this? I bet it would be very interesting. The Readme is too technical and misses a writeup on the soul of the project: Section 1, title. Section 2, already talking about Ubuntu and dependencies. Where is section "Why?" :-) ?
- GranPC 1y ago
  Based off the commit history, this has been one person's on-off project for 3 years. My guess is that they like this game and they were curious about how decomps come to fruition - and what better way to find out than to do it?
zamadatix 1y ago
In addition to those categories, speedrunning glitch hunters tend to gravitate to participating in these projects as well. E.g. the Twilight Princess decomp was started primarily by and for the speedrunning community.
- jsheard 1y ago
  It's also the endgame for romhacking, once a game is fully decompiled modders can go far beyond what was feasible through prodding the original binary. That can mean much more complicated gameplay mods, but also porting the engine to run natively on modern platforms, removing framerate limits, and so on.
colechristensen 1y ago
You climb a mountain because it's there. Different people have different mountains. It's an interesting challenge, you can improve it or make it do X,Y,Z, you can add speedrunning or competition gaming features, solving puzzles gives a sense of accomplishment, a certain small group gives you social clout, etc.
ajxs 1y ago
I've spent a lot of time reverse-engineering vintage synthesizer firmware (which is a bit simpler than modern games). I did complete end-to-end annotations of these two vintage synth ROMs: - https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly - https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx9_rom_disassembly https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx9_rom_disassembly It started because I was just curious about how these devices actually worked. In the end I learned a lot of really invaluable skills that really broadened my horizons as an engineer. I got a chance to talk to a handful of incredibly smart people too. The actual work can be a lot of fun. It's like piecing together a really large and technical jigsaw puzzle. In my case, it also led to me being able to release a fun firmware mod: https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx97 https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx97 In case anyone is curious about how I worked, I wrote a bit of a tutorial article: https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vintage_Synth_Firmware.html https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vin... It can be a bit analogous to archaeology too. Even though in my case the DX7 is only 42 years old, that was an aeon ago in computing terms. You gain a bit of insight into how different engineers used to design and build things. Even though development for the N64 is fairly recent, from memory the console had some interesting constraints that made development tricky.
- alexjplant 1y ago
  > the console had some interesting constraints that made development tricky The ones that come to mind are the tiny 4KB texture cache, high memory latency (thanks Rambus), and inefficient RCP microcode. The N64 could have been so much more with a few architectural tweaks but developers liked the Playstation much better on account of its simplicity despite it being technically inferior in most respects.
  - torben-friis 1y ago
    >developers liked the Playstation much better on account of its simplicity despite it being technically inferior in most respects. That statement is surprising, as being a kid I remember the PlayStation as obviously graphically superior. I’m not doubting you but what explains the difference between technical and user perception?
matheusmoreira 1y ago
Maybe they just really love the game. This is a form of tribute. I too have a beloved video game from my childhood: Mega Man Battle Network 2. That game changed my life. I learned English and became a programmer because of it. I have two physical copies of it in my collection, one of them factory sealed. Sometimes I open the game in IDA and try to reverse engineer bits and pieces of it. I just want to understand the game. I don't have the time, the dedication or even the low level programming knowledge that these badass folks in the ROM hacking community have, but I still try it.
bombcar 1y ago
There are people who spend hours and hours analyzing bit characters in things like Lord of the Rings (where did the Blue Wizards go? Who is Tom Bombadil?) or Star Wars. This is a similar fan obsession. Remember fan comes from fanatic.
ChicagoDave 1y ago
This is how the text adventure/interactive fiction community started. Some hackers reverse engineered the Infocom z-machine then built new languages and compilers so new games could be created.
skotobaza 1y ago
Preservation and ease of modification. New console units are not being made anymore, and the number of old ones is limited, they can break, and there is an issue with output video formats that are incompatible with modern monitors/TVs. There is emulation, but it's not perfect and can be demanding. Decompilations enable people to create native binaries for different platforms. This makes playing the game easier and more accessible.
jonhohle 1y ago
I gave a talk at Game On Expo about decompiling Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (https://github.com/xeeynamo/sotn-decomp https://github.com/xeeynamo/sotn-decomp ) earlier this year and talked a little bit about exactly this. Almost everyone who works on loves the game. After that, motivation varies: some want to see ports, some want to mod, some want to learn everything they can, some want to preserve. Along with those I also like the challenge (not unlike sudoku). Doing it long enough requires learning compiler history and theory, understanding business and engineering pressures of making the game, and occasionally reveals why parts of the game work the way they do. I stream working on SotN and am happy to answer any questions in chat if you’re interested in learning more - https://m.twitch.tv/madeupofwires/home https://m.twitch.tv/madeupofwires/home
smitelli 1y ago
I'm the person who reimplemented Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure (DOS, 1992) and my original reasoning was a desire to know how it was able to do some of the graphical tricks it did on such underpowered hardware (it could run on an IBM AT). The game wasn't anything special by any metric, but it was an important piece of my childhood and I felt an attachment to it. I also learned a hell of a lot about the PC platform, the C ecosystem from the 80s, and my own tastes as an engineer. https://github.com/smitelli/cosmore https://github.com/smitelli/cosmore https://cosmodoc.org/ https://cosmodoc.org/
mentos 1y ago
Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

by icu 1y ago

jbverschoor 1y ago

I guess you’ve never kicked ass and chewed bubble gum

morellt 1y ago
It's hard to do when you're all out of gum

j1elo 1y ago

Same. Is there a project page or anything that explains the context, the reasons, the history behind this? I bet it would be very interesting. The Readme is too technical and misses a writeup on the soul of the project: Section 1, title. Section 2, already talking about Ubuntu and dependencies. Where is section "Why?" :-) ?

GranPC 1y ago
Based off the commit history, this has been one person's on-off project for 3 years. My guess is that they like this game and they were curious about how decomps come to fruition - and what better way to find out than to do it?

zamadatix 1y ago

In addition to those categories, speedrunning glitch hunters tend to gravitate to participating in these projects as well. E.g. the Twilight Princess decomp was started primarily by and for the speedrunning community.

jsheard 1y ago
It's also the endgame for romhacking, once a game is fully decompiled modders can go far beyond what was feasible through prodding the original binary. That can mean much more complicated gameplay mods, but also porting the engine to run natively on modern platforms, removing framerate limits, and so on.

colechristensen 1y ago

You climb a mountain because it's there. Different people have different mountains. It's an interesting challenge, you can improve it or make it do X,Y,Z, you can add speedrunning or competition gaming features, solving puzzles gives a sense of accomplishment, a certain small group gives you social clout, etc.

ajxs 1y ago

I've spent a lot of time reverse-engineering vintage synthesizer firmware (which is a bit simpler than modern games). I did complete end-to-end annotations of these two vintage synth ROMs: - https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly - https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx9_rom_disassembly https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx9_rom_disassembly It started because I was just curious about how these devices actually worked. In the end I learned a lot of really invaluable skills that really broadened my horizons as an engineer. I got a chance to talk to a handful of incredibly smart people too. The actual work can be a lot of fun. It's like piecing together a really large and technical jigsaw puzzle. In my case, it also led to me being able to release a fun firmware mod: https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx97 https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx97 In case anyone is curious about how I worked, I wrote a bit of a tutorial article: https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vintage_Synth_Firmware.html https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vin... It can be a bit analogous to archaeology too. Even though in my case the DX7 is only 42 years old, that was an aeon ago in computing terms. You gain a bit of insight into how different engineers used to design and build things. Even though development for the N64 is fairly recent, from memory the console had some interesting constraints that made development tricky.

alexjplant 1y ago
> the console had some interesting constraints that made development tricky The ones that come to mind are the tiny 4KB texture cache, high memory latency (thanks Rambus), and inefficient RCP microcode. The N64 could have been so much more with a few architectural tweaks but developers liked the Playstation much better on account of its simplicity despite it being technically inferior in most respects.
- torben-friis 1y ago
  >developers liked the Playstation much better on account of its simplicity despite it being technically inferior in most respects. That statement is surprising, as being a kid I remember the PlayStation as obviously graphically superior. I’m not doubting you but what explains the difference between technical and user perception?

matheusmoreira 1y ago

Maybe they just really love the game. This is a form of tribute. I too have a beloved video game from my childhood: Mega Man Battle Network 2. That game changed my life. I learned English and became a programmer because of it. I have two physical copies of it in my collection, one of them factory sealed. Sometimes I open the game in IDA and try to reverse engineer bits and pieces of it. I just want to understand the game. I don't have the time, the dedication or even the low level programming knowledge that these badass folks in the ROM hacking community have, but I still try it.

bombcar 1y ago

There are people who spend hours and hours analyzing bit characters in things like Lord of the Rings (where did the Blue Wizards go? Who is Tom Bombadil?) or Star Wars. This is a similar fan obsession. Remember fan comes from fanatic.

ChicagoDave 1y ago

This is how the text adventure/interactive fiction community started. Some hackers reverse engineered the Infocom z-machine then built new languages and compilers so new games could be created.

skotobaza 1y ago

Preservation and ease of modification. New console units are not being made anymore, and the number of old ones is limited, they can break, and there is an issue with output video formats that are incompatible with modern monitors/TVs. There is emulation, but it's not perfect and can be demanding. Decompilations enable people to create native binaries for different platforms. This makes playing the game easier and more accessible.

jonhohle 1y ago

I gave a talk at Game On Expo about decompiling Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (https://github.com/xeeynamo/sotn-decomp https://github.com/xeeynamo/sotn-decomp ) earlier this year and talked a little bit about exactly this. Almost everyone who works on loves the game. After that, motivation varies: some want to see ports, some want to mod, some want to learn everything they can, some want to preserve. Along with those I also like the challenge (not unlike sudoku). Doing it long enough requires learning compiler history and theory, understanding business and engineering pressures of making the game, and occasionally reveals why parts of the game work the way they do. I stream working on SotN and am happy to answer any questions in chat if you’re interested in learning more - https://m.twitch.tv/madeupofwires/home https://m.twitch.tv/madeupofwires/home

smitelli 1y ago

I'm the person who reimplemented Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure (DOS, 1992) and my original reasoning was a desire to know how it was able to do some of the graphical tricks it did on such underpowered hardware (it could run on an IBM AT). The game wasn't anything special by any metric, but it was an important piece of my childhood and I felt an attachment to it. I also learned a hell of a lot about the PC platform, the C ecosystem from the 80s, and my own tastes as an engineer. https://github.com/smitelli/cosmore https://github.com/smitelli/cosmore https://cosmodoc.org/ https://cosmodoc.org/

mentos 1y ago

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.