12 ms·

Super Mario 64 HD

359 points by fla 12y ago

camhenlin 12y ago
Cool, seems like it would be the beginnings of a sellable game if it didn't use a bunch of Nintendo assets
- vlunkr 12y ago
  Assets? It's literally a clone of a Nintendo product.
  - Mithaldu 12y ago
    Games are not copyrightable, assets are. That said, i can't see this end in anything else other than a C&D unless he actually talks to nintendo.
    - th0br0 12y ago
      Wait, in the US APIs are copyrightable but Games aren't? ...
      - icebraining 12y ago
        APIs are copyrightable? I don't think so. Oracle lost, after all. However, on the primary copyright issue of the APIs, the court ruled that "So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical." The ruling found that the structure Oracle was claiming was not copyrightable under section 102(b) of the Copyright Act because it was a "system or method of operation."
        djur 12y ago
        That ruling was overturned on appeal. From the same Wikipedia page: _The appeals court reversed the district court on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable._
      - DavidAdams 12y ago
        The game's actual source code would be under copyright, but presumably you could re-write a game and exactly copy its gameplay and that wouldn't be copyright infringement any more than writing a poem using the same meter with different words as a famous poem would infringe.
        lost_name 12y ago
        > any more than writing a poem using the same meter with different words as a famous poem would infringe This is clearly a rabbit hole of exceptions and ifs, but this somehow doesn't apply to music as well, based on the recent judgement over Blurred Lines (the song).
    - ambler0 12y ago
      This statement surprised me. Is it really true? It appears that there is conflicting precedent: "The first approach is from the 2nd circuit "The Subtractive Approach" (Altai, Nichols) and the other approach is "The Concept and Feel Approach" (Ruth Greeting Cards, Krofft)" http://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/Video_Games_law_Copyright_Trademark_Intellectual_Property#What%20parts%20of%20the%20video%20game%20are%20copyrightable http://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/Video_Games_law_Co...? I am curious to know what would happen if someone decided to clone the exact level design of a game but changed all the audio/visual assets.
      - mathgeek 12y ago
        > I am curious to know what would happen if someone decided to clone the exact level design of a game but changed all the audio/visual assets. This actually happened quite often in early generations of computer games and consoles. Super Mario Bros had quite a few clones where all that changed were the visual assets. More recently, there are many examples of this happening on the iOS App Store and other venues with a low barrier to entry.
        ambler0 12y ago
        I seemed to recall such Mario clones as well. Nintendo is quite protective of their IP, so I have to think that they must have threatened legal action. Does anyone know? Is there precedent for legally protecting the layout of a level?
        emodendroket 12y ago
        Are these bootleg carts? Otherwise they had to approve of everything that was sold on the NES.
        ambler0 12y ago
        I think the clone I'm semi-remembering was a PC game. Regarding your second question: There were very many unlicensed Nintendo games. I don't know how many of these Nintendo fought. They very famously battled Tengen over this issue in the courts.
    - HeXetic 12y ago
      The "Mario" character is copyrighted.
      - pkaye 12y ago
        Super Maryo Chronicles
      - thirsteh 12y ago
        And trademarked. Edit: and :)
        forrestthewoods 12y ago
        Characters are subject to copyright. http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/04/copyright-in-fictional-characters-can-i.html http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/04/copyright-in-fictiona...
        thirsteh 12y ago
        Interesting.
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      A concrete example: the classic game "Descent" was written by Parallax and published by Interplay. The split-up remnant of Parallax owns all of the assets -- the ship name and artwork, the name of the evil corporation, the music, the robot artwork. Interplay owns the name Descent. Anybody can make a game that flies like Descent (Sol Contingency and Geocore are both trying to), but only an Interplay-licensed company can call their game "Descent", and only a Parallax-licensed company can put in the "Pyro-GX" and the "PTMC". And there seems to be some distrust between the two companies. This has led to a fair bit of complication for the Interplay-licensed Descent:Underground game (currently on kickstarter -- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/descent-underground https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/desce... ). A lot of fans are asking "where's the pyro?" Well, they can't have the pyro, because they don't have a license for that part of the game. They can make a ship that looks fairly similar and flies identically, but it has to be identifiably visually different and have a different name.
    - mksaunders 12y ago
      He should just call it Great Giana Sisters 64 HD...
      - alcari 12y ago
        Black Forest Games is still around, and making Giana Sisters games.
    - KeytarHero 12y ago
      But they are patentable (or at least elements of them can be). Konami successfully sued[1] the makers of In The Groove, a Dance Dance Revolution clone. I know parts of Mario Kart are patented[2], so I wouldn't be too surprised if parts of Super Mario 64 are patented as well, given that it pioneered the 3D platformer genre. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Corp._v._Roxor_Games_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Corp._v._Roxor_Games_Inc. [2] http://www.google.com/patents/US7278913#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents/US7278913#v=onepage&q&f=false
      - greggman 12y ago
        Yes but patents only last 17 years? Super Mario 64 is 18-19 years old
        autoreleasepool 12y ago
        Patents can be evergreened with minor changes[0]. Pure speculation: It's possible Super Mario Sunshine(2002), Super Mario Galaxy(2007) and other Mario-like 3D could have "refreshed" any patents from Super Mario 64. That is, if any patents from Mario 64 exist. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening
      - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        FWIW this http://www.leagle.com/decision/20061170445FSupp2d725_11105 http://www.leagle.com/decision/20061170445FSupp2d725_11105 appears to be the text of the decision, I couldn't find a non-commercial source for the text: gpo.gov only has N, W and S Districts of Texas for some reason. The patent in question, http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6410835 http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6410835. Espacenet has it too of course, http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=US&NR=2001004861A1&FT=D http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=..., but Google is better is it gives the B2 published form of the claims as opposed to the A1 first submitted form. Major fail there for the EPO's ESPACENET in my opinion. Claims 1, priority date is 24 July 1998: >"1. A dance game apparatus comprising: music output means for outputting one piece of music from at least one stored piece of music; a floor panel having a step-on base section; said step-on base section comprising a top panel and a support member which supports the panel; detection means for detecting a stepping operation on said step-on base section; said detection means comprising stepping sensors interposed between said panel and said support member at mutually opposing positions of said panel; said stepping sensors comprising longitudinally extending conductive sections having a longitudinal length, one of said conductive sections being moveable laterally relative to another of said conductive sections at any one of a plurality of positions along the longitudinal length of said one conductive section to effect contact with said other conductive sections at any one of a plurality of corresponding contact positions such that said stepping sensors detect stepping on said step-on base sections at plural locations corresponding to said plurality of corresponding contact positions, guidance means for performing a stepping operation instruction to said step-on base section in time with said music; measurement means for measuring a time deviation between the timing of a stepping operation instruction and the time at which the fact that said step-on base section is stepped on is detected by said detection means; and evaluation means for providing a higher score the smaller the measurement result." // FWIW the Mario Kart patent you cite refers to methods of controlling NPC in order to provide strong rivals, avoid bunching of NPC in racing games and provide variation in race orders despite relatively fixed characteristics (acceleration and top-speed). None of that prevents you having cars with the same styles, having the same tracks, having the same end goals, having the same range of pickups and such - it only relates to specific algorithms for providing competing computer controlled cars/NPC.
    - monochromatic 12y ago
      > Games are not copyrightable I have no idea why you think this.
      - nknighthb 12y ago
        http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html This is long settled in US law. Things like art and text are copyrightable. The game itself is not.
        forrestthewoods 12y ago
        The sentence "games are not copyrightable" isn't particularly meaningful. That does not inform what is or is not protected. The link in question does not say that games are not protected. It says, and I quote, "Copyright does not protect the idea for a game". Keyword: idea. The idea is not protected. The expression is. What is a game if not an expression of an idea? I would not call the idea for a game a game. I would call the expression of an idea a game. Therefore I would consider games protected by copyright. At least in casual conversation. When speaking in legal terms there is a lot more nuance. On one hand you can say that games are not protected. Tetris however is. And has successfully been defended us such in court. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/defining-tetris-how-courts-judge-gaming-clones/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/defining-tetris-how-co... If you re-created Mario 64 from scratch but art swapped every asset with something original you would get bitchslapped in court. Hard. The layout and configuration of levels is not an idea. It's an expression of an idea. If you want to make a different level using different assets but using the same mechanics of Mario 64 then that is probably acceptable. You're making your own expression. It does get a little tricky if you start copying the physics of Mario 64 precisely. There are lots of platformers. Why copy the exactly moveset from Mario 64? Why meticulously reverse engineer the physics of jumping from Mario 64? Copy too much and you run risk of losing a copyright suit as demonstrated by Tetris.
        nknighthb 12y ago
        > What is a game if not an expression of an idea? A set of rules. Such rules are potentially eligible for patent protection. They are not eligible for copyright protection. > On one hand you can say that games are not protected. Tetris however is. And has successfully been defended us such in court. I suggest you read the actual text of the Mino decision, which rests heavily on visual elements, not gameplay. I also suggest you not put too much stock in the decision of a single district court judge. District court decisions are not binding precedent. Especially ones obviously written by a judge who either doesn't understand what the functional elements of a game are, or was looking for an excuse to find for Tetris. > The layout and configuration of levels is not an idea. Those would be assets.
    - MrDosu 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure copyright isn't everything in this. Trademarks seem a much higher legal barrier for example.
    - sspiff 12y ago
      As Nintendo supports Unity on the Wii U, this would have been a great project as a tutorial for indie Wii U devs. Now though, I can't see this as being acceptable for Nintendo.
  - duaneb 12y ago
    I'm not sure if you understand the video game industry, but literally every popular game is a clone of something that came before it. EDIT: This is obviously not true for some X where X is a base case of a popular game genre (e.g. Portal, Donkey Kong, Wolfenstein 3d), but it's generally true. Mario 64 is just a 3d platformer at some level, which is why it's so easy to clone.
    - gharbad 12y ago
      Portal: Narbacular Drop Wolfenstein 3d: Catacomb 3d Note- I'm not certain that the games on the right are the originators of the genre of games on the left, but they certainly came prior.
      - Chinjut 12y ago
        The games on the right certainly are the originators of the games on the left; in fact, in both cases, the developers of the game on the right were the very team which followed up by developing the game on the left.
    - oldmanjay 12y ago
      Either you've redefined "literally" or "cloned" to mean something they don't mean. Or both.
- eloisant 12y ago
  That's the thing when you get to use a powerful game engine: there is value in the game mechanisms, game assets but not so much in the code.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ostyn 12y ago
Anyone start a github repo yet?
louhike 12y ago
That's really great as most advanced examples for Unity are at a high price. Most free projects on the web are quite simples. It can be a great starting point to make a 3D platform game.
gr3yh47 12y ago
It's a cool project with a lot of effort in it. One gripe though... "Everything is just as you remember, except some really minor stuff that nobody cared about like red coins or the Wing Cap or the Big Bob-omb." Chain Chomp is missing and lots of people cared about him, and there is a TON of environmental detail missing too, causing the level to look very empty.
- d23 12y ago
  Nobody cared about the red coins? Nobody cares about the wing cap?! Nobody cared about Big Bom-bomb?!? This is blasphemy.
  - artmageddon 12y ago
    See publicfig's comment - the author states that he was kidding, but didn't finish it since it would've added a lot of time to the project.
- hartator 12y ago
  I think he was sacarstic.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- publicfig 12y ago
  From the comments: "Haha I was mostly kidding about the Wing Cap. It’s actually one of my favourite parts of the game! But the time it would take to do the code and animations would just have been too much extra. Same goes for the other moves, since it took awhile to do each animation. I tried to make sure all the essentials were in first and foremost. Glad you liked it!"
- Rapzid 12y ago
  > ...minor stuff that nobody cared about like red coins... Wahhhhhhhhh!(?). You needed the red coins to get the star! Who DIDN'T care about the red coins?! I'm not a completionist, but getting the red coins in Mario64 was actually a fun challenge and not some tedious badge task.
angersock 12y ago
I like their response to the person who suggested not open-sourcing it: "Most closed source things will likely be useless in 5-10 years unless constantly updated, and even though not likely. Once opensourced, however, it can endure. You get tired of it, feel it is done, or just need to move on, someone can always come in and make sure it works on new systems. "
mfisher87 12y ago
I noticed an issue with the music : There is a monotone guitar riff in the background that clashes with the main melody at times. Listen carefully and I think once you notice it, it will not stop bothering you.
- roryokane 12y ago
  The background music is “Nostalgic Fortress”, copied directly from Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy 2. I hear the guitar riff in the left audio channel, but I don’t notice it ever clashing with the main melody. It plays varied chords most of the time. When it is monotonous from 0:39 to 0:55, the note it repeats is always a note in the underlying chord, so I still don’t perceive it as clashing.
bsimpson 12y ago
Holy intellectual property infringement, Batman!
- Crito 12y ago
  Yeah, I seem to remember a very similar project (resurrecting this game in HD) being DMCA'd to hell and back a few years ago. Has Nintendo eased up in recent years?
  - anon4 12y ago
    He's not trying to resurrect the game though, he just wrote a character controller so you can implement mario-like control in your game and showcased it with assets from the mario games. Still, I expect Nintendo to come calling any day now and demand that he remove all assets he ripped out. When that happens, I suggest he call it Dangerous Dave Controller.
abhididdigi 12y ago
This is super awesome. Is the code available too?
josephschmoe 12y ago
Honestly, I would love to start seeing platformers like this come out for the PC.
- makepanic 12y ago
  There is "a hat in time"[1] which looks really promising and is currently in beta. [1] - http://hatintime.com/ http://hatintime.com/
- emodendroket 12y ago
  Sonic Generations is on PC and people have made some neat level mods for it.
- taco_emoji 12y ago
  Yes! Mario 64 is a game I will continue to replay for the rest of my life.
- mihok 12y ago
  Like Super Smash Bros, man I spent hours on the N64 version!
- pajaroide 12y ago
  This recent game is exactly that. Also made in Unity: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680102942/freezeme https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680102942/freezeme
  - joshmn 12y ago
    This feels so ripped. The soundtrack alone feels like someone just chopped up pieces of Mario 64's theme and randomly pasted them together. And maybe changed the pitch.
    - fiblye 12y ago
      The air spin attack was definitely just a Mario jump sound with the pitch adjusted. It seems to be a 1:1 copy of Mario 64/Galaxy mechanics but without any of the aesthetic charm. Inspiration's good and all, but straight up copying isn't. That's just insanely off-putting to me.
dmbaggett 12y ago
Fun fact: we (Naughty Dog) actually had Crash Bandicoot running on SGI workstations in high resolutions using (I think) OpenGL back in 1996. You had to use the keyboard to play, though. :) See http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ for more making-of details. EDIT: And they were running 200Mhz MIPS CPUs - blazing fast!
- bananaoomarang 12y ago
  Damn that's cool :P
- jimmaswell 12y ago
  That blog post series is highly informative and interesting, and goes over a lot of cool technical specifics. I highly recommend reading it to anyone who hasn't.
- curiously 12y ago
  One of my all time favorite is Crash Bandicoot. Love reading gems like this! can't find the bit about the opengl tho
  - dmbaggett 12y ago
    Maybe Andy forgot to mention it; it's been a while since I've read the whole series. The code was C and lisp so it didn't really require any effort to port other than replacing the rendering pipeline. And we used the SGIs to pre-render every frame anyway, to precompute the polygon sort order. (The PS1 had no Z-buffer, so you were stuck sorting polygons at run-time if you didn't do something clever.) So we already had the rendering pipeline ported. Obviously you couldn't save your game to the memory card, etc. -- some stuff didn't work. But the game was playable (albeit very frustrating with keyboard controls).
    - marktangotango 12y ago
      That blows my mind, I always assumed it did have a z buffer. So what did you guys do to remedy 'z fighting' triangles? My interest is; I wrote a 3d renderer in Java using fillPolygon() many years ago, and used polygon sorting in place of a z buffer. Z fighting was of course a problem.
nly 12y ago
Couldn't get it to run under Chromium or Firefox on Linux. Even reset Chromium (since I rarely use it) to defaults. Nudda, blank. Does anyone know what this requires?
- jbevain 12y ago
  It requires the Unity WebPlayer, unfortunately not available on Linux: https://unity3d.com/webplayer https://unity3d.com/webplayer
exabrial 12y ago
Please: GoldenEye and MarioKart!
dejv_cz1 12y ago
It's perfect, I'd really appreciate if the code would be available too.
- MattRix 12y ago
  It is, there's a link to download the Unity project on that page.
  - dejv_cz1 12y ago
    Thank you!
oliv__ 12y ago
Holy shit, the internet is crazy, this is amazing! It brings back lots of memories...games were so good back then!
ikken 12y ago
"available for the two most popular operating systems and some lame one nobody outside of it’s devoted cult following actually likes." Really? Lame one? Devoted cult?
- DannoHung 12y ago
  It's a joke. You can interpret any of them as the lame one.
  - Danieru 12y ago
    No, not really, no one would contest that Mac and Windows are the two most popular OSes. Edit: still a fine joke, but not funny for the ambiguity.
- codeulike 12y ago
  He doesn't say which is which, I think thats the joke.
  - ikken 12y ago
    I thought so too, but saying "two most popular" actually makes it perfectly clear which one he refers to later.
sneak 12y ago
How many of you just downloaded and executed this on a system that can read your email passwords, pgp keys, ssh keys, and dropbox session token?
- cschep 12y ago
  is there a reason we should be worried about that? :)
- pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
  I didn't. I used the asm.js version.
  - DiThi 12y ago
    Where is it? I think you used the plugin version instead.
    - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
      Oh, yeah. I did, I forgot I installed the plugin.
- EwanG 12y ago
  Such is the reason that the VM per app was born :-) Though since this was written in Unity, it would be pretty easy to detect if it were using any of the networking libraries.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    A hypothetical trojan horse doesn't have to use the network itself. It could just hide some essential data and/or plant a vulnerability for a later attack.
lttlrck 12y ago
That games still looks special just from the stills.
wolfgke 12y ago
I really ask, why the people do remakes (and mods) of games and risk to be taken down for copyright violations. I think, it would be much more sensible to invest this creativity into creating new games that aren't burdened with copyright pitfalls.
- DanBC 12y ago
  "Super Mario 64 HD" gets over 250 HN points. "Cool Game I Made Using Unity" gets, well, not that much.
  - wolfgke 12y ago
    This clearly shows that people love copyright violations. Why aren't they at least consequent and lobby for far more liberal copyright laws. One says "put your money, where your mouth is". I say "put you lobbying, where you HN upvoting is".
- Rapzid 12y ago
  Most of these project fold like a cheap suite and could potentially fall under fair use as they are not selling anything.
docbrain 12y ago
@jrushing, this might be the greatest thing ever? Though idk if I trust the author yet. I might try it on a blank computer so no important info gets stolen, just in case ;)
- Abundnce10 12y ago
  Is that specific to just this game? Or is that the case for all games built on top of Unity?
miduil 12y ago
There is also a blender based 'remake' (only a demonstration of it actually) on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9ADXfvnVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9ADXfvnVo
michaelbuddy 12y ago
I don't understand it. I can't complete the level. Is it just the one level?
drussell 12y ago
What a great game. Anything that inspired the Half-Life games is good in my book.

Super Mario 64 HD

359 points by fla 12y ago

camhenlin 12y ago

Cool, seems like it would be the beginnings of a sellable game if it didn't use a bunch of Nintendo assets

vlunkr 12y ago
Assets? It's literally a clone of a Nintendo product.
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  Games are not copyrightable, assets are. That said, i can't see this end in anything else other than a C&D unless he actually talks to nintendo.
  - th0br0 12y ago
    Wait, in the US APIs are copyrightable but Games aren't? ...
    - icebraining 12y ago
      APIs are copyrightable? I don't think so. Oracle lost, after all. However, on the primary copyright issue of the APIs, the court ruled that "So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical." The ruling found that the structure Oracle was claiming was not copyrightable under section 102(b) of the Copyright Act because it was a "system or method of operation."
      - djur 12y ago
        That ruling was overturned on appeal. From the same Wikipedia page: _The appeals court reversed the district court on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable._
    - DavidAdams 12y ago
      The game's actual source code would be under copyright, but presumably you could re-write a game and exactly copy its gameplay and that wouldn't be copyright infringement any more than writing a poem using the same meter with different words as a famous poem would infringe.
      - lost_name 12y ago
        > any more than writing a poem using the same meter with different words as a famous poem would infringe This is clearly a rabbit hole of exceptions and ifs, but this somehow doesn't apply to music as well, based on the recent judgement over Blurred Lines (the song).
  - ambler0 12y ago
    This statement surprised me. Is it really true? It appears that there is conflicting precedent: "The first approach is from the 2nd circuit "The Subtractive Approach" (Altai, Nichols) and the other approach is "The Concept and Feel Approach" (Ruth Greeting Cards, Krofft)" http://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/Video_Games_law_Copyright_Trademark_Intellectual_Property#What%20parts%20of%20the%20video%20game%20are%20copyrightable http://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/Video_Games_law_Co...? I am curious to know what would happen if someone decided to clone the exact level design of a game but changed all the audio/visual assets.
    - mathgeek 12y ago
      > I am curious to know what would happen if someone decided to clone the exact level design of a game but changed all the audio/visual assets. This actually happened quite often in early generations of computer games and consoles. Super Mario Bros had quite a few clones where all that changed were the visual assets. More recently, there are many examples of this happening on the iOS App Store and other venues with a low barrier to entry.
      - ambler0 12y ago
        I seemed to recall such Mario clones as well. Nintendo is quite protective of their IP, so I have to think that they must have threatened legal action. Does anyone know? Is there precedent for legally protecting the layout of a level?
        emodendroket 12y ago
        Are these bootleg carts? Otherwise they had to approve of everything that was sold on the NES.
        ambler0 12y ago
        I think the clone I'm semi-remembering was a PC game. Regarding your second question: There were very many unlicensed Nintendo games. I don't know how many of these Nintendo fought. They very famously battled Tengen over this issue in the courts.
  - HeXetic 12y ago
    The "Mario" character is copyrighted.
    - pkaye 12y ago
      Super Maryo Chronicles
    - thirsteh 12y ago
      And trademarked. Edit: and :)
      - forrestthewoods 12y ago
        Characters are subject to copyright. http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/04/copyright-in-fictional-characters-can-i.html http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/04/copyright-in-fictiona...
        thirsteh 12y ago
        Interesting.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    A concrete example: the classic game "Descent" was written by Parallax and published by Interplay. The split-up remnant of Parallax owns all of the assets -- the ship name and artwork, the name of the evil corporation, the music, the robot artwork. Interplay owns the name Descent. Anybody can make a game that flies like Descent (Sol Contingency and Geocore are both trying to), but only an Interplay-licensed company can call their game "Descent", and only a Parallax-licensed company can put in the "Pyro-GX" and the "PTMC". And there seems to be some distrust between the two companies. This has led to a fair bit of complication for the Interplay-licensed Descent:Underground game (currently on kickstarter -- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/descent-underground https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/desce... ). A lot of fans are asking "where's the pyro?" Well, they can't have the pyro, because they don't have a license for that part of the game. They can make a ship that looks fairly similar and flies identically, but it has to be identifiably visually different and have a different name.
  - mksaunders 12y ago
    He should just call it Great Giana Sisters 64 HD...
    - alcari 12y ago
      Black Forest Games is still around, and making Giana Sisters games.
  - KeytarHero 12y ago
    But they are patentable (or at least elements of them can be). Konami successfully sued[1] the makers of In The Groove, a Dance Dance Revolution clone. I know parts of Mario Kart are patented[2], so I wouldn't be too surprised if parts of Super Mario 64 are patented as well, given that it pioneered the 3D platformer genre. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Corp._v._Roxor_Games_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Corp._v._Roxor_Games_Inc. [2] http://www.google.com/patents/US7278913#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents/US7278913#v=onepage&q&f=false
    - greggman 12y ago
      Yes but patents only last 17 years? Super Mario 64 is 18-19 years old
      - autoreleasepool 12y ago
        Patents can be evergreened with minor changes[0]. Pure speculation: It's possible Super Mario Sunshine(2002), Super Mario Galaxy(2007) and other Mario-like 3D could have "refreshed" any patents from Super Mario 64. That is, if any patents from Mario 64 exist. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      FWIW this http://www.leagle.com/decision/20061170445FSupp2d725_11105 http://www.leagle.com/decision/20061170445FSupp2d725_11105 appears to be the text of the decision, I couldn't find a non-commercial source for the text: gpo.gov only has N, W and S Districts of Texas for some reason. The patent in question, http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6410835 http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6410835. Espacenet has it too of course, http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=US&NR=2001004861A1&FT=D http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=..., but Google is better is it gives the B2 published form of the claims as opposed to the A1 first submitted form. Major fail there for the EPO's ESPACENET in my opinion. Claims 1, priority date is 24 July 1998: >"1. A dance game apparatus comprising: music output means for outputting one piece of music from at least one stored piece of music; a floor panel having a step-on base section; said step-on base section comprising a top panel and a support member which supports the panel; detection means for detecting a stepping operation on said step-on base section; said detection means comprising stepping sensors interposed between said panel and said support member at mutually opposing positions of said panel; said stepping sensors comprising longitudinally extending conductive sections having a longitudinal length, one of said conductive sections being moveable laterally relative to another of said conductive sections at any one of a plurality of positions along the longitudinal length of said one conductive section to effect contact with said other conductive sections at any one of a plurality of corresponding contact positions such that said stepping sensors detect stepping on said step-on base sections at plural locations corresponding to said plurality of corresponding contact positions, guidance means for performing a stepping operation instruction to said step-on base section in time with said music; measurement means for measuring a time deviation between the timing of a stepping operation instruction and the time at which the fact that said step-on base section is stepped on is detected by said detection means; and evaluation means for providing a higher score the smaller the measurement result." // FWIW the Mario Kart patent you cite refers to methods of controlling NPC in order to provide strong rivals, avoid bunching of NPC in racing games and provide variation in race orders despite relatively fixed characteristics (acceleration and top-speed). None of that prevents you having cars with the same styles, having the same tracks, having the same end goals, having the same range of pickups and such - it only relates to specific algorithms for providing competing computer controlled cars/NPC.
  - monochromatic 12y ago
    > Games are not copyrightable I have no idea why you think this.
    - nknighthb 12y ago
      http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html This is long settled in US law. Things like art and text are copyrightable. The game itself is not.
      - forrestthewoods 12y ago
        The sentence "games are not copyrightable" isn't particularly meaningful. That does not inform what is or is not protected. The link in question does not say that games are not protected. It says, and I quote, "Copyright does not protect the idea for a game". Keyword: idea. The idea is not protected. The expression is. What is a game if not an expression of an idea? I would not call the idea for a game a game. I would call the expression of an idea a game. Therefore I would consider games protected by copyright. At least in casual conversation. When speaking in legal terms there is a lot more nuance. On one hand you can say that games are not protected. Tetris however is. And has successfully been defended us such in court. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/defining-tetris-how-courts-judge-gaming-clones/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/defining-tetris-how-co... If you re-created Mario 64 from scratch but art swapped every asset with something original you would get bitchslapped in court. Hard. The layout and configuration of levels is not an idea. It's an expression of an idea. If you want to make a different level using different assets but using the same mechanics of Mario 64 then that is probably acceptable. You're making your own expression. It does get a little tricky if you start copying the physics of Mario 64 precisely. There are lots of platformers. Why copy the exactly moveset from Mario 64? Why meticulously reverse engineer the physics of jumping from Mario 64? Copy too much and you run risk of losing a copyright suit as demonstrated by Tetris.
        nknighthb 12y ago
        > What is a game if not an expression of an idea? A set of rules. Such rules are potentially eligible for patent protection. They are not eligible for copyright protection. > On one hand you can say that games are not protected. Tetris however is. And has successfully been defended us such in court. I suggest you read the actual text of the Mino decision, which rests heavily on visual elements, not gameplay. I also suggest you not put too much stock in the decision of a single district court judge. District court decisions are not binding precedent. Especially ones obviously written by a judge who either doesn't understand what the functional elements of a game are, or was looking for an excuse to find for Tetris. > The layout and configuration of levels is not an idea. Those would be assets.
  - MrDosu 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure copyright isn't everything in this. Trademarks seem a much higher legal barrier for example.
  - sspiff 12y ago
    As Nintendo supports Unity on the Wii U, this would have been a great project as a tutorial for indie Wii U devs. Now though, I can't see this as being acceptable for Nintendo.
- duaneb 12y ago
  I'm not sure if you understand the video game industry, but literally every popular game is a clone of something that came before it. EDIT: This is obviously not true for some X where X is a base case of a popular game genre (e.g. Portal, Donkey Kong, Wolfenstein 3d), but it's generally true. Mario 64 is just a 3d platformer at some level, which is why it's so easy to clone.
  - gharbad 12y ago
    Portal: Narbacular Drop Wolfenstein 3d: Catacomb 3d Note- I'm not certain that the games on the right are the originators of the genre of games on the left, but they certainly came prior.
    - Chinjut 12y ago
      The games on the right certainly are the originators of the games on the left; in fact, in both cases, the developers of the game on the right were the very team which followed up by developing the game on the left.
  - oldmanjay 12y ago
    Either you've redefined "literally" or "cloned" to mean something they don't mean. Or both.
eloisant 12y ago
That's the thing when you get to use a powerful game engine: there is value in the game mechanisms, game assets but not so much in the code.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ostyn 12y ago

Anyone start a github repo yet?

louhike 12y ago

That's really great as most advanced examples for Unity are at a high price. Most free projects on the web are quite simples. It can be a great starting point to make a 3D platform game.

gr3yh47 12y ago

It's a cool project with a lot of effort in it. One gripe though... "Everything is just as you remember, except some really minor stuff that nobody cared about like red coins or the Wing Cap or the Big Bob-omb." Chain Chomp is missing and lots of people cared about him, and there is a TON of environmental detail missing too, causing the level to look very empty.

d23 12y ago
Nobody cared about the red coins? Nobody cares about the wing cap?! Nobody cared about Big Bom-bomb?!? This is blasphemy.
- artmageddon 12y ago
  See publicfig's comment - the author states that he was kidding, but didn't finish it since it would've added a lot of time to the project.
hartator 12y ago
I think he was sacarstic.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
publicfig 12y ago
From the comments: "Haha I was mostly kidding about the Wing Cap. It’s actually one of my favourite parts of the game! But the time it would take to do the code and animations would just have been too much extra. Same goes for the other moves, since it took awhile to do each animation. I tried to make sure all the essentials were in first and foremost. Glad you liked it!"
Rapzid 12y ago
> ...minor stuff that nobody cared about like red coins... Wahhhhhhhhh!(?). You needed the red coins to get the star! Who DIDN'T care about the red coins?! I'm not a completionist, but getting the red coins in Mario64 was actually a fun challenge and not some tedious badge task.

angersock 12y ago

I like their response to the person who suggested not open-sourcing it: "Most closed source things will likely be useless in 5-10 years unless constantly updated, and even though not likely. Once opensourced, however, it can endure. You get tired of it, feel it is done, or just need to move on, someone can always come in and make sure it works on new systems. "

mfisher87 12y ago

I noticed an issue with the music : There is a monotone guitar riff in the background that clashes with the main melody at times. Listen carefully and I think once you notice it, it will not stop bothering you.

roryokane 12y ago
The background music is “Nostalgic Fortress”, copied directly from Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy 2. I hear the guitar riff in the left audio channel, but I don’t notice it ever clashing with the main melody. It plays varied chords most of the time. When it is monotonous from 0:39 to 0:55, the note it repeats is always a note in the underlying chord, so I still don’t perceive it as clashing.

bsimpson 12y ago

Holy intellectual property infringement, Batman!

Crito 12y ago
Yeah, I seem to remember a very similar project (resurrecting this game in HD) being DMCA'd to hell and back a few years ago. Has Nintendo eased up in recent years?
- anon4 12y ago
  He's not trying to resurrect the game though, he just wrote a character controller so you can implement mario-like control in your game and showcased it with assets from the mario games. Still, I expect Nintendo to come calling any day now and demand that he remove all assets he ripped out. When that happens, I suggest he call it Dangerous Dave Controller.

abhididdigi 12y ago

This is super awesome. Is the code available too?

josephschmoe 12y ago

Honestly, I would love to start seeing platformers like this come out for the PC.

makepanic 12y ago
There is "a hat in time"[1] which looks really promising and is currently in beta. [1] - http://hatintime.com/ http://hatintime.com/
emodendroket 12y ago
Sonic Generations is on PC and people have made some neat level mods for it.
taco_emoji 12y ago
Yes! Mario 64 is a game I will continue to replay for the rest of my life.
mihok 12y ago
Like Super Smash Bros, man I spent hours on the N64 version!
pajaroide 12y ago
This recent game is exactly that. Also made in Unity: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680102942/freezeme https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680102942/freezeme
- joshmn 12y ago
  This feels so ripped. The soundtrack alone feels like someone just chopped up pieces of Mario 64's theme and randomly pasted them together. And maybe changed the pitch.
  - fiblye 12y ago
    The air spin attack was definitely just a Mario jump sound with the pitch adjusted. It seems to be a 1:1 copy of Mario 64/Galaxy mechanics but without any of the aesthetic charm. Inspiration's good and all, but straight up copying isn't. That's just insanely off-putting to me.

dmbaggett 12y ago

Fun fact: we (Naughty Dog) actually had Crash Bandicoot running on SGI workstations in high resolutions using (I think) OpenGL back in 1996. You had to use the keyboard to play, though. :) See http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ for more making-of details. EDIT: And they were running 200Mhz MIPS CPUs - blazing fast!

bananaoomarang 12y ago
Damn that's cool :P
jimmaswell 12y ago
That blog post series is highly informative and interesting, and goes over a lot of cool technical specifics. I highly recommend reading it to anyone who hasn't.
curiously 12y ago
One of my all time favorite is Crash Bandicoot. Love reading gems like this! can't find the bit about the opengl tho
- dmbaggett 12y ago
  Maybe Andy forgot to mention it; it's been a while since I've read the whole series. The code was C and lisp so it didn't really require any effort to port other than replacing the rendering pipeline. And we used the SGIs to pre-render every frame anyway, to precompute the polygon sort order. (The PS1 had no Z-buffer, so you were stuck sorting polygons at run-time if you didn't do something clever.) So we already had the rendering pipeline ported. Obviously you couldn't save your game to the memory card, etc. -- some stuff didn't work. But the game was playable (albeit very frustrating with keyboard controls).
  - marktangotango 12y ago
    That blows my mind, I always assumed it did have a z buffer. So what did you guys do to remedy 'z fighting' triangles? My interest is; I wrote a 3d renderer in Java using fillPolygon() many years ago, and used polygon sorting in place of a z buffer. Z fighting was of course a problem.

nly 12y ago

Couldn't get it to run under Chromium or Firefox on Linux. Even reset Chromium (since I rarely use it) to defaults. Nudda, blank. Does anyone know what this requires?

jbevain 12y ago
It requires the Unity WebPlayer, unfortunately not available on Linux: https://unity3d.com/webplayer https://unity3d.com/webplayer

exabrial 12y ago

Please: GoldenEye and MarioKart!

dejv_cz1 12y ago

It's perfect, I'd really appreciate if the code would be available too.

MattRix 12y ago
It is, there's a link to download the Unity project on that page.
- dejv_cz1 12y ago
  Thank you!

oliv__ 12y ago

Holy shit, the internet is crazy, this is amazing! It brings back lots of memories...games were so good back then!

ikken 12y ago

"available for the two most popular operating systems and some lame one nobody outside of it’s devoted cult following actually likes." Really? Lame one? Devoted cult?

DannoHung 12y ago
It's a joke. You can interpret any of them as the lame one.
- Danieru 12y ago
  No, not really, no one would contest that Mac and Windows are the two most popular OSes. Edit: still a fine joke, but not funny for the ambiguity.
codeulike 12y ago
He doesn't say which is which, I think thats the joke.
- ikken 12y ago
  I thought so too, but saying "two most popular" actually makes it perfectly clear which one he refers to later.

sneak 12y ago

How many of you just downloaded and executed this on a system that can read your email passwords, pgp keys, ssh keys, and dropbox session token?

cschep 12y ago
is there a reason we should be worried about that? :)
pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
I didn't. I used the asm.js version.
- DiThi 12y ago
  Where is it? I think you used the plugin version instead.
  - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
    Oh, yeah. I did, I forgot I installed the plugin.
EwanG 12y ago
Such is the reason that the VM per app was born :-) Though since this was written in Unity, it would be pretty easy to detect if it were using any of the networking libraries.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  A hypothetical trojan horse doesn't have to use the network itself. It could just hide some essential data and/or plant a vulnerability for a later attack.

lttlrck 12y ago

That games still looks special just from the stills.

wolfgke 12y ago

I really ask, why the people do remakes (and mods) of games and risk to be taken down for copyright violations. I think, it would be much more sensible to invest this creativity into creating new games that aren't burdened with copyright pitfalls.

DanBC 12y ago
"Super Mario 64 HD" gets over 250 HN points. "Cool Game I Made Using Unity" gets, well, not that much.
- wolfgke 12y ago
  This clearly shows that people love copyright violations. Why aren't they at least consequent and lobby for far more liberal copyright laws. One says "put your money, where your mouth is". I say "put you lobbying, where you HN upvoting is".
Rapzid 12y ago
Most of these project fold like a cheap suite and could potentially fall under fair use as they are not selling anything.

docbrain 12y ago

@jrushing, this might be the greatest thing ever? Though idk if I trust the author yet. I might try it on a blank computer so no important info gets stolen, just in case ;)

Abundnce10 12y ago
Is that specific to just this game? Or is that the case for all games built on top of Unity?

miduil 12y ago

There is also a blender based 'remake' (only a demonstration of it actually) on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9ADXfvnVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9ADXfvnVo

michaelbuddy 12y ago

I don't understand it. I can't complete the level. Is it just the one level?

drussell 12y ago

What a great game. Anything that inspired the Half-Life games is good in my book.