Let's pick some old classic game, reverse engineer the data formats and game rules and write an open source engine for it from scratch. Some games from 1990s are simple enough that we could have a playable prototype by the end of the week.

Write which games you'd like to hack on in the comments. Don't forget to check e.g. on Open Source Game Clones, Github and SourceForge whether the game is ported already.

Hack Week 20, 21, 22 & 23 - Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

Master of Orion II is one of the greatest turn-based 4X games of the 1990s. Explore the galaxy, colonize planets, research new technologies, fight space monsters and alien empires and in the end, become the ruler of the galaxy one way or another.

How to install & play:

  • Clone the Git repository
  • Run ./bootstrap; ./configure; make && make install
  • Copy all *.LBX files from the original Master of Orion II to the installation data directory (/usr/local/share/openorion2 by default)
  • Run openorion2

Further work needed:

  • Analyze the rest of the original savegame format and a few remaining data files.
  • Implement most of the game. The open source engine currently supports only loading saved games from the original version and viewing the galaxy map, fleet management and list of known planets.

Hack Week 19 - Signus: The Artifact Wars

Signus is a Czech turn-based strategy game similar to Panzer General or Battle Isle series. Originally published in 1998 and open-sourced by the original developers in 2003.

How to install & play:

  • Clone the Git repository
  • Run ./bootstrap; ./configure; make && make install in both signus and signus-data directories.
  • Run signus

Further work needed:

  • Create openSUSE package
  • Implement full support for original game data (the open source version uses slightly different data file contents but original game data can be converted using a script).

Looking for hackers with the skills:

sdl reverseengineering c++ games

This project is part of:

Hack Week 19 Hack Week 20 Hack Week 21 Hack Week 22 Hack Week 23

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    Comments

    • jkohoutek
      about 4 years ago by jkohoutek | Reply

      It would be hard to find a game with expired copyright. But I have some recommendations: Hungry Horace Colony

      • MDoucha
        about 4 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

        Copyright status of the original game doesn't matter. We just can't bundle the original game data with the open source engine and if we need to disassemble the original EXE files, we'll need to do a "clean room" implementation of that part of the code. (One person analyzes the disassembled code and writes a spec, another person implements the spec without looking at the disassembled code.)

        The games I had in mind were something like Jagged Alliance, Battle Isle 3, Polda, etc.

    • lpato
      about 4 years ago by lpato | Reply

      X-COM: Ufo defense https://www.gog.com/game/xcom_ufo_defense

      • MDoucha
        about 4 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

        Already fully ported, including Terror from the Deep: OpenXCom Also check out UFO: Alien Invasion

    • MDoucha
      about 3 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My top pick this year: Petroglyph has released the original sources of Command & Conquer and Red Alert as mod SDK under GPLv3. Let's write an SDL front-end for it and make the classic C&C games fully playable again. (Yes, I know OpenRA exists but I'm not installing the Mono bloatware to play it. The original game used to run smoothly on Pentium 90 with 16MB of RAM dammit!)

    • MDoucha
      about 3 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My second pick: Jagged Alliance 1. No sources are available AFAIK, we'll have to reverse engineer it from scratch. We might find some reused AI and game mechanics code in Jagged Alliance 2 sources though.

    • MDoucha
      about 3 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My third pick: Master of Orion 2. Two of our colleagues have tried to remake the engine in Python a while ago but I'd prefer to start from scratch in C++.

      • danidoni
        about 3 years ago by danidoni | Reply

        I'm for this one!

        • MDoucha
          about 3 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

          Not afraid of a challenge, eh? Alright, let's do it!

    • tdz
      about 3 years ago by tdz | Reply

      Maybe Lemmings? It should be doable in a week. Any it turns 30 this year; just like Linux. :)

    • mlnoga
      about 3 years ago by mlnoga | Reply

      Nice one. I would love to see Battle of Britain - Their Finest Hour resurrected from 286 days, especially the campaign mode. Or the Wing Commander series. But these graphically oriented games are probably not doable.

      Strategy games might be more within reach. I made a start on the logic of Capitalism in Golang several years ago. Basis was observed game behavior. I might still have the code lying around somewhere. Paired with a web UI, it might make a nice multiplayer (e.g. the Rancher stack with vue.js).

      • MDoucha
        about 3 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

        Thanks for the tip, I'll definitely keep Capitalism in mind for the next year. There already is a fan remake of one of the Wing Commander games: Privateer: Wing Commander Universe. Though I don't know whether it's playable and how closely it resembles the original Privateer.

    • mlnoga
      about 3 years ago by mlnoga | Reply

      Also check out these gaming-themed ideas: Game for SUSECon, Workadventu.re.

    • MDoucha
      about 2 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My top pick this year is obviously to continue working on Master of Orion II. We've started from scratch during the last Hack Week so most of the work was about internal code infrastructure and reverse engineering with very little to show at the end. But that work is now mostly done and we can start making some big visible progress this year.

      • Easy tasks: implement planet list screen, colony list screen, fleet list screen
      • Medium tasks: implement colony screen, officer pool screen, diplomacy screen, audio subsystem
      • Hard tasks: reverse engineer ship design, research or the rest of savegame format, implement help/info screen, find palettes for space combat sprites

      • danidoni
        almost 2 years ago by danidoni | Reply

        I would join you this year as well. Let see what comes out of this hackweek!

        • MDoucha
          almost 2 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

          Great, looking forward to working together again.

    • MDoucha
      about 2 years ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My second pick this year is to select one existing open source game project from Open Source Game Clones database and contribute to it. Something semi-playable would probably be the best choice but the only real restrictions are the project licence, programming language and access to the original game files. Note that in this case we have to pick a project at least a week before the Hack Week starts so that we can look around the codebase beforehand. I don't want to spend the whole Hack Week just looking for actual issues to fix or missing features to implement.

      I also have a third pick but I'll need to resolve some potential licence issues with the original developers before I say more. Stay tuned.

    • lramage
      about 2 years ago by lramage | Reply

      Anyone interested in a VR project? Or maybe adding VR support to an existing game? Something like Ryzom, https://wiki.ryzom.dev

    • MDoucha
      about 1 year ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My top pick for Hack Week 22 is once again to continue working on Master of Orion II. We've implemented planet list and fleet list screens during the last Hack Week and both are almost feature complete except for actions that change the gamestate (which is intentional for now).

      • Easy tasks: implement colony list screen, officer pool screen, diplomacy screen or fleet window (on galaxy screen)
      • Medium tasks: implement colony screen, audio subsystem, ship detail window, reverse engineer ship design or research
      • Hard tasks: reverse engineer the rest of savegame format, implement help/info screen or star system window (on galaxy screen), find palettes for space combat sprites

    • MDoucha
      about 1 year ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My second pick is to contribute fixes and improvements to OpenGothic. You can pick some task from the project issue tracker or play the game over the holidays until you find some bugs/missing features you'd like to fix. My personal focus would be on improving Gothic 1 support but feel free to work on Gothic 2 as well.

    • MDoucha
      about 1 year ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My third pick is to select some game from the Open Source Game Clones database. Something semi-playable would probably be the best choice but the only real restrictions are the project licence, programming language and access to the original game files.

    • MDoucha
      8 months ago by MDoucha | Reply

      Just like the last time, my top pick for Hack Week 23 is to continue working on Master of Orion II. We've implemented office list screen and part of the colony list screen during Hack Week 22.

      • Easy tasks: Finish colony list screen, implement diplomacy screen, research selection window, fleet window (on galaxy screen) and star system window (ditto)
      • Medium tasks: implement colony screen, audio subsystem, ship detail window, colony production screen, reverse engineer ship design or planet orbit position calculations
      • Hard tasks: reverse engineer the rest of savegame format, implement help/info screen, find palettes for space combat sprites

    • MDoucha
      8 months ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My second pick is to improve the Linux port of Gates of Skeldal. IIRC the game engine needs to be ported to LibSDL 2.0, savegame format needs some fixes and there are a few graphical glitches.

    • MDoucha
      8 months ago by MDoucha | Reply

      My third pick once again is to select some third-party project from the Open Source Game Clones database.

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