Leaked Wipeout Source Code Leads To Near-Total Rewrite and Remaster (arstechnica.com) 21
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There have been a lot of Wipeout games released since the 1995 original, including Wipeout HD and the Omega Collection, but only the original has the distinction of having its Windows port source code leaked by (since defunct) archive Forest of Illusion. Dominic Szablewski grabbed that code before it disappeared and set about creating a version that's not just a port. He rewrote the game's rendering, physics, sound, and generally "everything everywhere." He documented the project, put his code on GitHub, and has some version of a justification. "So let's just pretend that the leak was intentional, a rewrite of the source falls under fair use and the whole thing is abandonware anyway," Szablewski writes.
As he digs into the specifics of his work, Szablewski takes the reader on a tour of PSX dev kits and how they handled Z-levels, how to translate yesterday's triangles to today's OpenGL, breaking the 30 FPS cap on a game that explicitly forbade that, and more. He takes the code from 40,699 lines to 7,731 and notably loved an excuse to work in C. "I had an absolute blast cleaning up this mess!" Szablewski's Wipeout rewrite can be compiled for Windows, Linux, Mac, and WASM (Web Assembly). You can even play it in your browser on his server (please be gentle). I spent some time in it this morning, and let me tell you: I am not ready for anti-gravity racing in the year 2052. It was a struggle to even get to fourth place, but those struggles were due entirely to skill, not system. The web version feels buttery smooth, even when you're continually clunking into walls. I had misremembered this game as having a lot more to it, but it's all feel: the trance/prog music, the physics, the controls, and the sense that you're always just slightly out of control.
As he digs into the specifics of his work, Szablewski takes the reader on a tour of PSX dev kits and how they handled Z-levels, how to translate yesterday's triangles to today's OpenGL, breaking the 30 FPS cap on a game that explicitly forbade that, and more. He takes the code from 40,699 lines to 7,731 and notably loved an excuse to work in C. "I had an absolute blast cleaning up this mess!" Szablewski's Wipeout rewrite can be compiled for Windows, Linux, Mac, and WASM (Web Assembly). You can even play it in your browser on his server (please be gentle). I spent some time in it this morning, and let me tell you: I am not ready for anti-gravity racing in the year 2052. It was a struggle to even get to fourth place, but those struggles were due entirely to skill, not system. The web version feels buttery smooth, even when you're continually clunking into walls. I had misremembered this game as having a lot more to it, but it's all feel: the trance/prog music, the physics, the controls, and the sense that you're always just slightly out of control.
Fair use? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFS:
a rewrite of the source falls under fair use
No. That is not "fair use".
Fair use is copying a few quotes for a newspaper article, not a rewrite of an entire work.
Re: (Score:3)
If the final product, when displayed, has all the same names, colors, music, and track layouts, then it probably doesn't fall under fair use. Ironically, those would be the easiest things to change. Just add some open license music, some custom or even procedurally generated tracks, an open license font, and some new names and color schemes and you could legally sell the game for profit.
Re: (Score:2)
That only affects the compiled version though. The source code is completely legal.
This isn't the first time either. Mario 64 has been completely reverse engineered, to the point where you can take the reproduction source code and build a binary that it bit for bit identical to the original ROM. Of course you need some art assets like graphics and music to go along with it, and there are scripts to extract those from an image of the original game's ROM.
Re: (Score:1)
40k lines of C, condensed down to 7k suggests that most of the work is not embodied in the code, but in libraries and more importantly the game art. I'd never heard of this one. It looks like a race-and-shoot game, fairly simple game play but the web version has a 140meg download option and that's got to be mostly art. It's almost entirely a rip-off of that, so definitely not fair use.
OTOH, clean-rooming the code part and designing your own art seems like fair game. The race-and-shoot concept can't be c
Situation: (Score:2)
Re: Situation: (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, next year we will get systemd-wipeout
Re: (Score:2)
There are 14 competing Wipeouts.
Next year there will be at least 15 competing Wipteouts.
Paraphrasing the old XKCD meme
https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
Sarah McLachlan (Score:3)
Fun fact: the demo for this game is the reason why I'm a fan of Sarah McLachlan to this day.
Re: (Score:2)
Seeing as the soundtrack featured CoLD SToRAGE, Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers and Orbital (almost all of which I'm a fan of due to the game) - where does Sarah McLachlan enter the picture?
Re: (Score:3)
Back in the 90s, the internet was barely fast enough for low-res pictures, let alone full multimedia applications. There was this thing called Launch [atlasobscura.com] that was a cross between a modern multimedia website and a magazine that was distributed through the mail on a CD-ROM. The "magazine" had interviews, cartoons, comedic sketches, and other stuff on it. It also, occasionally, included demos for various video games. As my father was in the tech industry back then, he'd subscribed to it for like 6-months or a year
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, okay - so it's a "you kinda had to be there" thing... :)
It seems crazy now (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
> Doom, Doom2 and Heretic weren't actually 3D games
This lie needs to die in a fire. The source code for mobj_s [github.com] has X, Y, and Z for coordinates:
It was LIMITED 3D, just not GENERAL 3D. i.e. No sloping floors but it was still 3D since sector's had height.
Legal Definition (Score:2)
But wouldn't this be like the code equivalent of performing a cover version of a song at one of your own concerts? Szablewski is basically recreating the work "by ear".