[saghm]

In that vein, the other day this got posted to HN: https://twilitrealm.dev/

It uses an independent reimplementation of the code of a Zelda game from the GameCube and combines them with the assets from the actual game to make native binaries for various platforms, which blows my mind a bit but demonstrates the power of this sort of split abstraction.

[F3nd0]

Yes! And there are many other re-implementation projects, like OpenMW, OpenGothic, fheroes2, and others, which allow you to play the games if you can provide the original assets. Largely for older games, but the point stands.

https://openmw.org/

https://github.com/Try/OpenGothic

https://ihhub.github.io/fheroes2/

[dpoloncsak]

Adding on to this but I'm not sure if it's 1:1 what you're talking about.

PokeMMO is a online Pokemon Fangame that combines the first 5 generations of games. From what I gather, this is possible because it is up to the user to provide the ROMs, so litigious Nintendo cannot say they are re-distributing copyrighted material

[saghm]

Does it only use the assets from the original games, or also the scripting? If the former, then I'd say it's basically the same concept that I'm talking about, but with making a new game using the existing assets rather than reimplementing an existing one. If it uses the scripting as well and then provides some extra stuff to merge them and put it online, I'd say it's a slightly different (but still extremely cool!) thing.

[dpoloncsak]

I'm not entirely sure...I know the battle AI is custom, and a few moves are still not implemented. This makes me lean towards "they're scripting it themselves" but it could be a hybrid of the two for all I know

[saghm]

OpenMW has been on my list to try out for a while now, I should have thought of that one. I hadn't heard of OpenGothic, but I also only recently started learning about that game at all with the remake coming out soon, so I might need to add that to my list as well!

This makes me think, is there one of those "awesome" lists for open game reimplementations? If not, someone should make one...

(edit: Thanks for the multiple great replies on this! Now I have even more stuff to go through to add to my lists, and I love having that problem)

[F3nd0]

Yes, there is <https://osgameclones.com/>. Note that not all of the listed games are free software, but many are.

[worble]

Luxtorpeda maintains a pretty comprehensive list of game reimplementations

https://luxtorpeda.org/packages

[t917910]

Unfortunately, open source projects traditionally have a poor AI record. And when (sometimes, contrary to tradition) they make a fully-fledged AI, it plays at a super-expert level and ruins the fun of both campaigns and single-player, turning a simple walk into Saving Private Ryan. I'd call it "made by maniacs for maniacs."

[zuzululu]

WTF!

That is impressive there is OSS Gothic 2

I wonder if its legal, how is it MIT

[saghm]

Presumably from the same methodology they laid out in the parent comment: clean-room reimplementation of the code is fair game, and you have to bring-your-own-assets (ostensibly from a legal copy of the original game, but however you do it is your own choice, not anything the people providing the free code need to be concerned with).

[doctorpangloss]

what power, exactly? that nintendo doesn't care about these guys for some idiosyncratic reason?

[saghm]

The power to have a game natively on platforms it was never implemented on before but look identical to the original. To me, that's honestly cooler and more desirable than emulation; the fact that it's also more defensible from an IP standpoint is just a nice bonus.

I also wouldn't say that "respecting the limits of IP law" is particularly idiosyncratic either; you can make the case that IP owners like Nintendo often overreach due to the inherent advantage of being a large company with a lot more resources than a smaller open source project, but I don't really see it as worthwhile to call them out for not doing that in some cases.

[doctorpangloss]

IP law is peak law nerd, regular lawyers can't make any definitive statements about IP situations, what makes you think that you could?

[saghm]

Do you honestly think that most lawyers couldn't tell you that downloading the Linux source code for personal use is legal under IP law, or that dumping games from a Nintendo Switch and serving them on a website for public download is a violation?

If you think that neither of those definitive statements are something regular lawyers could tell you, I think we just have mutually incompatible perceptions of reality. Otherwise, you're claiming that the boundary between what's transparently a legal or a violation and what's murky is itself obvious, which doesn't really make sense if you don't think that regular lawyers even understand IP law.

It honestly just seems like you're trying to pick a fight for reasons that are not really clear to me. You initially responded derisively to my use of the word "power" to describe a form of abstraction, and when I responded to clarify it, you ignored that part of my response in favor of focusing on a different part and starting a new argument about that.

[doctorpangloss]

> those definitive statements are something regular lawyers could tell you

go ahead and ask. non-IP lawyers will tell you to talk to IP lawyers. another way to think of your two questions is, "in what scenarios would ... be permissible and not permissible, in your opinion?" if you were sincerely interested in learning something.