The source code of these commercially developed and distributed video games is available to the public or the games' communities.
Commercial video games are typically developed as proprietary closed source software products, with the source code treated as a trade secret (unlike open-source video games). When there is no more expected revenue, these games enter the end-of-life as a product with no support or availability for the game's users and community, becoming abandonware.
In several of the cases listed here, the game's developers released the source code expressly to prevent their work from becoming abandonware. Such source code is often released under varying (free and non-free, commercial and non-commercial) software licenses to the games' communities or the public; artwork and data are often released under a different license than the source code, as the copyright situation is different or more complicated. The source code may be pushed by the developers to public repositories (e.g. Sourceforge or GitHub), or given to selected game community members, or sold with the game, or become available by other means. The game may be written in an interpreted language such as BASIC or Python, and distributed as raw source code without being compiled; early software was often distributed in text form, as in the book BASIC Computer Games. In some cases when a game's source code is not available by other means, the game's community "reconstructs" source code from compiled binary files through time-demanding reverse engineering techniques. Source code availability in whatever form allows the games' communities to study how the game works, make modifications, and provide technical support themselves when the official support has ended, e.g. with unofficial patches to fix bugs or source ports to make the game compatible with new platforms.
Title | First release | Source code release | Genre | Engine license | Content license | Original developer | Additional information |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Dark Room | 2013 | 2013 | Online text-based role-playing game | Mozilla Public License | Mozilla Public License | Doublespeak Games | In July 2013 the source code of the game was put on GitHub under MPL 2.0.[1] Became commercially successful after the source code release. |
Abuse | 1995 | 2003 | Run and gun | Public domain software | Public domain and Proprietary* | Crack dot Com | Game source code was released as public domain along with the shareware-released media files.[2] Only shareware data, excluding the sound effects, is in the public domain; the rest is proprietary. In 2016 a community developer released a "20th anniversary source port"[3][4] which enabled custom resolutions, OpenGL rendering, Xbox 360 controller support and fixed the music. |
Adventureland | 1978 | 1980 | Text Adventure game | Public domain software | Public domain | Scott Adams | Scott Adams Adventureland's[5] source code was published in SoftSide magazine in 1980[6] and the database format was subsequently used in other interpreters such as Brian Howarth's Mysterious Adventures series.[7] |
Airline Tycoon | 1998 | 2015 | Simulation game | proprietary[8] | Commercial | Spellbound Entertainment | On 24 March 2015 Airline Tycoon Deluxe was re-released on the digital distribution platform gog.com, including the source code.[9] |
Alien Bash I+II | 1993 | 2014 | Run and gun | public domain software | public domain[10] | Glen Cumming | Glen Cumming provided media and material of his Amiga games "AlienBash" and "AlienBash II" to the fan community, who was able to restore source code in 2014.[11] |
Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds | 1996 | 1997 | FPS | ? | Proprietary | Team17 | In March 1997 Team17 made the source code of Alien Breed 3D and Alien Breed 3D II freely available on the cover CD of Amiga Format magazine issue 95.[12][13][14] |
Aliens versus Predator | 2000 | 2001[15] | FPS | Own non-commercial license[16] | Proprietary | Rebellion Developments | Source code released by Rebellion Developments 2001. An unofficial patch project for the PC version, based on the source code, was released and is still updated.[15] |
Alpha Waves | 1990 | 2009 | early 3D exploration game with platform aspects | ? | ? | Christophe de Dinechin | Released in 1990 as one of the earliest 3D games[17] with full 6-axis degree of freedom. In 2009, author Christophe de Dinechin released the complete assembly and GFA BASIC source code of the Atari ST version.[18][19] There is also a started PC port in C++ on sourceforge by the original author.[20][21] |
Akalabeth: World of Doom | 1979 | 1979 | Role-playing video game | public domain | Freeware | Richard Garriott | Richard Garriott distributed the Applesoft BASIC written game originally as source code. Also later Origin Systems offered the source code on their FTP servers.[22][23] |
Allegiance (now FreeAllegiance) | 2000 | 2004 | real-time strategy and Space combat simulator | MIT license (earlier Shared Source[24]) | Proprietary | Microsoft Research | Released by Microsoft Research under a shared source license ("MSR-SSLA") 2004.[25] On July 27, 2017 Microsoft Research changed the license from MSR shared source license to MIT license.[26] |
Amulets & Armor | 1997 | 2013 | first person role-playing video game | GPLv3 | Freeware | United Software Artists | In 2013 Amulets & Armor was re-released as freeware on the game's official site and the source code under GPLv3 on GitHub.[27][28] Work continues for ports to newer systems (Windows, MacOS) and general bug fixes.[29][30] |
Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 | 1987 | 2004 | 4x game | no license given | Freeware | George Moromisato | Developed by George Moromisato in 1987. Around 2004 the source code of the DOS version 2.00 was released.[31] |
Ares (now Antares) | 1996 | 2008 | Space Strategy video game | LGPLv3[32] | CC BY-NC-SA Freeware | Nathan Lamont/Bigger Planet Software | Released in 2008. Under continued development for modern systems as "Antares" via GitHub.[33] |
Arx Fatalis (now Arx Libertatis) | 2002 | 2011 | RPG | GPL | Proprietary | Arkane Studios | The design of Arx Fatalis was heavily influenced by Ultima Underworld. Game source released by Arkane Studios on January 14, 2011. Based upon this source code the formed Arx Libertatis-project created Fan-made patches and Source ports.[34][35] |
AstroMenace (now OpenAstroMenace) | 2006 | 2007 | Arcade | GPLv3 | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Viewizard | Based on AstroMenace which was released in February 2007 as shareware for Windows and freeware for Linux.[36] Also the source code of another Viewizard game, the puzzle collection Memonix, was released.[37] |
Asylum | 1994 | 2002 | Platformer | Public domain software[38] | Public domain software | Andy Southgate | Released by Andy Southgate as public domain and with a SDL port under GPLv3.[39] Later ported also to the Pandora.[40] |
Attack of the Mutant Camels | 1989 | 2012 | Scrolling shooters | ? | ? | Jeff Minter | In 2012 the assembly language source code of the Konix version of the game was released on GitHub.[41][42] |
Aquaria | 2007 | 2010 | Action-adventure | GPL | Proprietary | Bit Blot | Open sourced with Humble Indie Bundle.[43] |
Avara | 1996 | 2016 | Shooter game | MIT license | proprietary | Ambrosia Software / Juri Munkki | The MacOS classic game became open source in 2016 when Munkki released the source code upon the game's 20th anniversary.[44] |
Aztaka | 2009 | 2011 | Action role-playing game | Proprietary | Citérémis | In 2011 Independent game developer Citérémis released a "Developer's Edition" of Aztaka for $9.99 which included also the source code of the game.[45][46] | |
Balance of Power | 1985 | 2013 | Government simulation game | ? | ? | Chris Crawford | In August 2013 Chris Crawford released source code of several of his games from his career to the public,[47] fulfilling a GDC 2011 given promise.[48] Beside Balance of Power he released all the source code he could recover, for instance Trust & Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot, Excalibur, Gossip, Eastern Front (1941), Scram and Legionnaire. |
Barony | 2015 | 2016 | Rogue-like | GPLv3 | commercial | Turning Wheel | The game was released in June 2015 commercially on Steam and gog.com.[49] Source code was released in June 2016 on GitHub.[50] |
Barotrauma | 2017 | 2017 | submarine simulator | restrictive (only mods)[51] | commercial | Undertow Games / Joonas "Regalis" Rikkonen | The game was released in 2017 commercially on Steam by independent developer Undertow Games (Joonas "Regalis" Rikkonen). Source code was released on 4th June 2017 on GitHub under a restricitve mods allowing license.[52][53] His previous game, SCP – Containment Breach, is also available as free and open source software under CC BY-SA license. |
Batman Returns | 1993 | 2015 | sidescrolling Beat 'em up | for educational purposes | for educational purposes | ACME / Chris Shrigley | In March 2015 programmer Chris Shrigley, who worked on the Sega CD version, found the Batman Returns source code and released it for educational purposes to the public.[54] He released also the source code of Magician, Cliffhanger, Gargoyles and some other games from his working career.[55] |
Beneath a Steel Sky | 1994 | 2003 | Point and click adventure | Beneath a Steel Sky Freeware License | Beneath a Steel Sky Freeware License | Revolution Software | The assembly language source code of the game was made available to the public and ScummVM in August 2003.[56][57] The source code availability made it possible for the ScummVM project to support the game, which allows the game to be played on Windows, OS X, Linux, Windows CE and other compatible operating systems and platforms. |
Beyond Castle Wolfenstein | 1985 | 2005 | Stealth game | no license given | Freeware | Silas Warner | The reconstructed source code and the ported game was released by Silas Warner's widow in 2005.[58] |
Beyond Protocol (now After Protocol) | 2008 | 2011 | persistent, space MMORTS | non-commercial public license | Freeware | Dark Sky Entertainment | Initial design of Beyond Protocol began in 1991.[59] A scaled up beta program began Nov 15th 2007[60] with an open-beta in 2008. When due to financial issues the game has been shut down, the source code was released on 4 May 2011 on Sourceforge to the public.[61] Based on this source code, community organized development continues until today as After Protocol.[62] |
Beyond the Titanic | 1986 | 2009 | Text adventure | GPL | GPL | Apogee Software | Game source released on March 20, 2009. |
Blades of Exile | 1997 | 2007 | RPG | GPL | GPL | Spiderweb Software | Source code and artwork was released by Jeff Vogel (Spiderweb Software) under a GPL license in June 2007.[63] |
Blake Stone: Planet Strike | 1994 | 2013[64] | FPS | GPL[65] | GPL | Apogee Software | Released in 2013 to promote the sale of the Apogee Throwback Pack on Steam. |
Blue Max | 1983 | 2016 | Scrolling shooter | ? | proprietary | Bob Pollin | Assembly source code released in 2016 by the author Bob Pollin in the Atariage forum.[66] On the Atariage forum source code of many more games was released.[67][68][69] |
Bob's game | 2004 | 2016 | puzzle, action RPG | source available | Freeware | Robert Pelloni | In August 2016 the source code of the game was released on GitHub under a non-commercial source available software license,[70] to allow the community to contribute. The author claims that he wrote the game originally in C, switched then to Java, and later converted it with an automatic code converter to C++.[71] |
Breathless | 1995 | 1997 | FPS | Non Commercial | Non Commercial | Fields of Vision | Amiga game, assembly source code was released on Amiresource volume 6 CD.[72] |
Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (now Race Into Space) | 1993 | 2007 | Simulation | GPLv2[73] | Freeware[74] | Strategic Visions/Fritz Bronner | A port of Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space to modern operating systems. The license fell back to Bronner as he had a contract clause with Interplay stating that in case Interplay went bankrupt or no distribution happened for some time.[74] |
Catacomb | 1989 | 2014[75] | Top-down shooter | GNU General Public License | Proprietary | Flat Rock Software | Early game by John D. Carmack. Released by Flat Rock Software,[76] and ported to SDL.[77] |
Catacomb 3D | 1991 | 2014[75] | FPS | GNU General Public License | Proprietary | Flat Rock Software / id Software | Predecessor to Wolfenstein 3D. |
Call to Power II | 2000 | 2003 | turn-based strategy game | Non-commercial own license[78] | Proprietary | Activision | Civilization clone. Source opened to the apolyton community to allow support with Community patches.[79] |
Canabalt | 2009 | 2010 | Cinematic platformer | Engine MIT license,[80] game code own proprietary license[81] | Proprietary/Freeware | Adam Saltsman | Released by Adam Saltsman in 2010.[82] |
Cart Life | 2011 | 2014 | Simulation | CART LIFE'S FREE LICENSE (Permissive license) | CART LIFE'S FREE LICENSE (Permissive license) / Freeware | Richard Hofmeier | In March 2014 the game was removed from all digital distributions and the source code and game was made available for free online, with Hofmeier saying he was finished supporting the game.[83] His webpage went later offline but the source code was mirrored on GitHub.[84][85] |
Civilization IV | 2005 | 2006 (partly) | turn-based strategy | proprietary | proprietary | Firaxis Games / 2k Games | In April 2006 the developers released the source code of the core game mechanic to the public with a Software Development Kit.[86][87] Additionally to the released source code, as game data and rules are stored in XML files and most of the game is written in Python, much (but not all) of the game is "open" and easily customizable.[88]
The game's community produced later many mods, total conversations and optimization patches for the game.[89] |
Clonk series (now OpenClonk) | 1994 | 2010/2014 | Action, RTS, Platform | ISC | CC BY-NC | RedWolf Design / Matthes Bender | For the series (Clonk 1, Clonk 2 Debakel, Clonk 3 Radikal, Clonk 4 World, Clonk Planet, Clonk Endeavor and Clonk Rage) the C++ source code was released under the "Clonk Source Code License (ISC License)".[90] The content of the original game series was released under the CC BY-NC.[91] Based on Clonk Rage code base the community continues the development as OpenClonk under ISC license and content as CC BY-SA. |
Colobot | 2001 | 2012 | Educational game, RTS | GPLv3 | GPLv3 | Epsitec SA | Game source released on March 26, 2012.[92] |
Colossal Cave Adventure | 1976 | 2000/2005 (?) | Text Adventure | Public domain software[93][94][95] / BSD license (2017) | no artwork (Public domain software) | Will Crowther | Source code variants are at least available as far back as 2000.[96] An authentic version was retrieved in 2005 "from a backup of Don Woods's student account at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL)".[93] In February 2017 Eric S. Raymond was involved in the release of version 2.5, under BSD license, the last release by the original author alone.[97][98][99] |
Commander Keen: Keen Dreams | 1991 | 2014 | Platformer | GPLv2+ | Proprietary | id Software | In September 2014, after an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign,[100] the game's source code was released on GitHub.[101][102] |
Conquest: Frontier Wars | 2001 | 2013 | Space Real-time strategy | ? | Proprietary | Fever Pitch Studios | On December 9, 2013, the source code was bundled with every copy of the game purchased on GOG.com.[103][104] |
CoreBreach | 2011 | 2012 | Racing game | GPL (game) / MIT (3d engine)[105] | Freeware (demo) / proprietary | CoreCode | Futuristic "anti-gravity" racing game with combat. Source was released after a sales quota was met.[105] |
CryEngine 5 | 2002[106] | 2016 | FPS | ? | NA | Crytek | In 2016 Crytek released their engine as pay-what-you-want including the source code to the public.[107][108] |
Crystal Mines | 1989 | 2011 | Arcade | Custom permissive license | Freeware | Ken Beckett/Color Dreams | In August 2011 Ken Beckett, the programmer of the NES game Crystal Mines, released the source code under a custom permissive license to the public.[109][110] Artwork still proprietary but can be shared for non-commercial, personal use.[111] |
Cylindrix | 1995 | 2001 | Arcade, Shooter | LGPL | LGPL | Goldtree Enterprises / Softdisk | Around December 2001 the games was ported from DOS to Windows and released under the LGPL to the public.[112][113] |
Cytadela (or The Citadel) | 1996 | 2006 | FPS | GPLv2 | GPLv2 | Virtual Design | In early 2006 the original Cytadela developer offered the Amiga source code of the FPS game to the community, which started a conversation project hosted on sourceforge.[114][115][116] Ported to several platforms, latest version released in 2013. |
Daikatana | 2000 | 2015 | FPS | ? | Proprietary | Ion Storm / John Romero | Lacking any further official support after the closure of Ion Storm's Dallas office in 2001, John Romero gave the game's source code to community members, allowing them to develop additional platform ports and bug fixes.[117][118] |
DarkSpace | 2001 | 2009 | MMO, Real-time strategy | multiple, own licenses.[119] | Proprietary | Palestar | DarkSpace's game engine called Medusa released by Palestar under multiple licenses.[120] |
Death Ray Manta | 2012 | 2015 | Arena shooter | ? | educational purposes | Bagfull of Wrong / Rob Fearon | The game maker studio based game's source code was released in 2015 with a Humble indie bundle.[121] The assets followed in 2016.[122] |
Descent (now D2X-XL)[123] | 1995 | 1997/1999 | space 3D FPS | own license[124] | Proprietary | Parallax Software | Game source released by Parallax Software on 1997 (Descent 1)[125] and 1999 (Descent 2).[126] Descent 3 source code seems to be in hands of Rebecca Heineman and were considered 2014 for a release.[127] |
Diamond Trust of London | 2012 | 2012 | TBS | Public Domain | Public Domain | Jason Rohrer | Following a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign Diamond Trust of London was developed by Jason Rohrer and published by indiePub. On August 28, 2012 it was released for the Nintendo DS. The game has been placed in the public domain, hosted on SourceForge, like most of Rohrer's games.[128] |
Digger | 1983 | 2004 | Arcade | proprietary | Freeware | Windmill Software | The original source code became available in September 2004 "for historical interest" (together with source code of other Windmill Software games as Styx).[129][130] There is also an earlier free software reverse engineered variant available by Andrew Jenner, called Digger Remastered, ported for many platforms.[131] |
Dink Smallwood | 1997 | 2003 | Action RPG | Zlib inspired own license[132] | Zlib/Proprietary (Sound)[133] | Robinson Technologies | Source code published on July 17, 2003 from Seth Robinson.[134] 2008 Artwork published (without some sounds) under a Zlib license.[135] |
Discworld and Discworld II | 1995 | 2008 | point-and-click adventure game | ? | ? | Teeny Weeny Games | First announced for release around 2005 by Terry Pratchett,[136] source code became in 2008 available to the ScummVM developers.[137] The code was fast integrated into ScummVM.[138] |
Disney's Aladdin | 1993 | 2017 | Platformer | Proprietary | Proprietary | Disney | Around 2017 the source code of the game became available to "The Video game history foundation", which wrote a review of the technique of the game based on the code.[139] |
DONKEY.BAS | 1981 | 1981 | Racing game | Proprietary | Proprietary | Bill Gates, Neil Konzen | Was written by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Neil Konzen in 1981 and was included with early versions of the PC DOS operating system for the original IBM PC. Similar early BASIC games which were distributed as source code are GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS. |
Doom | 1993 | 1997/1999 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id Software | Game source released on December 23, 1997, placed under GPL on October 3, 1999. |
Doom II: Hell on Earth | 1994 | 1997/1999 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id Software | Game source released on December 23, 1997, placed under GPL on October 3, 1999. |
Doom 3 | 2004 | 2011 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id Software | Game source released on November 22, 2011.[140] |
Dragonfire | 1982 | 2003 | action | public domain software | public domain | Imagic / Bob Smith | Source code of this Imagic Atari 2600 game was released by developer Bob Smith on May 24, 2003 into the public domain.[141][142][143] Many more Atari games got disassembled and commented by the Atari community.[144] |
DROD series | 1997 | 2000 | Puzzle game | Mozilla Public license 1.1 (and other)[145] | Proprietary | Webfoot/Erik Hermansen | After the author reacquired the rights to the game from the original publisher Webfoot,[146] he released the source code of the game engines.[145][147] The source code releases include DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon, DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold, DROD: The City Beneath, DROD: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder, DROD: The Second Sky, and DROD RPG: Tendry's Tale without its media assets.[148] |
Duke Nukem 3D | 1996 | 2003 | FPS | GPL / Build license[149] | Proprietary | 3D Realms / Ken Silverman | Game source released on April 1, 2003.[150] Update builds and source ports like eduke32 followed by the game's community.[151] |
Dungeon Defenders | 2010 | 2011 | Tower defense | ? | Proprietary | Trendy Entertainment | In November 2011 there was a "development kit" released as free DLC which included the game's source code.[152] |
Dungeons of Daggorath | 1982 | 2001 | 3D Dungeon crawler | Freeware | Freeware | DynaMicro / Douglas J. Morgan | As for years there has been no production by the publisher Radio Shack of the game, the distributions rights fall back to the developers. Morgan released game around 2001 under a freeware like license to the public, also offering the source code.[153][154] Following, the game's community has created ports for PC,[155] Linux,[156] RiscOS[157] and PSP.[158] |
Eat The Whistle - France 98 | 1998 | 2004 | Sports game | GPLv2[159] | GPLv2 | Hurricane Studios | The France 98 football Simulation video game was released for the Amiga in 1998. Around 2004 Eat the Whistle was released under the GPL on Sourceforge, together with the point and click adventure Escape Towards The Unknown GPL.[160] Later ported to many other platforms.[161] |
Eldritch | 2013 | 2014 | FPS, roguelike | zlib license | Proprietary | Minor Key Games | In April 2014, the game's source code was released to the public under a permissive zlib license. Content still proprietary and game being sold.[162][163] |
Elite | 1984 | 1999 | Space trading game | ? | Freeware | Ian Bell, David Braben | In November 1999, developer Ian Bell released on the game's 15th birthday the BBC Micro assembly source code on his website.[164][165] Following that, Christian Pinder created a platform-neutral C version from the released BBC Micro version, called Elite: The new kind. In 1999–2000 a dispute occurred between Ian Bell and David Braben regarding Bell's decision to make available all versions of the original Elite.[166] The dispute has since ended and the various versions are now available again on Bell's site.[167][168] |
ELIZA (DOCTOR) | 1966 | 1966 | Chatbot / Rogerian psychotherapist simulator | public domain software | public domain | Joseph Weizenbaum | ELIZA is an influential video game predecessor written at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum between 1964 and 1966.[169] Weizenbaum's original MAD-SLIP implementation was re-written in Lisp by Bernie Cosell.[170][171] A BASIC version appeared in Creative Computing in 1977, written in 1973 by Jeff Shrager.[172] This version, which was ported to many of the earliest personal computers, appears to have been subsequently translated into many other versions in many other languages.[173] |
Enemy Engaged: RAH-66 Comanche vs. KA-52 Hokum | 2000 | 2003 | Helicopter Flight simulator | own license[174] | Proprietary | Razorworks | Game source was released somewhen 2003 by Razorworks.[175] |
Enemy Nations | 1997 | 2005[176]/2006[177][178] | RTS | own non-commercial license[179] | non-commercial Freeware[179] | Windward Studios | Game source and artwork was released by Windward Studios under a non-commercial license around 2005/2006. |
Falcon 4.0 | 1998 | 2000 | Combat flight simulator | Proprietary (leaked code) / questionable BSD license (FreeFalcon community development branch) | Proprietary | MicroProse | A 2000 source code leak[180] by a former developer allowed unofficial community development, including upgrades, improved graphics, and bug fixes. In 2013 the source code of one of the community development branches was released to a GitHub repository under a BSD license.[181] As Atari currently owns the intellectual property and Graphsim has the exclusive right to publish, the legality of this source code release is questioned by some community members. |
Fish Fillets (now Fish Fillets NG) | 1998 | 2002 | Puzzle | GPL | GPL | Altar Games | Released commercially as Fish Fillets in 1998. Source released in 2002 under the GPL. |
Flow | 2006 | 2009 | Life simulation | ? (For educational purposes) | Freeware | Thatgamecompany / Jenova Chen | Around 2009 the flash source code was made available for educational purposes by the developers.[182][183] |
Fort Apocalypse | 1982 | 2015 | action | CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 | CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 (Freeware) | Steve Hales / Synapse Software | In 2007 the Atari 8-bit game was relicensed to a CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 by Steve Hales and released on IgorLabs.[184] On April 23, 2015, Steve Hales released the assembler source code to Fort Apocalypse on GitHub, also under CC BY-NC-ND 2.5, for historical reasons.[185] |
Free Fall | 1983 | 1999 | Beat 'em up | ? | Freeware | Ian Bell / Acornsoft | In 1999, developer Ian Bell released the video game's BBC Micro assembly source code on his website.[186] Semi-serious he considers it the first ever Beat 'em up video game. |
FreeSpace 2 (now FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project) | 1999 | 2002 | Space Sim | Non-commercial/Proprietary | Proprietary | Volition | Game source released by Volition on April 25, 2002.[187] |
Frogatto & Friends | 2010 | 2010 | platformer | Zlib license / CC-BY 3.0 | Proprietary | Lost Pixel | The game was developed open-source on GitHub with an own open-source game engine[188] by several The Battle for Wesnoth developers and released in July 2010 for several platforms. The game was for purchase on the MacOS' app store,[189][190] iPhone App Store[191] and BlackBerry App World[192] as the game assets were kept proprietary.[193] |
Gates of Skeldal | 1998 | 2008 | Dungeon crawler role-playing video game | GPL 3 | Freeware | Napoleon Games | On 19 November 2007 the game was made freeware by the Czech developer, in 2008 the source code was released under GPLv3 on a sourceforge repository.[194][195] Later it was translated by fans to English and ported to linux.[196] |
Gish | 2004 | 2010 | Action | GPL | Proprietary | Cryptic Sea | Source opened with Humble Indie Bundle by Wolfire Games.[197][198] |
Glider PRO | 1994 | 2016 | Flight simulator | GPLv2 | GPLv2 | John Calhoun | On 27 Jan 2016, the source code, graphics, and sound data for Glider PRO were released on GitHub with the source code being licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.[199][200] |
Gladiator | 1995 | 2002 | top down perspective action game | GPLv2 | GPLv2 | Forgotten Sages Games | Released in 1995 as DOS shareware game,[201] in 2002 the game's source code was released under GPL by the developers. Development and porting by the game's community continued on Sourceforge under the name OpenGlad.[202] |
Glitch | 2009 | 2013 | MMO | client and other parts under CC0 | CC0 | Tinyspeck | In 2013, one year after the MMO was shut down, most of the artwork and parts of the code were released under the CC0 license.[203][204] |
Gloom | 1995 | 2017 | FPS | unlicense | "for historical purposes" | Black Magic | In January 2017 the assembly and BlitzBasic 2 source code of the Amiga Doom clone Gloom was released as public domain software under unlicense on GitHub.[205] The assets were released "for historical and archiving purposes.".[206] |
Glypha III | 1990s | 2016 | Arcade | MIT | MIT | John Calhoun | On 27 Jan 2016, the source code, graphics, and sound data for Glypha III were released on GitHub with the source code being licensed under the MIT license.[207][208] Updated ports for MacOs and iPhone were created afterward.[209][210][211] |
Gothic 3 | 2006 | 2007 | RPG | Proprietary | Proprietary | JoWood | Source code was opened by JoWood for the members of "Community patch project" from the game community in 2007.[212] |
Grand Monster Slam | 1989 | 2017 | Fantasy sports game | ? | Proprietary | Rolf Lakaemper, Hartwig Niedergassel | In March 2017 the source code of the game became available via the Internet Archive.[213] |
Gravity Force 2 | 1994 | 2008 | Multidirectional shooter | CC BY-SA 4.0 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Jens Andersson & Jan Kronqvist | On September 21, 2008 the developers of the Amiga shareware title Gravity Force 2 released the source code for "nostalgic interest" without specified license.[214] In April 2017 the authors clarified the game and source code license as CC BY-SA 4.0.[215] |
Gunocide II | 2000 | 2001 | Galaga-like 2D shooter | GPLv2 | Freeware | Alexander Bierbrauer and Oliver Weiler | Developed around 2000.[216] After being succesless commercially published via a publisher[217], the game was released as freeware and under GPL. 2002 ported to Linux and hosted on Sourceforge as "G2ex".[218][219] |
H-Craft Championship | 2007 | 2015 | science fiction racing game | zlib license | Freeware | Irrgheist | H-Craft Championship was developed by the independent game studio Irrgheist[220] and released by Manifesto Games[221]/Akella in 2007.[222] In 2014, the developers released the game as freeware[223] and the source code under the zlib license in February 2015.[224][225] |
Habitat | 1985 | 2016 | early MMORPG | MIT | MIT | Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar/Lucasfilm Games | The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment received the game's source code from its original developers,[226] and restored the code in a Hackathon.[227] In July 2016, the source code was uploaded to GitHub under MIT license.[228][229] |
Hack 'n' Slash | 2014 | 2014 | Zelda-like puzzle game | ? | Proprietary | Double Fine | With the 1.0 release on September 9, 2014 also the source code of the game was released by Double Fine.[230][231] |
Hacker Evolution: Source code | 2007 | 2015 | Hacker game | ? | Proprietary | Exosyphen | Released on May 11, 2015 for $49.95 by the indie game developer.[232] |
Hammerfight | 2009 | 2011 | 2D physic based combat game | zlib license[233] | Proprietary | Konstantin Koshutin | For the third Humble Indie Bundle[234][235] Ryan C. Gordon ported the underlying game engine, "Haaf's Game Engine", to Linux and Mac OS X, and released source code under the zlib license.[236][237] Relish Games released the original version of HGE 1.8.1 for Windows/DirectX to GitHub under zlib license, too.[238] |
Handmade Hero | 2014 | 2014 | ? | proprietary | Proprietary | Casey Muratori | Senior video game developer Casey Muratori started November 2014 a project to program a commercial C based game from the scratch and documenting the development in a series of videostreams;[239] planned are 600 episodes, one per day. The game's recent prototypes and source code are made available for $15.[240] The final game will be DRM-free, cross-platform and the source code will be given into public domain two years after its release. |
Haunts: The Manse Macabre | 2012 | 2012 | turn based strategy | BSD[241] | CC BY-NC-SA | Rick Dakan | The 2012 with $29,000 crowdfunded[242] and in Go programmed game was put on GitHub after the money for further development run out.[243][244] While a volunteer keeps updating the almost finished prototype,[245] the against the Go 1.0 API build game fails to compile with newer compilers and Go versions. |
Heretic | 1994 | 1999 | FPS | GPLv2 | Proprietary | Raven Software | Game source released on January 11, 1999, relicensed to GPL on September 4, 2008. |
Hexen: Beyond Heretic | 1995 | 1999 | FPS | GPLv2 | Proprietary | Raven Software | Game source released on January 11, 1999, relicensed to GPL on September 4, 2008. |
Hexen II | 1997 | 2000 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Raven Software | Game source released on November 10, 2000. |
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | 1992 | 2016 | Action game | ? | ? | Game source released of the NES game in 2016 by Frank Cifaldi after finding it on an old harddrive.[246][247] | |
Homeworld | 1999 | 2003 | Space Real-time strategy | Non-commercial license[248] | Proprietary | Relic Entertainment | Game source released 2003.[249] The source code became the base of several source ports to alternative platforms, like Mac,[250] Linux, Pandora,[251] Maemo/N900,[252] or Android[253][254] using the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) cross-platform multimedia library. As the source code's license requirements limits further development significantly[255] the game's community aims for a re-licensing with the new IP holder Gearbox.[256] In September 2013 Gearbox responded positively to the idea for a re-licensing of the already published source code, noting their efforts in supporting the modding community.[257] |
HoverRace | 1996 | 2008 | Racing | originally time limited license / later non-commercial GrokkSoft HoverRace SourceCode License.[258][259] | Freeware | GrokkSoft | Was first published under a time-limited license. On 2008 re-newed with an infinite duration license.[260] |
Hovertank 3D | 1991 | 2014[75] | FPS | GNU General Public License | Proprietary | Flat Rock Software/id Software | First 3D game by id Software and John D. Carmack. |
Hundreds | 2010 | 2010 | Puzzle game | ? | ? | Greg Wohlwend/Semi Secret | Greg Wohlwend chose to open source his code in 2010,[261] partly with the intent to spur "non-coders" to try coding, as he had.[262][263] Programmer Eric Johnson of Semi Secret found the open source version and ported the game to iPad in a weekend before notifying Wohlwend,[262] which was later released commercially in an updated version. |
Hypercycles | 1995 | 2017 | Shooter | GPL | freeware | Bob Hays | Released in January 2017 on GitHub.[264][265] |
In Pursuit of Greed | 1996 | 2014 | FPS | non-commercial use, "for educational and personal use only" | Freeware (non-commercial) | Mind Shear Software | Based on Softdisk Publishing's "Raven engine" which powered also ShadowCaster. The game was released (including the engine) later by the developer as non-commercial freeware in 2014.[266][267][268] |
Infinity | 2002 | 2016 | RPG | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License | Freeware (non-commercial) | Affinix Software | Developed in 2002 as commercial Game Boy Color title (~90% finished) the game was never published. Finally released as non-commercial freeware with source code in August 2016.[269][270][271] |
Inside a Star-Filled Sky | 2011 | 2011 | Top-down shooter | public domain software | public domain | Jason Rohrer | Inside a Star-filled Sky, for purchase for $12,[272] was put by developer Jason Rohrer into public domain,[273] like many other of his games.[274] |
Iron Seed | 1994 | 2013 | Space trading and combat simulator | GPL | Freeware (audiotracks CC BY-SA by Andrew Sega) | Channel 7 | Released as freeware by the authors to promote the development of Iron Seed 2 in the 2000s. Source opened under the GPL by the developers in 2013.[275] |
Jagged Alliance 2 Wildfire (now JA2-Stracciatella[276]) | 2004 | 2004 | Tactical role-playing game | Own license | Proprietary | iDeal Games | Source code was bundled and released with JA2: Wildfire 2004.[277] The JA: Unfinished Business source code became later available too.[278] |
Kaiser II | 1988 | 2003 | economical simulation | GPLv2 | GPLv2 | Ariolasoft / Carsten Strotmann | In 2003 Kaiser II author Carsten Strotmann released the source code under the GPL as Free Software.[279][280] |
Ken's Labyrinth | 1993 | 2001 | FPS | Non-commercial license | Freeware | Ken Silverman | Ken's Labyrinth was released as freeware on November 16, 1999. The source code under a non-commercial license followed on July 1, 2001.[281] A port to modern operating systems such as Windows and Linux using Simple DirectMedia Layer called LAB3D/SDL was created by Jan Lönnberg and released in 2002.[282] A version of the port which includes new higher resolution textures was also created by Jared Stafford.[283] |
Kiloblaster | 1992 | 2008 | Arcade | Own license[284] | Freeware (with additional restriction) | Epic MegaGames | Allen Pilgrim declared the registered version freeware and released also the source code on August 4, 2008.[285][286] |
Kumquat & Cantaloupe | 1996 | 2012 | Maze | undefined | Freeware | Dave Schofield | The Amiga games Kumquat & Cantaloupe, originally released as shareware titles, were re-released as freeware with source code included by the author in November 2012.[287][288] |
Kroz | 1987 | 2009 | Maze | GPL | GPL | Apogee Software | Game source released on March 20, 2009. |
Larva Mortus | 2008 | 2009 | Top-down shooter | only non commercial usage[289] | Commercial | Rake In Grass | Czech independent video game developer Pavel Tovarys released the Torque 2D v1.1.3 based source code in 2009 under non-commercial conditions.[290][291] Several other games' source code were released too.[292] The code was taken offline after several games' IP were sold to another company. The source code is currently in no known repository on the web available. |
Lemmings | 1991 | 2010 | Puzzle game | ? | ? | Brutal Deluxe | Brutal Deluxe released the source code of the Apple IIgs port of Lemmings (and a dozen other ports).[293] |
Lemonade Stand | 1973 | 1979 | Business simulation game | Public domain software (?) | Freeware | Bob Jamison, Charlie Kellner / MECC | The Applesoft BASIC source code was available since 1979.[294][295] The game was later ported to modern REALbasic and released as free and open-source software for many platforms like Windows and MacOS.[296] |
Lemma | 2014 | 2014 | Voxel FPS open world parcour[297] | MIT | Commercial | Evan Todd | Despite an unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign in 2014,[298] Lemma was released commercially by the developer DRM-free and also on Steam. The source code is openly developed and available on GitHub under a MIT license.[299][300] |
Lugaru | 2005 | 2010 / 2016 (assets) | Action-adventure game | GPLv2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wolfire Games | Open sourced with the first Humble Indie Bundle by Wolfire Games.[301] In November 2016 David Rosen relicensed all assets under the open content CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons license which makes Lugaru a fully free video game.[302] In begin 2017 an open source HD version followed.[303][304] |
Magic Land Island (now Pocket Island) | 2011 | 2012 | Casual game | MIT license | CC BY-NC-SA | Wooga | Magic Land Island was launched during the GDC Europe in August 2011. In June 2012 the HTML5 game was open sourced under the name Pocket Island on GitHub under MIT license and with the assets under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA.[305][306] |
Magus | 1995 | 2014 | Rogue-like | ? | Freeware | Ronny Wester | Around 2014 archived on GitHub from other now offline sources.[307] A SDL port is in progress.[308] In 2000 Wester released also the Borland Pascal 7 source code of Cyberdogs (excluding some libraries he had licensed) on his website.[309] |
Maelstrom | 1992 | 1995/2010 | Shoot 'em up | GPL | CC-BY | Ambrosia Software | Asteroids clone. 1995 source released under GPL. In 2010 Andrew Welch and Ian Gilman released the game's contents under a Creative Commons license.[310] |
Marathon 2: Durandal (now Aleph One) | 1995 | 2000 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Bungie Software | Released by Bungie on January 17, 2000.[311] |
MechCommander 2 | 2001 | 2006 | Real-time tactics | Shared Source Limited Permissive License[312] | Proprietary | FASA Interactive/Microsoft | Source opened under a Shared Source license by Microsoft in August 2006.[313][314] As of 2017 there is a project fork on GitHub with the goal to port the source code to Linux.[315] |
MegaBall | 1991 | 2012 | Breakout clone | Apache license v2 | Apache license v2 | Mackey Software/Ed Mackey | The Amiga game MegaBall was programmed by Mackey Software in 1991-1993. Inspired by Taito's Arkanoid it has several features more. The original author released in 2012 the source code of MegaBall under the Apache license v2.[316][317] |
Meridian 59 | 1995 | 2012 | MMORPG | GPLv2 (excluding compression and audio libraries) | Freeware | Archetype Interactive | As of February 2010 Meridian 59 has been turned over to the original technical developers, Andrew and Chris Kirmse. On September 15, 2012 they released the game to the public as Freeware and most of the source code under the GPLv2 license.[318] |
Miner Wars 2081 | 2012 | 2013 | 6DOF Space Shooter game | own proprietary license[319] | Proprietary | Keen Software House | 6DOF action-survival space-shooter simulation-game set in the year 2081. Full game and engine source code released under a restrictive license. |
Monster RPG 2 | 2010 | 2012 | JRPG | zlib license | zlib license | Nooskewl | After a successful Indiegogo campaign, released by Nooskewl under a Public domain like license ("Give it Your Own License") on November 11, 2012.[320][321] Later changed to zlib license, and the content sold again to be able to pay the server bills.[322] |
MiG Alley | 1999 | 2001 | Flight simulation | own license | Proprietary | Rowan Software/Empire Interactive | Source opened by Rowan Software/Empire Interactive in 2001.[323][324] |
Mr. Do! (for Gameboy) | 1992 | 2007 | Arcade | source opened without defined license | without defined license | Universal Entertainment Corporation | Source opened of the game boy version by developer Wesley Knackers in 2007 on his website.[325][326] |
Myth (series) | 1998 | 2001 | Real-time tactics | source opened without defined license | Proprietary | Take 2 Interactive/MumboJumbo | Source opened by Take 2 Interactive/MumboJumbo to the game community in 2001.[327][328] |
Myst Online: Uru Live | 2007 | 2010 | MMORPG | GPLv3 | Proprietary | Cyan Worlds | "Myst Online: Uru Live" struggled to attract subscribers and was canceled after its first year. Cyan release the game as an open source game in 2010.[329] |
Natural Selection | 2002 | 2014 | FPS | GPLv2 (most code) / custom (external libraries)[330] | Proprietary | Unknown Worlds Entertainment | In January 2014 Unknown Worlds released the source code for download on GitHub.[331] |
Nanosaur | 1998 | 2003 | FPS | Own restrictive license | Proprietary | Pangea Software | Around 2003 the Nanosaur source code was made available by the developer under a restrictive license.[332] |
NoGravity | 1996 | 2005 | 3D space space shooter / Wing Commander | GPLv2 | GPLv2 | realtech VR | Source code released by realtech VR on February 16, 2005.[333] |
Nothing to Hide | 2013 | 2013 | Stealth game | CC0 | CC0 | Nicky Case | The crowdfunded surveillance/privacy themed video game prototype by indie game developer Nick Liow was crowdfunded and opened under CC0 on GitHub between 2013 and 2015.[334][335][336][337][338] |
The Operative: No One Lives Forever | 2000 | 2010 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Monolith Productions | In 2001, Monolith Productions released a set of editing tools for No One Lives Forever that included the level editor and model editor used for development.[339] The team also released the source code for NOLF (version 1.003 on Windows) that year to "support the fan base by offering the tools to create their own levels".[340][341] It is available both as a download, as well as on the Game of the Year Edition CD-ROM.[339] Years later around 2013 Lithtech source code became available on github under GPL,[342] and work for merging game code and engine started.[343] |
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way | 2002 | 2011 | FPS | GPLv2[344] | Proprietary | Monolith Productions | Source code released by Monolith Productions/Sierra Entertainment as part of a modding toolkit.[345] |
Pararena 2 | 1992 | 2016 | Action sport game | MIT | MIT | John Calhoun | On 27 Jan 2016, the source code was released on GitHub licensed under the MIT license.[346][347] |
PaybackTime 2 | 1997 | 2014 | turn-based tactics game | public domain software | public domain | Niko Nevatie and Kari Luojus | The turn-based tactics game, inspired by Laser Squad and UFO: Enemy Unknown, was developed by two Finish students in Turbo Pascal and x86 assembly. They marketed their game as shareware for DOS in 1997.[348] The authors released the game in August 2014 as public domain software, including the assets.[349] |
Penumbra: Overture | 2007 | 2009 | Survival horror with FPS aspects | GPL | Proprietary | Frictional Games | Developed by Swedish[350] developer Frictional Games, the game blends the genres of survival horror, first-person shooter, and adventure. Open sourced with Humble Indie Bundle.[351] |
Pinball Construction Set | 1983 | 2013 | pinball video game | MIT license | MIT license | Bill Budge, Electronic Arts | In 2013, Budge released the source code to the Atari 800 and Apple II version of Pinball Construction Set to the public on GitHub under the MIT license.[352][353][354] |
Pirate Adventure | 1978 | 1980 | adventure game | ? | ? | Scott Adams (game designer) | The source code for Pirate Adventure was printed in the December 1980 issue of BYTE, with an addendum in April 1981.[355][356] This enabled others to discover how the engine worked and to create their own adventures using this or a similar design. |
Pitman | 1985 | 1985 | Puzzle game | ? | ? | Yutaka Isokawa | Originally created in 1985 on a MZ-700 home computer by Yutaka Isokawa. The BASIC listing was published in the August 1985 issue of the magazine "Oh!MZ Publications".[357][358][359] In 1990 the game was commercially converted for the Game Boy. In 2011 the game community restored an faithful as possible version from the available variants.[360] |
Pixel Dungeon | 2014 | 2014 | roguelike | GPLv3 | GPLv3 | watabou | While sold on Steam for $4.99[361] it was released in July 2014 on GitHub under GPLv3 including the assets.[362] |
Postal | 1997 | 2016 | Top-down shooter | GPLv2 | proprietary | Running With Scissors | In 2015 the Running with scissors developers announced that they will release the source code of the game "if someone promises to port it to the Dreamcast".[363] In June 2016 the developers gave the source code to a community developer who ported the game to Linux for the OpenPandora handheld.[364][365] On December 28, 2016, the source code was released on Bitbucket under the GPLv2.[366][367] |
Preppie! | 1982 | 2016 | action game | ? | ? | Russ Wetmore / Star Systems Software | In January 2016 Russ Wetmore released the source code of his Atari 8-bit family games Preppie!, Preppie II and Sea Dragon to the public on the Internet Archive.[368] |
Prince of Persia | 1989 | 2012 | Cinematic platformer | Proprietary | Proprietary | Jordan Mechner | Apple II source code was long-thought-lost,[369] but was found again and released in 2012.[370] A port of the assembly source code to C and SDL as backend was made by a community programmer.[371] |
Project: Starfighter | 2001 | 2008 | Shoot 'em up | GPL[372] | Proprietary[373] | Parallel Realities | |
Quake | 1996 | 1999 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id Software | Game source released on December 21, 1999. |
Quake II | 1997 | 2001 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id Software | Game source released on December 22, 2001. |
Quake III Arena | 1999 | 2005 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id Software | Game source released on August 19, 2005. |
Quadrilateral Cowboy | 2016 | 2016 | Puzzle video game | GPL | Proprietary | Blendo Games | Game source released on August 8, 2016 as it is based on the id-tech 4 engine.[374][375] |
Receiver | 2012 | 2012 | FPS / stealth game | own non-commercial conditions | Proprietary | Wolfire games | The source code of the game is available since 2012 on GitHub under non-commercial conditions.[376] |
Return to Castle Wolfenstein | 2001 | 2010 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Id software | The source code for Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Enemy Territory was released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) on August 12, 2010.[377] |
Revenge of the Titans | 2010 | 2011 | Tower Defense, RTS | Custom all-permissive[378] | Proprietary | Puppy Games | Java based game. Source code was released by Puppy Games with the success of the second Humble Indie Bundle.[379] |
Rise of the Triad | 1994 | 2002 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Apogee Software/3D Realms | Game source released on December 20, 2002. |
Roboforge | 2001 | 2008 | Multiplayer Strategy game | "RoboForge, Personal, Non-Commercial Use End User License" | Freeware | Liquid Edge | Announced the game in July, 2000[380] by Liquid Edge the game was released on May 23, 2001.[381] From July 2008 RoboForge became an Open Source project with the source code for the Java-based client and server under a non-commercial license and as freeware.[382] The game's community continues development. |
Rocky Racers | 2002[383] | 2004[384] | Racing game | Non-Commercial license | Freeware | Positech Games | Released around 2002 by Positech Games, the game's C++ source code was released in July 2004 to the public for free.[385] |
Rowan's Battle of Britain | 2000 | 2001 | Flight simulation | Empire Interactive License | Proprietary | Rowan Software/Empire Interactive | Source opened by Rowan Software/Empire Interactive in 2001.[323][386] |
RuneSword II | 2001 | 2004[387] | Turn-based strategy | Public domain software[388] | Public Domain | CrossCut Games | In 2004 CrossCut Games released the game into the public domain on SourceForge.[389] Since then there is continuous development by the community on the game.[390] |
Ryzom | 2004 | 2010 | MMORPG | AGPL | CC | Nevrax | In response to the folding of Nevrax, the Free Ryzom Campaign was launched in order to gather enough funds from donations ("Crowdfunding") from the community to purchase Ryzom and release the game as free software. The campaign was almost successful with €172,988 of the required €200,000 gathered.[391][392] On May 6, 2010, Winch Gate announced the full release of source code and artwork, and a partnership with the Free Software Foundation.[393][394] |
Santa Paravia en Fiumaccio | 1978 | 1978 | turn-based strategy | public domain | public domain | George Blank | The game by George Blank[395] first appeared in the December 1978 issue of SoftSide magazine as BASIC listing.[396] It was published for sale on tape cassette as a computer game by Instant Software for the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Apple II, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, and the Commodore PET.[397] It has been translated into many programming languages, such as ANSI C,[398] and has been ported to the Palm Pilot. |
Savage: The Battle for Newerth | 2003 | 2007 | online Real-time strategy, FPS | no license/proprietary | Freeware[399] | S2 Games | The game was turned freeware by S2 Games on September 1, 2006. In 2007 the source code became available to the game community,[400] who now continues development.[401] |
Sea Dogs: An Epic Adventure at Sea | 2000 | 2009 | pirate game | ? | Proprietary | Akella | In 2009 Akella agreed to hand the source code of Sea Dogs' game engine to the game community on end-of-support.[402] |
Serious Sam (Serious Engine) | 2001 | 2016 | FPS | GPLv2+ | Proprietary | Croteam | In March 2016, Croteam released Serious Engine v1.10 as free and open source software on GitHub under the GNU General Public License.[403][404] |
Seven Kingdoms | 1996 | 2008 | RTS | GPL | GPL and Proprietary* | Enlight | Source code released by Enlight in November, 2008. *Music is proprietary[405][406] |
Seven Kingdoms II | 1999 | 2009 | RTS | GPL | Proprietary | Enlight | Source code released in August, 2009. |
Shadowgrounds | 2005 | 2011 | Shoot 'em up | own non-commercial license[407] | Proprietary | Frozenbyte | Game source released with a Humble Indie Bundle by Frozenbyte on April 22, 2011.[408] |
Shadow Warrior | 1997 | 2005 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | 3D Realms | Game source released on April 1, 2005. |
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division | 1998 | 1998 | FPS | GPL | Proprietary | Monolith Productions | SDK released 1998, including the game logic for modders.[409] The Lithtech engine was not included as source code. Years later around 2013 Lithtech source code became available on github under GPL,[410] and work for merging game code and engine started.[411] |
Siege of Avalon | 2000 | 2003 | RPG | LGPL | Proprietary | Digital Tome | Source code released June 23, 2003.[412] |
Silent Hunter II | 2001 | 2002 | submarine simulation | ? | Proprietary | Ubisoft | Around 2002 Ubisoft had ended the official support while still significant issues existed. Therefore, Ubisoft enabled the game's community at Subsim.com to fix the game themselves by giving them the source code.[413] The fans raised $7000 for an unofficial patch development project which fixed most of the issues.[413] The community extended Silent Hunter II also content wise significantly with expansion packs or texture upgrades.[414][415] |
SimCity (Micropolis) | 1989 (as SimCity) | 2008 (as Micropolis) | City-building game | GPLv3[416] | GPLv3 | Maxis (Will Wright/Don Hopkins) | Source code released by Don Hopkins under GPL in 2008. For trademark reasons released under the original working title Micropolis, also known as OLPC SimCity.[417] |
Soliter | 1994 | 2009[418] | Puzzle game | ? | Freeware | Oldsoft | Zdnek Stary developed at the Czech development studio Oldsoft the solitair game Soliter for the ZX Spectrum which got released in 1994. The game was released by the author in 2005 on his homepage for download, in 2009 the assembly source code followed as scan.[419] |
Softporn Adventure | 1981 | ? | Text adventure | public domain? | Freeware | On-Line Systems | A comedic, adult-oriented text adventure game produced for the Apple II in 1981. The game was created by Charles Benton and released by On-Line Systems and became later the base for Leisure Suit Larry 1.[420] Source code became later available.[421][422] The PC version was also released later as freeware by Al Lowe.[423] |
Sopwith | 1984 | 2000 | Shoot 'em up | GPL | GPL | David L. Clark | The C and x86 assembly source code to Sopwith was released in 2000,[424] at first under a non-commercial use license, but later under the GNU GPL at the request of fans.[425] |
Soul Rider | 2000[426] | 2003 | Snow board simulation/sport game | GPL[427] | Proprietary | Slingshot Game Technology | On 20 Jan 2003 Soul Rider's game engine source code was released to allow ports to alternative OSes.[428] |
Spacebase DF-9 | 2013 | 2015 | Space simulator | CPAL | ? | Double Fine | After Double Fine ended the support of the controversy ridden and incomplete game on end of 2014,[429] fans have been working to continue the game's development with the availability of the source code in May 2015 under the CPAL open-source license.[430] First patch became available in October 2015.[431] |
Space Engineers | 2013 | 2015 | space sandbox game | proprietary | commercial | Keen Software House | On May 14, 2015 the development studio made the source code freely available to the game's community for easier modding on GitHub under a proprietary license (non-open source license).[432][433][434] |
Spacewar! | 1972 | 2003 (?) | Space combat | ? | ? | Steve Russell | Source code became available around the 2003.[435] |
Spear of Destiny | 1992 | 1995 | FPS | ID SOFTWARE LICENSE[436] | Proprietary | id Software | The source code of Wolfenstein 3D, which also covered Spear of Destiny, was released on July 21, 1995. |
Speed Haste | 1995 | 2012 | racing video game | public domain like license | proprietary | Javier Arevalo Baeza | In 2012 the game's developer Javier Arevalo Baeza released the Borland C source code (minus some commercial library part) for "you can do whatever you want with this code" on GitHub.[437] |
Star Control II (now The Ur-Quan Masters) | 1992 | 2002 | Action RPG | GPL | Cc-by-nc-sa | Toys for Bob (Fred Ford / Paul Reiche III) | Source code of the 3DO version GPL-released in 2002.[438] |
Star Raiders | 1979 | 2015 | space combat simulator | ? | ? | Aric Wilmunder / Atari | The commented assembly source code scan of Star Raider became available in October 2015 in the Internet Archive as scan.[439] Aric Wilmunder opened it up with several other artifacts of his gaming career (e.g. SCUMM).[440] The community typed in the source code double checked in a GitHub project.[441] Shortly before a reverse engineering project was finished, too.[442] A true sequel, also called Star Raiders II, had been under development for some time by Aric Wilmunder. The never released prototype source code was posted publicly in December 2015.[443] |
Star Trek: Elite Force II | 2002 | 2003 | Action RPG | non-commercial own license (only serverside part) | proprietary | Ritual Entertainment | In November 2003 Ritual Entertainment released the source code of their server-side code base for multiplayer gaming under a non-commercial license.[444][445] |
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast | 2002 | 2013 | First/Third person shooter | GPLv2 | Proprietary | Raven Software | Release of the source code by Raven Software and Activision coincided with the closing of LucasArts by Disney.[446] |
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy | 2003 | 2013 | First/Third person shooter | GPLv2 | Proprietary | Raven Software | Release of the source code by Raven Software and Activision coincided with the closing of LucasArts by Disney.[446] |
Starshatter: The Gathering Storm | 2004 | 2011 | Space combat simulator | New BSD License | Freeware | Destroyer Studios / Matrix Games | Source code released by Destroyer Studios/Matrix Games on December 14, 2011.[447][448] |
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space | 2002 | 2005/2009 | Space Roguelike | GPL | Freeware | Digital Eel | Source was release under GPL by Digital Eel in 2005.[449][450] Content became freeware 2009.[451] |
Strife: Veteran Edition (Strife remaster) | 2014 | 2014 | FPS | GPLv3 | Proprietary | Samuel Villarreal / Night Dive Studios | In December 2014, Night Dive Studios coordinated the re-release of the 1996 first-person shooter role playing hybrid game Strife as Strife: Veteran Edition, after acquiring rights to the game. Because the game's source code had been lost, a derivative of the Chocolate Doom subproject Chocolate Strife was used as the game's engine, with its original programmers being contracted to do additional coding for the re-release. The source code of Strife: Veteran Edition has been made available under GPLv3 on GitHub by Samuel Villarreal and Night Dive Studios on December 12, 2014.[452] While this was the first source code opened for a Night Dive Studios Studio's game, it was announced more will follow,[453] for instance for System Shock 1.[454] |
Stellar Conquest III: Hostile Takeover | 1994[455] | 2006 | Stellar Conquest inspired Space simulation | open source freeware (non-commercial) | Freeware (non-commercial redistribution allowed) | NecroBones / Ed T. Toton III | The Turbo Pascal 6 source code for the VGA DOS game was released in February 2006 together with the game itself as freeware by the developer.[456] |
Stellar Frontier | 1997 | 2008 | Space simulation | STARDOCK SHARED SOURCE STELLAR FRONTIER LICENSE (non-commercial license)[457] | STARDOCK SHARED SOURCE STELLAR FRONTIER LICENSE (non-commercial license) | Stardock | Stellar Frontier was developed by Doug Hendrix in 1995 and was later licensed and published by Stardock. On August 4, 2006, Stardock Systems closed the official master server. On November 18, 2008, the game source code was released under an own non-commercial license.[458] As result, the game's community took over the support of the game and improved the game, fixed the bugs and security holes with self-made patches.[459] |
Super Lemon Factory | 2012 | 2012 | Text adventure | proprietary | proprietary | Initialsgames | Based on the Cannabalt engine for iOS, and inspired by it to release the source code.[460][461] |
Supernova | 1987 | 2009 | Text adventure | GPL | GPL | Apogee Software | Game source released on March 20, 2009. |
Taxman | 1981 | 201? | pacman clone | ? | ? | H.A.L. Labs / Brian Fitzgerald | Apple II pacman clone from 1981. In August 2015 Rebecca Heineman announced that original developer Brian Fitzgerald allowed to release the source code.[462][463] GitHub repository is still empty as of February 2017.[464] |
Team 47: GoMan | 1997[465][466] | 1998 | Mech game | public domain software | public domain | 47-TEK | Released artwork and source code to public in May 1998.[467][468] As the Internet Archive has not saved the content of the now offline GoMan page in the end of 1990s, currently there are no known mirrors on the web; the source code seems as of 2017 to be lost.[468] |
Telengard | 1982 | 1982 | Dungeon crawler, role-playing, roguelike | ? | ? | Avalon Hill / Daniel Lawrence | As the game's BASIC source code ("DSKTEL.BAS") was available early on, ports and remaster exist therefore by the community.[469][470] |
Terminal Velocity | 1995 | 2015 | flight game | ? | ? | Mark Randel / Terminal Reality | Became available under a NDA in June 2015.[471] Work on an updated version for modern system started immediately.[472] |
The Castle Doctrine | 2014 | 2014 | MMO | Public Domain | Public Domain | Jason Rohrer | The Castle Doctrine is developed by Jason Rohrer in a public Sourceforge repository and is like most of his creative works into the public domain.[473] The Castle Doctrine was developed as an early access game and is now sold on Steam for $14.99.[474] |
The Clue! | 1994 | 2000 | role-playing adventure game | own license | own license / Freeware | Neo Software | In 2000 the source code was released to the public.[475][476] The game is since then ported to modern platforms via SDL and receives still updates by the community (2015).[477] |
The Guild of Thieves | 1987 | 2017 | adventure game | ? | ? | Magnetic Scrolls | In June 2017 Magnetic Scrolls worked on recovering the source code of their classics from tapes to remaster and re-release them.[478][479] |
The Prisoner | 1980 | 1980 | adventure game | ? | ? | Edu-Ware / David Mullich | Developed in BASIC for the Apple II the source code was available with the release. Source code is hosted on GitHub.[480] |
The Oregon Trail | 1971 | 1971/1978 | Role-playing video game | Public domain (?) | Public domain (?) | Don Rawitsch/MECC | Rawitsch published the source code of The Oregon Trail, written in BASIC 3.1 for the CDC Cyber 70/73-26, in Creative Computing's May–June 1978 issue.[481] In 2011 the 1975 and 1978 BASIC source code versions of the game were reconstructed.[482] |
The Wizard's Castle | 1980 | 2004 | role-playing adventure game | ? | ? | Joseph R. Power | The BASIC source code of the 1980 developed game was published by the developer in the July/August 1980 issue of Recreational Computing.[483][484] Ports to other systems followed afterwards.[485] |
The Pit Puzzle | 1997 | 2011 | Puzzle game | Apache 2.0 License | Freeware[486] | Abe Pralle / Plasmaworks | The DOS game source code was released around 2011 by the author Abe Pralle under Apache 2.0 License on GitHub.[487] |
Tread Marks | 2000 | 2017 | Tank Combat/Racing | GPLv3 | Freeware | Longbow Digital Arts / Seumas McNally | Won in 2000 the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. In January 20, 2017 the source code was released as open source on github.com and the game itself as freeware.[488][489] A port to Linux and MacOS is in progress.[490] In September 2017 a version for the Linux based OpenPandora was released.[491] |
Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom | 2007 | 2010 | Z-machine Text adventure game | Freeware | Freeware | Cumberland Games & Diversions | S. John Ross released the commercial Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom, which won the XYZZY Award 2007 for the best NPC, in 2010 with Z-machine source code as freeware.[492] More source code of text adventure from the 1970s and 1980s are available at the archive.[493] |
To Heart 2 | 2004 | 2006 | Visual novel | GPL | Proprietary | Aquaplus | Its source code was released by Aquaplus under the GNU General Public License on December 22, 2005 along with the source code for Arurū to Asobo!!, Tears to Tiara, and Kusari.[494][495] This decision was made due to the inclusion of Xvid derived code; Xvid being distributed under the same license.[494][495] The source code for all four games is distributed upon request in CD-R format.[494] A copy of the original source code is hosted on github,[496] as also an continued engine project.[497] |
To the Moon | 2011 | 2014 | role-playing game | GPLv2 | Proprietary | Freebird Games | To the Moon was developed using RPG Maker XP engine in 2011. In January 2014 To the Moon was also released for OS X and Linux with the Humble Bundle X.[498] Edward Rudd ported the game with the GPLv2 RPG Maker XP game engine recreation MKXP,[499][498] other ports followed later.[500] Also a successor game by Freebird games, "A Bird Story", was ported to Linux under usage of MKXP.[501] |
Tornado | 1993 | 2017 | combat flight simulator | ? | Proprietary | Digital Integration / Interplay Entertainment | In March 2016 in the Tornado's community forum, rumors surfaced that Interplay Entertainment was working on a re-release of the game for digital distribution, based on the original source code.[502] The assembly source code finally surfaced in January 2017 on github.com.[503][504] |
Tribal Trouble | 2005 | 2014 | RTS | GPLv2 | Freeware | Oddlabs | In September 2014 the game's source code was released to the public on GitHub and is now open source under the GPLv2.[505] Development continues in a community fork.[506] |
Tribes 2 | 2001 | 2012 | FPS | Torque engine under MIT, rest is proprietary | Freeware | Dynamix | Many commercial titles were developed using the Torque engine.[507] GarageGames released Torque 3D under the MIT License on September 20, 2012.[508] The Tribes 2 source code beside the Torque engine is not available.[509] |
Triplane Turmoil | 1996 | 2009 | side-scrolling dogfighting flying game | GPLv3 | GPLv3 | Dodekaedron Software | In 1996 Triplane Turmoil was originally released as shareware DOS game. In 2009 Dodekaedron Software Creations Oy placed Triplane Turmoil's source code, documentation, images and sounds under the GPLv3, hosted on Sourceforge.[510][511] The community continued the support and ported the game to other platforms (Linux, Windows) via SDL. |
Tyrian (now OpenTyrian) | 1995 | 2007 | Scrolling shooter | GPLv2 | Freeware/CC-BY 3.0 US[512][513] | World Tree Games Productions / Epic MegaGames (Jason Emery, Daniel Cook) | The OpenTyrian team ported the closed-source Pascal code of Tyrian to C with permission of Jason Emery in February 2007. The graphic artist Daniel Cook released the artwork shortly after. |
Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash | 1983 | 2003 | Role-playing video game | Proprietary | Proprietary | Keith Zabalaoui / Sierra On-Line | On 11 June 2003, the game was ported to PC (under GPLv2 license) by Kasper Fauerby based on the original BASIC source code and some smaller binary reverse engineered parts.[514] |
Unreal | 1998 | 2008 | FPS | source opened to the community under NDA | Proprietary | Epic MegaGames | Access to source-code granted by Epic MegaGames for the game community around 2008.[515] In 2015 Tim Sweeney announced that he hope to be able to open source one day the engine to the public.[516] |
Uplink | 2001 | 2003 | Hacking simulation | Proprietary | Proprietary | Introversion Software | Mid-2003 Introversion Software started selling the source code for $45. Usage beside modding and fixing of the game are not permitted by the license.[517] Source code of the games Darwinia + Multiwinia and DEFCON was later sold too.[518] |
Urban Chaos | 1999 | 2017 | Action-adventure game | MIT license | Proprietary | Mucky Foot | In May 2017 Mucky Foot's Mike Diskett released the source code of Urban Chaos under the MIT license on GitHub.[519] |
Vangers | 1998 | 2016 | racing and role-playing genre | GPLv3 | Commercial | K-D Lab | In March 2016, Vangers source code was released[520] under GPLv3 license. Data was not freed though, so one still needs data files from Steam or GOG.com release in order to run the game. |
Vulture for Nethack | 1987 | 1987 | rogue-like | NetHack General Public License | Freeware / Commercial | Nethack community / Jaakko Peltonen / Clive Crous | Falcon's Eye was developed by Jaakko Peltonen as graphical version of Nethack.[521] After 2001 development had ended, Clive Crous continued Falcon's Eye as Vulture's Eye[522][521] While still being Free and open source software the game is commercialized via the author's website and Desura for $2.99. In October 2013 the game was put into the Steam Greenlight process[523] and successfully released on Steam in January 2016.[524] |
Vox | 2013 | 2015 | open world simulation | GPLv3 | commercial | AlwaysGeeky Games | Vox started life as an entry into the Ludum Dare competition.[525][526] The game was successfully Steam Greenlighted on November 12, 2013.[527] Around end of 2015 the source code of Vox was made available as open-source software under the GPLv3 on GitHub.[528] |
Voxelquest | 2014 | 2016 | open world simulation | MIT | MIT | Gavan Woolery | After a successful crowdfunding project on Kickstarter to develop an open-world simulation game in 2014,[529] Gavan Woolery developed several iterations of the game's engine. After running out of funding for further development, he open-sourced with support of the backers the game's engine on github.com under MIT license in August 2016.[530][531] |
Wander | 1974 | 2015 | Text adventure | public domain (?) | public domain (?) | Peter Langston | In April 2015 the lost thought source code of Wander, one of the earliest mainframe text adventures, could be acquired from the original author.[532][533] |
Warlords Battlecry III | 2004 | 2006 | RTS | Own proprietary license | Proprietary | Infinite Interactive/Enlight Software | On 24 May 2006, the Warlords Battlecry III source code became available to the public. Members of the community (who signed a NDA) have been entitled distributors, which have the legal permissions to allocate copies of the Warlords Battlecry III source code.[534][535] The source code release resulted in the development of several community-made fan patches[536][537] and mods. |
War Worlds | 2013 | 2014 | RTS | Own permissive license[538] | Own permissive license | Codeka / Dean Harding | The mobile strategy game was originally released commercially,[539] and later released to the public to allow the community to continue the support of the game.[540][541] With help of the community the game's main developer has continued the support since then. |
Warfare Incorporated (now Hostile Takeover) | 2003 | 2014 | RTS | BSD license | BSD license | Spiffcode | In July 2014 the game's source code and content got open sourced with the BSD license under the name "Hostile takeover" on GitHub.[542][543] As result the game was ported by the game's community to alternative platforms like the Pandora handheld.[544] |
Warzone 2100 | 1999 | 2004/2008 | RTS | GPLv2 | GPLv2, CC | Pumpkin Studios/Eidos Interactive | 3D real-time strategy game with a unit design system. First source part was released by Pumpkin Studios/Eidos Interactive in 2004 and the rest was released in 2008.[545] |
Witchaven series | 1995 | 2006 | FPS | non-given | Proprietary | Capstone Software | Around 2006 Les Bird, a programmer from the 1996 folded game development company Capstone Software, released the source code of the abandoned games Witchaven, Witchaven II, William Shatner's TekWar and Corridor 7: Alien Invasion.[546] |
Wolfenstein 3D | 1992 | 1995 | FPS | ID SOFTWARE LICENSE[436] | Proprietary | id Software | The source code of Wolfenstein 3D, which also covered Spear of Destiny, was released on July 21, 1995. |
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory | 2003 | 2010 | FPS | GPLv3 | Proprietary | Splash Damage/id Software | Game source released on August 12, 2010. |
Word Whiz | 1988 | 2009 | Educational game | GPL | GPL | Apogee Software | Game source released on March 20, 2009. |
World Train Royale | 2009 | 2011 | Tycoon game | ? | Freeware | Versus Software | Sold around 2009 for 10 dollars,[547] the game source code was released on 26 June 2011 on sourceforge.[548][549] |
Worms Armageddon | 1999 | 2002 | Deathmatch game | ? | Commercial | Team 17 | Around 2002 Team 17, impressed by the reverse engineering on Worms Armageddon for "Silkworm",[550] gave David "Deadcode" Ellsworth access to the source code.[551] Over the next years he created unofficial patches, until he joined Team 17 in 2006. Updates are still created as of 2015.[552] |
Xargon | 1993 | 2008 | Platformer | own license[284] | Freeware (with additional restrictions) | Epic MegaGames | Game source released in 2008 by the programmer Allen Pilgrim.[553] A SDL port followed later by Malvineous.[554] |
Xenonauts | 2014 | 2015 | Turn-based tactics | ? | Proprietary | Goldhawk Interactive | Shortly after the release of the stable version Goldhawk Interactive allowed selected members of the community to access the source code.[555] This resulted in the community edition of the game (Xenonauts:Community Edition, X:CE), which continues development of an independent branch of the game, adding new features and bugfixes.[556] |
Zork (also known as Dungeon or Dungeon Adventure) | 1977 | 1978 | Text adventure | Public domain software | Public domain | Robert M. Supnik / Infocom | Public domain software ports with source code based on the first "Dungeon" version of Zork, are available in various repositories.[557][558] Also, Infocom allowed the distribution of the early Fortran version. Original version from MIT.[559][560] |
The table below with available source code resulted not from correct releases of companies or IP holders but from unclear release situations, like lost & found and leaks of unclear legality (e.g. by an individual developer on end-of-product-life) or undeleted content.[561]
Title | Original release | Source code found or leaked | Genre | Original developer | Additional information |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Actua Soccer 96 | 1996 | 1996 | sports game | Gremlin Interactive | A demo CD that shipped with a game magazine contained accidentally the C++ source code of the game.[562] |
Asteroids | 1979 | 1996 | Arcade | Atari | Source code of Asteroids in the Atari 7800 version was released in physical form by Atari Sunnyvale on their closure 1996. Together with Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Robotron: 2084 and eight further games reconstructed by the Atari-Museum and published later.[563][564] Ports for modern FPGAs were made later.[565] |
Art of Fighting | 1992 | 2014 | Fighting game | SNK | Found in a PC9821 (neogeo dev machine) the full source code of the Art of Fighting ASM 68k source code in 2014.[566][567] |
Beatmania 5th Mix | 1999 | 2000 | Music video game | Konami | With the 2000 Japanese PSX game Beatmania Best Hits there was mistakenly included the source code for the 1999 game Beatmania 5th Mix.[568] |
B.O.B. / Space Funky B.O.B. | 1993 | 2008 | Side-scrolling game | Electronic Arts | On September 12, 2008 the source code of the SNES version became available as it was found on an eBay-bought hard drive.[569] |
Captain Comic | 1988 | 2012 | Platformer | Michael Denio | In September 2012 the source code of the NES version was offered on ebay for $439.[570][571] |
Chicken Run | 2000 | 2011 | Stealth game | Blitz Games | In May 2011 the Sega Dreamcast source code became available, found by a collector on a Dreamcast Dev Kit's harddrive.[572][573] |
Dark Engine (Thief, Thief II, System Shock 2) | 1993 | 2009/2010 | Stealth game | Looking Glass Studios | In 2009, a complete copy of the Dark Engine source code was discovered in the possession of an ex-Looking Glass Studios employee who was at the time continuing his work for Eidos Interactive.[574] In late April 2010, a user on the Dreamcast Talk forum disassembled the contents of a Dreamcast development kit he had purchased.[575] Later, significant updates for the Dark Engine-based games were published.[576][577][578] |
Dark Reign 2 | 2000 | 2011 | RTS | Pandemic Studios | Released by a former developer of Pandemic Studios under LGPL to prevent that the game become unsupported Abandonware.[579][580] Legal status unclear. |
Donkey Kong | 1981 | 2008 | Platformer | Nintendo | In August 2008 the source code of Donkey Kong in Atari 800 6502 assembly was published at the AtariAge forum by Curt Vendel (the Atari Flashback designer),[581] and was discussed there by the original developer, Landon Dyer.[582] |
Double Dragon II: The Revenge | 1989 | 2013 | Beat em up | Technōs Japan | In 2013 the Internet Archive put the undeleted assembly sources (DRGNSRC.LZH) of the DOS version for download.[583][584] |
Empire | 1977 | 197? | turn-based wargame | Walter Bright | At some point, someone broke through the security systems at Caltech, and took a copy of the source code for the FORTRAN/PDP-10 version of the game.[585] This code was continually modified, being passed around from person to person and ported to other system e.g. to VAX/VMS OS.[586] |
Eve Online | 2003 | 2011 | Space strategy MMO | CCP Games | On 20 May 2011 someone released the EVE Online source code on a GitHub repository.[587] After the source code was online four days, CCP issued a DMCA take-down request which was followed by GitHub.[588] |
Extreme-G 3 | 2001 | 2015 | Racer game | Acclaim Cheltenham | The source code of the PS2 game came into hands of a community member by unknown means around 2015.[589] |
FIFA 97 | 1996 | 1996 | sport video game | Electronic Arts | Around 1996 Electronic Arts put accidentally the source code of FIFA 97 on a demo disc.[590] |
Forsaken | 1998 | 2007 | 6DOF shooter | Probe Entertainment | In 2007, nine years after the first release, the game itself and its source code were considered abandoned and became available to the public.[591] The game's community took up the game and kept updating and porting the game via a GitHub repository under a GPL license.[592][593] |
GunZ: The Duel | 2005 | 2011 | Third-person shooter | MAIET Entertainment | In 2011 the source code of GunZ 1.5 became available online.[594] |
Lineage II | 2003 | 2003 | MMORPG | NCSOFT | In 2003 a Chinese Hacker acquired the Lineage II source code, and sold it to someone who set up alternative servers. Shutdown by FBI in 2007.[595][596] |
Microsoft Entertainment Pack | 1996 | 2004 | Casual game | Microsoft | In the copies of Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 source code which leaked back in 2004, there are 32-bit versions of Cruel, Golf, Pegged, Reversi, Snake (Rattler Race), Taipei and TicTactics.[597] |
NBA Jam Extreme | 1996 | 2017 | Sports game | Sculptured Software | In February 2017 the source code was discovered on an archival CD liquidated by Acclaim Entertainment during their bankruptcy sale. It was subsequently sold on eBay for $500. |
Re-Volt | 1999 | 200? | Racing game | Acclaim Studios London | Members of the fan-base have acquired the source code of the game around 2004, which was leaked from an anonymous developer who worked on the Xbox Live port.[598][599] The game community works since then on fan patches and source ports to new platforms like Linux, MacOS and OpenPandora.[600][601][602] |
Rolling Thunder | 1987 | 2016 | side-scrolling action game | Tiertex Design Studios | The Amiga version became available on a community forum.[603] |
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 | 1994 | 2009 | Beat'em up | Midway Games | The source code and artwork of the PSX version were recovered from floppies in 2009.[604][605] |
Mr Nutz 2 | 1994 | 2008 | Platformer | Ocean Software | Amiga game, source code prototype associated with Peter Thierolf.[606][607] |
Killer7 | 2005 | 2016 | Action-adventure game | Grasshopper Manufacture | Sources and assets for the GameCube game were found in October 2016 on an open webserver.[608] |
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (X-Ray Engine 1.5.10) | 2008 | 2014 | FPS | GSC Game World | In August 2014 S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky's X-Ray Engine 1.5.10 source code became available on GitHub under a non-open-source license.[609] The successor's engine, X-ray 1.6.02, became available too.[610][611] |
Starcraft | 1998 | 2017 | Real-time strategy | Blizzard | In 2017 it was announced that a potentially 1998 stolen/lost[612] STARCRAFT Gold Master source code CD of Starcraft resurfaced in the hand of an enthusiast.[613] After long contemplation, he sent it back to Blizzard.[614] There was some doubt about the authenticity of this CD, as there was no proof provided. It is unclear if, as indicated in the earlier discussion, a copy of the source code was forwarded to Jason Scott of the Internet Archive for preservation purposes. |
Tony Hawk's Underground | 2003 | 2016 | Sports game | Neversoft | The game's C++ source code was leaked on February 2016 to github.[615] |
Turrican III | 1994 | 2008 | Run and gun | Factor 5 | Amiga game, source code prototype associated with Peter Thierolf.[607] |
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter | 1997 | 2017 | First-person shooter | Iguana Entertainment / Acclaim Entertainment | In February 2017 the source code of the N64 version was sold on Ebay for $2551.99 on a SGI Silicon Graphics Indy development machine which came from the Acclaim Entertainment liquidation.[616][617][618] |
Trespasser | 1998 | 200x | Action-adventure, FPS | DreamWorks Interactive | The fan community got the original source code into hand by unknown means[619] and created modifications and unofficial patches with it,[620][621] the latest DirectX 9 port from 2016 and the development ongoing.[622] |
Ultima 9 | 1999 | 2014 | First person Role-playing video game | Origin Systems | In November 2014 the Ultima Codex Community was able to acquire the Ultima 9 source code from a former developer for offline archival to prevent permanent loss.[623] |
Wing commander series | 1990 | 2011 | Space simulator | Origin Systems | The long lost source code of Wing Commander I was given to the fan-community in August 2011 by a former developer for the purpose of long-time preservation.[624] Later most other parts of the series followed.[625][626] |
Zork and other Infocom games | 1977 | 2008 | Adventure game | Infocom | In 2008 a back-up with the source code of all Infocom's video games appeared from an anonymous Infocom source and was archived by the Internet Archive's Jason Scott.[627][628][629] |
Once games, or software in general, become an obsolete product for a company, the tools and source code required to re-create the game are often lost or even actively destroyed and deleted.[630][369][631][632][633][634][635] On the closure of Atari in Sunnyvale, California in 1996, the original source code of several milestones of video game history (like Asteroids or Centipede) were thrown out as trash.[636][637]
When much time and manual work is invested it is however still possible to recover or restore a source code variant which replicates the program's functions accurately from the binary program. Techniques used here are decompiling, disassembling and reverse engineering the binary executable. This approach typically does not result in the exact original source code but a diverging version as a binary program does not contain all information originally carried in the original source code. Comments and function names cannot be restored if the program was compiled without additional debug information. The here given in "bottom up" development methodology re-created source-code of games is able to replicate the behaviour of the original game exactly ("clock-cycle accurate", "pixel-per-pixel accurate"), unlike game engine recreations which are often made in top down methodology resulting in general game engines and not accurately representing the original game.
Title | Original release | Source code reconstructed | Genre | Original developer | Additional information |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Albion | 1996 | 2011 | Adventure game | Blue Byte | In 2011 via static recompilation from the original x86 binary executable a port for the ARM architecture of the Pandora handheld was created by fans.[638][639] The community still updates this recompiled version and released also Windows and Linux builds in 2015,[640] source code available on GitHub under MIT.[641] |
AM2R | 2016 | 2017 | Platform game | In 2017 reverse engineered on gitlab.[642] | |
Another World | 1991 | 2011 | Platform game | Delphine Software International | In 2011, Fabien Sanglard analysed Another World by reverse engineering and reconstructed, based on an earlier approach, a complete C++ source code variant of the internal virtual machine.[643][644] |
Bagman | 1982 | 2010 | Arcade game | Valadon Automation | In 2010 the French programmer Jean-François Fabre reconstructed C source code from the game to port it to modern platforms.[645] |
Bermuda Syndrome | 1995 | 2007 | Adventure game | Century Interactive | After the end of support for the game, Gregory Montoir reverse engineered in 2007 the game engine and wrote a substitute which allowed the porting of the game to modern platforms,[646][647] like the OpenPandora handheld.[648] |
Blood II: The Chosen | 1998 | 2017 | FPS | Monolith Productions | A limited SDK with the game logic source code for modding was released in 2001 by Monolith under GPL. The Lithtech engine was not released. Around 2017 reverse engineered build was created by Alexander Makarov for source ports.[649] Also, since 2011 there is effort in merging a newer Lithtech engine version with the released game source code.[650] |
Boulder Dash | 1984 | 2016 | Arcade game | First Star Software | The C64 version was bit accurate reverse engineered by enthusiasts in month long work in 2016.[651][652] The group reverse engineered several more games also from this period, like The Castles of Dr. Creep 3, Miner 2049er, Lode Runner, Manic Miner and Beach Head.[653] |
The Castles of Dr. Creep | 1984 | 2010 | Platform game | Edward R. Hobbs | Robert Crossfield worked on a faithful engine for the game since 2010.[654] The remake/reconstructed version got released for PC on Steam by Edward R. Hobbs & Robert Crossfield on September 2016 for $2.99.[655] |
Cannon Fodder | 1993 | 2015 | top-down shooter | Sensible Software | In December 2015, Robert Crossfield released version 1.0 of the reverse engineered DOS CD Cannon Fodder version, under the name "OpenFodder" on GitHub under GPL.[656][657] |
Chasm: The Rift | 1997 | 2016 | First-person shooter | Action Forms | Around 2016 a reverse engineered version became available on github.[658] |
Commander Keen 5 | 2001 | 2017 | Sidecrolling shooter | Id software | In 2017 a pixel-accuracy aiming engine re-implementation, based on several disassembly/decompilation efforts, became available by David Gow.[659] C99 source code is hosted on github under GPLv2. Originally only meant for Keen 5, it now supports Keen 4, 5 and 6.[660] |
Diablo II | 2000 | 2015 | Action RPG | Blizzard Entertainment | In 2015 an unofficial port for the ARM architecture based Pandora handheld became available by static recompilation and reverse engineering of the original x86 version.[661][662] |
Digger | 1983 | 1998 | Arcade | Windmill Software | Reverse engineered by Andrew Jenner in 1998, called Digger Remastered, released as GPL and ported for many platforms.[131] |
Dune II | 1992 | 2009 | Real-time strategy game | Westwood Studios | In 2009 a group started reverse engineering Dune II under the name OpenDUNE.[663] The resulting code was released under GPLv2 and ported to other platforms like the Pandora.[664] |
Dungeon Keeper | 1997 | 2005 | realtime dungeon simulator | Bullfrog | Tomasz Lis works on reverse engineering (ongoing) a version called "KeeperFX", the resulting source code is released as GPLv3.[665] |
Dungeon Master | 1989 | 2001 | Dungeon crawler | FTL Games | In 2001 Dungeon Master (and its successor CSB) was released by Paul R. Stevens in a portable reverse engineered version called "CSBwin". CSBwin was reverse engineered from the game's Atari assembler code to a pure C version in months of work.[666][667] In 2014 Christophe Fontanel released another reverse engineering project which tries to recreate all existing versions.[668][669] |
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | 1982 | 2006 | Arcade | Atari | In 2006 decompiled by Dennis Debro.[670][671][672] Following that, several unofficial fixes for the game were released by a fan site.[673] |
Elite | 1984 | 2003 | Space trading game | Ian Bell, David Braben | Christian Pinder created Elite: The New Kind as faithful PC version by reverse-engineering platform-neutral C code from the original BBC Micro version of Elite. This version was withdrawn from the main distribution at David Braben's request in 2003.[674] In September 2014, on Elite's 30th birthday, Ian Bell blessed Elite: The New Kind and re-released it for free on his website.[168][675][676] Source code of the 1.0 version is available on a GitHub repository.[677] |
Escape from Colditz | 1991 | 2009 | Action-adventure game | Mike Halsall, John Law / Digital Magic Software. | Around 2009 some developers reconstructed from the Amiga version a C version under GPLv3.[678][679] Ported then to many systems. |
Exile | 1988 | 2012 | Action-adventure game | Peter Irvin | Around 2012 the assembly source code of the BBC Micro version was reconstructed and commented.[680] Later author Peter Irvin blessed also the non-commercial redistribution of the Amiga version of the game.[681] |
Freeway | 1981 | 19?? | Arcade game | Activision | Decompiled and commented by Rebecca Heineman.[672] |
Football Manager | 1982 | 2001 | Sports game, Business simulation game | Kevin Toms | In 2001 Paul Robson developed an accurate remake of the original game by reverse engineering in C.[682] The remake has since been ported to the GP2X[683] and Google Android. |
Frontier: Elite 2 | 1993 | 2006 | Space trading game | Frontier Developments | Reverse engineered to C by Tom Morton until 2006.[684] |
Frontier: First Encounters (Elite III) | 1995 | 2005 | Space trading game | Frontier Developments | Frontier Developments announced in 2000 that FFE would be open-sourced under a GPL-similar license,[685] but this never happened.[686] In response, in October 2005 the game was reverse engineered by John Jordan and builds for modern operation systems were provided.[687] Updated until December 1, 2009 and later continued by other programmers with builds like "FFE_D3D".[688] |
Half-Life | 1999 | 2013 | FPS | Valve Software | Around 2013 Valve released with the SDK some source code parts (server).[689] The client and the Goldsrc engine parts were reverse engineered in context of the Xash3d project.[690] Ports to other systems became available, for instance Android or the OpenPandora.[691] |
Inner Worlds | 1996 | 2016 | Fantasy adventure platformer | Sleepless Software | Originally shareware, in February 2000 the game was released as freeware in version 1.3.[692][693] Source code reverse engineered around 2016.[694] |
Igor: Objective Uikokahonia | 1994 | 2017 | Point and click adventure | Pendulo Studios | Reverse engineered by Gregory Montoir, now hosted on GitHub, currently beta status.[695] |
Heart of the Alien | 1994 | 2004 | Platformer | Interplay Entertainment | After Heart of the Alien became unsupported and unavailable, Gil Megidish took up 2004 the effort of extracting a source code variant from the binary game by reverse engineering to make the game available again on modern platforms.[696] The extracted source code was made open-source and is hosted freely available on sourceforge. |
Jet Set Willy | 1984 | 2014 | Platformer | Software Projects | This classic ZX Spectrum game was disassembled by Richard Dymond back into Z80 source code, and includes some very comprehensive comments.[697] |
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I | 1990 | 2009 | Adventure game | Interplay Entertainment | As the game is without official support for many years, a community developer reverse engineered the game engine and created around 2009 a substitute. The LPGLv2.1+ licensed open source project allowed the porting to modern platforms,[698] for instance Windows, Linux and the OpenPandora handheld.[699] |
Little Big Adventure | 1994 | 2004[700] | Action-adventure | Adeline Software International | Reverse engineered and placed on sourceforge (later GitHub) as "Twin-e" after getting an "OK" by Frederick Raynal.[701][702] |
Manic Miner | 1983 | 2014 | Platformer | Bug-Byte | This classic ZX Spectrum game was disassembled by Richard Dymond back into Z80 source code, and includes some very comprehensive comments.[703] |
Metroid | 1986 | ? | Run and gun/Action-adventure game | Nintendo | The NES game was disassembled by the collaborative work of several developers over the course of years.[704][705] |
Minecraft | 2009 | 2010 | Sandbox game | Mojang | The Mod Coder Pack (MCP)[706] offers scripts for de-obfuscation/decompilation of the Java-based version of Minecraft. |
Nicky Boum | 1992 | 2007 | Platform game | Microïds | Reverse engineered by Gregory Montoir and open sourced in March 2006 with version 0.1.5. The engine reached with v0.2.0 playable status when development and distribution of the source code was stopped.[707] The source code was made in 2017 available on github for some time, before the repository was set to private.[708] |
Oo-Topos | 1982 | 2015 | Interactive fiction | Penguin Software | Penguin Software released several of their Comprehend Adventure engine games as freeware, also from the Transylvania series.[709] After end of official support, Ryan Mallon reconstructed around July 2015 a source code variant of the game's engine to port these games.[710] Ryan Mallon works also on reverse engineering The Lost Vikings engine.[711] |
Out Run | 1986 | 2012 | Arcade racing | Sega | Since around 2009[712] a game enthusiast worked on decompiling source code of "Out Run". In 2012 a truthful engine, called "Canon Ball", was released on GitHub. To run the game, the original game's assets are required.[713] Ports to many systems followed, like OpenPandora.[714] |
Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue | 1996 | 2014 | Role-playing video games | Nintendo | Reverse engineered assembly of the Game Boy Color game on github.com.[715] |
Pokémon Crystal | 2001 | 2014 | Role-playing video games | Nintendo | Reverse engineered assembly of the Game Boy Color game on github.com.[716] |
Pong | 1972 | 2012 | Arcade game | Atari | The available schematics ("source code") was reconstructed and adapted for modern and available electronic parts to a new PCB design in 2012.[717][718][719] |
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 | 2002 | 2014 | Business simulation game | Chris Sawyer | In April 2014 a project to reverse engineer Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 into platform independent C source code, was started under the name OpenRCT2 by Ted 'IntelOrca' John.[720] Hosted as GPLv3 licensed open-source software on GitHub, it requires the original game's graphics and sound assets.[721] As of November 2015, while the project has not fully reached the goal of substituting 100% of the binary's functionality, the port is playable and for many platforms builds are available. |
PowerSlave | 1996 | 2017 | FPS | Lobotomy Software | On May 24, 2015, an unofficial remake based on the PlayStation version was released by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal for free.[722][723] In May 2015 publisher Night Dive Studios acquired the game rights,[723] Villarreal and Night Dive Studios working on a digital distribution re-release.[724] On January 2, 2017 Kaiser released the source code of his reverse engineered engine under the GPLv3 license on GitHub.[725][726] |
Snipes | 1983 | 2016 | early networked Multi player game maze game | SuperSet Software | In July 2016, a faithful port by reverse engineering the original game became available. Permission was granted by original authors Drew Major and Kyle Powell[727] to make it public. The full C/C++ source code is available at GitHub.[728] |
Super Bomberman | 1993 | 2015 | Action, Maze | Hudson Soft | Reverse engineered assembly and build system of Super Bomberman by Lior Halphon on GitHub. Rebuilds several different versions of the game, and can restore some disabled debug features.[729] |
Super Mario Bros | 1985 | 2012 | Platformer | Nintendo | Commented disassembly of SMB on GitHub.[730] |
Space Ace | 1984 | 2015 | Interactive movie | Advanced Microcomputer Systems | In July 2015 Rebecca Heineman released a reverse engineered Apple IIGS source code version of Space Ace on GitHub.[731][732] |
Star Castle | 1980 | 2012 | Arcade | Atari | Former Atari engineer D. Scott Williamson re-created in 3 years work Star Castle faithfully for the Atari 2600. After a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, he released everything for free on his website, including source code.[733][734][735] |
Starcraft | 1998 | 2014 | Real-time strategy | Blizzard Entertainment | By static recompilation and reverse engineering of the original x86 binary to an intermediate C "pseudo-assembly" source code,[736] an unofficial version for the Pandora handheld and the ARM architecture became available in 2014.[737][738] |
Stardew Valley | 2016 | 2016 | Farming simulation | Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone / Chucklefish | Decompiled for fan patches and mods.[739][740] |
Strike Commander | 1993 | 2013 | Flight simulator | Origin Systems | In 2013 a SC reverse engineering project by Fabien Sanglard with a reconstructed source code variant became available on GitHub as the original source code was most probably lost in the take over of Origin by EA (Abandonware).[741][742] |
Super 3D Noah's Ark | 1994 | 2015 | FPS | Wisdom Tree | In October 2015 a community reconstructed, under usage of already released id software engine code, source code variant became available on bitbucket.[743][744][745] |
Syndicate Wars | 1996 | 2010 | Real-time tactics | Bullfrog Productions | In January 2010 a reverse engineering project of the MS-DOS-based Syndicate Wars was finished by two developers and builds for Windows, Mac and Linux were released.[746] It's complete beside networking and joystick code.[747] |
Tennis for two | 1958 | 2008 | Arcade | William Higinbotham | In 2008 Tennis for Two, a video game from 1958 and one of the earliest video games,[748] was recreated using partly modern parts.[749] |
The Great Escape | 1986 | 2016 | Arcade adventure | Denton Designs | David Thomas started in 2012 a reverse engineering project to create portable C source code from the DOS version's binary, which reached in January 2016 compiling state.[750][751] |
The Last Ninja | 1987 | 2009 | Action-adventure game | System 3 | Robert Crossfield reverse engineered a faithful engine from the Amiga version of the game since 2009.[752] First three levels complete. |
Touhou Project | 1996 | 2014 | Shoot 'em up | Team Shanghai Alice | "The Touhou PC-98 Restoration Project" was started around 2014 on GitHub on base of found source code of libraries.[753] In progress. |
Transport Tycoon Deluxe | 1994 | 2004 | Business simulation game | Chris Sawyer/Microprose | In 2003, Ludvig Strigeus started to reverse engineer Transport Tycoon Deluxe and convert the game to C. In 2004, this re-engineered Transport Tycoon Deluxe was released and christened OpenTTD and is still under active development by the community.[754][755] |
Ultima 3: Exodus | 1983 | 2002 | RPG | Richard Garriott | Disassembled and ported to GBC in 2001 by Sven Carlberg.[756] Richard Garriott was aware and pleased by this work. |
Zorgons Revenge | 1983 | 2014 | Shooter | John Sinclair | Jean-François Fabre created binary translation libraries for Oric BASIC and assembly code to portable C and used it for nine games.[757] Source code re-created and released for: House of Death, L'Aigle d'Or, Le Manoir du Dr Genius, Le Retour du Dr Genius, Rendez-vous de la Terreur, Xenon 1, Strip 21, Zebbie, Zorgons' Revenge.[758] Build available for the OpenPandora.[759] |
Might and Magic 6/7/8 | 1998 | 2010 | RPG | New World Computing | world-of-might-and-magic on github |
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Airline Tycoon Deluxe is a golden oldie with native versions for Mac OS X and Linux. As an added bonus, the package here comes with the game's Windows source code for your viewing and tweaking pleasure. You sure don't see that every day.
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Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") hereby relicenses the Microsoft Video Game Allegiance source code found at https://github.com/FreeAllegiance/Allegiance/tree/master/src ("Allegiance Source Code") from the current Microsoft Research Shared Source license Agreement (MSR-SSLA) to the MIT license.
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What's interesting about Arx Fatalis is that development of the game started up again last year. Arkane Studios released patch 1.21 and with it open sourced the engine. That led to an new project called Arx Libertatis, which aimed to update the game to be played on multiple modern operating systems including Windows and Linux.
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30 months ago, at the 2011 Game Developers Conference, somebody asked me to release the source code for my old games. I said I would look into it. [...] I have begun the process of preparing my source code for general distribution.
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Source code for Beneath a Steel Sky in Assembly language (415,225 bytes) xxxx
Support for Beneath a Steel Sky, made possible thanks to Revolution Software supplying us with the original assembly source code!
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Q) Do you have the rights to distribute this game? A) Hopefully! Silas Warner's wife has granted permission to release the source code and game executables as a small memorial of his work.
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[...]that no further patches to the title would be forthcoming. The community was predictably upset. Instead of giving up on the game, users decided that if Activision wasn't going to fix the bugs, they would. They wanted to save the game by getting Activision to open the source so it could be kept alive beyond the point where Activision lost interest. With some help from members of the development team that were active on fan forums, they were eventually able to convince Activision to release Call to Power II's source code in October of 2003.
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The developers behind Canabalt confirmed that the game's source code will be made available as part of an open source project. The game will be licensed under the MIT Open Source license, which will let other developers use the engine source code in its entirety for both personal and commercial projects. While the code powering the game is available for the world to use, the game art, sounds, animations and Canabalt game-specific code is still proprietary.
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Parallax Software, the software developer that created the popular three-dimensional action games Descent and Descent II, has released Descent's source code (version 1.5) to the public domain for noncommercial purposes.
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Programmers and coders may also be interested in the source code should email Louis Jordan. Before doing so, check out the License Grant offered by Doug Morgan, former president of Dyna Micro. Apparently he's willing to give the code to anyone willing to cover the costs of shipping and copying (at Kinko's) the listing.
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October 1, 2005: We just sold the last copy of Enemy Nations. [...] If you have a copy and want to give a copy to a friend - you have our permission to burn a CD with a copy of Enemy Nations - with one major caveat. You must give them the game. You cannot sell it to them. You cannot include it as part of anything you sell. It cannot be included with any product or magazine as a free extra. The person making the copy must even buy the blank CD. It must be a true free gift given totally separate of anything else.
This is released under a limited license: 1) No rights are given to the game Enemy Nations, the trademark Enemy Nations, or the concept. 2) Windward intends to someday create an Enemy Nations II and reserves all rights for all future versions of the game. 3) You may not sell anything derived from this code, art, or anything else included. 4) This is released solely for people to learn from the code and to make fixes in the existing code that they will make available for free. If you don't like these restrictions, don't use this code/data.
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[C2E] In 2000 the source code of Falcon 4.0 leaked out and after that groups of volunteers were able to make fixes and enhancements that assured the longevity of this sim. Do you see the source code leak as a good or bad event? [Klemmick] "Absolutely a good event. In fact I wish I'd known who did it so I could thank them. I honestly think this should be standard procedure for companies that decide not to continue to support a code base."
Legal - FreeFalcon doesn't have the cleanest history regarding its terms of use, but that all ends here. The code is now licensed under the rather liberal BSD 2-clause license; for the first time in its history, FreeFalcon is truly free. See the LICENSE.md file for the full text of the license.
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The entire library of art assets from the game, has been made freely available, dedicated to the public domain. Code from the game client is included to help developers work with the assets. All of it can be downloaded and used by anyone, for any purpose.
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Das Team hatte Zugriff auf den Quellcode von Gothic 3. Zusätzlich wurde auch inhaltlich an dem Spiel gearbeitet, da laut Patch Team ein Beheben aller Fehler nicht allein durch das Verändern des Quellcodes möglich war.
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Jan made an archaeological expedition and recovered the GF2 source code from a dusty old floppy disc! We do not pretend it is a wonder in coding style (in fact, it is a complete disaster!), but for primarily nostalgic interest we publish it here.
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[…] released port of HomeworldSDL. […] enables your Pandora to experience the excellent work done by the guys at HomeworldSDL.
[...]it was deemed pretty much impossible to continue to do anything with the released source code that was made available.[...]We just ask that the already released source code be made available under a GPL V2.0 or higher license and hosted on GitHub.
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The license agreement for the original release of the source still stands.[...] If someone is interested in doing something under a different license using the old opensource code, there is always room to talk.[permanent dead link]
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Today at 7 pm CST Bungie Software releases the Mac source code for their classic game "Marathon 2: Durandal" to the net.
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This is the Shared Source release for MechCommander 2. This release contains all of the source code and source assets required to build MechCommander 2. This release can be used with the Microsoft XNA Build March 2006 Community Technology Preview (CTP).
This source code is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License with the following special exception. As a special exception, the copyright holders of this program give you permission to link this program with the accompanying files wrap.dll and waveplay.dll.
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Bob Mitchell: What has prompted you to release the source code for MiG Alley and Battle of Britain? Dave Whiteside: Because we are no longer doing flight sims [after Empire took us over at the end of 2001], and we would not be able to publish any patches that were required [no money was allocated to this], rather than let MiG die and all the code sit doing nothing it was considered a good idea, a swan song, if you like, for Rowan [after 13 years in the flight sim market].
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[...]fans of the Myth trilogy have taken this idea a step further: they have official access to the source code for the Myth games. Organized under the name MythDevelopers, this all-volunteer group of programmers, artists, and other talented people devote their time to improving and supporting further development of the Myth game series.
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[...] the game struggled to attract subscribers and was canceled after its first year. Disappointed with the turn of events, Cyan decided to release Myst Online: Uru Live as an open source game in 2010 hoping fans would be able to give the game a new life.
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EXCLUDED CODE: The code described below and contained in the Natural Selection Source Code release is not part of the Program covered by the GPL and is expressly excluded from its terms.
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Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner believed that the source code to the game's original Apple II version was gone when he failed to find it in 2002. Ten years later, Mechner's father uncovered a box of old games at the family home, and among them were disks containing Prince of Persia's bedrock program.
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In order to give the Siege game an extended practical life, allow ongoing player support, give the game a chance to be made available on other platforms, and to share our technical learning experience with the game development community, the Board of Directors at Digital Tome LP have agreed to release the Delphi source to the Siege game to the Open Source community under an LGPL license!
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gave source code to subsim.com [...] a fund raising drive netted more then $7000 to jump-start Project Messerwetzer [...] Skilled volunteers and playtesters rallied to the call [...] a free 5MB to 6MB patch that will be finally polished and playtested. The original crippling flaw, multiplayer instability, has been dramatically minimized [...]
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[...]Don Hopkins got a lot of work done on the finishing touches on releasing the original SimCity source code under the GNU General Public Library (GPL). The code won't have reference to any SimCity name as that has all be renamed to Micropolis. Micropolis was the original working title of the game and since EA requires that the GPL open source version not use the same name as SimCity (to protect their trademark) a little work had to be done to the code.
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Before there was a Leisure Suit Larry, Chuck Benton created the only non-graphic game Sierra ever sold, Softporn for the Apple ][. I later used its puzzles as the basis for LSL1: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Still later, Gary Thompson reprogrammed it for the IBM PC. Here's your chance to see whether the changes I made to this classic game were improvements or not! Click here to download "Softporn" and see 1981 for yourself!
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Today we have a very important announcement for our modders and our community. We decided to give you 100% complete access to Space Engineers' source code. This comes as a continuation of our decision to give more freedom to modders and community.
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When the original developers of Star Control 2 contacted the online Star Control fan community, they presented an enticing question: if they released the source to the 3DO version of Star Control 2 under GPL, would anybody be interested in porting it to modern-day computers? Michael Martin, a 26-year-old Ph.D. student at Stanford University, answered the call. After removing proprietary 3DO-specific components from the code, the developers released the source for Star Control 2 to the public.
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In the wake of Lucasarts' closure today, Raven - the developers of the thoroughly excellent Jedi Outcast - have decided to release the source code for the game. Oh, and the code for its sequel, Jedi Academy, as well.
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Apparently the excellent and unique military space sim, Starshatter: The Gathering Storm, has gone open source thanks to its original developer releasing the source code. [...]: "14 DEC, 2011 – STARSHATTER:THE GATHERING STORM – Open Source Version 5.0.5. This download Includes the cumulative Starshatter-TGS game up to version 5.0.5 (No CD Required). It is available for download from our "Lagacy Official File" section."
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Starshatter: The Gathering Storm is a moderately complex, moderately realistic, spaceborne military flight sim that takes place in a series of dynamic campaigns.
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As of Tuesday, November 18, 2008, the Stellar Frontier source code has officially been released by Stardock Corporation. End-User License Agreement was updated June 19th 2010.
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The list of fixes upon fixes are too long to mention here, but the essential purpose of v227 is to add DirectX9 and OpenAL support as well as mending everything that needs mending. Epic are aware of and permit the patch [...]
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These games were rescued from Atari ST format diskettes that were thrown out behind 1196 Borregas when Atari closed up in 1996. The Atari Museum rescued these important treasures and recovered them from the diskettes.
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This was originally posted on eludevisibility.org when I (Matthew Callis) originally bought these disks off eBay
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As of this weekend, Christmas has come early for the Through the Looking Glass community. A CD's been discovered containing the source code for the Dark Engine, aka the engine used by Thief, Thief II and System Shock 2 (not to mention Irrational and Looking Glass' cancelled cold war spy game Deep Cover).
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If you asked me which is my favorite all time video game, my number one would be Thief II. So it's with more than a little excitement that I report the source code for the Dark Engine, used to create Thief, Thief II, and System Shock 2, has been found.
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This is an unofficial patch for Thief II: The Metal Age (T2) which updates the game from v1.18 to v1.19, providing improved support for modern hardware and correcting many known bugs.
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[...]discovered that it suffers much of the same resolution and widescreen based trouble from the previous release, but this utility [Tafferpatch] fixed all my troubles [...]
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Included patches: - Patch 1.19 which eliminates all issues with modern hardware, widescreen resolutions, multi-core systems, etc.- Various mission, gamesys, model and texture fixes.[...]
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It looks as though someone has posted the source code for the space MMO Eve Online there. As you'd imagine, developer CCP isn't too happy about this and was quick to issue the takedown request.
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The community has even managed to get hold of the original source code, which they've set to work modifying.
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As we continue to mark the occasion of Ultima 9's fifteenth anniversary, I'm pleased to announced that the seemingly dormant Ultima Source Code Offline Archival Project (USCOAP) has finally borne some fruit: the Ultima Codex has added the source code for Ultima 9 to its offline archive.
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Thanks to an extremely kind donation from an anonymous former EA/Origin developer, the source code to the PC version of Wing Commander I is now preserved in our offline archive! Because of our agreement with Electronic Arts, we're not allowed to post recovered source code for download--but rest easy knowing that the C files that started it all are being kept safe for future reference. Our offline archive contains material that has been preserved but which can't be posted, including other source code and budget data from several of the games.
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As we celebrate Wing Commander III's first widespread retail availability since the late 1990s, we would like to mention for anyone that we have the game's source code in our offline archive. We know it's frustrating for fans, who could do amazing things with this, to read these updates... but it's also in everyone's best interests to remind EA that we have the raw material from which they could port Wing Commander III to a modern computer or console. Just let us know!
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As with Wing Commander I and Wing Commander III, we are pleased to announced that an extremely kind former EA/Origin employee has provided a copy of the Wing Commander IV source code for our preservation efforts! We can't offer it for download at this time, but it is now preserved for future use.
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Remnants of the unreleased sequel to Infocom's text adventure version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have been made available to the public by Waxy.org. Playable prototypes, design docs, source code and a string of e-mails between Infocom designers and management provide a fascinating look at the game's turbulent, if aborted, development process. Among the assets included: design documents, e-mail archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made."
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From an anonymous source close to the company, I've found myself in possession of the "Infocom Drive" — a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989.[...] Among the assets included: design documents, email archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made
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The existence of decaying technology, disorganization, and poor storage could in theory put a video game to sleep permanently -- never to be played again. Troubling admissions have surfaced over the years concerning video game preservation. When questions concerning re-releases of certain game titles are brought up during interviews with developers, for example, these developers would reveal issues of game production material being lost or destroyed. Certain game titles could not see a re-release due to various issues. One story began to circulate of source code being lost altogether for a well-known RPG, preventing its re-release on a new console.
In 1996, Taito announced that they lost the original source code program to Bubble Bobble following a reorganization - when it came to the recent ports and sequels, they had to work from program disassembly, playing the game and (mainly) the various home computer ports.
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These games were rescued from Atari ST format diskettes that were thrown out behind 1196 Borregas when Atari closed up in 1996. The Atari Museum rescued these important treasures and recovered them from the diskettes.
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This is a port of the game's executable for Pandora (using static recompilation/binary translation).
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Here is a version for Windows, in case anyone is interested. Unpack it into the directory where Albion is installed - read the Readme for more information (use Albion.cmd to run the game).
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I spent two weeks reading and reverse engineering further the source code of Another World ("Out Of This World" in North America). I based my work on Gregory Montoir's "binary to C++" initial reverse engineering from the DOS executable. I was amazed to discover an elegant system based on a virtual machine interpreting bytecode in realtime and generating fullscreen vectorial cinematic in order to produce one of the best game of all time.
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This is statically recompiled Windows executable, that was recompiled to ARM and bundled with ARM version of wine.
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There is a version that just works, without an emulator, and it's free. [...] A madman by the name of Paul Stevens spent six months, eight hours a day, writing 120,000 lines of what he calls "pseudo-assembly language" to rebuild it in C++. And then released the game and source code for free. Can he do that? I've decided that yes, he can, which legitimises my promoting it to you.
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The code, written in assembly language for the MOS Technology 6502 8-bit processor, has been around for a while, having been reconstructed by Dennis Debro in 2006.
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"A superior remake of the original space trading game Elite will be released for free this weekend, 30 years after the original game launched"
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"Today, 20th September 2014 is the 30th anniversary of the day the world first experienced Elite, the 3D space trading and combat game written by Ian Bell and David Braben in conjunction with Acornsoft. From that beginning on the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, the game went on to be released for most home computers of the time. Celebrate by playing Elite again, for free. Thanks to Matt Goldbolt, the original BBC Micro version now runs direct in the Google Chrome browser if you click here. Or for Windows PCs, download Christian Pinder's Elite: The New Kind by clicking here."
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Published by Superior Software in 1988, Exile is widely regarded as the most technically advanced game released for the BBC Micro. Featuring an enormous procedurally generated landscape, a complete physics engine and a host of game elements to interact with, it remains unsurpassed in pushing the capabilities of the system to their limits.
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What is JJFFE? JJFFE is set of recompiled replacement executables for the 1995 Frontier Developments game Frontier: First Encounters. There are currently versions that run under Windows 95/98/ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows NT4, OS/2, Linux and Mac. As well as running on many more operating systems than the original, JJFFE also includes minor improvements and bugfixes.
I'm sure many of you remember the awesome game that is RollerCoaster Tycoon 2; a game by Chris Sawyer and published by Infograms in which you manage your very own theme park, with all its rides, shops, guests and economic fortune. Well that same game is now being given a much needed adjustment with the latest release of OpenRCT2 Project. An open source development which improves the game even further with new features, original bug fixes, raised game limits and much more! [...] Development started on April 2nd 2014 by Ted 'IntelOrca' John and thanks to numerous contributions from others
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Most people assume the source codes and gold versions of all finished games were stored in a Vault somewhere at EA. But after getting in touch with people at Wing Commander CIC, it appeared that all the source code was lost when the company closed.[...] On his first day one developer managed to delete the full 900MB of Strike Commander source tree.
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