Reverse-engineered games: All the news on video game decomps, recomps, VR and web and 3D ports
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What's this about?
It’s a wild time for retro gaming. Thanks to decompilations and recompilations of classic titles, those games are becoming unshackled from their proprietary code and original hardware to be ported to new devices or updated in ways to completely change the original game. Ever imagined skateboar
The one-panel cartoon
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A retro arcade room filled with classic machines like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong, with a modern programmer sitting at a desk in the corner, surrounded by printed code and a computer screen showing lines of decompiled game code.
Caption: Welcome to the future where every game is a hack waiting to happen.
Read the full 3-panel strip
Based on the original story on theverge.com.
Editor's note
The resurgence and reinvention of classic games through reverse engineering offer exciting new ways to experience nostalgia, but they also raise concerns about intellectual property and the integrity of original artistic visions. As these games evolve beyond their original forms, it's crucial to consider the potential legal and ethical implications that could arise from such modifications.
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Panel 1
*Setting: A dimly lit office room filled with old CRT monitors and stacks of floppy disks. A programmer sits at a cluttered desk, surrounded by notes and printouts, staring intently at an old beige desktop computer.* Programmer (muttering to themselves)
Programmer: Decompiling this old game is harder than it looks.
Panel 2
*Setting: The same office room, but now the programmer is holding a small, sleek modern laptop, looking at a screen with a 3D model of a skateboarder in a skate park. The 3D model is glitchy and deformed, with strange polygons and missing limbs.* Programmer (sarcastically)
Programmer: Oh, perfect. Now my skateboarding sprite looks like it's having a seizure.
Panel 3
*Setting: The same office room, but now the programmer is on a video call with a client. The client is looking worried, while the programmer is visibly stressed and holding up a smartphone that is showing a VR headset with a glitched-out version of the skateboarding game inside.* Programmer (to the client, deadpan)
Programmer: So, uh, we're thinking maybe we'll start with VR... where the glitchy sprites can at least float in zero gravity.
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