Open Source Game Engines

Like the Revenant in Doom II, Jonni Bidwell brings the corpses of lost video games backto life with a lil bit of FOSS magic.

- Jonni Bidwell

None of us at Linux Format are as young as we used to be. But our considerable collective age means we remember some fantastic games.

Some of these go way back: Exile, Elite, Repton, The Last Ninja on the BBC model B, Uridium and Maniac Mansion on the C64. Most of us spent most of our youth playing Amiga games, Monkey Island taught us how to swordfight, and who could forget those Bitmap Brothers classics: Xenon 2, Speedball 2 and The Chaos Engine? Just talking about them makes us want to fire up an emulator and relive those halcyon days.

But emulation can be clunky, and getting hold of ROMs and the like is tricky. Even playing early PC games through DOSBox can be troublesome. Thanks to the magic of open source though, we can do better. Many classic titles have had their game engines reverse engineered or revamped, so that the original game assets can be used seamlessly on a modern system. This can make for a completely authentic experience, or allow new features (better graphics, proper network play) to be added.

More importantly, it enables us oldies to show those young whippersnappers what gaming was like back in the day. Before the days of running around in a slick 3D environment, chasing in-game purchases, and learning to swear in Russian by listening to in-game chatter.