
The Man Behind the Curtain: Commercial games with source code releases - danso
http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/the-man-behind-the-curtain
======
danso
Some other examples not in the OP:

\- A Dark Room [http://blog.doublespeakgames.com/news/a-dark-room-goes-
open-...](http://blog.doublespeakgames.com/news/a-dark-room-goes-open-source/)

\- Spelunky
[http://www.spelunkyworld.com/original.html](http://www.spelunkyworld.com/original.html)

\- MechCommander 2 (shared source, via Microsoft)
[http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-
mechcommander-2-shared-...](http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-
mechcommander-2-shared-source-release)

\- Asteroids (and many other Atari games)
[http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/games/](http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/games/)

\- Cart Life
[http://www.spelunkyworld.com/original.html](http://www.spelunkyworld.com/original.html)
(perhaps not as commercially successful as the others...but won a huge indie
game prize, and is a great work overall)

~~~
pnevares
Cart Life link is a dupe of the Spelunky link. This is the correct one:
[http://www.richardhofmeier.com/cartlife/editions.html](http://www.richardhofmeier.com/cartlife/editions.html)
(at the bottom of the page)

~~~
doppp
Hmm... I'm getting an entirely black page.

------
MrZongle2
For a look at a commercial game _currently_ in development that has released
it's (evolving) source code, there's Space Engineers by Keen Software House:
[https://github.com/KeenSoftwareHouse/SpaceEngineers](https://github.com/KeenSoftwareHouse/SpaceEngineers)

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Jare
May as well add my little Speed Haste (released as Circuit Racers in the USA):
[https://github.com/TheJare/SpeedHasteSrc](https://github.com/TheJare/SpeedHasteSrc)

Not as noteworthy as those in the list but hey, it's mine.

~~~
tgpc
I loved that game - thanks for sharing the code :-)

------
Avshalom
One of the interesting things about games is that to the end user/player the
majority of the value is the art and level design, two things which are
extremely easy to divorce from the source (and thus license-able under
whatever) so unless you're EPIC or somebody trying to specifically license
tech open sourcing a game really doesn't make a lot of difference in the
business model.

that said I'll add to the list DROD (one of the best puzzle series ever):

[http://forum.caravelgames.com/site/SourceCode](http://forum.caravelgames.com/site/SourceCode)

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cheshire_cat
The engine of the mmorpg Ryzom was released as open source:

"Ryzom Core is the open-source project related to Ryzom Game. Written in C++,
Ryzom Core contains the whole code (client, server, tools) used to make the
commercial MMORPG Ryzom. Ryzom Core is a toolkit for the development of
massively multiplayer online universes. It provides the base technologies and
a set of development methodologies for the development of both client and
server code."

Repository:
[https://bitbucket.org/ryzom/ryzomcore/overview](https://bitbucket.org/ryzom/ryzomcore/overview)

Confluence:
[https://ryzomcore.atlassian.net/wiki/display/RC/Ryzom+Core+H...](https://ryzomcore.atlassian.net/wiki/display/RC/Ryzom+Core+Home)

[http://ryzomcore.org/](http://ryzomcore.org/)

------
guard-of-terra
Star Control II is the game with most developed story that I have ever played.
And yes, I have played Fallout too :)

Playing it, even with a walkthrough, is like watching a whole set of seasons
of Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica.

So trying out UQM (open-source port) is a must. It also has quite good two
player fighting mode.

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mrschwabe
How awesome is it that you can pickup an old game, one of your favorites
maybe, read the actual source code - which might even have a modern analysis
discussed at length by Fabien Sanglard - and then play the game... with all of
the community's latest tweaks/optimizations... AND then ... when you come
across a bug ... you can code the fix yourself!

After reading this article, I compiled Duke Nukem 3D and played enough to find
something that bothered me. Just pushed a fix for horizontal mouse-
look/strafing (to Fabien's 'chocolate' repo):

[https://github.com/fabiensanglard/chocolate_duke3D](https://github.com/fabiensanglard/chocolate_duke3D)

It's like this weird connection to the original devs ... and my childhood.

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angersock
Something the author glosses over is that the Quake 3 engine is remarkably
clean in its separation of the game logic from the engine--the use of "traps"
gives something that very much reminds me of an operating system in some ways.

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phodo
Great list. Thanks for putting together. Wish the entries had some metadata
around language, size, etc. just for kicks!

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breadbox
Another example would be Fish Fillets. The GPL release of the source included
all of the assets, even the voice-acting sound files (though only available in
Czech). Info at [http://fillets.sf.net/](http://fillets.sf.net/) , released
source code at
[http://sourceforge.net/projects/fillets/files/original%20ALT...](http://sourceforge.net/projects/fillets/files/original%20ALTAR%20source%20code/)

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stuxnet79
Homeworld is the only major one I know. They just released a remaster on Steam
though so I wonder how this has affected the modding community.

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kabdib
Source for the Atari 800 version of Donkey Kong is here

[http://atariage.com/forums/topic/130904-donkey-kong-
source-c...](http://atariage.com/forums/topic/130904-donkey-kong-source-code/)

Beware gnarly 6502 assembly language :-)

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lawlessone
Warzone 2100, still going strong.

