

OpenSkyscraper – an open-source clone (in progress) of SimTower - danso
https://github.com/fabianschuiki/OpenSkyscraper/wiki

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nhaehnle
This is a neat coincidence: I rediscovered an old box of SimTower just last
week. Unfortunately, I could not find the disk any more.

I remember the most infuriating weakness of the original game was that the
speed of transportation was linked to real time, while the in-game speed would
increase during the in-game night. The effect was that if there were large
queues late at night, they would never empty before dawn because the elevators
were moving unrealistically slowly.

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pplante
This is awesome. SimTower was one of my favorite games as child, heck its even
awesome now. I spent around 6 months creating my own version of SimTower
called DroidTowers and released it on Android. Working on that project was one
of the most fun experiences in my career as a software engineer.

I open sourced[1] the entire game shortly after securing funding for my
current startup. Maybe I could donate the art to OpenSkyscraper. I really want
this project to succeed :D

[1]
[https://github.com/pplante/droidtowers](https://github.com/pplante/droidtowers)

~~~
Danieru
I hope you will take this well. It looks like you've put real time and effort
into droidtowers. I also understand you are not sure how your work can live on
now that you're focusing else where.

The issue I bring up is that the CC-BY-NC license is not open source. The
issue stems from the non commercial clause which is a restriction on fields of
endeavour. Now the reason why this matters is that Open Source is in fact a
made up work. The group which invented it and popularized it did so with a
specific definition: [http://opensource.org/osd](http://opensource.org/osd)

One of the goals in inventing a new word was to have an unambiguous term to
use for software which otherwise would have been called Free, as in freedom.

Now I am not saying this to force your hand. I understand you may not want to
give up commercial rights, and that is fine. All I ask is that you consider
releasing your hard work under one of the licenses which we as various
communities have agreed are open source. You can take your pick from the OSI's
list: [http://opensource.org/licenses](http://opensource.org/licenses) or the
Free Software Foundation's list: [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.en.html#GPLCompatib...](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.en.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses) or even the Debian community's list:
[http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/](http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/)

If you pick one of those licenses your work has a chance to outlive your
efforts. Your art may find its way into other games, and your game itself may
find its way into linux distributions. Or it might get cloned a hundred times
on the app store. =)

One more minor issue with CC licenses for code is that they are not designed
for software:
[http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#C...](http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_software.3F)
Thanks to edge cases you may be giving people more permissions than you
intended. Or you might not be giving people a right you thought you were.

~~~
pplante
You're right. I chose that license because I originally wanted to protect the
artwork which I paid a decent sum of money for. Now that its been over a year,
I am less worried about the artwork since I have recouped my original costs. I
just changed it to MIT. Thank you for pointing that out.

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sheetjs
> If you remember any additional information, please feel free to edit this
> page and add your knowledge!

Is there some issue with asking someone to play SimTower in a VM and finding
the items that way?

For example, here's a video of SimTower running on windows 7:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMltxWLkaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMltxWLkaU)

~~~
asveikau
The copy I had was 16 bit. So it's worth noting that it won't run in 64-bit
Windows. (Did they have a 32-bit version? Or maybe a DOS port that would run
in dosbox or freedos? I seem to recall it also ran on Mac System 7.)

~~~
girvo
I'm certain I had a copy for Windows 95, running in Windows mode, not DOS...
Does that mean it was 32bit or no?

~~~
asveikau
32-bit Windows can run Win16 apps, i.e. those built for Windows 3.1. 64-bit
Windows cannot.

AFAIK this is rooted in a hardware limitation. Once you enter long mode, you
lose vm86 mode. Rather than introduce software emulation to cover this case,
Microsoft just said they wouldn't support it.

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kjell
Yoot Tower was ported to the iPad:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot-
tower/id379197311?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot-
tower/id379197311?mt=8)

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bane
Will this combine aspects of Yoot Tower as well?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoot%27s_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoot%27s_Tower)

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trimbo
I wish Maxis would make new versions of these old titles.

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nodesocket
Maxis ceased to innovate when EA purchased them.

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DrStalker
They still innovate, they just direct all their effort to more profitable
microtransactions and ways force everyone online.

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sideproject
Rather tangent, does anyone know if there is any open-source version of
"Transport Tycoon"? I used to love that game.

~~~
viblo
Yes! Check out OpenTTD at
[http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) It has a very active
community and has a lot of new stuff compared to the old TTD game.

~~~
sideproject
OMG. awesome.

~~~
tacticus
Would you like to lose all productivity today? as there is a browser based
port of openttd [http://play-ttd.com/](http://play-ttd.com/)

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joelhaasnoot
Used to play this game for hours as a kid - lots of hotel rooms, condos,
cleaning, etc :)

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positr0n
> Completed: Dynamic extraction and use of SimTower graphics, sounds, and
> other resources from retail EXE file.

Isn't he opening himself up to copyright takedown by using the original game
assets?

~~~
bryanh
I'm assuming this is akin to the
[http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) or Doom clones where
the "engine" is open source and you have to provide your own
graphics/sounds/etc.

As a stop gap until they completely replace the art assets with OSS version,
you can extract the originals and use them for development. That requires an
original installation to coexist with the clone (read
[https://github.com/fabianschuiki/OpenSkyscraper#how-to-
try-s...](https://github.com/fabianschuiki/OpenSkyscraper#how-to-try-stuff)
which mentions you need the SIMTOWER.EXE locally, mainly to acquire art
assets).

So, you need a legit copy of SimTower to play the SimTower clone (at least
until they rebuild all art assets).

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dragonwriter
> I'm assuming this is akin to the
> [http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) or Doom clones
> where the "engine" is open source and you have to provide your own
> graphics/sounds/etc.

OpenTTD has shipped with a complete set of base assets for quite some time,
though it _used_ to be like that.

~~~
bryanh
Good point, I failed to mention that explicitly.

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mannewalis
I'm curious why they chose libRocket instead of cocos2dx or unity3d?

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TheZenPsycho
it's an open source project. why would you use unity3d? Would that not totally
defeat the purpose?

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mannewalis
I suppose that makes sense, although unity3d is free, and the source for the
game could still be open source, but yeah I think you are right, perhaps not
the best choice :)

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TheZenPsycho
Actually no. Not only is Unity3D NOT free, (it has a version called "Unity
Free" which is just a brand name. Do not be fooled into thinking it has
meaning here as an actual word) The Unity3D license is totally incompatible
with Open Source. Please read the agreement:

[http://unity3d.com/company/legal/eula](http://unity3d.com/company/legal/eula)

In particular, pay attention to clause 2a (You are not permitted to combine
content created using Unity Free with content created by Unity Pro)

2f: you may not copy or modify or use to create a competing product

3: You do not own Unity3d, only license its use

5: you consent to permit Unity to collect data on your users

and so on and so forth. Honestly I don't see the appeal of paying this company
money to throw code away into a closed platform with no independent
implementations.

(and yes, you do still have to pay them money if you wish to uh.. .distribute
your game. to anyone. a right not included in the "free" version.)

~~~
mannewalis
I agree with you, the point I was trying to make was that since the project is
open, using unity3d would be free, since everybody builds their own build. If
at some point someone wanted to distribute and monetize the app, then yeah
they'd have to pay the license fee.

But in any case, the app is being written in c++ which I think is a harder but
better language to write games in, mainly for performance reasons. I am not
familiar with libRocket, but I am curious how well it will deal with a large
scene graph, whether or not it support level of detail or culling, or if you
have to handle that yourself.

~~~
TheZenPsycho
You missed my point. the license for Unity3d is incompatible with distributing
source code on github, or licensing it with any open source license. You can't
do it.

As for librocket, I was confused about that, so I had a look and I'm not sure
that's what they are using for anything more than the UI. The framework they
are using is SFML.

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nodesocket
Sweet baby jesus, I loved SimTower as a youngster.

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stefan_kendall
December 25th, santa flies across the sky at midnight. I loved this game.

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sneak
Please feel free to call a directory "src" when it contains source code. This
is standard and avoids needless typing.

~~~
svenkatesh
Why did you even bother making this comment?

As an aside, I don't see how needless typing is involved. s-tab will still go
to the "source" folder.

