7 ms·

Show HN: Complete decompilation of Lego Island

251 points by foxtacles 2y ago

indigo945 2y ago
This project goes back to the LEGO Island Rebuilder [1] by (some of?) the same authors, which fixes several bugs in the original game release by patching it in memory (iirc). These fixes include some involved ones, like for the wonky framerate-dependent controls. MattKC, who developed much of this original work, has a nice Youtube channel full of video postmortems for some of these [2]. It's kind of fun just to watch him poke around with a hex editor, unraveling the arcane mysteries of a long-sunken civilization of Win95 developers. [1]: https://github.com/isledecomp/LEGOIslandRebuilder https://github.com/isledecomp/LEGOIslandRebuilder [2]: https://www.youtube.com/@MattKC https://www.youtube.com/@MattKC
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I've learned of MattKC through a video of his about how he ported .NET to Windows 95 (mostly). I love the dedication content like this shows off. In an age of ever decreasing attention spans, it's nice to see someone going through the grunt work for something other than pure financial gain.
- ddtaylor 2y ago
  MattKC is a good YouTuber in my opinion. His videos are simple, fun and extremely information dense. I haven't had time but I purchased a Wii-U remote at a garage sale because it had all the pieces and was paired together. Days later I see MattKC on stream hacking the Bluetooth!
bri3d 2y ago
The tooling and infrastructure in this project are pretty interesting as these things go. It's always cool to see how each decompilation project springs up with different ideas and goals - this one seems very focused on 1:1 accuracy, with a side-project for compatibility / cross-platform reimplementation: * https://github.com/isledecomp/reccmp https://github.com/isledecomp/reccmp is a lint tool which compares compiled function reimplementations with the original binary and produces an automated report detailing the instruction level accuracy of the re-implementation, while dealing with all of the fun of C++. * https://github.com/isledecomp/SIEdit https://github.com/isledecomp/SIEdit is a resource editor for the bizarre RIFF-esque resource streaming format the original developer (Mindscape) seems to have invented. Also while we're on the subject of vintage LEGO games, I've recently been quite into playing Manic Miners, a complete Unreal Engine remake (not decompilation/reimplementation, an actual ground-up recreation!) of Rock Raiders. I'm hoping someone does Alpha Team next; it was a quite fun puzzle game but incredibly buggy.
- mclau156 2y ago
  I am seeing more reason to re-make in Unreal, Unity, Godot, Blender lately, these softwares are becoming increasingly more beginner friendly and downloading 3D assets and programming 3D skeleton animations are becoming easier
- mileycyrusXOXO 2y ago
  I’m gonna have to get Manic Miners, lots of fond memories playing Rock Raiders with my friends
- Belphemur 2y ago
  For those looking for the game, it's on itch.io : https://baraklava.itch.io/manic-miners https://baraklava.itch.io/manic-miners
teeray 2y ago
You can build a mountain, if you do it brick by brick...
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  Papa told mama and laura told nick...
stravant 2y ago
I did a few thousand lines of this. In particular it was interesting learning about D3D retained mode as I did that part. What a weird piece of rendering history. Worth a search if you haven't heard about it before: D3DRM.
- pjc50 2y ago
  The top search hit for "d3d retained mode" is now https://www.legoisland.org/wiki/Direct3D_Retained_Mode https://www.legoisland.org/wiki/Direct3D_Retained_Mode , going full circle.
voidfunc 2y ago
I liked this game when I was a kid but I remember being massively disappointed that there wasn't more building.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  My two favorite games for some time were Lego Island and Lego Loco. Lego Loco is a city builder and railroad builder game. Something like a more basic SimCity and Railroad Tycoon crossover maybe. I really liked Lego Loco because you can build a whole city out of Lego to your own liking. So I had Lego building in Lego Loco and I had Lego Island with all the fun stories and things you could do there, like chasing Pepper the criminal with a helicopter and using donuts and pizzas to help the police on ground and the skateboarder.
  - pesus 2y ago
    Wow, I've seen anyone mention Lego Loco before! That was a great game. I was horrible at it, but the art style and atmosphere was great.
  - robotnikman 2y ago
    I loved Lego Loco. You could even set the game as a screensaver, and it would basically play whatever map you were on whenever your screensaver turned on! I kind of miss screensavers actually
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >I kind of miss screensavers actually Same, I wish they'd update all the older ones to look good on newer screens. I want the crazy pipes and the flying toasters and such again.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Brickster's the criminal, Pepper chased him with a rebuilt police helicoptor lobbing pizzas and donuts to help Nick and Laura on the ground catch Brickster. Also, second you on LEGO Loco. Of the original trilogy (Creator, Loco, and Chess), Loco by far was the most fun. Kudos to the Chess King though, saying the Knights are BMX bikeriders still hasn't been surpassed.
antics9 2y ago
The game looks like Roblox and is just as creepy too: https://youtu.be/xyqXZDyR-RA https://youtu.be/xyqXZDyR-RA
- stavros 2y ago
  Wait, why is Roblox creepy?
  - treve 2y ago
    It's been called a casino for kids. There's decent reporting around this. I wouldn't let my kid near this, or anything that has a game currency tied to a real-world currency.
    - stavros 2y ago
      Ahh interesting, thank you!
    - madjam002 2y ago
      Such a shame it’s like this now because I played it extensively as a kid back in 06 and 07 and it helped inspire me to learn programming.
  - homarp 2y ago
    see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754
    - stavros 2y ago
      Thank you!
mastercheif 2y ago
Thank you to everyone who worked on this. One of my favorite games growing up, I’m glad to know it’ll be around to show my kid.
taspeotis 2y ago
I had aspirations to decompile another MSVC 4.2 game (FireFight) and I got stymied on CMake - among other things. This repo looks like a good reference.
mdtrooper 2y ago
I love these kind of things, for years I want to learn decompile old games....but equal other things I do not know what it is the first steps or tools.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >but equal other things I do not know what it is the first steps or tools. I watch a lot of these sorts of projects on youtube, my big takeaway is that I probably should learn how to use Ghidra.
- jonhohle 2y ago
  If you’re interested, I’ve been decompiling Castlevania: Symphony of the Night live Monday through Thursday at 11am pacific time on twitch for several months - https://www.twitch.tv/madeupofwires https://www.twitch.tv/madeupofwires I’m happy to talk about the tools and process or anything anyone else in chat wants to know about. I have about 10kloc contributed and worked on tooling and build, but still have a lot to learn myself.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

251 points by foxtacles 2y ago

This project goes back to the LEGO Island Rebuilder [1] by (some of?) the same authors, which fixes several bugs in the original game release by patching it in memory (iirc). These fixes include some involved ones, like for the wonky framerate-dependent controls. MattKC, who developed much of this original work, has a nice Youtube channel full of video postmortems for some of these [2]. It's kind of fun just to watch him poke around with a hex editor, unraveling the arcane mysteries of a long-sunken civilization of Win95 developers. [1]: https://github.com/isledecomp/LEGOIslandRebuilder https://github.com/isledecomp/LEGOIslandRebuilder [2]: https://www.youtube.com/@MattKC https://www.youtube.com/@MattKC

jeroenhd 2y ago
I've learned of MattKC through a video of his about how he ported .NET to Windows 95 (mostly). I love the dedication content like this shows off. In an age of ever decreasing attention spans, it's nice to see someone going through the grunt work for something other than pure financial gain.
ddtaylor 2y ago
MattKC is a good YouTuber in my opinion. His videos are simple, fun and extremely information dense. I haven't had time but I purchased a Wii-U remote at a garage sale because it had all the pieces and was paired together. Days later I see MattKC on stream hacking the Bluetooth!

bri3d 2y ago

The tooling and infrastructure in this project are pretty interesting as these things go. It's always cool to see how each decompilation project springs up with different ideas and goals - this one seems very focused on 1:1 accuracy, with a side-project for compatibility / cross-platform reimplementation: * https://github.com/isledecomp/reccmp https://github.com/isledecomp/reccmp is a lint tool which compares compiled function reimplementations with the original binary and produces an automated report detailing the instruction level accuracy of the re-implementation, while dealing with all of the fun of C++. * https://github.com/isledecomp/SIEdit https://github.com/isledecomp/SIEdit is a resource editor for the bizarre RIFF-esque resource streaming format the original developer (Mindscape) seems to have invented. Also while we're on the subject of vintage LEGO games, I've recently been quite into playing Manic Miners, a complete Unreal Engine remake (not decompilation/reimplementation, an actual ground-up recreation!) of Rock Raiders. I'm hoping someone does Alpha Team next; it was a quite fun puzzle game but incredibly buggy.

mclau156 2y ago
I am seeing more reason to re-make in Unreal, Unity, Godot, Blender lately, these softwares are becoming increasingly more beginner friendly and downloading 3D assets and programming 3D skeleton animations are becoming easier
mileycyrusXOXO 2y ago
I’m gonna have to get Manic Miners, lots of fond memories playing Rock Raiders with my friends
Belphemur 2y ago
For those looking for the game, it's on itch.io : https://baraklava.itch.io/manic-miners https://baraklava.itch.io/manic-miners

teeray 2y ago

You can build a mountain, if you do it brick by brick...

datadrivenangel 2y ago
Papa told mama and laura told nick...

stravant 2y ago

I did a few thousand lines of this. In particular it was interesting learning about D3D retained mode as I did that part. What a weird piece of rendering history. Worth a search if you haven't heard about it before: D3DRM.

pjc50 2y ago
The top search hit for "d3d retained mode" is now https://www.legoisland.org/wiki/Direct3D_Retained_Mode https://www.legoisland.org/wiki/Direct3D_Retained_Mode , going full circle.

voidfunc 2y ago

I liked this game when I was a kid but I remember being massively disappointed that there wasn't more building.

codetrotter 2y ago
My two favorite games for some time were Lego Island and Lego Loco. Lego Loco is a city builder and railroad builder game. Something like a more basic SimCity and Railroad Tycoon crossover maybe. I really liked Lego Loco because you can build a whole city out of Lego to your own liking. So I had Lego building in Lego Loco and I had Lego Island with all the fun stories and things you could do there, like chasing Pepper the criminal with a helicopter and using donuts and pizzas to help the police on ground and the skateboarder.
- pesus 2y ago
  Wow, I've seen anyone mention Lego Loco before! That was a great game. I was horrible at it, but the art style and atmosphere was great.
- robotnikman 2y ago
  I loved Lego Loco. You could even set the game as a screensaver, and it would basically play whatever map you were on whenever your screensaver turned on! I kind of miss screensavers actually
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >I kind of miss screensavers actually Same, I wish they'd update all the older ones to look good on newer screens. I want the crazy pipes and the flying toasters and such again.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Brickster's the criminal, Pepper chased him with a rebuilt police helicoptor lobbing pizzas and donuts to help Nick and Laura on the ground catch Brickster. Also, second you on LEGO Loco. Of the original trilogy (Creator, Loco, and Chess), Loco by far was the most fun. Kudos to the Chess King though, saying the Knights are BMX bikeriders still hasn't been surpassed.

antics9 2y ago

The game looks like Roblox and is just as creepy too: https://youtu.be/xyqXZDyR-RA https://youtu.be/xyqXZDyR-RA

stavros 2y ago
Wait, why is Roblox creepy?
- treve 2y ago
  It's been called a casino for kids. There's decent reporting around this. I wouldn't let my kid near this, or anything that has a game currency tied to a real-world currency.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Ahh interesting, thank you!
  - madjam002 2y ago
    Such a shame it’s like this now because I played it extensively as a kid back in 06 and 07 and it helped inspire me to learn programming.
- homarp 2y ago
  see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754
  - stavros 2y ago
    Thank you!

mastercheif 2y ago

Thank you to everyone who worked on this. One of my favorite games growing up, I’m glad to know it’ll be around to show my kid.

taspeotis 2y ago

I had aspirations to decompile another MSVC 4.2 game (FireFight) and I got stymied on CMake - among other things. This repo looks like a good reference.

mdtrooper 2y ago

I love these kind of things, for years I want to learn decompile old games....but equal other things I do not know what it is the first steps or tools.

Suppafly 2y ago
>but equal other things I do not know what it is the first steps or tools. I watch a lot of these sorts of projects on youtube, my big takeaway is that I probably should learn how to use Ghidra.
jonhohle 2y ago
If you’re interested, I’ve been decompiling Castlevania: Symphony of the Night live Monday through Thursday at 11am pacific time on twitch for several months - https://www.twitch.tv/madeupofwires https://www.twitch.tv/madeupofwires I’m happy to talk about the tools and process or anything anyone else in chat wants to know about. I have about 10kloc contributed and worked on tooling and build, but still have a lot to learn myself.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]