8 ms·

Carmageddon 1 debugging symbols dumped

91 points by jeff_harris 12y ago

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
Oh man, I loved hacking on this game back in the day because the file structure was so straightforward and the code so transparent you could change basically everything, including textures, sounds, car types and interactions, physics - the whole lot. Sadly, I haven't seen anything else since with that low of barrier that was as much fun to use. Motocross madness was another good example of that as well. *Edit: I was actually thinking of Carmageddon 2 but its all about the same
- scrapcode 12y ago
  MCM2 was my first introduction to this. The hacking of the game was just as the game as the riding was. These would be good examples last week when there was discussion about bugs in Minecraft being just as much Minecraft as the intentional features.
- nacho_weekend 12y ago
  Motocross madness... that's a game I haven't heard of in a while. I'll have to go back and learn to hack on it, thanks for jogging my memory.
- Kiro 12y ago
  Do you know anywhere I can browse the source code?
transistor-man 12y ago
@ jeff, the compiled download zip is down for openc1
- jeff_harris 12y ago
  Thanks - fixed now. I recently moved to Jekyll for the website and forgot to link in the downloads
  - transistor-man 12y ago
    thanks!
Mahn 12y ago
Title is misleading, isn't it? It looks like the debugging symbols were dumped with code written in C and then reformatted with a small node.js script.
- RobotCaleb 12y ago
  "Carmageddon 1 debugging symbols dumped" Seems fine here.
  - FroshKiller 12y ago
    It originally said "using Node.js" or something along those lines. I was going to comment on it myself.
th0br0 12y ago
MakeFlagWavingBastardWaveHisFlagWhichIsTheProbablyTheLastThingHeWillEverDo() -- hell yeah. Those function / variable names are hilarious, thanks! Very interesting read. Have to dive into the files at some point.
eps 12y ago
"Watcom"... Now that's a name I haven't heard in a looong time. Watcom was awesome. Or rather DOS/4GW was. You could do malloc(1024*1024) and it would just miraculously work!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Yes, that's the way it should be Real mode to Protected mode is like Water to Wine
mey 12y ago
void* AmIGettingBoredWatchingCameraSpin(); Edit: from the Car representation https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/blob/master/symbols/DETHRACE/source/common/car.c https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/...
ourmandave 12y ago
I didn't peruse the list but I can only imagine some of the NSFW names, considering LAPMYLOVEPUMP was the code to enable cheats (or Carma2 at least). D=
- MattBearman 12y ago
  The Carmageddon 1 code to enable cheats was MUCH more offensive - IBETYOUCANTPRINTCUNT - because of course back then cheat codes were mostly printed in magazines. I remember seeing that in a gaming mag, but it was C--T at the end, with a little note saying "we're sure you can figure out the missing letters"
  - pestaa 12y ago
    You couldn't distribute the cheating code without cheating.
MattBearman 12y ago
There's some good method names in https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/blob/master/symbols/DETHRACE/source/common/opponent.c https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/... - my favourite being CalcOpponentConspicuousnessWithAViewToCheatingLikeFuck
belgianguy 12y ago
How cool! It's a nice glimpse into an otherwise hidden past, something even the developers probably never thought would see the light of day again after release. I let a giggle escape at void* _gWanky_arse_tit_fuck; This being HN, maybe one of them can chip in about what the original binary was that was ran against it? Didn't they do a kickstarter to make a new iteration in this franchise? Or would that land them (or you) in hot legal water? BTW: Is there a name for such software spelunking? Feels a bit like digital archeology.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Another website that doesn't render text at all with JS disabled. Fail.
- codezero 12y ago
  I disabled JS and the page looks fine. Either way, this seems like a complaint unrelated to the content of the page, your personal preference, while valid, doesn't make this content any less interesting.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    HN is a technical news site, and technical commentary on the aspects of given sites are fairly common. I don't expect all here to agree with my viewpoints, or even agree with the statements I make (though I'll reassert: the page failed to load until I allowed JS temporarily from the primary domain). But I'll comment on: ⚫ Sites which fail without JS ⚫ Sites with horribly broken UX/UI ⚫ Sites with poor contrast: http://www.contrastrebellion.com/ http://www.contrastrebellion.com/ ⚫ Sites with poor privacy or other features ⚫ Sites with crippled access (e.g., Quora or Scribd) ⚫ Sites with broken or unusable multimedia (I've just spent more minutes than I care trying to view a WashPo-related science video...) Thanks for your kind thoughts and concern.
    - codezero 12y ago
      Fair enough, my main point was that it looks like it loads exactly the same with JS disabled compared to without it being disabled, my additional commentary was tangential, but if we're all complaining about stuff, can't I too? :)
      - dredmorbius 12y ago
        It's possible (I haven't checked) that enabling/disabling JS caches content that's required to view the page. Which is another reason I really hate QAing / capability / compatibility testing websites.
Paul_S 12y ago
They are an amazing company and they still party like it's 1999. Obscene source code is the least of their transgressions against good taste and reason. Google youtube for stainless christmas parties... and current codebase is just as sweary.
louthy 12y ago
It's worth checking out the new version. All the same old skool fun. It's lost none of its ... 'charm' http://www.carmageddon.com/reincarnation http://www.carmageddon.com/reincarnation
tomasandrle 12y ago
Is the program entry renamed to "maim"?
AlyssaRowan 12y ago
A few people do indeed leave debug symbols in, even historically. For example, I vividly recall a build of Civilization for the Atari ST that had complete debug symbols, which made skipping the manual check (and doing all kinds of other more interesting mods - I could fix the Gandhi bug, but who'd want to do that?) extremely fun and easy. And all the sectors of Wayne Smithson's Anarchy which were filled with gradually-more-complicated copy protection formats (courtesy of the great Rob Northen) and space filled with bored rants reminiscent of a scrolltext that he probably thought almost no-one would see. Almost no-one. I even had assembly source code for a few other games too, which was even more interesting; Wizball for one, and a prototype version of Xenon called KellyX… (I never did ask where that came from—I don't think I want to know!—I don't have it anymore, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have permission to share even if I did!) Anyone else found any gems like that?
danschuller 12y ago
I used to work at Stainless, along with one or two other people I've spotted in this thread. It's a great place with good people. Here's a little background for those who might not know: Carmageddon was the precursor to games like Grand Theft Auto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrftlCAic0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrftlCAic0 It was made by Stainless Games on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the southern coast of England. The same developers are still developing day-to-day and recently made the Magic the Gathering video game series. The magic codebase is certainly not as sweary as the one linked here :) Stainless lost the IP to Carmageddon but recently managed to get it back (it wound up at Square-Enix through various acquisitions) and successful kickstarter a reboot. I really hope they do well with it.

91 points by jeff_harris 12y ago

Oh man, I loved hacking on this game back in the day because the file structure was so straightforward and the code so transparent you could change basically everything, including textures, sounds, car types and interactions, physics - the whole lot. Sadly, I haven't seen anything else since with that low of barrier that was as much fun to use. Motocross madness was another good example of that as well. *Edit: I was actually thinking of Carmageddon 2 but its all about the same

scrapcode 12y ago
MCM2 was my first introduction to this. The hacking of the game was just as the game as the riding was. These would be good examples last week when there was discussion about bugs in Minecraft being just as much Minecraft as the intentional features.
nacho_weekend 12y ago
Motocross madness... that's a game I haven't heard of in a while. I'll have to go back and learn to hack on it, thanks for jogging my memory.
Kiro 12y ago
Do you know anywhere I can browse the source code?

transistor-man 12y ago

@ jeff, the compiled download zip is down for openc1

jeff_harris 12y ago
Thanks - fixed now. I recently moved to Jekyll for the website and forgot to link in the downloads
- transistor-man 12y ago
  thanks!

Mahn 12y ago

Title is misleading, isn't it? It looks like the debugging symbols were dumped with code written in C and then reformatted with a small node.js script.

RobotCaleb 12y ago
"Carmageddon 1 debugging symbols dumped" Seems fine here.
- FroshKiller 12y ago
  It originally said "using Node.js" or something along those lines. I was going to comment on it myself.

th0br0 12y ago

MakeFlagWavingBastardWaveHisFlagWhichIsTheProbablyTheLastThingHeWillEverDo() -- hell yeah. Those function / variable names are hilarious, thanks! Very interesting read. Have to dive into the files at some point.

eps 12y ago

"Watcom"... Now that's a name I haven't heard in a looong time. Watcom was awesome. Or rather DOS/4GW was. You could do malloc(1024*1024) and it would just miraculously work!

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
raverbashing 12y ago
Yes, that's the way it should be Real mode to Protected mode is like Water to Wine

mey 12y ago

void* AmIGettingBoredWatchingCameraSpin(); Edit: from the Car representation https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/blob/master/symbols/DETHRACE/source/common/car.c https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/...

ourmandave 12y ago

I didn't peruse the list but I can only imagine some of the NSFW names, considering LAPMYLOVEPUMP was the code to enable cheats (or Carma2 at least). D=

MattBearman 12y ago
The Carmageddon 1 code to enable cheats was MUCH more offensive - IBETYOUCANTPRINTCUNT - because of course back then cheat codes were mostly printed in magazines. I remember seeing that in a gaming mag, but it was C--T at the end, with a little note saying "we're sure you can figure out the missing letters"
- pestaa 12y ago
  You couldn't distribute the cheating code without cheating.

MattBearman 12y ago

There's some good method names in https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/blob/master/symbols/DETHRACE/source/common/opponent.c https://github.com/jeff-1amstudios/carmageddon1-symbol-dump/... - my favourite being CalcOpponentConspicuousnessWithAViewToCheatingLikeFuck

belgianguy 12y ago

How cool! It's a nice glimpse into an otherwise hidden past, something even the developers probably never thought would see the light of day again after release. I let a giggle escape at void* _gWanky_arse_tit_fuck; This being HN, maybe one of them can chip in about what the original binary was that was ran against it? Didn't they do a kickstarter to make a new iteration in this franchise? Or would that land them (or you) in hot legal water? BTW: Is there a name for such software spelunking? Feels a bit like digital archeology.

dredmorbius 12y ago

Another website that doesn't render text at all with JS disabled. Fail.

codezero 12y ago
I disabled JS and the page looks fine. Either way, this seems like a complaint unrelated to the content of the page, your personal preference, while valid, doesn't make this content any less interesting.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  HN is a technical news site, and technical commentary on the aspects of given sites are fairly common. I don't expect all here to agree with my viewpoints, or even agree with the statements I make (though I'll reassert: the page failed to load until I allowed JS temporarily from the primary domain). But I'll comment on: ⚫ Sites which fail without JS ⚫ Sites with horribly broken UX/UI ⚫ Sites with poor contrast: http://www.contrastrebellion.com/ http://www.contrastrebellion.com/ ⚫ Sites with poor privacy or other features ⚫ Sites with crippled access (e.g., Quora or Scribd) ⚫ Sites with broken or unusable multimedia (I've just spent more minutes than I care trying to view a WashPo-related science video...) Thanks for your kind thoughts and concern.
  - codezero 12y ago
    Fair enough, my main point was that it looks like it loads exactly the same with JS disabled compared to without it being disabled, my additional commentary was tangential, but if we're all complaining about stuff, can't I too? :)
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      It's possible (I haven't checked) that enabling/disabling JS caches content that's required to view the page. Which is another reason I really hate QAing / capability / compatibility testing websites.

Paul_S 12y ago

They are an amazing company and they still party like it's 1999. Obscene source code is the least of their transgressions against good taste and reason. Google youtube for stainless christmas parties... and current codebase is just as sweary.

louthy 12y ago

It's worth checking out the new version. All the same old skool fun. It's lost none of its ... 'charm' http://www.carmageddon.com/reincarnation http://www.carmageddon.com/reincarnation

tomasandrle 12y ago

Is the program entry renamed to "maim"?

AlyssaRowan 12y ago

A few people do indeed leave debug symbols in, even historically. For example, I vividly recall a build of Civilization for the Atari ST that had complete debug symbols, which made skipping the manual check (and doing all kinds of other more interesting mods - I could fix the Gandhi bug, but who'd want to do that?) extremely fun and easy. And all the sectors of Wayne Smithson's Anarchy which were filled with gradually-more-complicated copy protection formats (courtesy of the great Rob Northen) and space filled with bored rants reminiscent of a scrolltext that he probably thought almost no-one would see. Almost no-one. I even had assembly source code for a few other games too, which was even more interesting; Wizball for one, and a prototype version of Xenon called KellyX… (I never did ask where that came from—I don't think I want to know!—I don't have it anymore, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have permission to share even if I did!) Anyone else found any gems like that?

danschuller 12y ago

I used to work at Stainless, along with one or two other people I've spotted in this thread. It's a great place with good people. Here's a little background for those who might not know: Carmageddon was the precursor to games like Grand Theft Auto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrftlCAic0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrftlCAic0 It was made by Stainless Games on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the southern coast of England. The same developers are still developing day-to-day and recently made the Magic the Gathering video game series. The magic codebase is certainly not as sweary as the one linked here :) Stainless lost the IP to Carmageddon but recently managed to get it back (it wound up at Square-Enix through various acquisitions) and successful kickstarter a reboot. I really hope they do well with it.