new | show | ask | jobs Github

agentifysh 3 days ago

this is one of the most impressive thing i've see on HN

how is this done ?? what engine is used ? it feels exactly like the original

also the whole website dos zone seems to have all these browser versions of half life etc ???

how are people making these things and how are they legal ?

so many questions

▲

sho_hn 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> how is this done ?? what engine is used ? it feels exactly like the original

It's most likely using reVC, a reverse-engineering of the original binaries by decompilation, and then built for the web using emscripten, which does a fairly good job making OpenGL code work on WebGL.

My Tomb Raider web build I linked here elsewhere was done the same way (reversing by the amazing people in the TR1X project).

	▲	alternatetwo 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Pro tip: press R for free roam script in menu. This was a debugging feature in re3 and reVC.

▲

sva_ 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If I had to guess, by being hosted in Russia they probably ignore the legality.

▲

bossyTeacher 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> how are they legal ?

they are not, but then again so are many things. We choose what laws to enforce (see 18-20 year olds drinking, unmarried cohabitation, etc). just because it is not legal does not mean that law enforcement will care.

▲

stevezsa8 3 days ago | parent [-]

In which country is unmarried cohabitation not legal?

	▲	brailsafe 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Depends on your definition of marriage. Various places with common law automatically make you effectively married as far as family law and tax law are concerned, and insofar as people involve the courts. After 1 year of cohabitation in Canada, couples are federally common law spouses for tax purposes. Provincially it depends, but after 2 years in some provinces you're technically and automatically spouses for family law purposes, which gives someone the same legal rights as an explicitly married couple in terms of asset division and parental obligations following a breakup (which is outdated and insane in many cases outside of having children, but whatever).
	▲	bossyTeacher 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Iran, also in some US states like North Carolina and Missisipi (just not enforced).
	▲	kube-system 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Today, Iran. And even parts of Europe as late as the 90s
	▲	ghssds 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Burundi, since 2018.

▲

kg 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For the "how" see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46330258 - the game has been reverse engineered. There are reverse engineering and reimplementation projects like this for a lot of older games, i.e. Mario 64, Diablo and at least one of the Sonic games

Is it legal? Well, the reverse engineering typically is as long as you follow the rules, but hosting all the game assets on a public web server so you can play it probably isn't.

▲

charcircuit 3 days ago | parent [-]

reVC is clear copyright infringement distributing a derivative work based off the code of the game.

	▲	desdenova 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It was already brought down by Rockstar as well. This isn't just reverse engineering, it's a decompiled source from the original binary.

▲

basch 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If you boot the game, it only loads the demo, and it tells you to supply your own game file to play the rest.

	▲	Hamuko 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The demo includes a lot of the game assets though. Looks like it has the full map, probably a lot if not all of the vehicles, peds too.