ffaf {l Wrote}:Good reimplementation effort, I liked this!
Thanks!
Julius {l Wrote}:"Public domain" is legally speaking something totally different from the legally non-existent and vaguely defined term "abandonware".
I think "public domain" isn't a legal term either, as far as I know it means no legal terms apply because nobody claims any right at all (hence no individual but the public owns it). But okay, I rephrase not using that two words together: the original game is in the public for free, already was in 2003, and nobody claims any rights on it any more.
Julius {l Wrote}:Edt: I'll move this to off-topic then as it isn't open-source in the legal sense. I hope that doesn't cause any hard feelings
Edi2: Hmm, so this is a clean-room re-implementation of the code and only using the art-assets in a copyright infringing way?
Absolutely, I've implemented everything from ground up, all the code is mine and GPL licensed. This includes the recreation of the effects and visuals (some, not all, there are differences to the original game), assets file (in a gzipped, upscaled tga "pak" file) and levels too (I've created all of them with the built-in editor manually). I haven't used any of the original source nor the distributed files. Images were taken from screenshots made by a small assembly TSR I wrote. The tga sprites were created using GIMP, cutting and pasting parts of the screenshots, and for example the crumbling effect was entirely drawn by me because I couldn't take enough screenshots to catch the original animation.
As for the assets btw, I'm not sure you can say "copyright infringement" if the original copyright holder entity vanished from the face of the Earth several decades ago and all of it is already in the public for free (independently to xstoneage).
But as I've said, if the original author does still exists and shows up after nearly 30 years and demands xstoneage to be removed, I'll oblige. If I could ask their permission to use their assets I would have, but no contact, they're gone.
Cheers,
bzt