Open XYZ

[Star_Treasure]

Why aren't there more projects like this? Xcom isn't the only 90s game that could deal with a re-implementation. I'd love to see an Open Sim City 2000.

Modability and 20 year old bugfixes beat emulators and remakes any day of the week.

[Meridian]

1. copyright
2. there actually are quite a few such projects
3. original xcom is one of the best games of all times (by several ratings), no wonder it gets more attention...
4. not all games have such good modding potential

[MKSheppard]

Plus, time. It takes a lot of time to reverse engineer a game. XCOM's popularity meant that a lot of reverse engineering on how the game logic "worked" had been done over the last 20 years.

[Solarius Scorch]

Like Meridian wrote, there are MANY OpenXYZ projects. There is OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe), there is a Morrowind rewrite project, there is Widelands (a Settlers remake, and so on.
I think copyright is not really a problem, since you can't copyright game mechanics and for the resources you need the original anyway. Or just make your own resources and call it a clone.

[Star_Treasure]

OpenTTD is another example of a classic game given new life by an open source port.

My biggest wish is an open source reimplimentation of SimCity2000 that looks as good as the original. Lincity is ugly as sin. Would it be possible to rip sprites from a legal copy of SC2K? Ironicly, although EA refuses to release the source code, the actual game is very easy to come by.

[Hobbes]

I think copyright is not really a problem, since you can't copyright game mechanics and for the resources you need the original anyway. Or just make your own resources and call it a clone.

Depends on the attitude of the copyright holder. Just using the term 'XCom' can be considered a breach of copyright when using it on a videogame. UFO2000 had this issue, where the developers deliberately avoided using any term related to the the original game like 'Sectoid', 'Skyranger', etc., and UFO2000 even developed its own assets (units, maps, weapons) that allowed it to be played without the original game's files.

In retrospect this can now be considered as too protective considering Firaxis' friendly attitude regarding mods and OpenXcom but at the time no one really knew how the IP holder would react, and the developers wanted to ensure that all their work wasn't simply deleted for copyright breach.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah, copyrighted names are a different thing. Sometimes it's an issue, sometimes it's not, depending on the game.

Regarding SC2000, I haven't tried, but I doubt ripping sprites from it would be so hard. They would have to integrate it into the code to prevent this, and I doubt they were that insane.

[Star_Treasure]

Man, there are way to many Xcom clones out there.  Imagine if they all worked on extending OpenXcom instead.

[Solarius Scorch]

Imagine if they all worked on extending OpenXcom instead.

We would steal resources from all of them and made an even bigger game, doh!