Here, as Homeworld: Emergence. They changed the name because Blizzard trademarked “Cataclysm”, but it’s otherwise the same game. I know I’ve heard a lot of people say over the years that they wished they could play it on modern systems, so I thought I’d give people a heads-up since they might not realize what game it is thanks to the name change.
Huh,
I had read that the source code had been lost or something to that effect.
The source code IS lost.
So, this isn’t an update/remaster like the other games, they just managed to juryrig it to work on modern systems.
Ahhh! Makes sense.
Makes no sense to me.
Pardon my complete ignorance of computer science, but I assumed that the source code was the game program. And that as such it couldn’t ever be lost since if the program works, it’s written there and you just have to read it. And how could you even produce a copy of the game if you couldn’t?
From the way things are presented here, it looks like the game is like a black box. It works, but nobody knows how and why, and it’s impossible to open the box.
Somebody cares to explain?
The source code contains the actual execution of the program, but it uses many external assets such as 3D meshes, textures and renderer instructions that can be modified and replaced, and that’s exactly what modders do with games all the time without being given access to the underlying code assets.
Source code in this case implies both the high level language code base the game logic is written in (c++ would be my guess, but I’m not sure about that), as well as the original art assets that are used for the game, including textures, 2D art, 3d models both for use in the game engine and cinematic cutscenes, etc.
If that is lost, then all you have is the actual game:
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Game programming logic compiled into binaries (machine code) optimized to be interpreted and executed by a CPU, not to be extended/edited by a programmer.
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Optimized and composited art assets which are likely to be not be accessible as the distinct, high quality objects they are in the source material. For example the source might include a beautiful, high quality 3D model of a space ship, which in the game exists as nothign but a 2D 480p video render as part of a cinematic cutscene.
This means that remastering the game would be incredibly difficult or impossible. You’d probably have to remake the game at that point. Recreate art assets, re-write game code, etc.
OK, it makes sense, now. Thanks.