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lightbulb Marble Blast Gold Source Code?

  • sillysailboat
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20 Jun 2022 03:19 #1
Hi all,

I was wondering if the source code for MBG has ever been released. The reason I ask is to make the game more accessible. For those who don't know, the original MBG is unplayable on newer apple computers and macOS releases (Catalina and onwards). This is because MBG is a 32-bit x86/PPC binary, and Apple decided to absolutely forbids 32-bit apps from running anymore.

While Windows users can still enjoy the 1.4 release, which is largely equivalent, the 1.6u release bundled with many mac computers in the early 2000s (my childhood) may be lost forever. I'm hoping to translate the binary to the x86 64-bit instruction set so that those who love this game can continue to have access to it. Having the source code would make this far easier than trying to reverse engineer it.

So, does anyone know if there's source code? Or more technical info on the binary itself?

Thanks in advance :)
  • Kalle29
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20 Jun 2022 05:24 #2
Short answer, no, there is no public source code.

The full story is longer and involves trying to purchase ownership rights and blah blah, but the important part is that we don't have the source code.
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  • sillysailboat
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22 Jun 2022 04:06 #3
We'll see what the future brings. Thank you pardner
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22 Jun 2022 05:21 #4
Longer answer: There has already been a decent effort trying to reverse engineer the relevant parts of the game engine and port them to more modern engines. Check out github.com/MBU-Team/OpenMBU/ for the MBU team's work reversing Marble Blast Ultra (with some MBG compatibility). Various people have ported the engine's systems to other languages, such as the nearly-complete rewrite in Haxe by RandomityGuy: github.com/RandomityGuy/MBHaxe and the more clean-room rewrite by Vanilagy (with different physics) at github.com/Vanilagy/MarbleBlast Other than that, if you want to try contributing to the reversing effort, there are various copies of MB floating around in much easier to port forms than just the MBG exe. You might be able to find one if you DM the right person, but it's unlikely they would be posted in public, considering copyright etc.

If all you want is to play MBG on modern versions of macOS, I would recommend using the Windows version of the game and some form of Wine (eg Crossover). It's relatively performant for the base game considering it was written for 2003 hardware. It even works on the M1 via Rosetta translation.
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