Update #2, 21/04/24 18:06: the code is now licensed under the GPL!
Update 18/04/24 15:11: there seems to be an issue with the licensing at the moment. The MIT license was not meant to be up on it, as this was apparently the default GitHub put on it. That license has now been removed, and so there's now no license on it. Hopefully this will be sorted soon so it can be clear for anyone who wishes to contribute.
Original article below:
Another classic has been given the open source treatment, with Descent 3 from Outrage Entertainment now available under the MIT license. This release was put up on GitHub by Kevin Bentley, one of the original developers.
It has a bit of an interesting history as it was originally ported to Linux way back in 2000 from Loki Entertainment, which didn't age particularly well. Then much later in 2020 developer Ryan "Icculus" Gordon did a re-port with various upgrades.
From the GitHub:
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.This is the latest version of the Descent 3 source code. This includes the '1.5' patch that Jeff Slutter and Kevin Bentley wrote several years ago. At the time, it worked for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Some proprietary sound and video libraries from Interplay have been stripped out (the ACM and MVE format). I have that code if someone wants to help make a converter so the old cutscenes work. It'll take some effort to stub out that code so it compiles.
The first thing I want to do is get everything compiling again, and ideally some CI/CD actions. After that, the code needs to be cleaned up some, to remove old version control comments, etc. A lot of this code was written by a really great team, but keep in mind we were much younger and less experienced back then.
If you're interested in helping maintain it, please send me a message. Otherwise, I'm happy to take pull requests.
This is the last update I put out there showing different architectures playing along. Yikes, that was a long time ago, sorry we never released a 1.5 patch. Some logistics got in the way!
Thanks to Jeff Slutter, who did most of the work modernizing the code from the 90's. I'm looking forward to seeing what the community does with it!
Quoting: KirtaiI was very disappointed when I followed that link and there was a suspicious lack of anything about chocolate.Quoting: GuestThere's also Chocolate Descent at https://github.com/InsanityBringer/ChocolateDescentQuoting: GamallQuoting: GuestDon't mean to be rude, but only Decent3? What about 2 and 1!?! I can't play them out of order!!!
They already have fantastic open-source ports.
https://www.descent2.de/
https://www.dxx-rebirth.com/
I think those are game engine remasters, while this one is the actual game. I could be mistaken though.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: KirtaiI was very disappointed when I followed that link and there was a suspicious lack of anything about chocolate.Quoting: GuestThere's also Chocolate Descent at https://github.com/InsanityBringer/ChocolateDescentQuoting: GamallQuoting: GuestDon't mean to be rude, but only Decent3? What about 2 and 1!?! I can't play them out of order!!!
They already have fantastic open-source ports.
https://www.descent2.de/
https://www.dxx-rebirth.com/
I think those are game engine remasters, while this one is the actual game. I could be mistaken though.
So it went downhill fast.
PS: bit more seriously though, probably the name comes from Chocolate Doom and even has same purpose.
Licensing is confusing again, not sure if we'll end up with two Descent 3 source releases, one GPL and one MIT?
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