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Comment by CM30

17 hours ago

Always nice to see another game decompiled like this. It's a big deal as far as laying the groundwork for possible ports to PC and other consoles is concerned, and will probably aid modders quite a bit.

If anyone needs a full list of these projects (which includes this one), there's a pretty good selection here:

https://decomp.dev/projects

Though these may have a few they missed:

https://readonlymemo.com/decompilation-projects-and-n64-reco...

https://github.com/CharlotteCross1998/awesome-game-decompila...

I'm the author of ghidra-delinker-extension and these are not full lists of these projects. Here are some public projects that I'm aware of which aren't listed:

- Moon Lights 2: https://github.com/Armonte/ml2decomp

- F-15 Strike Eagle II: https://github.com/neuviemeporte/f15se2-re

I've also been in discussion with people working on decompilation projects which are private. I won't share details, but it includes both well-known games and recent games (as in, built with link time optimizations).

The decompilation community is quite decentralized, with lots of Discord servers specific to one platform or a series of games. In the case of Windows it's also heavily fragmented, as there is no equivalent to community-standard tooling like splat or dtk-decomp for that platform, although my Ghidra extension has carved itself a niche in it.

  • Sorry to ask this, but are there any discord links you can share?

    • I'd rather not post invite links here directly out of concern for spamming, but I can leave some easy-to-follow breadcrumbs.

      The decomp.me Discord server invite link can be readily found on that website and in the README of its GitHub repository. It's the closest thing to a central hub of the decompilation community. You can find some invite links in its chat history by searching for "discord.gg" (including the servers listed below).

      Some of these Discord servers have a #other-servers or #related-servers channel with tons of invite links to other similar Discord servers. In particular, these servers have those channels:

      - PS1/PS2 Decompilation

      - GC/Wii Decompilation

      That way, you should be able to find dozens and dozens of Discord servers on that topic. There are still many more out there (I've joined at least six others that aren't directly reachable from the invite links inside the servers I've mentioned).

      There are also other Discord servers about reverse-engineering that can contain discussions about decompilation techniques or projects.

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    • HN isn't a good place to share Discord invite links. I'd recommend putting an email address (or something) in your bio – ideally one you don't mind getting spammed – so people can send such things to you semi-privately.

I've been experimenting with AI in this space myself. Don't believe any of my projects are listed there but I posted an article some days back where I showcased static recompilers all playing at least one commercial game for the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Virtual Boy and Playstation. I actually just announced a playable build of Megaman X today that eliminates all its slowdowns.

Whether the broader communities will accept any of my work remains to be seek given the heavy correlation to those communities and anti AI sentiment.

  • given the heavy correlation to those communities and anti AI sentiment.

    I've noticed the anti-AI sentiment is starting to die down. People are slowly realising that, along with the voluminous amounts of slop, there are others who have been able to leverage AI with much success.

    • > I've noticed the anti-AI sentiment is starting to die down.

      I've noticed the opposite. Seems that it depends on where you're looking and what you're looking for.

    • You say that, but just today I showcased my Megaman X Recomp on a Megaman subreddit. I got harassed by a drive-by anti-AI cabal and then the moderators of the subreddit removed my submission after I reported the harassment, citing that AI was involved, and AI is theft.

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    • Depends on the community. From my experience, the modding scenes for certain more recent games seem abivalent about it, or more willing to tolerate it, while the communities for modding older games tend to be more heavily against it.

      For example, when a Paper Mario decomp/port used AI, the subreddit for the series pretty much tore it to shreds for that. Mario fan communities in general tend to be really heavily against it, with Mario Fan Games Galaxy, SMW Central, and SMBX having rules which are basically "no AI allowed for submissions ever".

      Meanwhile my experience on sites like ROM Hacking.net is that AI is more accepted/tolerated there.

      So, it's very much a series by series thing. Best to check what the Mega Man community thinks of LLMs before you post it.

That page absolutely fills me with hope. I don't see some of my cherished childhood games in there. I should start a decompilation project for them...

Any idea if there's a place where we can request games for decompilation?

I see that one for Burnout Paradise is in the works, but I would love one for Burnout Revenge.

  • When people work for an insanely difficult project for more than 2 years, they probably pick something they personally love and don't need any external request.

    • As someone who reverse engineers games for fun and preservation, I would personally be more than happy to take an external request. With compensation, of course. Maybe not so much if it's the "do hundreds to thousands of hours of highly specialised labour for free" kind of request :)

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