So Ray Dunakin's classic World Builder adventure A Mess O' Trouble got re-released for OS X recently, with a swanky new interface. There are plans to bring the rest of Ray's games back soon — on both OS X and iOS. And possibly also other World Builder adventures, if their original creators are interested and willing to work with Marc Khadpe on making some tweaks for his new engine.

Anyway, I wrote a feature for USgamer on the news and World Builder in general. Check it out for a nice slice of old-school Mac gaming:
www.usgamer.net/articles/worldbuilder-feature

Oh wow, nice job!!!

May I ask how you did it? Aaaages ago I opened up the AMOT files (so that I could work out how to finish the game) and found it was possible to reverse-engineer the code. There was a room I couldn't work out how to enter, so I gave myself the key (which I later realised I didn't need until I was a loooot further in the game.) At that stage I realised it would be possible to make an interpreter.

Have you made an AMOT-specific interpreter for the original code, or is it a total re-write? Either way, AWESOME effort!

Also reminds me that I was going to interview Ray (and got started) before my crazy stuff happened in my life. Be cool to see an interview with Ray sometime. He's one of my childhood heroes.

PS - just purchased it.

To be clear, I didn't do it (as you'll note when/if you read the linked article). But Marc Khadpe pretty much just reverse engineered the code and then gradually, bit by bit, rewrote the engine for OS X (with some enhancements). He's working on re-implementing the rest of Ray's games right now — there's a whole lot of custom interface work to do to make each game friendly to play without making people guess what verbs and nouns they can use.

And if you're looking for an interview with Ray Dunakin...well, let's just say I have you covered if you're prepared to wait a while. I interviewed him over the phone at the beginning of the year and we've had a few back and forth emails since. But you won't see anything published from it (besides a brief bit in my USgamer feature) until later this year or sometime next year.

That's a pretty massive hint about a project I've alluded to here once or twice before and that at least a few of you will be excited to hear about when the time comes.

mossy_11 wrote:


Any updates on this? I just finished AMOT (had extra time after completing my JD so went on a retro game rampage.)

The ending is definitely new. Be interesting to see how it was coded. The WB logic is actually quite easy to 'decrypt' for WB games when compared with modern games (I figured out how the lovic works a while ago so that I could hack items into my inventory... still have NFI where you can ACTUALLY find the credit card to jimmy the conference room block - fortunately it's not necessary to complete the game.) Also, you can read the code for any game using WB in sheepshaver (handy when you get completely stuck in WB games because sometimes you know what to do, but don't know the wording.) HOWEVER... this guy also got the sounds and graphics working (and made a full OS X app with added features...etc.)

It'd be great to see more WB games ported. I love playing them and after years of playing such games for free, it'd be great to be able to flick a few dollars towards the developers. Also, as we've seen with Sheepshaver, emulators can get neglected and break over time if there's little active development. WB games without Sheepshaver is a MASSIVE gain when it comes to the life of such games.

As of May 16, Marc's beta testing the Ray's Maze OS X version. Then he'll do Another Fine Mess, then probably the iOS versions before he moves on to other games.

I've found most World Builder games work best in Mini vMac, which is still under gradual development, and the later ones like Ray Dunakin's and Louise Hope's work well in Basilisk II (which has the same problem as Sheepshaver with stuff starting to break from neglect).

I'm hoping, perhaps naively, that my book may spur some renewed interest in emulating old Macs.

Thanks to github.com/zydeco/minivmac4ios I am now playing World Builder titles on my phone in full screen No Jailbreak required. Those titles work perfectly on a portable system like that.