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#91
Prediction Games / Re: ZCT302 - Through The Ages ...
Last post by Alain il professore - September 20, 2026, 10:55:55 PMGG Victor!
#92
Stunts Reverse Engineering / Re: Working native port of Stu...
Last post by llm - September 20, 2026, 08:35:51 AMQuote from: Alain il professore on September 20, 2026, 06:54:47 AMWe wanted to preserve Stunts forever.
there is currently a port ongoing that targets DOS and tries to keep everything as original as possible (not a full reconstruction aka binary equality, not possible due to assembler-parts) but very near to the original so a vanilla/chocolate port, to keep the old spirit
but nothing will ever replace the original bits
#93
Stunts Reverse Engineering / Re: Working native port of Stu...
Last post by Alain il professore - September 20, 2026, 06:54:47 AMHello my friends,
The more time pass, the more chances we get to erase the original "spirit" of the game we cherished as teenagers. French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard had a word for what happens when the copy slowly takes the place of the original: the simulacrum.
Take, say, a fish. He will swim freely in the open water and have a beautiful livery, even sometimes for some species reswim the stream of his own birthplace to give birth again.
Now alter the fish just a little bit. Cook it and serve it in a plate. This is the stage when we alter the code of Stunts.exe with a small skidXXX.exe launch file. The code masks basic reality enough to make the cooked fish, even if better tasting, a distortion of reality.
But there are more stages of alteration: the resuls of what we altered now is "a beast". It makes us question the basic reality of what somebody else knew was called "Stunts". "Stunts without multiplayer? It never existed!"... "We are playing the ORIGINAL game!" Let's call it stage two of Stunts simulacrum. The fish is now sold precooked, in a form of a breaded fish fillet, designed in a shape of a fish. Oh! The irony!
Final form of tampering: The code of the game has no relation to the reality whatsoever, it's his pure simulacrum, in a sea of simulacra, in a simulation, in an ocean of simulations. For a fish, let's call it a chocolate treat out of a silicon matrix molded in the shape of a fish.
And this is where the paradox becomes beautiful.
At the end of the process, nobody remembers the fish.
We argue about whether the chocolate tastes right, whether the silicone mold has the correct proportions, whether the artificial scales are faithful to the original ones. We may even become extraordinarily good at reproducing them industrially. And one day, somebody who has never seen a river will look at our sweet creation and say:
"This is what a fish is."
Perhaps the greatest danger for Stunts is therefore not that we modify it. Games have always survived because people hacked them, studied them, extended them and loved them far beyond what their creators imagined.
The danger begins when the modification erases the memory of being a modification.
When the multiplayer version becomes Stunts.
When the rewritten physics become Stunts.
When our reconstruction becomes more authoritative than the strange, limited, imperfect 1990 program from which everything started.
Final Baudrillardian twist!
We wanted to preserve Stunts forever.
So we improved it so perfectly that we no longer needed Stunts at all.
A new simulation survived.
The original disappeared.
And somewhere, forgotten on an old DOS disk after 35 years of physical preservation, a lifetime for a preindustrial homo sapiens, a tiny 1990 executable is still waiting to remind us that some pipsqueaks could once do wonderful circus tricks, jumping out over the water tiles.
Yours, Alain il Professore.
The more time pass, the more chances we get to erase the original "spirit" of the game we cherished as teenagers. French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard had a word for what happens when the copy slowly takes the place of the original: the simulacrum.
Take, say, a fish. He will swim freely in the open water and have a beautiful livery, even sometimes for some species reswim the stream of his own birthplace to give birth again.
Now alter the fish just a little bit. Cook it and serve it in a plate. This is the stage when we alter the code of Stunts.exe with a small skidXXX.exe launch file. The code masks basic reality enough to make the cooked fish, even if better tasting, a distortion of reality.
But there are more stages of alteration: the resuls of what we altered now is "a beast". It makes us question the basic reality of what somebody else knew was called "Stunts". "Stunts without multiplayer? It never existed!"... "We are playing the ORIGINAL game!" Let's call it stage two of Stunts simulacrum. The fish is now sold precooked, in a form of a breaded fish fillet, designed in a shape of a fish. Oh! The irony!
Final form of tampering: The code of the game has no relation to the reality whatsoever, it's his pure simulacrum, in a sea of simulacra, in a simulation, in an ocean of simulations. For a fish, let's call it a chocolate treat out of a silicon matrix molded in the shape of a fish.
And this is where the paradox becomes beautiful.
At the end of the process, nobody remembers the fish.
We argue about whether the chocolate tastes right, whether the silicone mold has the correct proportions, whether the artificial scales are faithful to the original ones. We may even become extraordinarily good at reproducing them industrially. And one day, somebody who has never seen a river will look at our sweet creation and say:
"This is what a fish is."
Perhaps the greatest danger for Stunts is therefore not that we modify it. Games have always survived because people hacked them, studied them, extended them and loved them far beyond what their creators imagined.
The danger begins when the modification erases the memory of being a modification.
When the multiplayer version becomes Stunts.
When the rewritten physics become Stunts.
When our reconstruction becomes more authoritative than the strange, limited, imperfect 1990 program from which everything started.
Final Baudrillardian twist!
We wanted to preserve Stunts forever.
So we improved it so perfectly that we no longer needed Stunts at all.
A new simulation survived.
The original disappeared.
And somewhere, forgotten on an old DOS disk after 35 years of physical preservation, a lifetime for a preindustrial homo sapiens, a tiny 1990 executable is still waiting to remind us that some pipsqueaks could once do wonderful circus tricks, jumping out over the water tiles.
Yours, Alain il Professore.
#94
General Chat - ZSC / Re: Folyami ratings monthly up...
Last post by Duplode - September 19, 2026, 11:46:16 PMReally quick update of the rankings for ZCT301 before ZCT302 ends! Alain and MiDiaN further improved their personal best ratings in this round, while satanziege returned to the current ranking. Below is the updated evolution chart:
#95
Chat - Misc / Re: Association game
Last post by dreadnaut - September 19, 2026, 11:20:45 PMUpside-down
#96
Competition 2026 / Re: Guest track 2026
Last post by dreadnaut - September 19, 2026, 11:19:04 PMQuote from: Victor Narl on September 19, 2026, 10:48:17 PMSince you refused to let Alain il professore create a track, I have selected the most suitable candidate for the December track for you
I'm confused, I never said Alain could not create a track, I only pointed out he didn't seem interested 🤔 Sorry that got lost in translation.
Also, you seem to feel responsible for filling up the December slot, but don't worry, it's not your right or responsibility. If you are busy or don't feel like it, that's OK. I was hoping you'd reconsider because I am interested in seeing what you would build, and I'm sure everyone would enjoy racing on a track that matches the way you enjoy the game.
@Cas, thanks for picking this up! You missed a slot this year, but looking forward to driving on one of your tracks! Let's stick to that plan for consistency, and @Victor Narl can get early pick on a 2027 slot. @Alain il professore too, when he has more time!
#97
Competition 2026 / Re: Guest track 2026
Last post by Victor Narl - September 19, 2026, 10:48:17 PM@dreadnaut, since I declined, I certainly won't be creating track ZCT305. Since you refused to let @Alain il professore create a track, I have selected the most suitable candidate for the December track for you, which should suit everyone. @Cas now has the desire and has a lot of experience in creating interesting tracks. Please assign @Cas to the December track ZCT305
#98
Stunts Chat / Re: Stunts medal case
Last post by Cas - September 19, 2026, 08:39:08 PMWell, I think this would be distinct from trophies, right, so it wouldn't be that much about having won a race or a tournament season, but more about great unique feats. I mean, if you run a race, it may be hard, but somebody is necessarily going to win, so that doesn't count.
I imagine medals for the people that contributed the most in different ways, people that changed the way we play it, or that made a discovery. Some of these things would have to do with the code of Stunts, the file formats, etc., but others with the mechanics, say, somebody who first showed that a certain trick was possible and how. Many of these feats, we know who and sometimes even when, but others, we just know they happened at some point. The medals would have shapes and images resembling those things
I imagine medals for the people that contributed the most in different ways, people that changed the way we play it, or that made a discovery. Some of these things would have to do with the code of Stunts, the file formats, etc., but others with the mechanics, say, somebody who first showed that a certain trick was possible and how. Many of these feats, we know who and sometimes even when, but others, we just know they happened at some point. The medals would have shapes and images resembling those things
#99
Stunts Reverse Engineering / Re: Working native port of Stu...
Last post by HerrNove - September 19, 2026, 08:28:31 PMConsider that
* Stunts has not been commercially available for decades (GOG, Steam etc. never had it)
* Some of its original devs said they were okay with the game being distributed for free.
* The current legal rightsowner is unclear (Encore Software maybe?). No company has claimed to own Stunts's copyright in the last 20+ years.
I think you should have no problem, either legal and moral, by distributing the full game. The possibility that somebody complains cannot be mathematically excluded but it seems almost totally theoretical. In cases where companies wanted to claim back the rights of long-forgotten games they usually just kindly asked the modders to take down their projects before the new edition came out.
Which is why, even if I am strongly pro-copyright and pro-respecting the authorship of the developers of old games, I feel ok in publishing my mod of Stunts, under my real name even.
If you want to feel safer, your idea of making the mod depend on the user providing the original assets is good: that's what the XWVM project does, and they're dealing with Star Wars, one of the most precious IPs of one of the most copyright-aggressive companies on the planet.
Obviously no method can give perfect assurance of being 100% in the clear: but, retrogaming is a dirty job, and one must accept to get their hands a little stained.
* Stunts has not been commercially available for decades (GOG, Steam etc. never had it)
* Some of its original devs said they were okay with the game being distributed for free.
* The current legal rightsowner is unclear (Encore Software maybe?). No company has claimed to own Stunts's copyright in the last 20+ years.
I think you should have no problem, either legal and moral, by distributing the full game. The possibility that somebody complains cannot be mathematically excluded but it seems almost totally theoretical. In cases where companies wanted to claim back the rights of long-forgotten games they usually just kindly asked the modders to take down their projects before the new edition came out.
Which is why, even if I am strongly pro-copyright and pro-respecting the authorship of the developers of old games, I feel ok in publishing my mod of Stunts, under my real name even.
If you want to feel safer, your idea of making the mod depend on the user providing the original assets is good: that's what the XWVM project does, and they're dealing with Star Wars, one of the most precious IPs of one of the most copyright-aggressive companies on the planet.
Obviously no method can give perfect assurance of being 100% in the clear: but, retrogaming is a dirty job, and one must accept to get their hands a little stained.