extremely small, completely public domain, no-dependency, no-file, portable suckless anarcho-pacifist from-scratch 90s-style Doom clone that runs everywhere, made for the benefit of all living beings
Ports to the Nintendo GameCube, Wii, DS, 3DS and Wii U by blitzdoughnuts Uses devkitpro and libdragon
- port status
- what is this?
- why this game is special
- compiling
- manifesto
- differences from upstream
- FAQ
- contributing
- usage rights
- Nintendon't 64 port is in ruins. Doesn't want to work on mupen64plus and is generally unfinished.
- GameCube and Wii (SDL2) ports play well; the audio is a bit fuzzy but everything is functional.
- Nintendon't DS port is done, subsampling leaves stray pixels on the right of the screen but works flawlessly
- 3DS port is basically perfect.
- Wii U (SDL2) port is perfect but can only be played on the Gamepad currently.
This is a collection of ports of the pacifist, anarcho-communist free software video game Anarch by Miloslav Ciz aka drummyfish to several Nintendo platforms with the power of homebrew. Most ports are made using devkitpro and its portlibs, the N64 port is made with libdragon.
- Completely public domain (CC0) free softare, free culture, libre game for the benefit of all living beings in the Universe, no conoditions on use whatsoever. All art is original work and licensed CC0 (as well as code).
- 100% non-commercial, free of any ads, spyware, microtransactions, corporate logos, planned obsolescence etc.
- Extemely low HW demands (much less than Doom, no GPU, no FPU, just kilobytes of RAM and storage).
- Suckless, KISS, minimal, simple, short code (~10000 LOC).
- Extremely portable. So far ported to and tested on:
- GNU/Linux PC: SDL, csfml, terminal (experimental), Linux framebuffer (experimental)
- OpenBSD SDL
- FreeBSD SDL
- Winshit XP SDL
- Browser
- Pokitto (220 x 116, 48 MHz ARM, 36 KB RAM, 256 KB flash)
- Gamebuino Meta (80 x 64, 48 MHz ARM, 32 KB RAM, 256 KB flash)
- Ringo/MAKERphone (160 x 128, 160 MHz ARM, 520 KB RAM, 4 MB flash)
- ESPboy (128 x 128, 160 MHz)
- Nibble (128 x 128, 160 MHz)
- ncurses (not very playable)
- unofficial bare metal Raspberry Pi port by msx80
- unofficial DOS port by Wuuff
- another unofficial DOS port by gera
- unofficial Retrofw and Miyoo ports by szymor
- unofficially ran on/ported to OpenPandora by MagicSam (forum thread)
- unofficial libretro port by iyzsong
- unofficial ports to Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo Wii U by blitzdoughnuts (you're looking at it)
- rumor has it Anarch was also run in Emacs
- Has completely NO external dependencies, not even rendering or IO, that is left to each platform's frontend, but each frontend is very simple. Uses no dynamic heap allocation (no malloc).
- Can fit into less than 256 kB (60 kB with procgen mod) (including all content, textures etc.).
- Uses no build system, can typically be compiled with a single run of compiler (single compilation unit).
- Works without any file IO, i.e. can work without config files, save files, all content and configs are part of the source code.
- Doesn't use any floating point, everything is integer math (good for platforms without FPU).
- Written in pure C99, also a subset of C++ (i.e. runs as C++ as well, good for systems that are hard C++ based).
- Made to last for centuries without maintenance.
- Goes beyond technical design and also attempts to avoid possible cultural dependencies and barriers (enemies are only robots, no violence on living beings).
- Created with only free software (GNU/Linux, GIMP, Audacity, gcc, Vim, ...).
- Uses a custom-made 256 color palette (but can run on platforms with fever colors, even just two).
- Well documented and commented code, written with tinkering and remixing in mind.
- Has the oldschool feel of games like Doom or Wolf3D.
- There is already a number of mods in the mod directory, of course all in the same spirit and under same conditions as the game. Don't forget to check them out :)
You may compile for your desired platform by fetching a Makefile from devkitpro's examples and using it inside of the platform's root directory (where the source folder is). I cannot provide these Makefiles because they're unlicensed and hence non-free. You must have dkp-pacman installed, and have the respective libraries! The GCN, Wii, and Wii U ports use SDL2, so you'll need the portlibs for SDL2 on those platforms too.
All ROMs built and provided should be able to run on their respective emulators, especially ones that are tested. Some recommended (libre) ones: - mupen64plus for the N64 - mGBA for the GBA - Dolphin for the GameCube and Wii - Citra / Mandarine for the 3DS - Cemu for the Wii U
In today's world of capitalism and fascism no one thinks anymore about doing something without personal benefit, without expecting something in return. Complete selflessness and aim for the pure indiscriminatory long-term benefit of everyone is no longer even considered and if it appears by chance, it is laughed at and portrayed as stupidity. Technology that we are using every day is infected by this poison more than anything else.
From engineering point of view our technology is the worst in history – software is unbelievably bloated, ugly, unelegant, buggy, slow and inefficient, purposefully designed to break, to refuse to work and to enslave people, invade their privacy, to be consumed, to resist tinkering and improvement, by law, force, obscurity, brainwashing and other means. Technology doesn't serve people, it serves corporations on the detriment of people. Principles of good, efficient design and focus on long-term values have vanished in the capitalist selfish short-sighted mentality of greed. The poison has already infected the brains of the masses who are no longer even able to see their own abuse.
This game is a result of my grief about this deeply sad and frightening state of our world. It is my desperate attempt at showing that something, or rather everything, is wrong. I have put great effort in creating this completely from the ground up so that I could waive all my rights and give this away to everyone. I think it is a great shame of mankind that until now there has been no such a game completely, truly and genuinely in the public domain for all people to freely play, for students and teachers to freely study and teach, for artists and programmers to freely hack, improve and remix.
This game is also designed to be truly good technology, with as few burdens to anyone as possible, for users, programmers, distributors etc. It is designed to last for centuries without maintenance – by only relying on a C compiler, a relatively simple and perhaps the most essential piece of software, and by avoiding all unnecessary dependencies, both HW and SW, the game is almost certainly guaranteed to be easily compilable long time in the future, probably even shortly after we will have partlialy recovered from the inevitable technological collapse. The game is free and simple, modifiable by anyone with basic programming skills, not just legally but also practically (i.e. it is suckless). The design follows the essential rules of minimalism, simplicity, efficiency, elegance, hackability, openness.
As any disturbance of the status quo, my project too gets a lot of hate, being called backwards, accused of utilizing wrong programming practice, or just being a bad game in general. Nevertheless, it has only been made with love and sincere rational belief in its philosophies. I do not see it as a step backwards, but rather a step in a different, better direction. I believe that if you judge it with an open mind, you may find the hidden truth and revise your views of technology, its philosophy and its future, as I have. This game has been made for you and I hope you will find it useful.
- Added a SFG_PLATFORM_STRING macro
- Added the SFG_DS_SUBSAMPLEFIX macro that edits subsampling to rid of the stray pixel on the right of the screen on the DS port. Not recommended since the game's audio will freak out due to underperformance.
- This README lacks the classification of "Robot Anarchy" as a true Anarch port.
After seeing a ripoff of Anarch, retitled to "Robot Anarchy", being sold on the eShop, I was antsy but it made me curious of homebrew. After drummy forgave the game, I was pushed by my own distaste to "Robot Anarchy" to start delving into porting Anarch to not just the Nintendo Switch, but various other Nintendo platforms. I wanted to out-do the corpos who took the game and ripped the essential message of freedom from it.
Because I find it ridiculously depressing that in a world where we have millions of computer games there isn't a single serious one made purely for the benefit of everyone on the planet, without self-interest (licenses, ads, DRM, ...) being embedded somewhere underneath. It may be one of the saddest things about this so called "advanced" society.
Yes, there exist other libre games, but they suffer from at least one of many possible flaws: dependency on the current state of capitalist dystopia (using capitalist libraries, languages, build systems, relying on powerful HW, being bloated etc.), burdening self-interest (requirements such as credit, copyleft, keeping de-facto ownership by knowhow etc.), triviality ("pong"), lax attitude to usage rights (using assets from unclear sources, not stating rights clearly enough, not archiving evidence etc.) and so on.
I would rather like to ask, in turn, why no one is doing what this project is trying to do. Creating something completely for everyone, even people in far future, is extremely valuable, considering only relatively minor effort is required for something that will be there forever and for everyone. I hope at least one man on the planet will join me.
No.
I will be ridiculed, made fun of, bullied and dismissed as an obvious lunatic, as many similar people in history who have seen the truth behind the curtain of that time's propaganda. And those in front of it will say "this is different because ..." No, this is not different, I am choosing to see the truth and am exiled for it. I am offering the truth to you, dear reader, but you will probably refuse it because it is too scary, uncomfortable, unbearable, and will rather try to rationalize the lies you've been taught. You will likely dismiss this as a mere joke.
No, this is my custom engine (raycastlib) based on raycasting, a technique used in Wolf3D engine, but it's improved, e.g. supporting multiple levels of floor and ceiling, so that the visual result is something between Wolf3D and Doom (which was a BSP engine, i.e. a principle completely different from raycasting). I've made the engine with the same philosophy in mind as the game itself.
Firstly this isn't trying to look like a 90s style shooter, this is a 90s style shooter. The code is written in the oldschool language and style in a custom efficient SW rendering engine, just like in the old days, but taken further and evolved in a new direction.
Secondly this is more than a game and is not made for any profit but for the benefit of all people. This is not a product of capitalism, but a manifesto and a selfless work of art. The code and assets are free as in freedom, meaning you can do anything you want with them -- you don't have to buy this, agree to any terms, nothing is hidden from you.
I wouldn't call this backwards, but rather a different, better direction than which the mainstream technology is taking, though this involves taking some steps back to before the things started to go wrong, which is why the result looks like from early 90s, but from there I am trying to go forwards in the new direction.
The new direction is towards minimalism, simplicity, accessibility ("openness", portability, low HW demands, low education demands, ...), low maintenance cost, being future-proof, helpful to people at large and so on. Such SW is sometimes called suckless or countercomplex.
Why go back to the 90s and not further? Early 90s is roughly right before PCs and games started becoming "too popular" and before comsumerism started deeply infecting and destroying the technology itself, i.e. before programming languages such as Java or platforms like MS Windows became wide spread. At this time games were still written in C (a language invented by science, not capitalism), used software rendering even for 3D, didn't use bloat such as multithreading etc.
What we perceive as good graphics is heavily dependant on what we've learned to perceive as good graphics, and it's more about aesthetics than things like resolution or polygon count. Doom looked amazing when it came out and it still does today to people who didn't let the industry teach them that good graphics equals super HD with realistic shaders requiring the latest and most expensive GPU.
Though inspired by Doom, this is NOT Doom. Keep in mind that this isn't primarily a PC game, this is a small platform independent game that happens to also natively run on PC. Also this game's goals are different than those of commercial games, it is still to a big degree just an experimental game. It has been written by a single man who had to do the design, engine programming, game programming, tool programming, graphics, sound recording, testing, media creation, all in spare time. Please don't hate me.
Shouldn't games simply be fun? You're complicating everything with ideological bullshit when it's really just about entertainment.
Games should definitely be fun to play, but they are still technology and engineering art. We have more than enough games that are trying to be just fun before everything else, but practically none putting a little more emphasis also on other aspects -- projects that don't spend all the effort on the shallow shell, but care equally about the insides and the wider context of the world they exist in. I think we need many more games like this one.
Because this "modern" technology is an extremely bad choice for building long-lasting, accessible programs. New languages are a product of capitalism, evolved by the markets to serve corporations to make quick profit, not fulfilling the values that are good for the people.
This game is suppost to be accessible, i.e. require only as many resources as necessarily needed, in order to run and compile even on "weak" and minimal computers, and to run long in the future, which is ensured by dropping dependencies and only relying on a C compiler, which will probably always be the highest priority piece of SW. After the technological collapse a C compiler will be the first SW we'll have to write, and with it this game will basically immediately be compilable.
But you're using python scripts, Javascript for the web port, the PC port depends on SDL etc. Don't you contradict yourself?
No, all of these are optional. The core doesn't have any dependencies other than a C99 compiler. Frontends do depend on external libraries, but I've designed the frontend interface so that it's extremely easy to write one, so if let's say SDL dies, it's no problem to write a new frontend using another library.
Python scripts are only simple helpers for converting resources, which aren't required during compilation or code modification. In case python ceases to exist, the scripts can easily be rewritten to another languages, they're fairly simple.
Because assembly isn't portable and even a "portable assembly" (bytecode) would make it too difficult to write a game of this complexity, and still probably wouldn't be as portable as C. C is about the minimum required abstraction.
Firstly that's not a question and secondly you misunderstand the essence of this project. Your game will merely look the same, it will be an insult to good programming, efficient technology, users' freedom, it won't offer the same independence, portability, performance, beauty, it will probably die along with your "Unity", it will be encoumbered by licenses of your asset store, it won't carry the important messages.
Because it contains not only the game but also all ports, presentation media, binaries, the game's website and other files related to the game. Why not put these into a separate repo? Because that would be stupid. The actual game is contained only in the .h files.
Depends from where you count. From my first experiments with raycasting on Pokitto it's some two years of relaxed evening programming, with taking quite long breaks.
Only free software, preferably suckless tools: Vim text editor on Devuan GNU/Linux, mostly on a librebooted Lenovo X200 laptop. GIMP was used to make images and maps, python for small scripts and data conversions. Audacity and Blender and other programs were also used for making the trailer etc.
See compiling.
Basically yes, since I have given up all my IP rights, legally you can do anything with this which is not otherwise illegal (see the next paragraph), without needing any permission from me, which means you can play this, modify this, sell this, or do anything else without even crediting me. That is all legal, however that doesn't mean it's automatically moral or that I endorse anything you do. As an anarchist I don't want laws preventing your freedom to do anything with a copy of information. It is your responsibility to decide what is moral behavior.
Note that you may still be interested in that legally there are still things you cannot do with a public domain work like this. These are not my conditions, just general laws that I am informing you about. For example you cannot claim copyright for an unmodified version of the game, e.g. you cannot prevent others from using it in any way they want, e.g. you can sell this but you cannot stop others from also selling it or even redistributing it for free (notice how enforcing copyright is no longer a freedom to use one's own copy of information in any way, which is what I am giving you). Even if crediting me isn't required, you probably cannot claim the lie that you are the author of the unmodified version because that, again, is a false claim of copyright. Of course, you can add your own creations and modifictions to this work (e.g. levels, code, ...) and then claim copyright, but only to those specific parts you yourself created.
I don't enforce anything -- of course I'm glad for credit, donations, kind emails that people sometimes send me etc., but I never want to enforce this, or even push anyone to this. Morals cannot and mustn't be forced, moral behavior can only be voluntary. This is why I don't license this as copyleft.
Am I so stupid as to trust complete strangers to not abuse this? No, I know people will "abuse" my work and I am predicting some Chinese company will soon be distributing this somehow with a false claim of copyright (in which case please don't believe them, there exists evidence of me creating this and releasing this first, with all rights waived). Negative effects of the shitty system we live in cannot be fixed by playing along with the system. Hopefully the good that will come from this will be greater than the bad.
Yes. You can also replace it with your own political stuff, even if it's in conflict with mine, no problem.
The game itself can't communicate many values directly – it is just a simple game with very little text – but it tries to bring attention to the values of its author. Some of these are:
- In general so called less retarded software/society -- my newly created philosophy of technology and life.
- Anarchism, which automatically means anti-capitalism and caring about all other living beings.
- Pacifism, because true effort for equality can't be pursued by violence and other forms of oppression.
- Minimalism and simplicity, in technology and elsewhere, as a means of freedom and beauty.
- Software, cultural and information freedom, opposition to intellectual property.
- Future proof technology.
- Selflessness, sharing, collaboration, caring about others.
- By extension also other peaceful values such as veganism, equality of life forms etc.
Why do I have to shoot poor robots? Robots can suffer too! How is this promoting pacifism with guns and shooting?!
OK, this is something that also bothers me a bit at times -- not because I think there should be no shooting or guns in games, but because I fear people will misinterpret the message. I actually think that games should allow us to satisfy needs that are not acceptable to satisfy in real life, such as shooting people or even do other extremely immoral things -- a healthy individual knows what's a game and what is real life and by satisfying violent behavior in a game he will avoid satisfying it in real life. However I wanted to make an extremely accessible base game and respect e.g. parents who let their children only play games in which the player doesn't shoot other people, or religious people who refuse to play such games, so I made it with robots, just in case, to make it accessible to more players, keeping in mind modders will be able to make it a bloody gory game if they so desire.
The game is really an imperfect compromise between trying to make a shooter game and trying to keep it anarcho pacifist compatible.
I agree robots can suffer too if they are sufficiently advanced and mimic life we've so far only associated with biological life, but we can just assume the robots in the game are still only "dumb" machines simply programmed for shooting at moving targets.
Yes, guns and pacifism usually don't mix well, but it's not impossible to like guns and reject violence at the same time (I am a living example of this). This is my best attempt at mixing two things: making a libre Doom clone while keeping it reasonably pacifist, without resorting to cringe extremes like not portraying any guns at all in a shooter game.
Next, please keep in mind the game content isn't greatly thought-through because I was doing so many things at once that I had to resort to plain and simple pew pew shooter, I basically focused on programming it well and providing some "base" game for modders to improve upon. A good writer and asset artist could make the game content represent said causes much better, and I invite anyone capable of this to do so.
Finally while the game itself may not be the best promotion of anarcho pacifism, it grabs some attention towards my other promotions of anarcho pacifism which are hopefully better. Someone playing the game will at least learn about the term and perhaps look up more about it and maybe even become interested...
This all started with me just creating a very simple ray casting library while playing around with Pokitto, since ray casting is pretty simple. It e.g. allows easy creation of levels and doesn't require precomputation of accelerating structures. I kept improving the library and ended up with raycastlib, a more advanced ray casting library. The idea of creating a Doom clone wasn't planned from the beginning so when it came, I simply used what I had. Sure, BSP would work too, but raycasting makes Anarch kind of unique, there is not many similar games. Lately I've been thinking about creating a BSP library too, so maybe there will once be Anarch 2, who knows?
Because I strongly reject the concept of intellectual property and laws in general and because I simply don't want any bullshit burdening my creation. MIT is not public domain dedication, it still acknowledges copyright and has a burdening requirement of having to include a copyright notice, and it is also worded kind of vaguely. Copyleft puts even heavier legal burden on users, is by nature unclear and makes us "marry the lawyers", i.e. approve of the IP bullshit and show willingness to enforce only "good" use of our art, as if we're some kind of dictator authority.
Also note that CC0 addresses other legal bullshit such as "moral rights" (in general so called neighboring rights), something that still sneakily applies even if you waive copyright. I don't know about any other license/waiver that does this.
It is shame that so little software is truly in the public domain for anyone to simply use without restriction and distraction. Yes, I am aware of CC0's shortcoming, but it's the best we have and I try to address the issues with an extra waiver.
Firstly don't panic and please don't hate me, I didn't put that bug there intentionally. Send me a mail or open an issue on GL to let me know and I'll probably try to fix it. If I for some reason can't, ask some other programmer, or fix it yourself, it most likely isn't as difficult as fixing a bug in 1M LOC program wrapped in layers of "design patterns" and written in 10 languages.
I am an anarcho-pacifist programmer called drummyfish (real name Miloslav Číž). I love all living beings, even you (even if you hate me). You can read more about me at my website. You can read about my technology and life philosophy at my less retarded wiki.
I have mental issues as most people nowadays and I go crazy from living in this world, but these don't affect my reasoning. I challenge you to critically evaluate the ideas I present.
Peace.
I am not accepting any contributions to this repository, however you can, and are encouraged to, fork the repo and do whatever you want with it. This is because I want to keep the original repository completely my own work to prevent the risk of "intellectual property" complications with multiple authors (e.g. a contributor starting to say he agreed to the waiver by mistake) and to make it as clear as possible that this is truly public domain. Yes, I am afraid of free contribution from volunteers – this is what copyright laws have achieved. If you dislike this situation, stop supporting copyright and IP laws. Outside this repo of course we can collaborate without borders.
I welcome feedback, such as bug reports (you can email me etc).
tl;dr: everything in this repository is CC0 + a waiver of all rights, completely public domain as much as humanly possible, do absolutely anything you want
I, blitzdoughnuts, have created all unique assets in this repository, including but not limited to the code, using completely and exclusive free as in freedom software, without accepting any contributions, with the goal of creating a completely original art which is not a derivative work of anyone else's existing work, so that I could assure that by waiving my intellectual property rights the work will become completely public domain with as little doubt as posible.
This work's goal is to never be encumbered by any exclusive intellectual property rights, it is intended to always stay completely and forever in the public domain, available for any use whatsoever.
I therefore release everything in this repository under CC0 1.0 (public domain, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) + a waiver of all other IP rights (including patents), which is as follows:
Each contributor to this work agrees that they waive any exclusive rights, including but not limited to copyright, patents, trademark, trade dress, industrial design, plant varieties and trade secrets, to any and all ideas, concepts, processes, discoveries, improvements and inventions conceived, discovered, made, designed, researched or developed by the contributor either solely or jointly with others, which relate to this work or result from this work. Should any waiver of such right be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, the contributor hereby grants to each affected person a royalty-free, non transferable, non sublicensable, non exclusive, irrevocable and unconditional license to this right.
I would like to ask you, without it being any requirement at all, to please support free software and free culture by sharing at least some of your own work in a similar way I do with this project.
If you'd like to support me or just read something about me and my projects, visit my site: ludicrital.neocities.org.