Reverse Engineering a Classic Video Game (BioForge)

Awesome to see this deep-dive into one of my favorite games from the dos era

Okay, but this is literally about all the stuff you least want to see.

The bit everyone wants to see is the 3D models and their animations

Wow impressive work. I wonder what copy of Bioforge you have, because the main menu music sounds like a lesser bit rate version than the one I used to play.

amazing stuff, everyone always boosts the reverse engeneering of executables, but in a way, the understanding of custom assets is even more challenging.
compilers' workings are understood and if you have the correct way to read it.. it can be relatively easy and automated, of course the challenge there is more to render it readable and usable to work on later. for assets you really have to dig in and have luck in finding patters similar to data types of the era. so kudos, keep em coming!

Inspiring and brilliant work.

I never thought trying to make sense of a font file format could be so interesting, nice work!

I am trying to make sense of a binary format that seems to store material properties and model information (vertices, uv, normals, etc) but cant figure it out. PURE(2008) is the game

This video should have a lot more views!

Could you do this to Toy Story 2 Pc version

010 editor ida pro , texture atlas,

This is incredible. Probably the most interesting topic rn for me trying to find more videos like this

Awesome!

I have this game.
It came out before Resident Evil 1 , and had similar game mechanics, 3rd person, rendered backgrounds, and fixed camera angles.
Other games that did something similar are Dino Crisis, Final Fantasy 7, Resident Evil 2 and 3, Onimusha, Alone in the Dark, Fatal Frame, Siberia, and Until Dawn

Is it possible like port a game from pc to PS3/ps4? Idk anything about reverse engineering

Real talk, can chatgpt reverse engineer software for you

Great work, sir! You revived my childhood memories. Could you make a reverse engineering of Dino Crisis series when you are available?

Really enjoyed this presentation, and great work on the RE effort! I actually spent some time looking into the game's file formats myself a while ago, but didn't get very far. It's a great game, and very deserving of getting the RE engine treatment 🙂 Keep up the great work! Looking forward to see more of your project in the future!

One of my favorite games from back in the day :)

we need a remake

ChatGPT can actually produce C99 code out of the raw x86 bytecode, without even touching the disassembly stage. That works because byte code instructions are linear. It can also refactor output from HexRays and Ghidra, recovering variable names.

Wish someone could do this for Toy Story 2 ps1/pc game

this is great thanks

BioForge was the first computer game I ever played. The 16 - bit graphics were atmospheric, and at times utterly terrifying. The scene with the dinosaur falling into the lava was staggeringly cinematic. And then the music was on another level. Sincerely can't believe that It doesn't seem to get much attention as a classic release - so excited to see a modern developer taking it on!

Thanks so much for this video. I can't wait to watch it...but I thought I should play a bit of the game before I spoil it. I will hold my hands up, I never heard of it until today and I was a huge DOS gamer in the past. Well as big as I could have been with no money and no internet! Looking forward to it and other videos that you might be doing too.

Thanks for showing that not to doing reverse engineering 😂

I am no coder, and I only found this cause I was looking for a Bioforge remake, but I really loved your presentation! Really nice to see how much brain effort goes behind the whole process, makes one appreciate your efforts even more!

It's a strange aside, but one part of Bioforge that is often unremembered is how great the writing was in the official strategy guide. It's all from the perspective of a researcher that uploaded themselves into a planet sized computer then transfers into your brain. A quick search finds a full copy in the internet archive, as a kid I may have spent more time reading that book then playing the game!

this video is great. im currently doing a video of me learning to reverse engineer. i'm just getting started on Pocket Tanks by Blitwise!

It was fascinating to watch you do magic!
I am able to code using python, I can create simple games with pygame without any tutorial or other resources, aside from occasional light "googling", but that almost looked like deciphering chinese symbols to me 😂😅
Really really great calm way of describing the "what" and "why"!

Any updates on this project?

Awesome video! As someone who is currently working on an program to render and replace Super Smash Bros. Melee characters in the .iso file, it's so cool to see how you reverse engineered some of these things! There's something special about discovering the intricate details of your favorite game, and I could tell you really love this game based on your smiles and reactions. Best of luck on the rest of the engine!

WOW - I'm only going to use a hex dump and a calculator! wow wow wow

Bioforge was amazing. I saved many months worth of mowing lawns to get my copy as a teen

Thank you so much! This game blew my mind.. so so so much

Thank u so much for this wonderful analysis

bro figured it out just using the hex dump. my clown ass still using IDA 😭 😭

I hear this guy programs by capturing individual electrons one at a time to represent a 1 bit.

This is so cool! This game use to terrify me when I was a kid. But as an adult dev, I can truly appreciate the tech advances and systems they developed and incorporated. I'm curious if reverse engineering allows modification, just as swapping out the .cam files for higher resolution images and etc.

I reversed engineered my softwear now I am in prision

how can i learn more about hex and reverse engineering? computer science books?

Look like lots fun back in the day I miss that video games was classic and simple. BTW cool cover art

When I first saw this game, I remember not realising that I was playing a game for about a minute, because the graphics were so good. In hindsight, it was probably helped by the cutscenes and game being done through the same system. But stunning graphics for the time, for sure.

I wonder if anyone can use the AI to upscale this game to full hd or 4k today as this would be a great game to work a remaster with improved combat

Please fix the combat. Or at least auto aim.

This is one of the first PC games I ever played as a kid, and pretty much solidified me as a PC gamer till this day. The nostalgia is melancholy, but an AI remaster would bring this back into todays gamers - I'd imagine a massive amount of work would be needed tho ;) Fantastic job!

I just discovered this project. Thanks for the effort, I'm looking forward to compiling the code and seeing this amazing video game on my Linux operating system.

Nice work and great job on the video. My first FLC file was blackbird animation with the Beatles blackbird wav file. That was magic on a 386dx 40. :)

Any update on this awesome work? Is there any playable demo or access to it on github?