BatteryCheck - A new challange

My little homebrew remake of BatteryCheck depends on the original game files to be provided by the user for legal reasons. Up until now my instructions to get these files were to download a ZIP file from an old website I had found that hosted the download. It was from one of the companies that was part of the original development/design team, so it was as "official" as it could get! I had even asked their permission to share the download link here. I got permission....but with a few strings attached ^_^

In the e-mail I had send I had told them how I had started a project I had been dreaming about for years: creating my own video game! Well, partially my own ofcourse with it being based on the game assets of the original BatteryCheck game. I had been collecting hard to get the 15 empty batteries required to get the CD-ROM to get the free game...and I still have this original disk. But because I had no idea how to read or convert the game files I had never really started the project.

Until I had found the missing link in my project on Jazz2Online describing the file formats into great detail. And that it turns out that BatteryCheck runs on the same kind of game engine as Jazz Jackrabbit 2! Since my homebrew was making progress I wanted to share it with others, but how would anyone without the original CD-ROM be able to get the game files? Legally!

Then I said I had found a download page (http://www.ranjnet.nl/games) that offered the game as a download and I asked the following questions:
- Is this the official download page now "Stichting Batterijen" (Battery Foundation...the owners of the game) do not offer it themself anymore?
- Am I allowed to share this page as the "official download" location?
- Who do I need to contact for the proper permissions for using the graphics and music?
- Is the games license Freeware, Shareware or something else?
Click to expand...

The above is almost litterly what I have send them, just translated into English :D The reply came in less than 2 days....and to this day I regret not responding back to them...:shy:...but here is their reply:

We are delighted to hear you are such a great fan of BatteryCheck and are coming to us with your questions. BatteryCheck is an older game and the same accounts for the download link you have found. Beware that it might be possible it's removed in the future. I will answer your questions below:

- This is not the offical download page
- You may refer to this page, but as mentioned before, it might be possible it's removed in the future.
- The graphics and desing can not be used sepperatly for other purposes
- The licence of the game is Creative Commons, you can mention the game, refer to it, link to it, but it can't be used for commercial purposes.
Click to expand...

I have left out the names and greetings here but the important details are here ^_^. I have always interpreted this response as "permission" to share the page and give people the change to download the game from an official source. Hopefully everyone reading this agrees with me...:D:):blush::shy:

Yesterday I decided it was time to start working on the game again! And therefore my "Week of re-reading my posts and threads" started to see what I was up to since last time. One of the things I keep doing is checking if the download is still available....and unfortunately it seems that the old page has been retired! :O I have not contacted Ranj yet about it...but I am also a little bit afraid of it to be honest. That's probably why I have not replied back after the response I had got. :shy:

After a little digging I have found only two less official sources to acquire the game files. One is on archive.org and the other on some sketchy looking website....but I am not sure if I should share them yet. For one my custom installer is not modified to work with these download sources yet. They both offer different type of files and filenames than the ZIP file I had originally linked to. The second reason is that I am not sure if it's "legally allowed" to share those links here:shy:^_^

Because these "new" locations are not exactly official I wanted to make sure the downloads they offer are actually the same version of BatteryCheck. And the good news is that all my checks in comparing the sha1 hashes of the files seem to check out. The downloads are correct and should be save to use. :D But as I said above the file names and formats differ slightly from the ZIP file as before. My installer needs to be updated to accept these variants to keep things simple for new users. :)
Both sources offer the setup.exe without any modification or compression and is just simply named differently. That should be easy enough to add support for. The other file both locations offer is an ISO made from the original disk. Their hashes match so it does not matter which one is downloaded...but they do have a different name! The plan is change my identification based on file size first...this makes it immune to a slightly different name in all situations....hopefully. :D

Any insights or ideas are greatly appreciated. :D
  • Like
Reactions: 5 people

Comments

KleinesSinchen
Nice to hear from you.

Dang it! Sadly the Wayback Machine has only archived the page, not the download.

The second reason is that I am not sure if it's "legally allowed" to share those links here
Click to expand...
Things like this are one of the reasons why I think current copyright laws are one-sided, problematic and maybe even outright WRONG. No, I won't start blathering about this now.


Maybe it would be the best if you focused on the game and ignore any possible legal problems with link sharing for now. Early enough to think about this if link sharing becomes necessary.
I think most GBAtemp members are able to type the name of a game and the words game and download into a search engine anyway.:creep:
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people
Archerite
Thanks, I know it's been a while. :)

Yeah, that is indeed really sad they got the page but not the actual content and downloads saved in there! Not even the little story and screenshots are saved unfortunately.

I agree about the copyright laws. Especially for games that are over 20 years old, freeware or not actively being sold by the creators should be made available in a way to allow projects like mine. I am never going to say I made any of the game assests...I have actually made that clear right in the beginning. ^_^ But it is what is I guess....

You have a point. It's just that by the number of downloads....it looks like there is intterest. And that's why I wanted to have a way for new people to have a legitimate way of obtaining the files. maybe after a while when it's more stable and an actual game I could look into that again.:D
Hahaha, that is actually an even better argument. Doing EXACTLY that does result in the two mentioned locations. :D It would be like a treasure hunt...and I just refer to this blog post to "find" the location to download from. :lol:

I have been doing some research on how to get the Setup.exe from the ISO file. I was looking into the iso9660 file format and my head started to spin!!! really feared I had to use a library just to get to the EXE. But then I just thought....maybe the data of the EXE is just there at a fixed offset!? And guess what! It actually is!!! Hahaha

That makes 4 possible ways to provide the "installation files":
- the plain setup.exe
- the zip file from the original link
- the ISO file you can hunt for
- and another type of ZIP from the hunted locations

I have an idea on how to make the filenames irrelevant to the installer. Each file has a unique filesize and I could just look at that to find which file is provided. I know this is thinking to far ahead maybe....but I was working on integrating the installer into the main game binary. That way on boot it can search for the game files and if not found it will start the installer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people

Blog entry information

Author
Archerite
Views
90
Comments
4
Last update

More entries in Personal Blogs

More entries from Archerite

Share this entry

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    DJPlace @ DJPlace: don't forget the meatballs +1