[HN Gopher] Mortal Kombat+
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Mortal Kombat+
        
       Author : wsc981
       Score  : 276 points
       Date   : 2022-10-07 14:49 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mortalkombat.plus)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mortalkombat.plus)
        
       | rubyist5eva wrote:
       | Aww, I was kinda hoping this was something official because of
       | the 30th Anniversary.
        
       | flashgordon wrote:
       | 'Number of times Ed Boon said "Hello"' - 0
       | 
       | That has _gotta_ be painful. As a kid who ruined their studies
       | because of this game, wanting to meet Boon after learning about
       | the Noob Saibot backstory was _it_! Heck I 'd kill to meet him
       | now. So I can totally relate to the developers' disappointment.
       | Hope your dreams one day come true.
        
         | rubyist5eva wrote:
         | I have met a few of my heroes and I have always been let down.
         | I hear Ed is a nice guy, but I don't think I could take being
         | disappointed again.
        
         | alisonatwork wrote:
         | I have a feeling some of those guys were pretty accessible in
         | the early days of the internet. I remember emailing Dan Forden
         | (toasty!) to talk about the MK music back in the day. Nowadays,
         | unless they're active on social media, it's not so easy to
         | contact the creators.
        
           | flashgordon wrote:
           | I am pretty sure they were - I was too young at the time to
           | do it. Though not a bad idea to do it now and see where it
           | leads to!
        
         | StanislavPetrov wrote:
         | Met Boon a number of times at E3 conventions - nice guy!
        
           | flashgordon wrote:
           | Ok dont laugh at me. Having grown up outside the US - I never
           | even got a chance to go to E3 :(. Have to atleast take my
           | kids there!
        
         | dyingkneepad wrote:
         | I bet their first "Hello" from an NRS representative will be a
         | cease & desist letter due to all the copyright infringement...
         | They could have opted for a brand new logo and a non-
         | trademarked project name in order to make things at least a
         | little easier for them...
         | 
         | That said, I hope the project does NOT die. Power to the FGC!
        
           | caslon wrote:
           | They're distributing their changes as a patchset to the ROM,
           | which is completely legal. As a result, they aren't
           | distributing binary files; other hosts are.
        
             | greenthrow wrote:
             | They are using the Mortal Kombat name and trademark which
             | they are most definitely not licensed to do.
        
           | flashgordon wrote:
           | The romantic in me hopes not! These are now doing crazy
           | things with MK10 (i am amazed how i find the story line just
           | getting better and better). I hope they can appreciate the
           | hacker in these folks from their own early days!
        
             | sangnoir wrote:
             | Aren't trademarks dependent on enforcement? i.e. if you
             | allow your mark be diluted[1] by projects you like - you
             | will have a harder time down the road defending against use
             | by projects you _don 't_ like. So the best strategy is to
             | go ape on everyone, including those you like. IANAL.
             | 
             | 1. e.g. Kleenex
        
               | imwillofficial wrote:
               | There are ways around this, including cutting them a
               | license, or ignoring it.
        
               | RileyJames wrote:
               | I have heard this. But if that's the case, and you liked
               | the projects / developers, couldn't a highly restricted
               | licence be granted to the project?
               | 
               | A $1, non-profit, licence that can be modified or removed
               | at anytime. It could even have an NDA attached so it
               | can't be publicly discussed.
               | 
               | Maybe they wouldn't accept that. But it seems like there
               | should be a way to officially allow a project like this
               | to exist without enabling other groups that are not
               | guided by motivations the licence aligns with.
        
         | busterarm wrote:
         | During the early release of MK4 in arcades, John Tobias used to
         | regularly come down to Playland Arcade in NY and wreck
         | everybody at his game.
         | 
         | I met him twice from that. Never met Ed Boon though.
        
         | koz1000 wrote:
         | I have a hunch if the developers eventually got this to run on
         | original Midway hardware and installed it at Galloping Ghost
         | Arcade outside Chicago that Ed would show up to check it out
         | and say hi.
        
           | dfxm12 wrote:
           | IIRC, this can run on real hardware. Maybe at least the UMK3+
           | hack (I think the security chip on that board has been
           | hacked). I remember because I toyed with the idea of making a
           | similar hack for WWF WrestleMania (which I have & runs on the
           | same hardware). I really wanted to give each character a
           | Fatality like the Undertaker, or do something fun with the
           | Adam Bomb assets already in the game, but then I remembered I
           | have no idea what I'm doing with regards to debugging or
           | writing ASM code!
           | 
           | One of the devs streams his work on YT and it might be
           | informative, but it's impossible to use as a reference...
        
       | dopeboy wrote:
       | Was secretly hoping for a "remastered" edition kind of like what
       | they did with command and conquer.
        
       | chavesn wrote:
       | Ok but I can't unsee that the first two say plus plus ("plus+")
       | and the 3rd just says "plus"?
       | 
       | (Very cool project though)
        
       | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
       | Whoever owns the trademark isn't going to appreciate this.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | (2016)?
       | 
       | Surprised this wasn't shared earlier but it's as old as 2016....
       | just a different site mortalkombatplus.com
        
       | naikrovek wrote:
       | > Want to play it? Here's how. ... Fightcade: Similar to MAME,
       | but instead runs a custom emulator in an Electron based client
       | called FBNeo
       | 
       | Electron. What.
        
         | TheRealPomax wrote:
         | What indeed, what are you remarking on here? It's just one of a
         | dozen easily used cross-platform UI frameworks, what's the
         | problem? (and of course, "what's the problem for people on
         | modern computers for which even small games are 500Mb these
         | days", electron's not being used to distribute a web app that's
         | 50x smaller than the UI framework itself in this case)
        
         | busterarm wrote:
         | FBNeo is just a fork of FinalBurn Alpha emulator which has been
         | around forever.
         | 
         | Fightcade provides accounts, rollback netplay and a lobby
         | system and is the main way that the FGC (fighting game
         | community) plays older games online.
         | 
         | It works really well.
        
           | naikrovek wrote:
           | ok but Electron? For an emulator hosting fighting games? Is
           | that not a problem for games which require fast reactions?
        
             | busterarm wrote:
             | More like Electron for portability and minimal
             | troubleshooting effort across a wide set of computer
             | configurations.
             | 
             | They've made it really easy to use. Can't say the same for
             | other emulators.
        
             | teolandon wrote:
             | It's just the GUI wrapper, relax.
        
               | naikrovek wrote:
               | > It's just the GUI wrapper, relax.
               | 
               | the "relax" bit was pretty unnecessary and condescending.
        
               | busterarm wrote:
               | About as condescending as your reaction to the project
               | using Electron.
        
               | itintheory wrote:
               | simmer down
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | What would you propose they use instead, given they need to
         | develop quickly across multiple platforms?
        
           | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
           | SDL + ImGui
        
         | kbenson wrote:
         | Eh, given the age of the hardware, there are worse ways to
         | distribute an emulator that you want to work on multiple
         | different architectures and operating systems. And if you
         | compile the intensive stuff down to WASM, is probably even
         | easier to justify.
        
       | bsimpson wrote:
       | It took me a while to realize that these are patches to closed
       | source games.
       | 
       | I had originally presumed this was Midway's version of Aleph One,
       | where Bungie released the source to the original Marathon
       | trilogy, and the community made it work on modern hardware.
       | Considering Mortal Kombat is owned by Warner Bros now, I don't
       | expect that to happen.
        
       | lvxferre wrote:
       | MK2? --A,--A, and my sister screaming that her little brother was
       | "cheating". (I played with Mileena quite a bit.)
       | 
       | I'm giving this a try.
        
       | rychco wrote:
       | I love seeing these community projects to reverse and/or update
       | classic games. Disassemblers (& decompilers to an extent) are
       | becoming so good and accessible that these kinds of projects are
       | becoming more common.
        
       | pdntspa wrote:
       | This needs a custom build of MAME to play?
       | 
       | That's... ugh.
       | 
       | (edit- it doesn't, just recommended)
        
         | wolrah wrote:
         | > This needs a custom build of MAME to play?
         | 
         | My immediate thought as well, especially without any indication
         | of source for either GPL compliance or just to know what they
         | changed.
        
           | flatiron wrote:
           | It's because the hash of the roms changed so make complains
        
         | wobblykiwi wrote:
         | Fightcade is the community-adopted way to play older fighting
         | games online.
        
         | phaedrus wrote:
         | From the FAQ:
         | 
         | The version you use will depend on your computer processor. In
         | theory, the most up to date version of MAME you can use will
         | result in more accurate the game emulation which usually
         | required a faster computer processor to run the game at full
         | speed. If you have a 64-bit processor then you want to use a
         | 64-bit version of MAME (games can run up to 40% faster). It's
         | best to use the newest version of MAME as long as your computer
         | processor can handle it. We recommend that you use the version
         | of MAME that is offered on the 'Download' page. This special
         | version has been modified to recognize Mortal Kombat 2 Plus
         | (etc) as its own game. You may chose to use a different version
         | of MAME, but you may get an error when trying to load MK2.ZIP.
         | Don't worry though, we will go over how to get around such
         | problems in a later section.
        
         | mattigames wrote:
         | >Mortal Kombat 2+ is compatible with any version of MAME
         | between 0.119 and 0.203.
         | 
         | It seems that it works in standar MAME builds, but they
         | recommend their custom compilation for best performance.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | bombcar wrote:
       | Reminds me of the guy who fixed the famous ET game:
       | http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
        
       | beebeepka wrote:
       | Oh my, thank you. I think I love MK3 more than any other game,
       | even Quake 3. There was a... period in my life when I wanted to
       | do nothing else. I barely survived school because I was
       | preoccupied with simulating fights in my head instead of paying
       | attention.
       | 
       | I maintain that MK3 for DOS is still the best port in terms of
       | bugs and general feel. Yes, I didn't like Ultimate all that much.
       | 
       | Thank you GoG and whoever is working on this for keeping the
       | dream alive. Bookmarked
        
       | VanTheBrand wrote:
       | Slightly disappointed. Was I the only one expecting an ill-
       | conceived Mortal Kombat centered streaming service?
        
         | swypych wrote:
         | You are not alone
        
       | transfire wrote:
       | Sold my Amiga 500 to one of the game's graphic designers back in
       | the 90s. He told me his image was used for one of the characters.
       | 
       | Oddity of that night... I was in Chicago and I had a very old car
       | at the time (Olds Omega). It konked out on me as I was leaving.
       | So I had go back up to his apartment and ask to use his phone. He
       | (and his wife/gf) let me, but they acted very odd like I was
       | somehow up to something. I couldn't find anyone to pick me up
       | either and I didn't want spend the money I just made on that crap
       | car! Luckily I went out and tried again and the car started.
       | 
       | It always struck me how he and his girl seemed so... well almost
       | elitist -- maybe they were so isolated they were just scared of
       | lower class strangers.
        
       | betwixthewires wrote:
       | I'd love to see a trilogy like combination of all the games. I
       | would say my favorite gameplay of all the games is MK2, but my
       | favorite characters and move sets are all from UMK3.
        
       | modeless wrote:
       | They should also convert the sprites to HD with AI, like Nvidia's
       | RTX Remix does. That could potentially look really good. Maybe
       | even do some tweening to improve the frame rate.
        
       | ryandrake wrote:
       | Oh, boy! I blame my low college GPA on a Mortal Kombat addiction.
       | They had a MK2 machine in our commons next to the pool tables
       | that I'd play during every free moment, then sprinting to and
       | from classes. Then later during junior and senior years when I
       | moved a mile across campus, I'd hit up the local arcade which
       | just got a brand newly released MK3 machine. The great thing
       | about playing fighting games in the arcade was that it
       | financially rewarded skill. The better you got at the game, the
       | cheaper it was to play for a night, since the winner of the match
       | got to play the next game for free. I'd go to the machine with
       | one quarter and play for an hour with a line of people behind the
       | left controller waiting to pay a quarter to lose. All the good
       | players kind of had a pact not to play each other, to maximize
       | our game time. When it was just us in the arcade in the
       | afternoons, we'd play each other with variants like "random
       | character" and "one handed" and "blindfolded" just to screw
       | around and wait for the evening when the fish would show up.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | scarface74 wrote:
         | I still have all of my Sega Genesis MK cartridges.
         | 
         | But when I really wanted to talk trash in the PS2 era, I would
         | brag about beating someone with Kuma.
        
         | biggerChris wrote:
         | You should write a book or a podcast about your addiction.
        
           | ChuckNorris89 wrote:
           | He will have to get in line with me and millions of other
           | worldwide students from the '90s.
           | 
           | Basically the launch of any AAA video game back then (like
           | 1994 DOOM or 1996 Quake) would cause a global sink in
           | academic and corporate performance with workers calling in
           | sick and students spending endless nights playing.
           | 
           | It was a great time to be a gamer.
        
         | wellthisisgreat wrote:
         | Wait can you actually win blindfolded?
         | 
         | Also what was your character?
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | When you both play blindfolded, it becomes a meta game of
           | knowing your opponent and how he plays, what patterns he
           | uses, and then trying to change your own patterns to exploit
           | what he thinks your moves are going to be and so on.
           | 
           | For character, I usually just let the game pick a random one
           | for me. I found that after the initial fun of learning
           | everyone's combos and special moves, the basic kicks and
           | punches were all you needed. That was the real secret to MK:
           | Precise use of high kick, sweep, uppercut, and block could
           | pretty much beat anyone who made a mistake. If I wanted to
           | show off (MK3), I'd pick Sindel and not allow one hit against
           | me. I think I was the only person in town who used that
           | character.
           | 
           | Another fun variant was to offer to only use one attack
           | button (high punch, high kick, low punch, or low kick), and
           | allowing your opponent to use all of them. Bonus fun: Let
           | your opponent choose which button you are limited to!
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | Yes, this was the best kept strategy. Newcomers especially
             | would focus heavily on learning the special moves, assuming
             | the regular kicks/punches to be ineffective (or less
             | effective). Big mistake.
        
               | mmcgaha wrote:
               | That Liu Kang kick where he used both feet and sounded
               | like a chicken was damn near impossible to defeat when
               | your opponent was spamming it. Every now and then I could
               | block and upper cut but mostly I would upper cut and
               | start getting kicked again.
        
               | rzzzt wrote:
               | Repeatedly flying in and elbowing the opponent can also
               | be annoying for them, until one block successfully breaks
               | the chain.
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | heh yeah it could be defeated with a block and you could
               | then round-house him while he recovered, but getting the
               | timing down was tough
        
           | freedomben wrote:
           | Yes! After playing a ton of rounds, you get to where you can
           | visualize in your head what is happening based on the sound,
           | timing, and what you've done with the controls. As the fight
           | goes on though it gets increasingly more difficult because
           | you don't know what the other player has done with their
           | controls. So, winning is possible, but extremely difficult.
           | Easier against AI players especially the lower difficulty
           | settings that are much more predictable.
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | I used to be able to provide very accurate play-by-play
             | commentary on someone's game of Addams Family Pinball _from
             | the next room_ , based on sound alone. I doubt I could have
             | played well blindfolded but I bet I could have played
             | better than a pinball n00b, at least.
        
             | ChuckNorris89 wrote:
             | _> After playing a ton of rounds, you get to where you can
             | visualize in your head what is happening based on the
             | sound, timing, and what you've done with the controls_
             | 
             | "Use the force Luke" - Yoda
        
               | Beltiras wrote:
               | For the scenario in question, you would really have to
               | attribute it to Obi-Wan.
        
               | ffhhj wrote:
               | Yoda would actually say "Luke, the force use, you must".
               | Now you know why he didn't get that line in a script.
        
           | noboostforyou wrote:
           | > Wait can you actually win blindfolded?
           | 
           | Different game but equally impressive imo. Obviously takes a
           | lot of practice but audio cues are huge for these kind of
           | challenges - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w6z-h4hoEU
        
             | flobosg wrote:
             | Another game, with two blindfolded players sharing one
             | controller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4HnZ4-_HzI
        
           | chupasaurus wrote:
           | Early MKs are mostly unreactable visually so sound effects
           | become the first priority.
           | 
           | Killer Instinct 2013 unintentionally at first has different
           | sound (and music!) effects for each move as well as every
           | meter so at some points devs were astonished by a letter from
           | actually blind players with a few advices on how to make it
           | even more accessible.
           | 
           | Upcoming Street Fighter 6 has the options needed!
        
         | statictype wrote:
         | Good times. MK2 was still in the very early days of the
         | internet and people were still in Compusa and AOL. Some
         | enterprising kids would download and print the move sheets for
         | all the characters and sell them for a few bucks.
        
       | fumar wrote:
       | MK2 brings back massive memories from my youth. Taking a step
       | back, are fighting games popular today? I don't game much, but I
       | haven't seen or heard of any major fighting games outside of RPG
       | style battles.
        
         | the_doctah wrote:
         | Seeing MK2 for the first time in the arcade is basically a
         | flashbulb memory for me. I had never even heard a rumor about
         | it, it was just there, in all its glory. Seeing Reptile, the
         | secret character from MK1, be a regular cast member blew my
         | mind. Not to mention the much larger cast in general. Classic
         | game.
        
         | princevegeta89 wrote:
         | MK has made a comeback after many years/flops in 2011 with a
         | fresh reboot and serious plot. That was a great game. I believe
         | they've released two more sequels to it which were still good.
        
         | mbStavola wrote:
         | Quite popular to the point where it has it's own dedicated
         | subculture that runs tournaments all around the world. This
         | summer's EVO tournament in Vegas had about 8k attendees with 9
         | featured games (including the newest Mortal Kombat, MK11),
         | along with many side tournaments for older or less popular
         | games. The Twitch stream had a peak concurrent viewership of
         | 250k as well.
         | 
         | Besides those dedicated enough to fly to tournaments and
         | compete with the best, FGs still seem to be generally popular
         | among the mainstream; SFV sold 6.6m copies, MK11 sold 12m, and
         | GG Strive sold 1m. The 2010s were a total revival of the genre,
         | which had a bit of a dead period in the early aughts.
        
       | gus_massa wrote:
       | Is there a list/screenshots of some of the more interesting bugs
       | they fixed?
        
         | jmmoses wrote:
         | Here's a video showcase I found on YouTube:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twWbx9dCuHA
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | robertmp wrote:
         | Yeah it's a pdf on the page though
        
           | aliqot wrote:
           | Can you folks stop flagging everything until its dead because
           | you didn't like the persons delivery? This person is correct
           | and I had to vouch for the comment just to see it.
           | 
           | It's Friday ffs just give it a rest for one day.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | The direct link is https://mortalkombat.plus/download/2225/
        
               | gus_massa wrote:
               | Thanks for the direct link. I tried looking again and
               | again in the page, but I still can't find it there.
        
               | raldi wrote:
               | Yeah, what text on the page links to that URL? I've
               | scoured it on my phone and can't find it anywhere.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | You have to go to the game link, and then to a third page
               | to find the changelog.
               | 
               | I couldn't find it on the main page.
        
               | raldi wrote:
               | What do you mean by "the game link"? The only page that
               | seems to make sense is https://mortalkombat.plus/mk1 ,
               | but there's no PDF link anywhere on that page; I even
               | checked the source.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | Yeah, it's only on the II and 3 pages:
               | https://mortalkombat.plus/mk2 because I guess 1 isn't
               | done yet.
               | 
               | https://mortalkombat.plus/umk3
               | 
               | And it's annoying that it won't even let you "open the
               | PDF in the browser"
        
           | raldi wrote:
           | No screenshots, though. That would be a great addition to the
           | page. Or a playthrough video on YouTube.
        
       | snarfy wrote:
       | I wonder which patch version of MK they are using. IIRC the 3.0
       | patch (had the contest advertisement) was the last patch that
       | allowed juggle combos. After that the opponent would fall super
       | fast after the first juggle hit. It kind of ruined the game for
       | the pros.
        
       | Iuz wrote:
       | For those interested in these types of hacks, new legacy is a
       | balanced and fixed sf2: https://newlegacy.fr/
        
         | krat0sprakhar wrote:
         | Does this work on Mac?
        
           | cammikebrown wrote:
           | You'll need an emulator, but yes, it does.
        
         | Blackthorn wrote:
         | I love that version, just really wish you could use that
         | beautiful HD art from ST HD remix.
        
       | siva7 wrote:
       | So how do i play this mortal kombat thing on a mac?
        
         | sixothree wrote:
         | Does MAME not run on the mac?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | wsc981 wrote:
         | In Fightcade [0] the unpatched MK2 rom works fine.
         | 
         | Seems patching a ROM should be possible using MultiPatcher [1].
         | 
         | ---
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.fightcade.com
         | 
         | [1]: https://projects.sappharad.com/multipatch/
        
         | mattigames wrote:
         | https://github.com/mac-a-r0ni/mame/releases/tag/mame0248
        
       | nsxwolf wrote:
       | I loved MK3 but was never a fan of Ultimate MK3. New characters
       | were great, but the game felt like it was jam packed full of
       | bugs, and the AI in single player was literally impossible. The
       | computer would instantly counter everything you tried to do, and
       | you could only succeed using various jumping around tricks - you
       | could never win in a straight fight and enjoy the combo system as
       | intended.
        
         | frozenlettuce wrote:
         | yeah, the AI would read your inputs and react without frame
         | delays (contrary to input generated by the user). there was
         | even some code that would reduce the chance of that happening
         | depending on many coins you placed in the machine
        
           | snarfy wrote:
           | The AI in MK was always notoriously 'cheap'. I remember it
           | was impossible to perform a throw on the AI. They would
           | always throw you instead. You could even go so far as to
           | freeze the AI using Sub Zero's freeze move, attempt the
           | throw, and they will still throw you while they were frozen.
        
             | nsxwolf wrote:
             | It's surprising the lengths they seemed to have gone to
             | make the single player experience not fun. I know the goal
             | is to get more quarters in the machine, but it felt like
             | the wrong way to do it.
             | 
             | The 2 player competitive experience was where these games
             | shined. It's just a shame that there was more potential for
             | a fun single player. Regular MK3 I always found to be fun
             | against the computer, even though the difficulty ratchets
             | up as you climb the tower.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | zerr wrote:
       | MK source code was leaked a while ago, so no need to spend months
       | for disassembling.
        
         | warmwaffles wrote:
         | You can't use that leaked code without being sued. It has to be
         | clean room implemented or disassembled AFAIK.
        
           | rosywoozlechan wrote:
           | But using the trademark and copyrighted content from the game
           | on a website is risk free?
        
             | warmwaffles wrote:
             | Nothing is risk free. As long as the user has a legal copy
             | of the game it is possible. Just look at OpenRCT2. You need
             | to have a legal copy of the game in order to run it.
        
           | asveikau wrote:
           | The fact that it's in binary form doesn't somehow exempt it
           | from copyright. A translation of the disassembly into C or
           | whatever is still derived from their copyrighted material.
        
       | bgitarts wrote:
       | Is the source public?
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | I don't think they have the source themselves. They say they
         | used a disassembler and they provide the patches for download,
         | so you can rebuild as much of the "source" as they have using a
         | ROM copy and the patches.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-07 23:00 UTC)