A Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

burnhamup wrote: post #17

burnhamup wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious too. The original developers were Humongous Games (Putt-Putt & Freddi Fish) whose other titles used the SCUMM engine. My guess would be Backyard Baseball was as well. I dug up this article that seems to go through the process but not in great technical detail: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/backyard-baseball-97-in... What I don't understand is why just grabbing the original game files and slapping i…

I poked at the Steam Depots for some of these games for more information. A game like Putt-Putt ships the ScummVM under the GPL license and runs it with the original asset files: https://steamdb.info/depot/294661/ Backyard Baseball does not appear to be using ScummVM. https://steamdb.info/depot/3170541/ The .he* files also appear to be the original assets for the game. And then they built a Scumm interpreter to run t…

Post by ckwalsh » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #20

I thought this article was really interesting but it's odd how it doesn't mention where the funds came from. I can't imagine the salary of a school teacher in her 20s can cover lawyers, a dev team, buying IP, etc

Post by tclancy » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

ripe wrote: post #10

TLDR; a Chicago-area schoolteacher was able to find the rights to the old Backyard Baseball PC game from the 1990s, and she commissioned a software game development company and a still-live fan base, to recreate the source code (because the original source was lost). She founded a company called Playground Productions. Thanks to her efforts, nostalgic Millennials and their kids can purchase and enjoy this old game. A…

Post by Dwedit » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #26

brandonmenc wrote: post #14

Not a single hyperlink in that article. Infuriating.

If only there were ways to look up the things you wanted to know from it.

Post by sfRattan » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:15 PM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #14

Not a single hyperlink in that article. Infuriating.