Reminds me of the Cosmopolitan project: https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan
That was mentioned at the top of the blog post.
I have to start reading from the top instead of skimming.
This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
81–90 of 93 posts
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#82I extracted the linux executable and was surprised to find that both readelf and objdump choke on it despite it loading and running correctly. Some investigation reveals that the name of the dynamic linker was shoved into the "unused" fields in the PT_DYNAMIC header entry to save space: Program Headers: Type Offset VirtAddr PhysAddr FileSiz MemSiz Flags Align INTERP 0x0000000000000088 0x0000000000010088 0x00000000000…
ndisasm can help read it and hex editor. no tools should mangle such format, its useless savings, worth nothing. it will cause problem with AV and other things potentially. saw some comments about DEP on windows and this and honestly i wouldnt touch this thing with a 10ft stick. if the creator want ppl to play it they can provide a normal binary. not some obfuscated mess.
This is a slippery slope. I could agree if the OS would load it. Maybe the OS shouldn't load it.
But as long as it is good enough for the OS it should be good for the malware scanner as long as it is not real malware. If we start punishing everything that deviates just a little bit from the norm we will end in no good place.
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#83On a related note -- when I see the minuscule filesize of the original Zelda game on emulators, I marvel at how little text/code/information could produce how much wonder, how far-reaching impact, and how many hours of enchantment for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(video_gam...
What I think is really great about The Legend of Zelda is that Breath of the Wild is very clearly a more fully realized version of the same core vision that guided the design of the original game thirty years earlier.
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#84The binary relies on the runtime, so yes it is nice. Forma instance, a static compiled and linked "hello world" in C on Linux is around ~785KB
That's just because glibc is not designed for static linking. It works, but it doesn't exclude unused code, unlike with other libcs.
It does exclude unused code. But glibc has too many inter-object-file dependencies, so too much code gets used.
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#85The fun part is that it's actually 3 executables in a single file. Meaning there is no particular reason it should have the same program on each platform.
It would be a lot cooler if the three could share code/assets somehow, bringing the package size down further.
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zelda 1 was 128 kB, for those wondering, and that's without any compression. Double that for the sequel.
That honestly doesn't seem too bad. Zelda 1 is relatively large but it reuses a lot of assets and honestly probably doesn't have that much text. (More than a Mario but way less than a Dragon Warrior.)
AFAIR tho im not sure its even 128k, I think disk cards themselves are more like 110k and even then FDS Zelda had separate sides mostly for main menu and saves.
IOW might have been able to fit in 96Kb or less.
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#87On a related note -- when I see the minuscule filesize of the original Zelda game on emulators, I marvel at how little text/code/information could produce how much wonder, how far-reaching impact, and how many hours of enchantment for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(video_gam...
Heck Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo is 4 MiB! A lot is possible if you have to fit your game in a tiny space.
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#88Not cross-platform, but I'm reminded of the kkrieger game for Windows which was a 96k FPS game that looked visually impressive for the time. https://web.archive.org/web/20100304155706/http://www.thepro...
From that link: Still works on modern PCs! Was able to DL and launch.
if it worked on a pentium iii, it should work on a phone with webgl. who's going to port it?
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#89> The HTML version is also packed and abuses the fact that browsers will happily process all the benign garbage at the start of the file before reaching the actual HTML content.
Long live RCE. The thing looks interesting. Very close to a virus. Can it be used to make and spread a virus ?
Re: This game is a single 13 KiB file that runs on Windows, Linux and in the Browser
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
ndisasm can help read it and hex editor. no tools should mangle such format, its useless savings, worth nothing. it will cause problem with AV and other things potentially. saw some comments about DEP on windows and this and honestly i wouldnt touch this thing with a 10ft stick. if the creator want ppl to play it they can provide a normal binary. not some obfuscated mess.
This is a slippery slope. I could agree if the OS would load it. Maybe the OS shouldn't load it. But as long as it is good enough for the OS it should be good for the malware scanner as long as it is not real malware. If we start punishing everything that deviates just a little bit from the norm we will end in no good place.
tools output validly formatted files for a reason. there is not really a good reason to mess with headers etc. , the savings are so tiny its only fun for obfuscation or tiny binary contests...
imagine, this linker name string.. its few bytes from 13K bytes. does nothing useful.
a lot of parsers of file formats do ignore most fields as do linkers/loaders. AV engines look a little more at it and might trigger on anomalies simply because its indicative of tampering (not neccesarily malicious).
deviating from the norm is fine as long as its grounded in a good reason, and clearly explained. simply pushing some weirdly formatted binary without any explanation, thats not very strategical in today's landscape of messed up binaries and threats. - just my 2 cents ofc.. im not an authority on the matter :p