Download Caverns of Bob!

GINKO 2022-07-17 0 point

*** A RANT FROM THE ORIGINAL PROGRAMMER OF THIS GAME ***

\= CAVERNS OF GINK =/
\= 1 9 8 5 =/

So I was 15 years old when I created this game.

To be clear, Caverns of Bob is a hack that someone edited and resubmitted to the world under a different name, claimed it as his own, etc, ... So here's how it happened.

Caverns of GINK was written in the language called Basic, which left the String data (anything in the computer code inside these " " ) So the string "Caverns of Gink" was easily noticeable to anyone trying to edit the source code. It's the equivalent of someone watching a video on How To Cook an Awesome Steak on YouTube, then making the same recipe in a new video; "Hey check out my awesome steak recipe" But even THAT implies they filmed a new video and created a new 'something.' That is not what happened here, Bob opened my code, changed Gink to Bob!, saved it as new file, and said to the world CHECK OUT THE GAME I MADE. So where is the line between "I made a game" and "I hacked a game someone else made & edited the title screen?"

How to make a game
Ctrl-C
Ctrl-V
Ctrl-S

I'm fine with the fact that "bob" chose MY game to re-edit ... he could have chosen any one of the 29 games that were out there at the time ... but he edited Caverns of Gink (1985) and made Caverns of Bob! in 1999. NERD MOMENT : He had to add the exclamation point to keep the string at 4 characters to match Gink because of the pixel extrapolation on the opening intro (see, I placed the letters in the top corner, then I called each pixel of the characters to create the title screen ... I actually remember programming this ... Bob doesn't. I imagine his first try using BOB in place of GINK didn't work, 3 characters instead of 4. I bet it was a good 15 minutes before he added the 4th character ... Well done, Bob. #asciiforever

He simply (and very simply) scrolled through his editor until found the obvious string in the computer code. From there it's a short trip to edit to his dumb-ass heart's content.

Fuck Bob and anyone who looks like Bob

What better game to mess with but one of the good ones, for the time, and honestly one of the only ones. That's the real reason I made Caverns of Gink : there wasn't much out there -- And lets be honest, this game absolutely sucks compared to today's standards, or even the standard of 20 years ago. I had 4 colors to work with... FOUR!! including ZERO the black background, so really 3. Welcome to 4-bit technology, if you can even image that low a bit depth.

I've had years to process all this anger and now guess what?? I feel like I've finally been able to let go of the fact some Jack-wad stole my work, Good for him for figuring it out, I bet he actually felt some sense of accomplishment when he successfully hacked the game I made. From that perspective, I effectively changed the world in a positive direction, making some total stranger happy and I didn't even have to meet him. (Prolly for the best)

I'm no longer pissed / violated / angry-in-any-way.

I finally feel completely clean from this 35-year angst against some rando asshole clearly named Bob who has successfully claimed ownership of a game that I made ... He made his own game, I did the work, and he made a title screen.

Cool.

T. Ginko
7/17/2022

Merkley 2015-04-09 1 point DOS version

...honestly, this 30 years old obvious ripoff/ codeedit thing should stay here in the archive right next to the original where it belongs! Stuff like that is game history too, it shows why programmers started to encrypt their data...

CAVERNS OF MERKLEY!!! XD

ginko 2014-07-15 1 point DOS version

Please remove this game from your downloads, it is a blatant rip off of Caverns of Gink, which I created 29 years ago.