PPEngine isn't just a 3D remake of the 1982 arcade game Pole Position, but a complete reverse-engineering of the original game's code. The result is something truly uncanny, following all the plays, beats and moves of the classic but rendering it with modern high-definition lowpoly graphics.
Creator Jonathan Thomas described his plan on Reddit:
I started back in 2013 reverse engineering the code from the original arcade ROM with the help of the MAME debugger and some primitive self-made tools to analyse instruction traces and create assembly source files that could be assembled back to the original arcade ROM.
Following this, I worked through the assembly source file to produce a portable C-based library containing the game logic for Pole Position. This library was used in two projects – the one you see here, and another project to convert Pole Position to the Atari ST – a 16-bit computer that was released in 1985.
Thomas also used the reverse-engineered code to create a near-perfect conversion to the Atari STE home computer. Gen X surely remembers how often home ports of arcade games were crudely remade from scratch, ending up as completely different games behind a facade of graphical similarity, so this'll be bittersweet viewing for some:
