So I started decompiling LEGO Island... 

Lego Island.... Yeah, I think i'll pass on this video.

Oh sweet, a new upload from the Lego Island guy

The obvious thing to do is to port LEGO Island to Xbox, combining this channel's 2 big themes.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to exist on youtube, high quality edited videos about unbelievably niche stuff that nobody would have ever talked about otherwise

I never realized lego island had less than an hour of content. I sunk hours if not days into it just because I enjoyed walking around and interacting with stuff, now and as a kid. It was so fun and cute. Hopefully we can see a browser version of this or something with the decompilation.

A legitimate use case for the decompiled source code (when it's done) is to recompile it to WASM so that Lego Island could be played in a browser.

This could mean a truly faithful map export, which is something I am weirdly obsessed with.

The Win.INI reference code was probably there because that was the method the programmer was used to and used it to test initial execution before porting over to using the registry. It would enable the proof of some concepts before implementing how the program saved settings, which wouldn't change what the program did. Once ported over they probably initially kept the Win.INI code as a backup incase something went wrong and then probably just forgot to remove it.

Considering how useful the fast inverse square root function from quake 3 was, I really wonder how much treasure is hidden in old games like this. I have a feeling you'll find some pretty impressive optimizations in there!

I cannot believe that some random windows developer was like "Oh yeah lemme just write a quick fix for specifically lego Island"

as someone with 0 experience in coding but a lot of experience in baking, the analogy of un-baking a cake with an un-oven helped me understand perfectly how decompiling works

7:03 I mean, funding a FOSS decompiler sounds like a better use of my tax dollars than probably half the other stuff they're spent on!

MattKC saw the "Lego Island on Wii" joke from CS188's poop of him and decided he needed to do everything in his power to make it a reality

I honestly think Lego Island is a perfect canidate for decompilation. Like the game is such a shotgun blast of random assets that also have a simple structure (Like character animations are simple lego pieces) That there is so much that could be modded into it and changed. Perfect template that only certain early 3d games offer.

“That Lego Island Fix” in Xp makes me think they were essentially using Lego Island as one of their comparability benchmarks during XP development and some quirk of Lego Island became one devs personal quest to fix

Honestly, nothing is more charming than seeing the labor of love put into something that probably had no expectation of being great. It’s kind of melancholic to see, actually. So I’m glad the devs are getting the notice that they deserve now

as an amateur reverse engineer myself, i wanna say that this video is _great_ as an intro to RE, and you managed to describe it in an entertaining form rather than like a boring wikipedia article or smth

Finally, I can (eventually) add raytracing to a game I literally didn't know about until this guy took an immense amount of effort importing custom music into this game.

Matt is like one of those cymbal monkeys, except instead of having 2 cymbals he has a Lego island cd and a hammer. Plz never stop this madness

This has me excited for 2 reasons. Firstly a decomp like this will make getting this game running on basically anything a cinch. And second, once we have the source code, that opens this game up for some incredible mods. It would completely eliminate most limits and allow for absolutely massive Lego themed games. I imagine once this is done we will see someone start working on a "Lego city" expansion. You could even add loads of new mini games.

What's fascinating is that glitches such as the exit glitch also happened on Windows 95, I distinctly remember major glitches with the Infomaniac hub and the voice tracks happening on my new copy when I was 5.

can't wait for MattKC to be hired by Nightdive and Lego gives him permission to rewrite Lego Island in the KEX Engine and soon we will have Lego Island Remastered HD 4K Edition

the 200 frame delay may also be a form of "compression", those seconds of black screen look a lot nicer then the game just playing the default intro movie at the start, it is basically an establishing shot for almost no storage cost and reduces the total media streaming demand at start up.

Oh man... don't tell me... This project could *possibly* lead to the eventual existence of a version that runs on the Nintendo Wii, right?? Matt, stop entertaining my mind's inner fantasies, it's too dangerous...

Maybe this guy can finally explain why when I spammed the zero key on the number pad, I'd start seeing characters flashing in front of me and sometimes I'd be able to break free of the roads.

Let's GOOOOOOO!! New Lego Island content from the dude who made a battery powered Nintendo!

In the FromSoft modding community, we refer to it as "documenting", rather than decompilation, as you're basically documenting the structs, function params and local variable names, so that the decompiler can spit out a better analysis.

At this point with all the attention it's gotten, I'm half surprised Lego/Mindscape doesn't just release the source code. Like what do they have to lose?

I relate to the "enjoying things in a different way as I grow older" part. I still care about the same games, I'm just more interested in the technical aspects and toying around with those rather than playing the game itself. Plus you learn to appreciate the work of the people behind it a lot more.

I think the reason you're typecast as the lego island guy is because your lego island videos showcase such a wide variety of techniques in dealing with binaries and stuff.. amazing content, and i honestly dont know of i prefer them or the hardware videos more (okay probably the hardware videos because it's just so refreshing compared to todays systems to be able to work on hardware at the component level but its very close)

I've been really curious about decompilation. It always seemed like a black box where people take compiled code and out pops source code but no one explains how it gets there. I had my own ideas what happens in between but I constantly felt like an outsider looking in where it was a secret art only known to those with true mettle.

Lovely project! Having worked on related projects myself (like OpenRCT2), I can say it’s a wonderful feeling getting to really understand what makes the game tick. All the best!

Personally I’m really happy to see you undertake a project like this! Decomps are pretty much the only way to truly preserve old games and it would open up the door to fixes and optimizations which make it more accessible for modern standards. Best of luck and I’m definitely looking forward to more updates on it!

loved the video, can’t wait for part 2!

I wonder if the community could one day create the expansion packs the original devs had envisioned. Great vid about a topic I'm very much trying and failing to get into myself (reverse engineering\decompilation), it had lot's of interesting stuff. Thanks!

Can't wait ! Would also seriously like a long version with all the little details you'd think are boring

what an amazing video! I'm looking forward to follow this journey :) LEGO Island is a game I have very fond memories of

How dare you shatter the delicate and precious dream that I held close to my heart that good old St. Nicholas was the giver of joy and presents every Christmas, Mr. Lego Island guy. I will never forgive you for ruining a part of my soul and devastating me for the rest of my life.

we're one step closer to lego island mods becoming a thing

"I'm tired of being called the LEGO Island guy, so let's decompile LEGO Island!"

Nice work Matt, can't wait for part 2! I've always wanted to help and get involved in a decomp program and even though I have made games and know some C, I've never felt like I was anywhere good enough to try something that seems like such... Computer wizardry. Thanks for demystifying the process a little!

I'm excited for the glorious moment in the decomp when we'll be able to add HDR, Raytracing Shaders to Lego Island 🙃

I haven't even started watching yet, I just want to say I love this as a premise already; thank you for your absurd dedication to both tech and shitposting

Ah man, I remember that game.. I remember feeling the world be so open with the island being free to explore, and I kept going to the control tower again and again and again because as a little kid, I kept expecting the right sequence of events to suddenly open up new content. Like messing with it would make new buildings appear with more characters to interact with, or an extended part of the island rise from the sea with a new minigame or two.

I'm just happy there are people out there decompiling old software and fixing it in the process. Your channel is what I would do as a hobby if I didn't have video games, or a job... and by that I mean I love your lego island channel

The lego island guy is back at it again

Okay, but no joke, your videos on investigating and improving this game are probably the biggest reason I'm still programming. I got so frustrated trying to learn how to code, but your videos made me want to dive into aomething like this. Then along came Vampire Survivors, written in javascript with only mild obfuscation. Once I realized all the variable names are still there in the form of a hexadecimal number gets messed with and gets turned into an index in a list of token/symbol names, I wrote some lua and modded the game primarily with lua's weird form of regex. I've switched to python and c# by now, but I knew enough lua from GMod to know kinda what to look up online and the rest was learning from other peoples questions. Im very happy to see more of this stuff. It scratches an itch ive been unable to reach since your last one. The music upgrade thing was just inspirational.

this honestly is sooo interesting and i’m really excited for the next parts!

I LOVE these kinds of videos! Please keep as much of the nerdy details in as possible, I love to learn about windows and its internals and its so interesting to me to see how stuff is done, please don't be shy on holding back those technical details! Love your videos

I don't know why but I really liked the original Lego island videos, watched them at least three times each at this point. Fascinating for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.

Man I just came upon this channel, and personally I've never felt so much joy and closeness to topics I've always wanted to cover or solve myself when I was a teen... this and other projects look so entertaining and fun, new sub!!

i've been hoping for this ever since i saw those original videos. would be neat to have as a base for, perhaps, custom mods that do entirely different things but want to have a similar look and feel

It would seem to me that a full decomp of this particular game would probably result in a very vibrant modding community

This project seems incredibly cool, I can't wait to see more! If this ever finishes I am excited to see what crazy consoles Lego Island is ported to. I'm especially hoping that the Wii gets Lego Island ported to it.

absolutely amazing idea for a series! best of luck with reversing!

Really appreciate the way you go into the history of how it "used" to work and talk about of what kinds of mistakes where made. I'm currently studying to become a data-engineer and it just amazes me that your video is so educational, you've earned my sub :)

Good luck man. Success or not you'll learn a ton and provide information about the game to anyone who's also interested. Also not a lot of people document their decompilation processes so this is something I'm looking forward to following.

Keep going - even if some don't really like Lego Island (and, I for one do, even though it's old and I haven't played it for years), the technical aspect of reverse engineering it and maybe even recompiling it eventually (with bug fixes, of course) and porting to other platforms is really interesting. Maybe the project could end up turning into something like OpenRCT2.

I'm so happy to see you again Matt, i've been waiting for one of your videos to drop!

I sincerely hope you keep this project up! I'm so eager to see what you discover throughout all of this!

As a developer myself I absolutely love videos like this, please keep us posted :). When done would be cool to make it run ontop of SDL2.

I've thought about how cool a decompilation of this game would be. I should have known you would be the one to do it! Thank you for your efforts, Matt!

I'm so excited to see where you go with this. I've always thought jumping into a decomp project would be cool but never actually did it. Maybe I will after this

I’ve got a few discs from a Mindscapes dev a few years back with some Lego Island assets on it. I’m unsure if it’s dumped but it has readable source code on it. I’ll have to find them since they’re up in storage (very secure and protected)

Be careful what you wish for. Of all the things that you could possibly be called, the Lego Island Guy isn't bad.

I for one loved Lego Island as a kid, and as a software engineer now this series is super interesting and right up my alley! Looking forward to part 2 :D

This is awesome! I'm super excited to see how this goes and learn about decompilation more!

I never realized how much Lego Island was a pioneer of 3D open world- doing a deep dive into this early project is cool!

Neat project. I was pretty nostalgic for this game. I remember poking around with the SI format too. I never properly figured it out 100% though. Only enough to pluck out data, but there were plenty of unknowns which would prevent me being able to pack everything back up. Look forward to what can be done with this game given time. It would've been neat if they were open with their tools and stuff because I would've loved modding this game as a kid, even if it would've just been like, changing the colors of things or drawing PPs on things. Definitely will be following this.

Matt is back!!! Love your content, whether or not it’s lego island, always looking forward to your next video

Hes back and its about time , love the vids , enjoy your type of humour too , for the past 6 months have been catching up slowly with the histroy of the channel , please keep it up , you do great content 😀

Super interesting video. I love decompilation stuff. Looking forward to follow you on your journey!

This was fantastic. The perfect blend of specific and general for programmers and non-programmers alike.

I find this fascinating. I can't wait to find out what weird stuff is baked into this old code.

It's how I started watching your stuff. Saw a game I loved as a child, watched a bunch of your other stuff, and even caught a live stream and drunkenly amused myself with the broken donate button. I kind of forgot about this part of your channel. All good stuff, thanks for putting it together

This is incredibly ambitious and as someone who loved playing this game as a kid and watched all your other lego island video - i have to say im very excited for more updates. A good part of me is preparing for disappointment cause i think it would be crazy if you pulled it off before getting bored or busy and leaving it indefinitely. However, I choose to believe and cheer you on - I really hope something comes out of it - at least a few more videos and really cool takes from what you found. Thank you for keeping this game alive an interesting even after completely destructuring it as you did before. Somehow I dont mind revisiting it especially in this technical sense. I too was throughly impressed by this game for its time. I would honestly really love to find someone who worked on this game to speak with them.

damn, the day i decide to start rewatching a bunch of matt's videos he releases a new one, that's one hell of a miracle.

I followed the SM64 and OoT decomp projects closely. I was a comp sci major back in the day, but my career path went much away from that foundation. Those projects were teams of people working over years. I applaud your determination as one person to undergo such a task. Enjoy the over easy eggs dripping out of your ears as you work.

i love your intro, short and bubbly, its not like others, reminds me a bit of the frutiger aero aesthetic with that backround, and i absolutely love frutiger aero

i hope you continue this project. very cool stuff

This ticks all the right boxes in my book. It's completely unnecessary but oh so fascinating to see what you might find hidden away (that teaser was begging for more!). Hope you'll keep the videos coming!

This was really interesting, you should consider asking people for help on this project. It really really interesting for me. I would help you myself if my Java knowledge would be of any use to you : /. Anyways, really great work, looking forward to future decompilation videos

I always love it whenever you upload a new video. Keep up the good work!

So interesting! Great video mate

Imagine crunch-programming a lego game in 1997 and some random guy decompiles your forgotten game 26 years later and blames your programming skills

I've always wanted to do this with Nicktoons Racing. There's all kinds of neat things hidden away in the code of the EXE like references to Nascar Racers (developed at the same time by the same people) and an editor of some kind, even a -nocddebug launch string which is disabled somehow.. this inspires me to go back to it using Ghidra even though i know i won't get anywhere with it

Im already hyped for the next parts. I love your projects ❤️❤️

This is the first ive heard of you, but i was interested because a have some close friends who are very nostalgic for this game. Seems like a good opportunity to watch your other Lego Island videos to see what's so great about it. Good luck with the decompilation!

Would be super interested to hear how you decompiled the textures. Alot have some sort of encryption and breaking that is something I'm stuck on in my own projects.

Hi Matt, love your content! Here’s a small donation which, after inflation, should get you about 1.5 coffees in Australia. Cheers.

I'm honestly hyped for the next parts of this series!!

Quality video, will be a very interesting series! Great job

And he has returned with another banger video.

This man will never stop loving LEGO Island.

Really liked your video, i know how hard decomp can be and i want you to know you are taking baby steps, so that's a good thing!!!

Looking forward to the project!

lately I've been a huge enjoyer of emulation and decomps..I set up Jak & Daxter as native PC port today and I'm really curious to see where this journey will lead. increased framerate or draw distance for example. Who knows, maybe some smart psychopath implements Ray Tracing on Lego Island

Im not sure I can say I'm fascinated by it but I am interested in how developers managed to optimize their games to run on the hardware of yesterday, especially considering that optimization seems to be becoming a lost art in the modern day.

all of this is so interesting id love to see more stuff in the series

My dad david patch was an artist on this game way back when. Ive always had a soft spot for videos about games hes worked on like this and sims 2. Great video!