Recovering Source Code for GM6.1 Game

11clock

Member
I lost source code for a game I made over a decade ago in GameMaker 6.1, and I was looking for a way to recover it. Because I still have the exe, an idea I had was to decompile it. Unfortunately, I lack a decompiler and am struggling to find one online for GM6.1. If anyone knows where I could find one, that would be great. If not (or if this is actually illegal and I am unaware), any alternatives?
 
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TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
Even if it's your own game. The .exe file contains portions of software which is not yours, namely the runner, the reverse-engineering of which is not allowed and therefore constitutes a violation of copyright law.

Lesson of the day: Do not fry your laptop.
 

11clock

Member
Even if it's your own game. The .exe file contains portions of software which is not yours, namely the runner, the reverse-engineering of which is not allowed and therefore constitutes a violation of copyright law.

Lesson of the day: Do not fry your laptop.
The fan stopped working and the thing was on the laptop equivalent of life support (strap-on fans) for a long time, but I was like 10 years old back then.

Is there a copy of the GM6.1/GM7 resource pack available, then? I would at least be able to recover some of the midis I used.
 

Dog Slobber

Member
To my knowledge Mark O. nor YoYo has never released any kind of utility to extract resources out of executables.

Like a decompiler, a utility like that would be frowned upon and therefore knowledge about it would not be publicly promoted on the GameMaker forums.

Unfortunate that your laptop was tossed, your solution was to pick ep a IDE/SATA to USB cable and extract the data from the hard drive when it failed.
 
I'm sure what you're looking for exists. Your quest to recover your own source code is evil and illegal, though, and will be met with much tongue clicking and gnashing of teeth from the developer community.

If you do somehow find one of the decompilers that have been floating around the net for years, Mark Overmars himself will manifest behind you and exact justice instantly. The only possible option you have is to use the backups you never made, like Tsuka helpfully pointed out. Shouldn't have fried your laptop, dummy. :p
 
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11clock

Member
I'm sure what you're looking for exists. Your quest to recover your own source code is evil and illegal, though, and will be met with much tongue clicking and gnashing of teeth from the developer community.

If you do somehow find one of the decompilers that have been floating around the net for years, Mark Overmars himself will manifest behind you and exact justice instantly. The only possible option you have is to use the backups you never made, like Tsuka helpfully pointed out. Shouldn't have fried your laptop, dummy. :p
As I said it wasn’t my fault. The laptop was on life support due to a busted fan, and it technically wasn’t mine to begin with.

To my knowledge Mark O. nor YoYo has never released any kind of utility to extract resources out of executables.

Like a decompiler, a utility like that would be frowned upon and therefore knowledge about it would not be publicly promoted on the GameMaker forums.

Unfortunate that your laptop was tossed, your solution was to pick ep a IDE/SATA to USB cable and extract the data from the hard drive when it failed.
I was like 10 years old when it fried. We are talking about over a dozen years ago.

It is not a big deal. I am doing a complete remake of the game and figured having the original source would help. I will just use a recorded playthrough of the game instead.

I really wanted the midis though.
 
As I said it wasn’t my fault. The laptop was on life support due to a busted fan, and it technically wasn’t mine to begin with.
Did you miss the extreme sarcasm towards Tsuka's "helpful" advice in my post? Or am I missing the joke in your post now? I'm wishing you luck here, hahah. X'D
 
Speaking from personal experience, even if you found the source code it would be trash. Live in the now! Make a new game.
That was my first thought, too: "why the hell would you want source code from a ten year old project? It's going to be trash compared to what you could make now." Then I realized he might want it for nostalgic purposes - I'd love to have all of my old game dev projects from when I was a little kid. It'd be really cool to see how my thought processes worked when I was just starting out so many years ago.
 

11clock

Member
Speaking from personal experience, even if you found the source code it would be trash. Live in the now! Make a new game.
Well the project was completely in drag n drop and abused the GM7 resource pack. I wasn’t going to use the code for the remake, I just wanted access to the midis and rooms, as well as some of the data. I can recover most of the midis from VGmusic, but some were exclusive to the GM7 resource pack that I don’t have anymore. Basically I just wanted the source as a reference. A full recorded playthrough of the game should suffice, at least.

If anyone is curious, I am developing a remake to Mr. Smile 2.

EDIT: This thing.

 
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