Merry Christmas from JC
John Carmack, that is, not the kid that social services found sleeping in a food trough behind a pub in Bethlehem
John Carmack has given gamers an early Christmas present by releasing the full source code for Quake 2. As with the release of the Doom and Quake source code in recent years, amateur developers are now free to tinker with the game engine as long as they stick to the terms of the GPL. The game itself remains under copyright though, so if you want to use textures, models and other artwork from Quake 2 in your mod, demo or game your audience will need to have their own legitimate copies. When id Software released the Doom source code it led to a flurry of activity as a variety of "source ports" were hacked together, adding everything from higher resolutions and OpenGL support to proper online multiplayer and capture the flag. Quake also spawned a host of spin-offs, ranging from a DirectX port to bizarre visual tricks such as adding a psychedelic fish-eye lens effect or making Quake look like it was being hand-drawn on your screen using a smudgy pencil. Whether Quake 2 will result in a similar outpouring of weirdness remains to be seen, but if you want to have a look at Carmack's code, you can grab the full source (just 1.4Mb worth) here. Related Feature - Quake suffers acid flashback
