Video Game
geow2
Geometry Wars on PC, Mac and Steam Deck
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 came out on Xbox Live Arcade back in 2008. geow2 is a native port of it for Windows, MacOS and Linux, including the Steam Deck. It was rebuilt by reverse-engineering the original Xbox 360 version.
It plays all six of the original’s modes, including local multiplayer for up to four players, just like the Xbox 360 version. And it runs at any resolution, including smooth motion on high refresh rate displays.
Faithful by construction
The aim was for geow2 to behave exactly like the Xbox 360 game. Throughout the code, comments point to the original functions and data that each part follows. Its behaviour was checked against recordings of the original running in an emulator (xenia). The few places where it deliberately differs, such as the online features, are each listed with the reasons why.
geow2 doesn’t include anything from the original game. To play it, you need your own copy of the Xbox Live Arcade release. The first time it starts up, geow2 asks for your copy, checks that it’s the right version, and turns it into a data folder that the game reads from then on.
Online scoreboards for a group of friends
On the Xbox 360, the leaderboards ran on Xbox Live. Your Friends board showed how you stacked up against people you knew, which was a big part of the fun. A port can’t use those services (nor are they guaranteed to last forever), so I built geow2-scores: a small score server for a group of up to 50 or so friends.
Each group runs its own server, so there’s no central server and nobody else sees your scores. One person sets it up for the group, free on Cloudflare, in about five minutes.
The invite system lets each person pair as many devices as they have to the same username, so that their PC, Steam Deck, and laptop all stay in sync.
Pairing a device
The group’s leaderboard shows up on the Game Over screen and on the mode select screen, so you can see whose scores you’re chasing.
Reminder: This solution is not meant for hundreds or thousands of people to share scores - submissions are trusted exactly as the game sends them,and nothing is checking for cheaters. (Though if needed, the board’s admin can rename/remove players, unpair devices and delete scores. A group of about 50 people should fit comfortably in Cloudflare’s free plan.)
geow2 and geow2-scores are unofficial projects, not affiliated with or endorsed by Activision, Bizarre Creations or Microsoft.
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