Information on Krabby Quest

[Kilicool64]

Where did you ever get the impression that abandonware is legal to download? Most of it isn't. A game's copyright doesn't expire when its publisher stops distributing it, even if it should.

Chances are none of us will live to see the day where this game can be legally obtained again. This happens a lot with licensed games.

[rainbowmon]

(though take that with a grain of salt; it was a random post on Twitter that said that).

I did say I wasn't sure. *sigh* It's too bad, really...

[jdl]

If anyone needs to download the trial for Krabby Quest from Big Fish Games for whatever reason, you can do so by using the following link:
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-ga ... nload.html
or
this link if the above doesn't work (this is a mirror).
This will install the Big Fish Games Client if you don't already have it, and then it will install Krabby Quest automatically.

If anybody has purchased Krabby Quest from BFG in the past and still has access to their BFG account, you can reinstall the full version for free! I purchased Krabby Quest from BFG back in 2007, so even though the game isn't available for purchase anymore, I can go into my Order History and redownload it. This still doesn't solve the availability issue though, and there's still the issue of relying on DRM. Who knows if or when BFG will ever shut down.

Also, here is the link to the Krabby Quest forum on BFG: http://forums.bigfishgames.com/forums/show/675.page

[garirry]

You can still buy the game off Shockwave I believe, otherwise you'll have to deal with the 60 minutes time limit.

There is a way to reset the timer, but it's pretty complicated and I don't think I can post it here.

[Kilicool64]

Doesn't look like it. There are no longer any Spongebob games on Shockwave's site. The game seems to have been pulled from everywhere.

And yeah, there are obviously still some ways to play this game even if you haven't purchased it. But none of them can be discussed here. Even the unauthorized distribution of free trial versions may not be legal.

[jdl]

I imagine that when the RTW source code is released, someone will probably create a mod that allows the game to load the Krabby Quest files, and also restores the unique puzzle elements.
This could possibly solve the availability issue, as long as you have a copy of the Krabby Quest data files to provide the game with.
Not sure of the legalities of this method, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it would most likely be okay.

[Kilicool64]

I'm not so sure about that. I doubt the RTW source code will include the portions of the code that are exclusive to KQ, so those would have to be reverse-engineered. Don't know how easy that would be.

[Kamerson]

Well, I was able to play the entirety of the game from Wild Tangent Games. You can't buy it from there, you can only play the demo version, but there's no time limit on the demo, you can only open and close the game I think 4 times before the demo expires. Because of this, I played the game in one 3 1/2 hour sitting; it's actually pretty short! And pretty fun!

[Wonderland King]

Do you have the link on Wild Tangent Games, by any chance? It seems that it may not be there anymore, but I figured I'd at least try asking in case it's hidden in plain sight.

[Kamerson]

Do you have the link on Wild Tangent Games, by any chance? It seems that it may not be there anymore, but I figured I'd at least try asking in case it's hidden in plain sight.

I found out that I didn't actually get the link from the Wild Tangent page itself, but rather from Primary Games while looking for a download link. It downloads the demo version of Krabby Quest. https://www.primarygames.com/downloads/ ... /index.htm

[Wonderland King]

A bit late, but thanks for the reply!

[jdl]

For those of you interested, I have created a somewhat detailed article on WonderWiki for Krabby Quest: https://zbots.space/wiki/Spongebob_Squa ... abby_Quest

I have listed a few ways on where to download the trial for the game in this article.
If anyone wants to fill in the Differences section that would be very appreciated.

I also edited the title and first post of this topic (sorry HumanGamer) and made it sticky because I would like this to be the general information thread on the game.

[jdl]

I have a bit of good news about Krabby Quest - it looks like someone is creating a "tool" to play it using Unity.
It isn't finished yet, and there's no builds of it released at the moment (only a github repository), so I'm unable to try it myself to see how it performs.

As far as I can tell it is an open-sourced, moddable, rewritten game engine that is able to read the original game files (which are obviously not included with it). It's kind of like an emulator, though a better comparison would be that it's like OpenRCT2.

As for the legality, to quote the creator:

"I am not distributing any copyrighted content, this is only a tool to read the game files that were distributed from another source. Additionally, I am doing this only in the name of media preservation - not for profit in any way. I do not plan on accepting any donations."

I do not know 100% for sure that it is completely legal, but since you will need to provide the original game files yourself for it to be able to work, I can almost guarantee that it should be perfectly fine which is why I'll be linking to it below.


I have no idea if the person creating this is aware of Wonderland or the Forum, but if you're reading this, please say hi!

Links:
Github Repository: https://github.com/JDrocks450/KrabbyQuestEmu
Reddit Thread #1 (image showcase): https://www.reddit.com/r/spongebob/comm ... storation/
Reddit Thread #2: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/commen ... ulated_by/

[Kilicool64]

Well, that was certainly unexpected. Don't think this is the ideal time to reverse-engineer the game, though. Assuming Patrick releases the RTW source code at some point like he said he would, it should give a lot of insight into the inner workings of Krabby Quest, even if it lacks the parts exclusive to that game. Not sure how accurate this is going to be without it.

Don't know about the legality of this either. While reverse-engineering games is usually legal with certain restrictions, this clone of the Krabby Quest engine would allow playing the game without having to deal with its DRM. In the unlikely event that Viacom wanted to do something about this, perhaps they could shut it down on the grounds of it being a DRM circumvention tool.

[Bisquick]

Hey everyone,

I posted a discussion about my project to recreate Krabby Quest here (KrabbyQuestEmu): viewtopic.php?f=1&p=367243#p367243

This is the recreation project jdl mentioned, so if you have any questions I recommend checking it out.