A few days before Grand Theft Auto left conservative groups reeling, there was another game that essentially "prepared the fire" – Postal. The idea of a heavily armed schizophrenic maniac willing to "clean" everything in his path clicked with an entire generation of players, and although it had a lukewarm reception at the time, time turned it into a cult title. Interested in playing with its code? You're in luck, because its developer just declared it open source.
Joe Lieberman's Scathing Quote
The three worst things in American society are Marilyn Manson, Calvin Klein underwear ads, and the video game Postal. Those were the words of (former) Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. The year was 1997, and many politicians of the time had turned the eradication of "violent video games" into a personal crusade. Of course, the Streisand effect (which at the time had not yet been identified as such) did the rest, and players rushed to stores to get copies. Between Postal and Grand Theft Auto let's say the paladins of morality had their hands full, and it's evident they have failed. On one hand, GTA became a gigantic franchise, and on the other, Postal had two sequels, plus a movie (directed and written by Uwe Boll, which sounds appropriate).
The Source Code Is Released
19 years, an angry senator, and fourteen bans later, Postal is open source. The announcement came through the developer's page, Running With Scissors. All the code of the first Postal was published on Bitbucket under GPL v2. Needless to say, it's an ideal opportunity for programming enthusiasts willing to take the game and create new material, or modify existing one. However, the most striking possibility is to bring the game to other platforms beyond the originals (PC, Linux, Mac).
In fact, I think the only reason Running With Scissors published the code is so that someone with enough skill can make a Dreamcast-compatible port. Now, the code doesn't include ready-to-use binaries, so anyone wanting a copy must compile it themselves, or take advantage of the current Steam offer and buy Postal for just 49 cents.
