How a 2013 game came back

My Criminal Life first opened on August 28, 2013. By the end of 2016 it had gone quiet, and what was left of it ended up in a backup: the site's files and a copy of its database.

This year I opened that backup again.

What was still there

More than I expected. Crimes, the gym, jobs and school, houses, gangs, the casino, the newspaper, even pets and cars: it was all in the code. So were a lot of things that don't work on today's internet.

What wasn't

• The arcade. It was built in Flash, and Flash is gone from every browser, so the arcade is retired.
• Pictures. Some never made it into the backup, so a few pages showed broken images even back in 2016.
• Sign-in. Accounts now sign in with an email address, with a confirmation link and a security check on the forms.
• Payments. Donations stay switched off until they're set up properly.

A new look

The old site was light boxes on a grey page. I wanted Noob City to feel like a place. Three test pictures went side by side in three styles: painted noir, a little 3D diorama, and an inked comic-book look. The comic book won: bold ink lines, flat color, halftone shadows, dusk light. Buildings, items and bosses are being redrawn that way one by one, and the whole site went dark to match.

The Explore page is a map of Noob City now, with seven districts and the buildings painted in. Hover over one and it lights up. Click it and you're inside.

How it gets built now

Every change is tested on a copy of the game before it reaches the real one. Bigger features arrive behind a switch, so they can be finished and checked before they're turned on. That's why a few things show up in the game a little after the work on them is done.

It's alpha, so things move. If you find something broken, the contact form reaches me, and security problems have their own page: Security & Bug Bounty.

Marc