Race into Space is the free software version of Interplay's Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space. This is the reworked version following the source release for the computer version of the Liftoff! board game by Fritz Bronner. The original was developed by Strategic Visions and published by Interplay as a disk-based game in 1992 and a CD-ROM in 1994.

The most recent stable releases are available from SourceForge. There is a more recent (interim) 1.2 release on Flatpak (which mistakenly shows as 2.0), https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.raceintospace.Raceintospace. More recent yet is the 2.0 beta available here at https://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace/releases/tag/v.2.0beta. The repository here contains a work-in-progress modernization of the game, so if you want to run the very latest version, you will have to download and compile the source. Instructions are below.

We have made a number of improvements to the game, and are hoping to do a release soon. The changes made can be viewed in ChangeLog.md above.

Race Into Space is distributed under GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. You can find the terms and conditions in file COPYING.

We coordinate development through the GitHub issue tracker. Feel free to report bugs, discuss tasks, or pick up work there. If you want to make changes, please fork, edit, and send us a pull request.

There's a .git-hooks directory in the root. This contains a pre-commit hook that verifies code styling before accepting changes. You can add this to your local repository's .git/hooks/ directory like:

$ cd raceintospace
$ ln -s ../../.git-hooks/pre-commit .git/hooks/pre-commit

Pull requests that don't match the project code style are still likely to be accepted after manually formatting and amending your changeset. The formatting tool (astyle) is completely automated; please try to use it.

Clone the git repository:

git clone --recurse-submodules git://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace.git

Or try via https if you encounter issues with git protocol:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace

This creates sub-directory raceintospace where you can build the game.

In case you did not specify --recurse-submodules when cloning the repository, you will need to initialize submodules inside the cloned repo:

git submodule init --recursive

You need a modern C++ compiler and CMake.

The build system uses vcpkg.io to automatically download and build all dependencies.

We rely on the operating system to provide most of the dependencies. If you're on a Debian-based system, you can get everything with:

sudo apt-get install cmake libsdl1.2-dev libboost-dev libpng-dev \
    libjsoncpp-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libtheora-dev \
    libphysfs-dev libcereal-dev libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler

Or enter this all on one line:

sudo apt-get install cmake libsdl1.2-dev libboost-dev libpng-dev libjsoncpp-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libtheora-dev libphysfs-dev libcereal-dev libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler

If you don't already have git installed, you'll also have to run:

sudo apt install git

You may also need to run (especially if you get "No CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER could be found."):

sudo apt-get install build-essential

If you are on a Fedora-based system, you can get everything with:

$ sudo dnf install cmake gcc-c++ SDL-devel protobuf-devel boost-devel libogg-devel libvorbis-devel libtheora-devel jsoncpp-devel physfs-devel libpng-devel cereal-devel

To compile and run the game quickly run the following commands from the source directory:

cmake --preset linux-release
cmake --build --preset linux-release --target run

The build directory is build/release, you can always delete it to start from a clean build.

Alternatively, you can have all dependencies downloaded and built automatically:

cmake --preset linux-vcpkg
cmake --build --preset linux-vcpkg --target run

To install in the default system location:

sudo cmake --build --preset XXX --target install

To install in your home directory, you need to pass --prefix to configure first:

cmake --preset XXX --prefix "$HOME"
cmake --build --preset XXX --target install

You need CMake, which is readily obtained from Homebrew, which you probably have anyway. The only external dependency needed is sdl:

$ brew install cmake sdl

CMake and vcpkg automatically handle all other dependencies.

To obtain source code and build use:

$ git clone --recurse-submodules git://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace.git
$ cd raceintospace
$ cmake --preset macos-vcpkg
$ cmake --build --preset macos-vcpkg

You might want to use Xcode for development. CMake can generate an Xcode project file:

$ cmake --preset macos-vcpkg -G Xcode
$ open raceintospace.xcodeproj

Ingredients:

• Visual Studio Community ($0, but read the fine print)
  • Install at least MSVC, C++ CMake for Windows and Windows SDK components!
  • Full IDE is not needed
• CMake (free, also included above)
• Git or GitHub for Windows (free)

Open the command prompt and make sure git, your compiler and cmake are accessible (check Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt and Developer PowerShell)

Then clone, configure and build the game:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace.git
cd raceintospace
cmake --preset windows-release
cmake --build --preset windows-release

After building, you can start the game:

.\build\release\src\game\raceintospace.exe BARIS_DATA=data

The following instructions may be relevant for setting up in Visual Studio IDE:

• Start Visual Studio by opening "raceintospace.sln".
• Right-click "ALL_BUILD" and choose "Build" (Everything will download and install)
• Right-click on "Race Into Space" and choose "Set as startup project"
• Right-click on "Race Into Space" and choose "Properties"
• Open "Configuration Properties" and choose "Output Directory" and set it to the path for "raceintospace-build\local\bin"
• Click on "Debugging" and edit "Environment". Add: BARIS_DATA=[path to raceintospace\data] BARIS_SAVE=.\save Click "run"

Due to copyright concerns, the game's music has been placed in a nonfree repository. To add music to the game, obtain the files from the repository:

git clone https://github.com/raceintospace/raceintospace-nonfree 

Then copy data/audio directory from raceintospace-nonfree to:

1. data/ in the source code directory - if you're building the game from source, or
2. data/ in the directory where you installed the game.