How A Fan Saved His Favorite Computer Game From Being Completely Erased

GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Greek teenager Angelos Mako was a young man on a mission. Almost 10 years since Facebook removed Dungeon Rampage, Mako wanted to bring back the game that was a safe space for him during a rough time in his life. After years of trying to recreate the code, Mako now owns the code and the license, and it’ll soon be available on Steam.

“My parents were going through a very nasty divorce. Dungeon Rampage was there for me. Every time they would fight, I would go into another room and I would play,” Mako told PC Gamer. “It took care of me when no one else could.”

“,”480”:”nnnnnnnnnn“}},”device”:”other”,”isDevice”:false,”isLiveStream”:false,”videoType”:”video-on-demand”,”countdownTime”:0,”guid”:”gs-2300-6394649″,”ageGateCookieName”:”videoAgeGateBirthday”,”watchedCookieName”:”watchedVideoIds”,”watchedCookieDays”:1,”postPlayMax”:100,”adCall”:{“host”:”http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?”,”params”:{“iu”:”/5441/vaw-gamespot/desktop/gamespot.com”,”impl”:”s”,”gdfp_req”:1,”env”:”vp”,”output”:”xml_vmap1″,”unviewed_position_start”:1,”url”:”[referrer_url]”,”correlator”:”[timestamp]”,”description_url”:”[description_url]”,”cmsid”:2566084,”vid”:6394649,”pp”:”vpaid_js”},”custParams”:{“ptype”:”news_article”,”cid”:”gs-1100-6532491″,”game”:”dungeon-rampage”,”con”:”onlinebrowser,pc”,”publisher”:”rebel-entertainment,gamebreaking-studios”,”embed”:”autoplay”,”category”:”games”,”partner”:”desktop/gamespot.com”,”vid”:6394649},”soundBasedSize”:{“normal”:”640×480″,”muted”:”640×483″,”none”:”640×480″},”daiSsbUrl”:”https://dai.google.com/ondemand/hls/content/2572465/vid/6394649/master.m3u8″,”daiMidRollHost”:2500176},”uvpHi5Ima”:”https://s0.2mdn.net/instream/html5/ima3.js”,”cuePoints”:””,”uvpc”:””,”partner”:”gamespot”,”adPartner”:”desktop/gamespot.com”,”desktopAdPartner”:”desktop%2Fgamespot.com”,”mobileAdPartner”:”mobile_web%2Fgamespot.com_mobile”,”mapp”:”gamespot”,”cms”:”pi”,”seekablePlaybacks”:[“html5″,”uvpjs”],”tracking”:[{“name”:”SiteCatalyst”,”category”:”qos”,”enabled”:true,”params”:[{“name”:”charSet”,”value”:”UTF-8″},{“name”:”currencyCode”,”value”:”USD”},{“name”:”siteType”,”value”:”responsive web”},{“name”:”trackingServer”,”value”:”saa.gamespot.com”},{“name”:”visitorNamespace”,”value”:”cbsinteractive”},{“name”:”heartbeatTrackingServer”,”value”:”newimagitasinc.hb.omtrdc.net”},{“name”:”heartbeatVisitorMarketingCloudOrgId”,”value”:”3C66570E5FE1A4AB0A495FFC@AdobeOrg”},{“name”:”partnerID”,”value”:”gamespot”},{“name”:”siteCode”,”value”:”gamespot”},{“name”:”brand”,”value”:”gamespot”},{“name”:”account”,”value”:”cbsigamespotsite”},{“name”:”edition”,”value”:”us”}]},{“name”:”ComScore_ss”,”category”:”qos”,”enabled”:true,”params”:[{“name”:”c2″,”value”:”31824268″},{“name”:”publishersSecret”,”value”:”2cb08ca4d095dd734a374dff8422c2e5″},{“name”:”c3″,”value”:””},{“name”:”partnerID”,”value”:”gamespot”},{“name”:”c4″,”value”:”gamespot”}]},{“name”:”NielsenTracking”,”category”:”tracking”,”enabled”:true,”params”:[{“name”:”host”,”value”:”https://secure-us.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/m?”},{“name”:”scCI”,”value”:”us-200330″},{“name”:”scC6″,”value”:”vc,c01″}]},{“name”:”MuxQOSPluginJS”,”category”:”qos”,”enabled”:true,”params”:[{“name”:”propertyKey”,”value”:”b7d6e48b7461a61cb6e863a62″}]}],”trackingAccount”:”cbsigamespotsite”,”trackingSiteCode”:”gs”,”trackingPrimaryId”:”cbsigamespotsite”,”videoAssetSource”:”Publisher Asset”,”uvpjsHostname”:”//www.gamespot.com”,”siteType”:”responsive web”,”startMuted”:false,”screenMediumThumb”:”https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/screen_medium/mig/1/1/1/0/2121110-169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512.jpg”,”videoStreams”:{“adaptive_stream”:”https://mt-rv-v1.gamespot.com/vr/2012/09/169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512_400,700,1200,2800,4000,master.m3u8″,”adaptive_dash”:”https://mt-rv-v1.gamespot.com/vr/2012/09/169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512_400,700,1200,2800,4000,master.mpd”,”adaptive_hd”:”https://mt-rv-v1.gamespot.com/vr/2012/09/169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512_4000,master.m3u8″,”adaptive_high”:”https://mt-rv-v1.gamespot.com/vr/2012/09/169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512_2800,master.m3u8″,”adaptive_low”:”https://mt-rv-v1.gamespot.com/vr/2012/09/169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512_700,master.m3u8″,”adaptive_restricted”:”https://mt-rv-v1.gamespot.com/vr/2012/09/169_dungeonrampage_pwn_noobs_ot_web_090512_400,700,1200,2800,master.m3u8″},”userId”:0,”premium”:false,”datePublished”:1346865539,”videoAdPartner”:”desktop%2Fgamespot.com”,”videoAdMobilePartner”:”mobile_web%2Fgamespot.com_mobile”}” data-non-iframe-embed=”1″ data-jw-context-name=”gamespot” data-jw-media-id=”g7ejCfh4″ data-jw-player-url=”https://cdn.jwplayer.com/libraries/VXc5h4Tf.js” data-jw-video-token data-has-youtube data-youtube-icon-path=”https://www.gamespot.com/a/bundles/phoenixsite/images/core/loose/icn-youtube-30×30.png” id=”video-rectangle”>

Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

This video has an invalid file format.

Sorry, but you can’t access this content!

Now Playing: Dungeon Rampage Launch Trailer

Playing the game every day for five years straight, it became part of his young life, then suddenly the game was removed. That set off his quest to get it back, even at the age of 10.

“I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t understand why it happened,” he continued. “But even from that moment, I said that I’m going to find a way to get this back again. I had no clue how, but I had a dream.”

He eventually did some apprenticeships for a Roblox team, working in Unity. While he was doing that, four years later, he ran across a Discord server that was trying to remake Dungeon Rampage and joined in. He quickly learned they wanted to remake the game instead of restoring the original, but Mako took over that project last year, trying to do more of the latter.

“I was fed up. I wanted this to come to life,” Mako said. “Okay, I’m starting from scratch. I’m taking initiative. And I went directly to try and get the copyright of Dungeon Rampage.” Using a saved credits screen from the game, he made a LinkedIn account and messaged everyone he could find. “People replied, actually. That’s the weird part.”

One of the first people to reach out was Jason Yeung, the game’s original creative director. Yeung agreed that the attempt to remake Dungeon Rampage was a cool project, but he needed to speak with Mike Goslin, former head of Rebel Entertainment, the original Dungeon Rampage developer. Mako soon spoke to Goslin on the phone, who then introduced him to the CEO of the parent company, and he got his license agreement.

Only one problem: Nobody seemed to have the original code.

Mako tracked down the last engineer on the project, who said he might have the files of the last build on a laptop–something he gave his young daughter to play with. Luckily, the laptop and the files were still intact. It turned out to be a tougher challenge than they expected because Dungeon Rampage wasn’t a simple Flash game; it was Flash and C++ and a PHP backend. When one part was working fine, others seemed to fall apart, but after several trials and errors, the game finally booted up, with Mako being the first one to play it in eight years.

A Kickstarter campaign was set up and easily crushed its initial $25,000 goal–it’s at $66,000 now, and on its final day. The team event got access to the original game’s Facebook page as well.

“It’s a very fun game and it’s been a very fun game forever,” Mako added. “Those first days of playing again were the first days of discovering fire as a caveman. That’s my best analogy of this.”

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com