You can thank ROM hackers for Backyard Baseball’s comeback

At first glance, Backyard Baseball ’97 might seem like a nondescript rerelease. It’s a straightforward, no-frills Steam version of Humongous Entertainment’s kids’ game that kicked off the entire Backyard Sports franchise. Outside of Steam achievements, it’s as if the original game, first released in 1997, is running on your modern PC. That might seem simple, but after speaking to the developers behind Backyard Baseball ’97, it turns out that bringing back this classic required a lot more effort than might initially meet the eye.

Playground Productions worked with Wrestlequest developer Mega Cat Studios to bring Backyard Baseball ’97 back, but it didn’t even have the source code to work with. It took the combined efforts of experienced ROM hackers, Backyard Baseball modders, and a lot of trial and error to trick modern PCs into thinking they’re the right hardware to play Backyard Baseball ’97. Never take a rerelease like this for granted, as it can take a lot more effort than meets the eye.

How Backyard Baseball ’97 came to be

Sometimes, certain gamers have a desire to engage with the games they play on a deeper level. For me, that came in the form of writing about games. For senior engineer John Simon, that came in reverse engineering his favorite games.

“Every once in a while, I play a game and really love the game, but there’s no replayability. So what do I do? I start reverse engineering the game, modding the game. And even for the more niche games I do this with, there’s also been a community that’s appreciative of it,” Simon tells Digital Trends.

Simon started with Darksiders, creating tools that speedrunners still use to this day before eventually turning his attention to Backyard Sports. He created modding tools that serve as the backbone for the Backyard Sports Online project, which revived online play in some later titles in the series. That caught the attention of Mega Cat, who Playground Productions had partnered with after obtaining the rights to Humungous Entertainment’s Backyard Sports series.

Mega Cat co-founder James Deighan tells Digital Trends that most of Mega Cat’s developers “met through ROM-hacking and retro gaming communities.” One such developer is senior engineer Luke Usher, who had experience in ROM-hacking and created an Xbox emulator for modern PCs. After Mega Cat struck a deal with Playground Productions and hired Simon, a team of around 10 developers went to work on bringing Backyard Baseball back.

Playground Productions shared many disks and files full of data relating to this long-running series. There was just one problem: Even with all those files, Mega Cat Studios did not have the source code for the original Backyard Baseball.

“If we were modifying a game where we had source code, it would just be a matter of pulling a standard C++ compiler off the shelf, compiling the game, and picking up from where the original developers left off in 1997,” Simon says. “We did not have that luxury, unfortunately, so it was quite a challenge reverse engineering the original formats, decompiling the scripts, and then recompiling the scripts so that the game would run again.”

When it comes to a remaster like Doom + Doom II, remaster developers often have the luxury of building on the original game’s source code. At times when they don’t, we get full-on remakes like Silent Hill 2. Playground Productions wanted Mega Cat to re-release the first Backyard Baseball game on Steam, though, so it had to find a way to get that done. Mega Cat did so by employing tricks primarily used in the modding and ROM hacking scene.

To do this, Usher explained to Digital Trends that Mega Cat had to create a “patching framework that hijacks the game when you try to load it.” From there, the team would “have a chance to go in, fix bugs, and make the changes needed to get it up and running.” In my interview with the Mega Cat team, it became clear that this was a lengthy process of trial and error, as Humungous used a LucasArts point-and-click game engine called SCUMM that had a lot of weird eccentricities that wouldn’t work for a game released on Steam in 2024.

Looking at the innards of the hacked Backyard Baseball disc and code, Simon says the original was an “insane technical achievement” as Humungous Entertainment got a 3D sports game working on a 2D point-and-click game engine. Still, Mega Cat Studios required very “specialized” work, even for smaller additions like achievements. The result is something that isn’t so simple to explain.

“It’s kind of hard to put a specific word on it, like emulation. It’s not quite emulation,” Simon says. “It’s more that we’re running the original game, and we’re building an environment around that original game where it thinks it’s running on a computer from 1996 running Windows 95, even though it isn’t.”

Just the beginning

The release of Backyard Baseball ’97 today isn’t the end of the road for Mega Cat Studios, as Playground Productions promises to bring Backyard Sports games to more platforms and eventually turn it into a multimedia franchise. In the short term, Mega Cat is doubtful that Backyard Baseball ’97 can come to consoles. Deighan says that’s “untenable” with the current “not quite emulation” version of the game they have because of “what you need to do on modern consoles to meet their platform standards.”

Playground Productions and Mega Cat Studios’ partnership will continue. Deighan believes the studio’s “foundational” learnings from Backyard Baseball ’97 can be applied to any potential rereleases of the other Backyard Sports games that used the SCUMM engine. Deighan thinks the Mega Cat Studios team is ready to do that because, in practice, these challenges hark back to the “fundamentals of ROM hacking” that many Mega Cat developers are familiar with.

The source code is lost for everything other than the Game Boy Advance and PS2 Backyard Sports games, so it’s undoubtedly a challenge Mega Cat Studios will continue to face as it helps Playground Productions revive this beloved series. The rereleases will take a lot more grit and effort to create than it might initially seem. While Simon seems eager to continue to dig into a series he loves and wants more of, he is also hopeful that a Humongous Entertainment developer can come forward with the source code and help fast-forward this long-awaited revival.

“Just from a preservationist or historical angle, it would be so cool to see the original source code,” Simon says. “I’m holding out hope that one of the Humongous developers has a box in their attic with a bunch of floppy disks, and we’ll get to see it one day.”

Backyard Baseball ’97 is available now for PC on Steam.