We lost the source code in any usable form. Even if we dug up the printed copy, scanning it would be tedious as hell. :) So we ended up reverse engineering our own game, fun times.

But yeah, "actual" in that it's a real commercial game (30k copies or so) developed and released in 1987. If memory serves right, we started in late autumn'86 and it was published around November'87.

This is awesome. I listen to a video game history podcast with the founder of the video game history foundation, https://gamehistory.org/ , and the one thing he constantly brings up is to send him any and every person in the game industry with fun stories, weird bits and bobs of prototypes, and anything in between. If you've got the time I know that dude would love to pick your brain!

I didn't know about that site! I've queued up a few of the podcast episodes already. Thank you for the reference!

I think the "actual" in this case points to "commercial game".

From the README.md: "Also thank to Roberto Carlos Fernandez, who many years ago made me promise I'd give him a printed copy of the sources. That copy is buried in some box in storage somewhere, and we'd rather do this than go search for it."

To adapt the old saying, 3 months of reverse engineering can save you 3 hours in the storage room.