WiredForWar.org

In 1999 a new 3D strategy game was released for PC called Machines.

The game featured a unique mix of top-down real-time strategy and first person combat by allowing you to take control and pilot any of the units under your command.

Here’s the intro video from the game:

Though it didn’t amass as much of an audience as its RTS contemporaries, a small but dedicated following emerged on the internet.

I set up a forum called WiredForWar.org that hosted discussions spanning multiple decades about the game and efforts to preserve, modify, and recreate it.

Here’s what the forum looked like in June of 2007:

The forum was established around 2002 and ran on phpBB, but a few years later switched to Simple Machines Forum. Circa 2013 the old forum was shut down and archived and a new instance of NodeBB took its place.

I still maintain the site today; it serves as a searchable entrypoint to Machines resources, but most conversations have moved to the WiredForWar Discord.

Notably, in 2020, the source code to Machines was uncovered, and the rights to the game were acquired by Night Dive Studios. The source was released under an open source license and can be found on GitHub.

Here’s what the forum looks like as of 2024: