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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 release is 2.0.0, released on March 27, 2025. The release contains the following files for download:
- raceintospace-2.0.0-Debian12.deb
- raceintospace-2.0.0-Linux.deb
- raceintospace-2.0.0-Linux.rpm
- raceintospace-2.0.0-Linux.tar.gz
- raceintospace-2.0.0-Source.tar.gz
- raceintospace-2.0.0-win32.exe
- raceintospace-macos-arm64.zip
Further information can be found at the release page. The game manual can be viewed from our docs section.
Race Into Space is distributed under GNU General Public License
(GPL) version 2. You can find the terms and conditions in file
COPYING.
We have a Matrix space, where you can obtain help, discuss the game in general, and also find others to play against, The space consists of two rooms:
| Room | Description |
|---|---|
| raceintospace-general | General discussions about the game. |
| raceintospace-games | Arrange games to play against others. |
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 the vcpkg submodule inside the cloned repo:
git submodule update --init
You need a modern C++ compiler and CMake.
The build system uses vcpkg.io to automatically download and build all dependencies.
The creation of binary packages for releases is described in a set of separate instructions.
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
Building is supported on MacOS 15 and later, on Apple chips.
You need CMake, which is readily obtained from
Homebrew, which you probably have anyway. You also need pkg-config,
if you don't have it already. The only external dependency needed is sdl.
$ brew install cmake sdl pkg-config
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
The easiest way to compile the game is the following:
-
Before you start, ensure that the following is installed:
- Visual Studio Community ($0, but read the fine print)
- Install at least MSVC, C++ CMake for Windows and Windows SDK components! It may show as "Desktop development with C++"
- If you have already installed Visual Studio but are missing a component, you can launch the Visual Studio installer app, choose "Modify" and select further components for installation.
- Git (You can accept the defaults, though you may want to tell it to use Notepad for the default editor.) You may need to reboot for git to be added to your $PATH.
- Visual Studio Community ($0, but read the fine print)
-
Start Visual Studio and select Continue without code
-
Launch Tools -> Command Line -> Developer Command Prompt. This is important and puts cmake and ninja into your path.
-
In that command prompt (not the Windows one), 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, navigate to the raceintospace folder, and 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 the data/audio/music directory from raceintospace-nonfree to:
data/audioin the source code directory - if you're building the game from source, ordata/audioin the directory where you installed the game.