Back in the 90's, when every other kid wasn't running around with a cellphone, we had to figure out a way to amuse ourselves in some of the perpetually monotonous lectures in high school. We had the exact same tools at our disposal as we do today - our bare fingers - minus the touchscreens. So we devised (nobody really knows how it got around, maybe it was ancestral, like a card game) a simple game that we could play keeping our hands below the desk and counting on our fingers (two things people of our age were profusely proficient at). Read more about this game on the Wiki Page.

So, what is MyButami? That's a meta-question, really. This project is a console-based realization of the game, which you can still play with your fingers -- by hitting them on the keyboard.

The game itself was played in the late nineties and the early 21st century; we took up this development project in the beginning of 2007 (and pretty much left it there). I only got myself to dig up the code from rusty backup disks and host it here on April Fools' Day, 2013.

This project is compiled using the Borland C++ Compiler and the console-based GUI development module uses the Borland Graphic Library. You probably won't even be able to compile it on today's x64 machines (after you manage to find the compiler, that is), but we were all merry n gay with the dark blue interface of the Borland IDE back in the day.

(the 'why' was rhetorical, right?)

We were 16 years old when this code was written. We were into everything that 16-year-olds are into. We were pursuing a Computer Science course after High School, I remember vaguely, and the lab assignments weren't even mildly interesting. While playing with our fingers one sunny afternoon, we had the tickling sensation of a possibility - to script the gameplay logic of MyButami programatically! At the time, C++ was like a new battery operated toy to us - we were figuring out new ways to play with it all the time: this seemed like a pretty good excuse.

(I think I went too far with the 16-year-old thing)

My friend and I were among the nerdy guys having the excitement of accidents involving soldering guns and such, who wrote the messy assortment of ancient spaghetti syntax that we call 'code' and pass off as 'development effort'.

• Swaroop Bhonde {GitHub|Facebook|LinkedIn}
• Omkar Ekbote {GitHub|Facebook|LinkedIn}

We are thankful to our entire class, who constantly played with their fingers too, and devised new ways [read: enhancements] to fiddle with them [read: use-case scenarios] everyday!

On the face of it, this looks like one of those showcase repositories: well, yes it is; for this is the only way we could think of to keep MyButami alive! Taking a cue from the gameplay logic and a few minutes of reading the wiki (ahem) to understand what the game is all about, you can help make it modern and playable!

The master branch has a programmer's view of MyButami's gameplay logic. The GUI Development branch is a more user-centric approach to make it playable and graphically presentable. Using the Borland Graphics Library was probably a bad idea, and doesn't make sense pursuing further.

In today's world, kids aren't going to play with their fingers below their desks, unless it involves frivolously poking at a touchscreen. MyButami, as a multiplayer smartphone app, could stay alive doing just that! For the sake of nostalgia; one day.

We can't really impose a license on the game, since it belongs to everyone. The code here doesn't have a very bright future, but we should license it, just for the sake of it, I believe. One day.