The short version
Longshot is a fork of Hookshot, which means it starts from Hookshot's code and carries on separately. A group called Team MagicBean runs it, and its own site credits Hookshot's developer by name.
It was created on November 12, the day before Hookshot's GitHub page disappeared. So it wasn't started to rescue Hookshot. The people behind it had already decided to go their own way.
It's open source under the same license as Hookshot. The code doesn't live on GitHub. The team hosts it on its own server.
I don't know why the group split, and I'm not going to guess. The people involved haven't given one shared account of it.
- Every build so far is a nightly test build. There's no stable version yet.
- Longshot doesn't include the game. You need your own copy, and nothing here covers how to get one.
- Only download it from the team's own site. A second, unrelated project on GitHub uses the same name.
How it went
Times are Eastern.
- Nov 11WednesdayWe covered HookshotIts GitHub page had more than 7,000 stars that day.
- Nov 123:30 PMLongshot is createdThe project appears on Team MagicBean's own server.
- Nov 13Around 7 AMHookshot disappearsThe GitHub page and its developer's account both return page not found.
- Nov 137:40 AMHookshot's developer posts on DiscordHe tells his Discord the account was removed and that Hookshot will be back up somewhere new.
- Nov 13By 2 PMLongshot's first dayWe counted 93 changes merged from 17 people in its first 24 hours, with more than 120 waiting for review.
What Longshot adds
From the project's own pages.
- Its own launcher
- One app builds the game from your copy, starts it and keeps both the game and itself up to date.
- Checked downloads
- The launcher checks each file it downloads against a signed list of checksums, so a tampered file doesn't get through.
- Shared stutter fixes
- The game pauses the first time it draws something new. Players can send in a list of what their PC has already built, and a later release ships with those ready. We counted 32 of those lists in the code.
- Its own home
- The code, the downloads and the bug reports all sit on the team's server, so one removed account elsewhere can't take the project offline.
What you need
From Longshot's getting started page.
- Your own copy of the game
- It has to be the version Longshot supports. Longshot doesn't host or share game files or keys.
- A graphics card with Vulkan 1.3
- 4 GB of video memory at least. The team recommends 8 GB.
- 16 GB of memory
- That's the amount the getting started page lists.
- About 60 GB of free storage
- The build needs that much room while it runs.
Get Longshot
Three steps, all in the launcher.
- 1
Download the launcher
Get it from Longshot's own site, for Windows or Linux. On Linux and SteamOS the file has to be made runnable first, and their page shows how.
- 2
Point it at your game and press Build
The team says a build takes about 15 minutes on a 12-core desktop and longer on a slower PC.
- 3
Press Play
The first start prepares the game's shaders, so it's slower than the ones after it.
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Where Hookshot stands
Hookshot came back late on the afternoon of November 13, on a server its developer runs himself. He told his Discord to download it from notrexed.dev, and our Hookshot guide has the new links.
So there are two versions now, each on its own server. Hookshot has a stable release. Longshot has nightly test builds and its own launcher.
That's two teams improving the same port. I'm not picking a side.