The people who made UniBall and BR Chat, from the first version to today. Names are the
handles that the game's own files and the old UniBall sites use, and each section says where its
names come from.
The original game
C:\ created UniBall and its map editor, UniMap. In September 2001,
he handed the project to NickW.
NickW created BR Chat and owned UniBall from 2001.
Sources: the UniBall site's news archive
(2002) and files page (2003), which
credits "UniBall and BR Chat" to "C:\ and NickW"; the version information in
UniBall.exe, which names ByteRyder Productions.
Versions 2.2.2–2.3.6 (2006–2008)
Ataqer made the changes to the UniBall client, "with NickW's permission".
Zoinky made the changes on the server side.
Swindle wrote the updated F1 help text.
Source:changelog.txt in the 2.3.6 installer.
Steam (2017)
In February 2017, NickW released a new UniBall on Steam, published by StormBrewers LLC and
free to play. Get it on its Steam
store page. It is a separate game with its own servers, not version 2.3.6, so it does not
connect to this site.
Preservation effort (2026)
UniBall 2.3.6 and BR Chat 2.0 connect to the uniball-central.net domain in their
default server configuration. The community moved its website to uniballhq.com in May
2009, but the servers stayed on the old domain until it expired on March 10, 2013. Players were
then told to change their settings to uniballhq.com, and an installer with those
settings followed in April 2013. Those servers later went offline, and their code was never
published.
Recoil registered the expired uniball-central.net domain
and reverse-engineered the UniBall and BR Chat servers. He worked out their protocols and rules from
the original programs and from recordings of games played on the original servers, rebuilt them,
and hosts them here. Because the default configuration still names this domain, the unmodified
clients connect to it again.