http://www.mobilescope.com/website/index.php?details=47&english=1&cellphone=33&type=3100&handset=nokia

and then someone was attacking patrox game, Abracadabra, for being a clone of Solomon's Key... and that one which is a commercial game (for cellular phones) ?? :D

Yeah, it sucks.

Ooooh.... a big TEN "exciting" levels. :)

Actually, judging from the very small screenshots there for Sahara Dig, they seem to be directly ripping off level design. That is a BIG no-no! The graphics seem fine, but I would certainly think that level design falls under copyright control.

Originally posted by Pyabo
Ooooh.... a big TEN "exciting" levels. :)

That's actually a very respectable number when it comes to cell phone games.

Originally posted by Pyabo
Actually, judging from the very small screenshots there for Sahara Dig, they seem to be directly ripping off level design. That is a BIG no-no! The graphics seem fine, but I would certainly think that level design falls under copyright control.

It's possible they got permission actually. The team has a few real life published titles under their belts, including the extremely excellent Karnaaj Rally for GBA. The publisher, Mobilescope, appears to have agreements to publish a number of licensed products (including Dungeon Keeper, Wizardry, Ice Age, etc). Anyway, I'm more inclined to believe something is an obvious rip-off job when it's created in someones living room, and less when it's developed by an established team and released by an established publisher.

True 'nuff... but I have to wonder, if they had permission, why change the graphics and the name? Surely it would be better to fully capitalise on the license?

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
True 'nuff... but I have to wonder, if they had permission, why change the graphics and the name? Surely it would be better to fully capitalise on the license?

Hehe, yeah, I was thinking the same thing myself. What's the point? Unless it's some strange thing where they got permission to use the likeness but not the actual name.

Anyway, it's probably another rip-off clone anyways, heh.

Hi there,

Just a short introduction, I'm Sam Nova CTO of Mobile Scope ;)

To start it all, lets go back a day before this thread. I saw the trailer of Abracadabra and liked it (a lot) and the first thing I thought, wow, that looks very much like the game we are publishing (Sahara Dig). So I had a chat with Patrox (as I have been doing a good bit lately). I was just curious. He also mentioned Solomon's Key and so did Paul from Paragon 5 (the people who did Sahara Dig)... and now it shows up here ;) Very small world.

The scary thing is about it all.. I did't even know (or remember) Solomon's Key !!! Guess it is time to get some emulators downloaded and play it.. Or just play Abracadabra :)

I just checked the screens from http://www.fabiosanna.it/solomon/arcade/rooms01.html and yeah, some of them do look the same, but then again, the levels have been changed to work good on the mobile device. Don't think the guys from Paragon 5 would have been so silly just to copy them.

Oh yeah, 10 levels. Not a hell lot, but as Gregory Micek said, accetable for a mobile device (special the low end Java ones).

Anthony Flack, what sucks ? (as you wrote). and yeah, we do not have a license for this game, nor any special rights to reuse old material (as you said, why change the name and all that).

As Paul said : Solomon's Key was a source of inspiration, the general formula worked great many years ago so we updated it.

Anyway, no hard feelings from my side (and why should there be), always interesting to see people talk about our games.

Cheers,

Sam Nova

Sam, can we switch gears for a moment... (maybe we should start a new thread)

I and several other people in this forum are very interested in the mobile market. Can you give us some clue as to what kind of returns game developers are seeing here? Is the field growing? What kind of cut do the carriers & then the publishers take?

In the past I have been quite skeptical about the viability of this market... but you seem to be in a position to give us some hard data. Please share! :)

Hi Sam,

I wasn't talking about the quality of your game (which I haven't played). But I am one of those that really takes umbrage at all the unacknowledged cloning that goes on these days. I'm all for drawing inspiration from what has gone before, but not quite so, um, "directly"... when I said, "it sucks", I just meant the whole widespread cloning thing sucks.

It's obviously not your fault (as you say you've never seen the original, and weren't the developer). But that's part of the problem; many players these days DON'T know where the idea originally came from - and to me, that is an additional insult to the great designers who came up with these games in the first place.

Rest assured I haven't any personal grudge against you or your company; it's far too widespread for that... chalk me up as being bitter against the world ;)

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for the reply, and NO I didn't take it as a personally (or company) attack, was just wondering...

I fully follow you regarding that the orginal developers of great games dont get enough credit when their ideas/concepts are used for clones, or games based on their ideas.

As a publisher (Okay, I dont take part in the publishing deals really, only evaluations and testing.... I'm the tech guy after all) it can be hard to follow it all, several of us do have a background in the games business and have also played the old games, but from time to time one have slipped, as it was the case here.

Lets say that we do a game or publish a game that is based on other people ideas without breaking the copyright issues, then would it be good or bad to write that in the game?

Good for giving the credit, but could be bad because:

1. If the people behind the orginal game thinks (even if we dont) that we broke the copyright issues, and we at the same time give them credit, then maybe they will think they have a case they can win. Costing money and resources from both sides (no matter who wins or are correct)

2. If the players sees that you give credit to another game's ideas then maybe they will just go: Oh, damn just another 1 to 1 clone.

Just thoughts,

Sam

Yes, I know. Unless you are the designer, or you've played every game in the world, it's really impossible to know if you're looking at a clone. Reviewers, in particular, rarely seem to notice these days!

And I fully understand that if you DO have a clone, or an almost-clone, it's probably best (for you personally) not to announce it, for the reasons you mention. So really, it's fully up to the game designer to make it a matter of personal pride to not make the clone, or something. Just my idealistic view on things...

When I first read this thread, I think it was just after I saw an article on gamespot about games that should be remade. I just found out where I found the article. I was reading Slashdot, and so I wanted to finally post it here.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6086894/index.html

They had a few articles like this, and it was cool seeing games that I remember playing.

So, apparently, if you want to believe this article, there might be a market for clones or games that are based on classics.

There is *absolutely* a market for this, no question about it! Just look at every PopCap game to come out since Bejeweled. They obviously did the exact same thing I did... went through all the MAME ROMs they could lay their hands on and then went through them one by one and figured out which ones they should remake to sell as Shareware. I made note of about 20-30 old/classic arcade games that might make good shareware, and so far PopCap has made three of them.

Let's see if I can predict PopCap's next game.... Hmmmmm. Possibly CueBrick, Palamedes, Panel de Pon, Puyo-Puyo... the list goes on.

Yeah - strangely enough I fully endorse the case for games that should be remade. Providing you follow the principles of http://retrospec.sgn.net/ - the original should be acknowledged; and the game should be freeware. (may I recommend the Head Over Heels remake while you're there)

Alternatively, if you really wanted to remake a game for profit, you should first buy a license, acknowledge the original, and charge whatever you like...