http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-7/finalist.asp#34

Scroll down to "PC Downloadable!"

Hey neat!

But Zuma is there too, which personally I think cheapens the whole thing...

Don't know about the other 2 as I haven't seen them.

I still find it really funny that you can say congrats to Hamsterball and not to Zuma. They're both clones of other games. Both have excellent sound and visuals and design. I really don't see the difference other than Zuma is made by popcap and selling tons. It really seems to me that you're singling out Zuma for negativity because of it's success and because of who made it rather than because of what it is. It sells well to mass market therefor it must be bad? Something like that. Like the film critic who refuses to admit any of Spielberg's movies are any good and will only applaud films that nobody has heard of by obscure french art-film directors.

Nice job, Raptisoft. I like Hamsterball. You must have spent a lot of time polishing it, and it shows. :)

-Tom

Originally posted by svero
Like the film critic who refuses to admit any of Spielberg's movies are any good ...

Steven Speilberg made a good movie?

j/k


Congrats Raptisoft!

And for what it's worth, I liked Zuma Deluxe; and no, I don't care if it's a remake of another game.

Popcap did a good job with it, regardless of the fact that it wasn't an original idea -- it was original to *me*.

Anthony

Congrats!
I noticed that there's Real stated as publisher. So they changed their opinion and decided to publish Hamsterball?

The difference is that Hampsterball took the core idea of Marble Madness and extended it with an astonishing amount of original material, taking it in all kinds of new directions. Whereas Zuma is just a simple clone, and something any halfway competent developer could have knocked it up in a month or two (yes, I know Popcap games are all well done, but as I have said, if you can't reach that standard, then I wouldn't really consider you to be halfway competent).

It's nothing personal to do with Popcap or anything like that - actually if I have my facts right, Raptisoft also did a straight-up bust-a-move clone and while it was competently done, I certainly don't think that deserves any accolades. (oops, what do you know, Popcap actually went and bought that one, seems they just can't resist that cloney goodness).

And, for that matter, Patrox's Abracadabra I think is even more blatant and offensive.

Honestly, I don't know why anybody thinks this kind of behaviour is okay at all. Maybe it's not strictly illegal, or at least it would have to be decided in court on a case-by-case basis, but that doesn't make it right, and certainly it shouldn't be something you get awards for. How about if I made a straight clone of Dweep, changed the graphics a bit, and then proceeded to get huge sales, critical acclaim and win awards for it? I bet Dexterity would be real happy about that, huh? Would the rest of you think that was all good and okay? How about if I did it to *your* game? (assuming your game isn't a clone to start with of course)

And just so I don't have to go over it again (since I always have to explain this afterwards to somebody or other) - NO, I don't think that everyone has to make groundbreaking original games, and YES, I do think it's okay to take an existing game as your starting point and take it from there. But that's worlds apart from simply taking an existing game and duplicating it.

Anyway, I'm sorry, this really amounts to a thread hijack - perhaps we could discuss this elsewhere but I think it's all been said before anyway.

>The difference is that Hampsterball took the core idea of Marble
>Madness and extended it with an astonishing amount of original
>material, taking it in all kinds of new directions. Whereas Zuma
>is just a simple clone, and something any halfway competent
>developer could have knocked it up in a month or two (yes, I

I don't agree with your assessment of the ease of development of Zuma, but aside from that I also don't agree with your view that Hamsterball took the core from MM in a whole new interesting direction whereas Zuma did not. I don't see that either one is really that far from the original. And to further point to your obvious bias I'll say that you even admitted you've not played the original game that Zuma is a clone of. So how can you actually say how similar it is? To me the main difference seems to be that the chain of balls concept has less wriggle room whereas marble madness is wide open to ideas and variety. Many of the things in Hamsterball are directly lifted from madness though. Like the pegs that pop out of the floor, or the 8 ball that knocks you off the side. I really don't see that one is so different from the other.

>Honestly, I don't know why anybody thinks this kind of
>behaviour is okay at all.

I think it's a blurry line. It's really hard to draw where you're crossing it and where you're not and since it's pretty subjective different people will have different views of what's ok. R-Type is like Platypus, but since there's so much you can change in a side scrolling shooter the final work is very original and unique in each game even though they share gameplay elements. But designing a game that's like tetris but not tetris... Well it seems there's less room to be creative and make changes. A game like Tetris is in a sense almost defined by it's idea. Same with bust-a-move. In Dynomite raptisoft added many original elements to the game like their fossil mode. Is fossil mode unnaceptable? Should that idea never see the light of day? Is it the sole responsiblity of the original author of an idea to extend it? How much do you need to add? Seems that the basic gameplay remains the same but something interesting and unique was also added. So where to draw the line?

>good and okay? How about if I did it to *your* game?
>(assuming your game isn't a clone to start with of course)

I've had aargon cloned a number of times. Sometimes in ways that angered me and sometimes in ways that didnt bother me. Some people said Aargon was a clone of other games I'd never even seen even though they actually shared only minor elements of gameplay with the games I was supposedly ripping off. I think it kind of depends how far they took it away from the original game and how much they actually added to the game. But it's hard to say exactly at what point the amount of content is "enough" to say "ok it's now an original game" and less of a clone.

Also there's another question. Which is if a game hasn't been updated in 20 years and the original authors have no interest in creating a modern version? should the idea be locked away forever? At what point does something become more public domain? if ever? Should there never be a nice 3d asteroids clone with spinning textured rocks because the game was made by Atari in the 80s?

- Steve

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
How about if I made a straight clone of Dweep, changed the graphics a bit, and then proceeded to get huge sales, critical acclaim and win awards for it?
What, besides the graphics, is so innovative about Platypus?
(Don't get me wrong, I think Platypus is a nice game.)

The soundtrack! :P

The graphics are the innovative feature in Platypus. Platypus is a content-consumption based game - you play to see new stuff as much as score points. I have to say I don't really agree with Anthony's assessment of Zuma, even though I think Zuma is boring as hell. But I know completely where he's coming from. If I were the original developer of whatever it was Zuma was based on I'd be seething. But on the other hand I wouldn't have dropped the ball - if I wanted to maintain the idea as mine I'd be obliged to keep it up to date and available.

If, in 10 years' time, someone comes along and rips off Alien Flux, it'll be my own fault for not keeping it maintained. If, however, I'm releasing Alien Flux 2010 at the time and someone still rips it off, I'd be round there with a cricket bat and some biker friends.

Cas :)

All right, seems like the thread is well and truly hijacked now, but I guess we've said our congratulations already so I'll press on...


What, besides the graphics, is so innovative about Platypus?
Ah, I knew there'd be someone who'd take the extreme line. Nope, there's absolutely nothing innovative about Platypus (see, as I said I don't believe that you have to be wildly original) *BUT* it's definitely not a clone. There is no other game that you could single out and say "Platypus is this game". It's doing its own thing in an established genre.

Now on to the nitty-gritty.

Yes, I am being a little unfair because I haven't played the game Zuma is based on; only seen screenshots. But as you say, there is very little wiggle room available here. They certainly looked like the same game. And the game is so simple it's hard to see what could have been added. Perhaps the bonus for shooting through gaps is a new addition. Well, fair enough. But even so, it hardly deserves an award for that does it? You can't deny that Hampsterball added a LOT of fresh ideas to the Marble Madness thing. It's true that a lot of the details were unnecessarily taken too - but it was *so* unnessecary that I actually interpreted these as being in the spirit of a tribute. Perhaps I am showing a bias here; but somehow it just feels like it has been expanded enough.

You're right, a game like Bust-a-Move or Tetris contains very little room to add your own twist, although people still manage it every now and again. For this reason, unless you've really got something new to add, in these cases I don't recommend doing such a game.

For example, the original "Zuma" concept does seem like a good example of bust-a-move with a twist, turning it into something new. And perhaps I was too quick to dismiss Dynomite since I must have missed the fossil mode. Maybe there really is a lot of new stuff in there. But with these simple games, you're always on thin ice to start with. The core game that I played was just like bust-a-move. I don't think there was any attempt here to twist it into something new... there are many things that could have been changed about the core bust-a-move game which might have proven interesting but in this case it was kept totally identical, from the way the balls line up, the descending nature of the game, the way the gun works, the dimensions of the playing area, etc... even Snood managed to take Bust-a-Move somewhere new, without changing much at all (still not enough for me, but it was at least a little different).

Now it's not easy to crome up with a simple game like Tetris or Bust-a-Move. You'd have to play around with the ideas for ages before you got the formula just right. But once you have the formula, it becomes pretty darn easy to duplicate it, doesn't it?

Should extending an idea be the sole responsibilty of the idea's originator? Well, yes and no. Small modifications, probably yes. It's only fair. Major overhaul, probably no. I think a lot of it depends on the willingness of the developer to try going their own way rather than letting the original game hold their hand too much during the design process. In other words, don't clone the details (am I contradicting myself again? But you know what I'm saying. Don't use an existing game as your design document)

There is a line, as you say. And it's true that line is never clearly defined (that's why they have court cases to decide these things). Having said that though, there are some games that are clearly way, way over the line.

So where was the line for you? Which Aargon clones made you angry and which didn't? And would you be more angry if one of the clones was far more popular than Aargon, if it won awards and was celebrated for being a brilliant design, while Aargon was forgotten?

As for forgotten games... well I do think that there should be a reasonable limitation on how long you can claim ownership of an idea, and personally I think it should be way shorter than the current copyright law gives you (especially for computer games - 70 years is ridiculous here). And princec's point is interesting too; if you're not exploiting your idea maybe you shouldn't complain if someone else does it for you. But still, there are better ways to go about it. You could ask permission. You could negotiate a license. And you could have a note in your game, "Inspired by Game X by John Smith".

Well done Raptisoft! It must be a huge buzz to see your game listed with all those other AAA commercial titles.

Just for the record, we would have loved to have stuck "Inspired by Marble Madness" or "Dedicated to Mark Cerny..." however, things like those Hasbro lawsuits in times past, and other fun litigation stuff makes one cautious, y'know?

Thanks for the compliments all. I think a good name for this thread would be "The Clone Wars."

Yeah, I know, the legal implications of acknowledging your inspiration is a bit of a pitfall. Still in the case of Hampsterball, I think that Marble Madness is so well known, and the references to it are so explicit, that most people will be well aware of your inspiration, and the praise that your game is attracting is given with full awareness of your debt to the original.

But in the case of Zuma, I'm inclined to think not. I think it's mostly being evaluated as a wholly original game (certainly that's how I evaluated it - highly - at first until I was shown the error of my ways). Otherwise I don't think it would have been a finalist, or at least I'd hope not. I mean, imagine if a tetris clone was up for an award... you know, a plain, regular tetris clone. Yet it would almost certainly win, IF the judges had somehow never heard of tetris before... but as we all know, tetris may be the mightiest of mighty, but tetris clones are the lowest of the low.

Sorry about turning the thread into clone wars. It just really bugged me that Zuma was up for the award (as you may have noticed!)

Speaking of claymation, not sure if you remember the games from "visual concepts" ClayFighter, ClayMates etc.. ( all the Clay series ) and even older Last Apostle ( clay platformer from homedata )

Haaa the good old days.
pat.

Yeah, I do remember although I thought they were dreadful. Never heard of Last Apostle though, I'll have to see if I can find it.

Also in the Clay Game hall of fame - the Neverhood (PC) and Skullmonkeys (PS1) from the Neverhood, and Trog(arcade) from Bally/Midway.

All right, I tracked it down and tried it out. It uses puppets for its characters. Nice idea, but the implementation, both in terms of gameplay and animation, is truly horrendous! I seem to recall the character animation in Trog being a bit limpy as well. Not as easy as it looks, folks! ;)

Congrats to Hamster Ball, though I had assumed it was inspired by Super Monkey Ball. What's the differentiation between Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness inspired?

Strange that I'm (sort of) agreeing with Flack here :)

I thought Zuma was good quality but definitely not "award winning" in nature. I don't even care about the whole cloning issue, I'll take a decent clone over a crappy "original" game any day. But obvious clones should probably stay off any "best of" lists unless they are recognized as such - the way some sites catgorize all pong games under "Arkanoid style". I could live with that.

At the same time I look forward to a day when there is no differentiation between lists of "PC Games" and "Downloadable PC Games". Even as the fastest growing sector it's still look at as the ghetto cousin of "real" PC gaming.

>Yes, I am being a little unfair because I haven't played the game
>Zuma is based on; only seen screenshots. But as you say, there
>is very little wiggle room available here. They certainly looked
>like the same game. And the game is so simple it's hard to see
>what could have been added. Perhaps the bonus for shooting
>through gaps is a new addition.

I've tried to get my hands on it. There are actually more than one game. There are many that use this similar system. One arcade game, some clones, and some home versions so I'm not sure which is the chicken and which the egg.

>Well, fair enough. But even so, it hardly deserves an award for
>that does it?

Depends if the award is for implementation or idea. If idea is a factor of the award I'd agree that it doesn't deserve one.

>Perhaps I am showing a bias here; but somehow it just feels
>like it has been expanded enough.

That the thing see... When is that point? Hard to say...

>Now it's not easy to crome up with a simple game like Tetris or
>Bust-a-Move.

Well it's easy to come up with ideas. Not all of them gel. But implementation is part of this as well. If I had a really good idea and implemented it very poorly it might go unnoticed.

>So where was the line for you? Which Aargon clones made you
>angry and which didn't?

There was a shockwave clone called Reflections which copied the pieces, and my level designs exactly only it was a subset of aargon. That was unnacceptable. In the end I came to some arrangement with the developers but they had clearly just ripped me off directly. Didn't even design their own puzzles (except a few towards the end of the game.) There's a game called lightspeed which just came out. I can't say its a clone, and the developer claims not to even have been aware of my game before it came out, but it's certainly different enough to be acceptable. Another closer game is Chromatron which seems to be a clone of sorts. The annoying thing is that he claims reflections as his initial inspiration to make it. How's that for a kick in the pants. But chromatron changes the rules of the game and the pieces and levels enough that it doesn't bother me.

>And would you be more angry if one of the clones was far more
>popular than Aargon

Why discuss these impossible hypothetical situations? More popular than AArgon? Bah... :-)

>, if it won awards and was celebrated for being a brilliant
>design, while Aargon was forgotten?

Yes it would be very annoying depening again on which clone it was and how much was added. I think using similar basic concepts but adding your own twists and taking the game in a new direction is enough, but like we've now both said there has to be "enough" new stuff. What I can't define clearly is how much is enough. Its pretty subjective...

>As for forgotten games... well I do think that there should be a
>reasonable limitation on how long you can claim ownership of
>an idea, and personally I think it should be way shorter than
>the current copyright law gives you (especially for computer
>games - 70 years is ridiculous here). And princec's point is
>interesting too; if you're not exploiting your idea maybe you
>shouldn't complain if someone else does it for you.

I think there's somehting in the law about this as well actually. I may be totally wrong but I think a part of copyright infringement cases is whether the other party has been harmed.

>But still, there are better ways to go about it. You could ask
>permission.

Which is what I did with space taxi 2. Has other benefits as well such as use of the original name and so on.

- Steve

Originally posted by KNau
What's the differentiation between Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness inspired?


Marble Madness screenshot link: http://www.skytopia.com/games/arcade/big/marb0005.png

Super Monkey Ball screenshot link: http://www.sega.com/games/game_screenshots.php?game=supermonkeyball&pic=ss_supermonkeyball_01.jpg

Got it...Super Monkey Ball you control the environment to move your character, Marble Madness you control the character itself. Both can still be lumped in the rolly-bally category but are different implementations.

Congrats!

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-05-2004/0002122764&EDATE=


http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id=5749

"Computer Downloadable Game of the Year
* Hamster Ball, published by Real.com, developed by Raptisoft"