What I've played of OceanHorn is good. I thought about bringing up a point in the thread, it's too busy for any discussion though. In my view there are many levels of "copying" a game. -Games that are straight plagiarism. They take assets from games and use them. rip the concept directly and do little to nothing to hide it. There was a game a while back that ripped assets from torchlight and used them in an iOS game that aimed to be similar. -Copies, games that copy another games core elements and gameplay without plagiarism/copyright infringement. Ninja Fishing ripping Ridiculous Fishing is an example. -Games inspired by others. Some might say an homage to the games they are like. They are similar but notably different from the games that inspire them. I would think OceanHorn fits here. -Games that are inspired by another but greatly evolve the idea. Zelda would belong in this category. It was not original. It was genre defining though. -Obviously there is on rare occasion a completely new idea that is revolutionary and borrows from no games before it. Wolfenstein is the only one that comes immediately to mind. My "inspiration" for this post is really the hate towards OceanHorn by a few members of the forum and on the front page. As well as the people saying "it's a copy" but it's ok because Nintendo won't release Zelda. I think that's too entitled an attitude and also wrong. The game stands on it's own. It is slightly derivative, not a copy though.
I personally have no qualms with "copies." If it's a shameless copy and is released on the some platform as its inspiration, I have reason to be skeptical.
Sometimes clones can be good. Examples of this would be- When you adore a particular game, but the dev refuses to bring it to iOS, for example, Nintendo, so a bunch of Nintendo clones is kind of a good thing, atleast we get to play similar games to our childhood classics, since we know the original will never come. (Those who don't JB or download emus) When a certain game with a unique gameplay mechanic is released, but the game never gets any updates.Then someone else makes a clone with the same mechanic, therefore you can play that sort of mechanic you love so dearly more, example of this would be Factory balls by Barte Bonte, I adore that type of gameplay, but there's not many games with that mechanic, except maybe gelato mania, so I don't condemn gelato mania for borrowing the core gameplay mechanic from Bonte, it's actually nice we get a plethora of new levels and get to enjoy the mechanic. Gelato mania is graphically very different from FB, the only similarities is the actual gameplay mechanic. Levels are very different also. Clones can also be bad- When an indie dev comes up with a brilliant new gameplay mechanic, only to have to game slip under the radar, then suddenly a big company, ie ROVIO, build an exact clone, hoping everyone will be none the wiser. When the mâché if already exists on the AppStore, and the game is great, regular updates, new levels, yet it is cloned anyway. What is the point of this? A better, and more original version already exists. It just seems pointless and desperate to me. And thirdly, when a clone is too much of a clone. Sometimes a borrowed gameplay mechanic is okay, but to copy the games art style, theme, level set ups, etc, that is going too far.
I've been gaming for 30 years so I've seen many 'homages'. What's funny is when people go on about Oceanhorn being a 'copy' when they don't seem to realise so many other games they play are. Marioland wasn't the first platform game so as that's the case that's an homage/copy then Soooo many games are homages of past games. I don't see why people should complain. As long as the game doesn't rip assets there's no problem. But hey this is iOS land where people complain about everything!
Zelda when it released was not the first of its kind even (the genre was around before Nintendo). For the entire history of Sega and Nintendo's console wars Action RPGs, or Adventure, games were released. According to the complainers those would all be clones of a clone, I guess. If that's the case Seiken Densetsu series are the most amazing clones of a clone ever. It's all just a little ridiculous.
Basing games as copies based on their simialarity to others is a flawed idea as overtime the ability to create something new will constantly become less enabled every idea will be used again all you can judge by is the quality of the game.
Revolutional ideals can't come out everyday, and simple improvements accumulate into a great new one.
That is certainly right, there are entire genres now based on the same concepts. So many angry birds like games, alot of endless runners seem so much alike, shmups are mostly the same, and unless a game really is an exact copy, I don't think that the negative term clone should be used. It's one thing to steal music, graphical assets, etc, but just because a game is similar is not justification for so much hate.
A blatant copy is a game that actually gets removed from the AppStore. I tried a game once named 'Cut the Birds' and it basically took the birds from Angry Birds, and pasted them into this game directly. I was lucky to hold onto the app. They made a cut the birds 2... But they modified it.
Random bored comments-Wolfenstein came out after The Catacombs Abyss.Made by the same team iirc. Ninja fishing was released well before Ridiculous Fishing. Pong was original. For a video game.
Ninja Fishing on iOS was released first. As I recall Vlambeer was pretty upset about it. Ridiculous fishing was originally released long before it got ported to the AppStore. As for the wolfenstein thing, I didn't know that. It just gets credited as the first FPS, so I assumed it was.
