I came up with an idea that I'd like to do a re-creation of Sierra's Police Quest, In search of the Death Angel. It was the first PQ game Sierra made.
I have some questions about this however. Mostly pertaining to copyrights, such as "I cannot title my game, Police Quest." But also I wanted to know if specific colors could be copyrighted, pictures, backgrounds, etc. etc.
Another thing I'm concerned about is that the game used the city of "Lytton" and i've read on the Wiki that "Lytton is fictional" when in fact it is not a fictional place, since I brought it up on Map Quest. So, if it isn't fiction, can Sierra copyright "Lytton". One guy told me that he doesn't see how a specific color could be copyrighted, but I wanted to get someone's opinion on this or someone who might have some expertise with this, cause if I do eventually make something like that, I just want to know that all the bases were covered.
Another thing I'm curious about, when you drive the police car in Police Quest, would that whole thing be copyrighted, not just the pictures, but the whole idea of it.
Any answers would sure help. Thanks.
You do know that Sierra already remade Police Quest 1 in VGA, right?
I highly encourage you to read up on what copyright really means and entails, since it's clear you seem to think copyrights grant ownership over virtually anything...which isn't true :).
A good place to start would be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law#Limits_and_exceptions_to_copyright
which will give you some ideas about the usage of copyrights (and fair use concepts).
For a more detailed list of what is and is not acceptable, try here:
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html
Hopefully these two links will answer all of your questions on the subject, and if not, think of a copyright as a way of protecting a 'body of work' rather than the specifics inside the work (ie, you can't copyright driving cars around because it's too broad/generic a concept, nor can you copyright someone being black in your game because lots of people were black before you thought of having one as a character, but you can copyright the story surrounding these characters and car driving sequences, so long as it's not plagiarized). By the same token, you cannot copyright a city or even a character's name, though you can trademark a game title or the title of a product like 7-UP (TM).
Leave remakes to the professionals please. By remake, I mean something greater than just bringing the game to AGS.
(There is already a remake of the first game that is more than worthy for a modern AGS game. So there is no point in remaking it yet again.)
You're doing a remake AND are worried about the possibility of colours being copyrighted? Wow.
Well, good you're making sure, but that's a little bit too cautious. Just make sure you're keeping the driving stuff the same - that was my major letdown in PQ1 VGA.
Thanks for the copyright info, I do not know alot about it, so I will take time to check those links out.
As far as a remake, sorry I guess I had my words mixed up, what I meant was like, a Police Quest 1.5. It's supposed to take place the day after Jessie Bains is sentenced to jail. I won't go into great detail about it, but regardless it should be good.
(and yes I am keeping the ORIGINAL PQ1 EGA driving NOT the VGA version.)
If I did say remake, the VGA remake was horrible, it did the EGA version NO justice at all. Just trying to drive in the VGA version was close to impossible, which is why I never let my EGA version go. 8)
They did the same thing with SQ1 EGA remake into VGA which wasnt too bad, but the EGA version still was better overrall.
So no, this game will not be a remake, it's going to be set in-between PQ1 and PQ2.