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Lets say you make a game that is called "monkey island" or "island of the monkeys" but it has nothing to do with the original game.

Not copyrighted, but "Monkey Island" happens to be a registered trademark owned by LucasArts. So legally speaking, not a good idea.

Also, if your game has nothing to do with the Monkey Island series, then calling it Monkey Island anyway is likely to get you a lot of negative criticism by disgruntled fans who hoped that it was related.

Given the American legal system, they can take you to court and they will win by default because you can't afford the legal costs.

I heard your father went to a restaurant and he ate everything in the restaurant and they had to close the restaurant!

(oops, wrong show )

I could post screenshots for Glorious Quest but they wouldn't be very original!

The idea was to make a QFG game using existing Sierra graphics; that idea didn't last long, but I have a demo somewhere with the healer's room from QFG1 where you can use balancing skill to walk over that board near the roof, and which has a bit of fighting on the ground.

Samba Del Amigo does something like that.

It's a cute gimmick but it would probably only work in a small game, otherwise it falls flat after awhile.

Although what Radiant says is true :'( I find it insulting that anyone would go around and ask for the work, time, effort and talent of anybody, without paying back.

Well, to be fair, in my first project I asked everyone for new work in exchange for a share in the profit, but that turned out rather messy because a lot of people didn't actually do the things they promised, and of course the profit turned out to be zero since the project didn't go anywhere. For my second project I simply asked people if I could use some stuff they already made, so they didn't do any actual work for me, they just let me use some songs/pictures from their portfolio, non-exclusive. Profit was non-zero and useful for me since I was a poor student at the time, but split evenly between the twenty or so people involved it would have become neglegible. But I later decided that making games for free is more fun anyway.

Stupid Example: Let's say you make a reinterpretation of the game "Gobliins" and you call it: "Gob-Liins" or "Goblins"

Well, the term "abandonware" has no legal meaning. So what you'd be doing is copyright infringement, if you're using the chararacters or distinctive likenesses. If you're just using the general idea, you'd be in the clear.

If you make a freeware game but you use copyrighted music, that you actually recutted somehow, is this legal?

No. At least technically no, if your game is freeware you'll probably get away with it.

That was fun

...And make sure that you keep records of any emails, letters, money that you send and receive.
This is so that if they turn around later and say that you never asked them, or that they didn't give you permission, you have the necessary proof to protect yourself.

Well, if you want that level of precaution, you need to get them to sign a contract, because an e-mail is hardly proof of anything.

In my experience, if you ask around on internet music making forums, you can find people who don't mind at all if you use their music as long as you list them in the credits, even if you're going to make some small-scale money with it. Worked fine for my two semi-commercial releases. The thing is that you do have to ask them, of course.

Hey congrats everyone!

Laura Bow and the Eye of the Beholder.

we are lacking Bubble Bobble

One of the most original and addictive games ever.

If you're alone, and you're good, you can control one dragon with either hand and still finish the game. I wouldn't recommend it on the arcade version, but on the newer PC port it's quite possible.

Perhaps someone should write an INFORM plugin for AGS.

This GUI may be a reasonable compromise?

</shameless plug>

My darkest pleasure was eaten by a grue.

http://crystalshard.net/playlist.htm

On the fourth day of Valentine,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

So we should probably get together to write Indidavey Jones and the psychic investigators of the evil round table from Mars.

Not really. Copyright is also about the ideas, country, characters and their distinctive likenesses, and so forth. As the King's Quest Nine team found out, making your own graphics does not in any way protect you from cease-and-desist orders. See my earlier post - it doesn't matter if you're legally correct (per parody clause), it matters whether (1) they don't mind, or (2) you can afford the huge legal fees.

Regarding the QfG parody, you're either talking about Quest for Glory 4.5 (a full-length game using graphics from a wide variety of Sierra games) that to my knowledge is still fully available, or you're talking about Quest for Orgy (one demo and a short but complete game) that got ceased-and-desisted because Vivendi (owner of Sierra) considered them to be in poor taste.

Shake up the place.

Spoiler

Yep, the Tremorichter spell.

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Spoiler

Which is hidden in your closet.

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Spoiler

And you have to cast it with nobody around, 'cuz they won't let you.

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