Don't be scared to copy other games

[@RealCoachMustafa]

Copy a game, but add trains. Pokemon but with trains. Doom but with trains. Darksouls but with trains. Train sim 2024 but with more trains.

[@ProxyDoug]

Train World: The factory keeps making more trains and you have to allocate the tracks so they don't hit each other.

[@danielalvesldiniz]

poketrains dark trains doomed trains the trains TrainsCity age of trains hollow train shadow of the train sid meyer's trains trains die twice grand theft trains

[@Uhfgood]

That gives me an idea.

[@mandisaw]

Real talk, there are tons of eurogames involving trains that could make great video games. Even the ones with social features could be good for couch co-op. Lot of folks like those board games, but they're expensive to buy and require a lot of space & time to setup.

[@ForOne814]

@@ProxyDoug Train: the train rides over nonsensical railway system and keeps collecting more and more carts, and you have to collect as many carts as you can before hitting yourself.

[@adamcolon]

My talent is in system architecture. I build software systems. I'm leveraging that "unfair advantage" (i love how you put this) to build a game system that turns any large image into a tile based gameboard so i can make many games on top of it. I appreciate this video and the perspectives it brings.

[@hjqw1pe]

It would be great if you guys could make a video talking about your team, like who makes the decisions, how the money is split, who legally owns the games, when to outsource a specific task(like art) and when to have someone(an artist) join your team, how do you resolve disagreements, etc.

[@bitemegames]

A lot of these more "advanced" topics are on our Patreon, where we break down our entire earnings month by month, and talk about the more business related stuff. There isn't as much of an audience for this on KZbin. We've got some free videos covering them on Patreon as well: www.patreon.com/bitemegames -M

[@vast634]

For using art assets: the trick is to keep it consistent, wich is kind of hard when sourcing art assets from different artists. A large enough collection of art in the same style should be preferred. There are some nice character and foliage bundles and modular building sets. A single high poly character is not as useful, if it has a unique style.

[@AwkwardSpecimens]

Hollywood does this as well on the movie front - it makes marketing (amongst other things) MUCH easier.

[@sethlaske6338]

The variation only holds true if you are selling the game. If you are just learning the game engine or do it for fun, completely replicate any game you want.

[@RistrayGR]

He goes into this during the "Bring Something New" section.

[@KnightBanditDayz]

I cant think of a hit game that was a 100% original in the last 10 years

[@ForOne814]

Pong was a real game made as a digital simplification.

[@thepolyglotprogrammer]

Even pong was copied from something else.

[@timmygilbert4102]

Pong was a copy of tennis for 2, which was the first video game running on oscilloscope, well maybe second Because first was probably oxo

[@fletchergunderson5283]

Outer wilds?

[@timmygilbert4102]

@@fletchergunderson5283 space Majora's mask

[@mandisaw]

Your game is like cake 🍰 Same basic ingredients (flour, sugar, eggs, butter) and common, recognizable accents (fruit, nuts, chocolate, liqueur, icing/frosting). But it's the *combination* of those things, plus your own skill and flourish, that makes it unique and amazing. The artistry isn't diminished by the consumer's ability to identify it.

[@jamesbrincefield9879]

I could write an entire essay on this, but I agree 100% with this. Stardew Valley and Terraria are a decade old. If someone just “remade” those games with more modern technology and added their own unique gimmick/setting/whatever it would blow up. I’ve been desperately looking for a game that can surpass them for years and it literally does not exist despite hundreds of games releasing, even by AAA developers, to try to compete with them.

[@RistrayGR]

Thinking about making a game based off of a pretty inactive IP but also the game I'd like to "remake" was a game they tried way back when I was a kid and only did once. Now the tricky part is not knowing if anyone else has attempted this in the indie sphere since but I don't want to look around because I'd be worried about accidentally being influenced by someone else or worse, finding out someone already made my idea.

[@flamart9703]

If you want to "remake" previous game, then no point to worry if someone else already made it. The point of searching similar games to your idea is to avoid too obvious similarities and eventually make it better than others.

[@startek119]

Making Spore 2 right now. Funny seeing this video.

[@635574]

Just take the mechanics you like and improve what you want, thats how you start

[@brandongreen4524]

No trains tho… 😢

[@ytmiva2]

Something I always say: - 1 game in a certain structure is unique. - a second game with similar structure will be called a copy and a ripoff. - Starting from the third game onwards it becomes a genre and the first 2 games become the pioneers. So don't be afraid to copy, as long as you make it your own.

[@Ryanowning]

I've been a fan of Pocketpair, makers of Palworld, for a while now. I guess it's fair to say they're not indies anymore since they did hire actual skilled talent while making Palworld, but they absolutely were an indie team on their previous game Craftopia. Because oh boy was that game janky. Pocketpair is a roughly 10 developer team, but I heard they're hiring.

[@theebulll]

Not only should you not be afraid of copying other games as a new developer, you should be actively ripping off known titles and putting your own spin on it. It's a great way to learn how to make games.

[@InkRibbon]

AAA companies are copying smaller games so it only makes sense that indies do the opposite. Disney Dreamlight = Stardew Valley and Dragon Quest Builders = Minecraft, just to name a few. I think as long as you make it your own it's fine.

[@juyas6381]

"Copy" might be an imprecise expression. Taking inspiration in mechanics and style is absolutely a good idea. Copying 1 to 1 is fine for learning and testing, but I think there is a limit to copying for released games. Palworld, your own example is also a prime example for that: They are critically close to Pokemon. Switch it up a bit more to avoid trouble ;)

[@TherronKeen]

Gameplay can't be copyrighted, fortunately. Copy mechanics 1:1 if you want. Palworld's *only* mistake is making a couple Pals that might've been close enough to Pokemon designs to be copyright violations, but again, that is the art - which *should* be fairly unique.

[@capitaljay1]

But does it have trains?

[@justarandomstranger1]

How do you know that you are copying someone or not? I don't play a lot of games and i am afraid to accidentally copied one of big corporations game character and get sued or something like that. Is that something i should worry? I had some ideas that turned out to be done by other people already sometimes

[@user-le2zv6go3v]

the timing of this video .. did you read my mind!? :D

[@billy6427]

Thanks for the tips

[@thepolyglotprogrammer]

People make too much of a big deal about this, and usually are other developers that will give you a hard time about this. Actual player do not care AT ALL. As long as the result is fun. At the end of the day, the feedback from other developers are among the biggest enemies for other developers.

[@Kingsdasdasd]

How do developer know if their character is original? how does someone avoid their art look like someones art sorry for bad english

[@Kingsdasdasd]

because my art style are the same with dragon ball i copy dragon ball art style when im 5 years old so its hard to change my art style now

[@flamart9703]

Art style isn't copyrighted. You can use similar style for your game, but you can't make characters with same names, faces, bodies, clothes or other props. Change their names, shapes and colors, so if you or someone looks at them won't say "This is a char/prop from dragon ball", even the style is similar. Also you can use google image search option to upload your image and find similarities and make changes if needs.

[@gameworkerty]

If I'm going to only sell a few hundred copies either way I'd rather make something different lol

[@mandisaw]

"If my game isn't unique, ppl will think it's [I'm] a fraud" 😢 It's really just imposter syndrome with a fancy hat 🎩 If you make art/games, you are a real artist/game-dev, repeat as often as needed!

[@dark_elf_wizard]

(0_0) this is this is why i did never try to make a full game.

[@chaosordeal294]

To learn, sure. And you don't need to reinvent the wheel. But if you're not doing something new, if you're not making YOUR game, then why make a game at all?

[@rekker1104]

Hi bite

[@akarnokd]

Can you avoid "this game should have been a mod on > well known game in the genre here

[@View619]

Nothing is original anymore. And unless your idea goes viral, doing something completely different rarely pans out. Be willing to take risks, but also be realistic about the market. You're not going to introduce the next big thing without some familiarity.

[@NoneNullAnd0]

I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, making a mechanically unique game EXTREMELY important. Copying another game does not make it easier to market. It simply removes anything worth marketing. Super hardcore players will seek out similar games, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of players don't want to waste their time with games that don't branch out. Additionally, you'll probably never be able to compete with the mass of competing games that are all copying that same type of game. Besides, your game is going to be unavoidably associated with certain genres and other games. Most of game design is just copying parts from other games, but you must have elements that collectively set you apart from every other game on the market.

[@mandisaw]

Stats, surveys, and commercial results all say the opposite. Genres are mostly defined by similarity of mechanics. Which shapes - and is shaped by - player expectations. That Sonic-like platformer he showed already tells a potential player how this platformer is different from say, a 3D Mario-like, or a 2D sidescroller. Humans rely on pattern-recognition, balanced with novelty - recognizable gameplay features in unique combinations/themes is how ppl know wtf your game is (and whether they might like it). Even "truly unique" games are built out of activities or concepts we are already familiar with - like reading, inference, and color/shape-matching in Baba is You, or the playground game "Red Light, Green Light" with guns, in Superhot.

[@View619]

The vast majority of players want something familiar, it's the hardcore players looking for something unique. Stats and sales have made this obvious across every genre, for the past two decades. Innovation doesn't succeed unless you get incredibly lucky, or a major player has neglected their fan base for a long time. The trick is making something familiar enough, yet with enough innovation to set it apart from similar titles. Which most games fail to achieve.

[@mandisaw]

@@View619 *Four decades!* Ms Pac-Man was a spriteswap mod with slight exp & enemy AI tweaks. Gameplay is identical ᗧ···ᗣ···ᗣ··😄

[@NoneNullAnd0]

​@@mandisawWhat stats and surveys are you talking about? Feel free to prove me wrong, but I doubt that they properly identify "uniquely mechanical" games correctly since finding one is so incredibly rare in the first place. I've sorted through 1000s of games and I've never once come across an unsuccessful unique game that doesn't have some massive flaw (I know "massive flaw" is vague, but I mean something catastrophic. Such flaws rarely show up). On the flip side, you can actually find a couple truly unique games that were majorly successful. And yes, I already pointed out that games are always made out of other games. I'm just talking about games which take from a variety of sources rather than 90% from one game. I think genre recognition is helpful to sell your game, but the benefit is totally outpaced by the detriment of being unoriginal. Additionally, it should still be reasonably easy to identify the involved genres of a game that combines multiple genres. Keep in mind that appealing to the hardcore market is more relevant to indie devs since we don't have the same marketing reach as AAA I'll list out a couple successful games that I would describe as having "unique mechanics". Note that some of these games took major inspiration from unsuccessful games that failed due to major problems (ex: [Minecraft] I don't think Infiniminer was sold). Also, I might just straight up be wrong about some of these. Please point out any such errors. -Minecraft -Darkest Dungeon -Undertale -Terraria -Rain World -Papers Please -Noita -Kenshi -FNAF -Hotline Miami -Exanima -PUBG -FTL If you've got any examples of unsuccessful mechanically unique games that don't have some massive flaw, PLEASE point it out to me as I have been searching for one for ages... Unless if it's a puzzle game. I don't know how puzzle games work and what would make one unique so disregard everything I've said in respect to puzzle games. Totally on me.

[@mandisaw]

@@NoneNullAnd0 No offense dude, but you sound kind of young (mid- to late-20s?) so I think perhaps you just aren't viewing this with a wide enough lens due to inexperience. Just talking commercial releases, there have been *tens of millions* of games published at this point. A significant % were successful. Exceedingly few of them were mechanically unique - certainly not the ones in your list there. Papers Please is a visual novel, Undertale is an iteration on old-school text adventures with minigames, and Five Nights is a "drawing-room" gothic horror with modern trappings. Darkest Dungeon is unlicensed Call of Cthulhu TTRPG as a JRPG. All resonated due to their story/message & aesthetic, rather than any unique appeal of their gameplay. If you want to truly assess the appeal of unique mechanics, you'd likely have to go back to the early days - arcade, early home consoles, PCs, text adventures, MUDs, etc. Even then, a lot of game ideas were iterations on contemporary video games, or were inspired by other media like tabletop, board & wargames, books & movies, or IRL activities (sports, hunting, dancing, etc).

[@JokeryEU]

if you copy shadow of war game you get sued :) if you copy a non aaa game then its fine

[@mrjshzk]

first