I’m not a game developer but if I were to make a game, the only ideas that come to mind seem to be “I’m gonna remake my favorite game but change these things I didn’t like about it!” but I heard that’s a bad idea usually.
I’m wondering how much change, and to which aspects (gameplay, mechanics, theme, etc), do you think is needed to make a game inspired by something instead of a rip-off?
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A lack of a distinct identity, that leaves the player feeling like it’s just trying to piggyback off another game’s success rather than sell itself on its own merits. It’s gotta bring something new to the table to set itself apart, something to justify playing it over the original game it’s copying homework from.
Developers can - and should - lift systems, mechanics, and whatever the hell else they want from any other title (occasional sticky legal protections aside). The problem arises when those things are copied uncritically.
Good games are intricate systems of interlocking mechanics, and good game designers put a lot of work into designing those things to create the specific play experience they have in mind.
If you want to reuse some or all of those aspects, you need to also understand how and why they work, so that you can apply them correctly in a new context. If you don’t, and instead just lazily copy with no plan or vision? That’s when people start calling things out as rip-offs.
But what does it mean to copy critically if you’re copying everything?
What I’m thinking of is copying all major mechanics and only making a few minor changes based on what I find more fun. It’s the kind of thing where it could be a mod, but it’ll be a new game with new setting, characters and story just all the same mechanics.
If you’re copying everything, you’re NOT copying critically. You’re putting no thought into WHY that mechanic was added in the exact way that it was.
Is that mechanic even needed?
Could it be done a different/better way to add complexity or simplify it, it alter the experience in a substantial way?
I’m trying to put thought but everything is just so tightly designed I feel like removing ANYTHING would ruin the appeal.
At the end of the day you have to have a reason to make your game. If you want to be heavily influenced that’s fine, but your effort needs to come from a place of feeling like you have a vision for how it can be improved. That you have something to add. If you think the original game as it already exists is the perfect implementation of the concept, why make a new version?
If you’re not copying setting, characters or story then you’re not copying everything. Those are also part of the recipe that makes the game work, through things like level design, narrative design, and game feel.
Copying critically means not just copying blindly but understanding how things work and why they were designed that way to begin with. You talk about wanting to make changes, but do you know how they would affect all the other parts of the design?
It’s very common for new game designers to dive into making changes without a full understanding of what they’re even trying to solve, let alone the knock on effects of their proposed solutions.
The setting doesn’t matter for me - I determine a severe letdown initially by how many game breaking bugs it has. If the intended path cannot be followed. If the game cannot be completed. Then I look at the gameplay, mechanics, engaging systems - if it is all repetitive or the solution is too simple, e.g. for a puzzle pick up A, slot it in B, press C, repeat; for combat stand still and spam A to win - then there is little engagement and no catharsis for completion.
Sometimes a pretty landscape is all that’s needed for catharsis - there may be shit mechanics, but breathers in between sections and cool distance art will probably be all it takes to please me
Would you be upset if you found out for example that a game you liked turned out to have copied the majority of the gameplay mechanics from another game?
Not really, that’s usually how games evolve actually. I would personally consider a game a rip-off if it poorly mimics another game, without bringing anything new to the table.
It depends - if it was enjoyable but I found that it was a carbon copy afterwards, I’d feel betrayed, but only if the original company was wholesome would I be upset, and I’d probably buy the original. If it was kind of copied, but mostly in spirit or inspiration, or it was revitalising an archaic game, then no harm no foul. If it were a dime-a-hundred game like those fort building MMOs or three-lane infinite runners on mobile, very insignificant. If the original company was a greedy anti-consumer corporation like Nintendo I’d gladly pay the knockoff company to help fund their legal fees.
I’ve always been an ethical thief - steal from the rich and the evil, support the small and well-meaning.
forgetting to use the words “inspired by” or “homage”
I would say that it’s a hive-mind feeling of laziness about the effort put in, starting with mechanics-copying. I don’t think anyone would ever say X is a ripoff of Y if X uses totally different Z mechanics, even if the graphics are similar. It’s when the mechanics are recycled that it’d better be more original in other aspects.
But game mechanic differences can be pretty minor or they can be major reworks. It’s really hard to think of major changes to game mechanics that don’t break the fun in an already established formula
Right, therefore the looks and theme should be massively different (like sci-fi when the original was medieval, etc.).
If you can’t figure out how to take something change it without breaking the fun then you’re most likely doing a rip-off.
You have to do something transformative for it to not be a rip-off. Just add an example, if you take Hollow Knight gameplay and then make a game with art style heavily inspired by Hollow Knight art and your story is about some other bugs, then that’s pretty much just Hollow knight and as such would be a rip off. But if you took Hollow Knight gameplay and made it about robots in a space derelict that could be transformative enough to be its own thing.
If there’s next to nothing to differentiate the new game from the one that inspired it it’s a rip-off, likely trying to gain sales solely by counting to the coat rails of the successful predecessor.
If you make meaningful changes or improvements that alter the play experience, That’s iteration, progress.
I think its (usually) a bad idea in that its very hard to outdo the original. Often times games don’t quite nail what makes the original work and changes to the formula usually aren’t consequential enough to matter. Sometimes its great for a stagnant or platform locked genre though.
I consider a game a ‘rip-off’ if it blindly follows mechanics or the art style in an attempt to get the player to buy in thinking its whatever game its trying to copy. That is you’re not trying to sell it based on what it does differently or the game itself, but merely piggybacking another game’s design and marketing.
Games that are inspired by other games, even if they are pretty similar, are totally OK. (Stardew Valley or Lords of the Fallen for example)
I have made games in the past that were basically copies of other games, but those were made for fun or for learning
I feel like the difference should be caused by the reason the game is made
I would call that a “knock-off” or a “clone”, not a “rip-off”; a rip-off is when the purchaser feels like they’re being cheated out of their money. e.g. movie theaters, airports, and anywhere else with “captive audiences” charging outrageously higher prices for food are classic examples.
Good point. But apparently they’re also synonyms
