I see that cloning isnt dead :)

[zoombapup]

Just checking over big fish..

Oh my, lots of clones there..

I was actually going to do a game with a similar mechanic to diner dash (queues and tasks), but I'm kind of put off by the number of DD clones right now..

Diner Dash
Cake Mania
Roller Rash
Carrie the CareGiver
Something about flowers that I cant remember the name of
Wild West Wendy?

Etc.. bleh.. puts you off.

[Dan MacDonald]

And the best part is, they all made a lot more money on downloadable games then you (or me) last year!

(not intentionally trying to be mean, that's just the disappointing fact of the matter that feels like salt in the wounds)

[zoombapup]

Yeah, I dont begdrudge people a living.. but it feels like somehow theyre screwing with thier audience.

I know its the norm to "give people what they want" but its a self-fullfillment thing really isnt it. You sell X, so you make more of X, X sells because you made more, so you make more of it.. keep repeating.

Until it crashes, because people are tired of X.

I dunno, if feels like a door was slammed in my face as a design to some extent, I wanted to play with that mechanic, but now it feels over used. Kind of like wanting to do a cartoon animation film about insects right after bugs life and that other one...

I could still do mine, because I have a different take on the mechanic and a different presentation, but then *I* would be slammed for being a cloner right?

[zoombapup]

Its not hard to make more money on downloadable games than me havent made a thing yet

[Sharpfish]

I could still do mine, because I have a different take on the mechanic and a different presentation, but then *I* would be slammed for being a cloner right?

Though it sounds like you are seeking justification I don't think you need it. The fact is a vast majority of those very successful games/clones out there are made and deployed without the developers giving a shit about what the indie-game-developer peers make of it.

My advice is to make what you want to make for the sake of your own goals/company/passions and be damned with naysayers. This board is a good example of on the one hand being extremely helpful but on the other causing much over analysis of one's own development plans.

Fact is before I visited here I was raring to make release certain types of games, some of which I wasn't even AWARE would be considered "clones" (I had a ball based puzzle game prototype done from scratch and I honestly had never seen puzzloop/zuma at that time; though it was vastly different in it's mechanic it did include rolling balls). I got caught up in that "people will think i'm copying" rubbish for quite a while before realising that everyone who was actually releasing games and doing ok just released what they wanted be it clones or brand new innovative stuff. The point is that I had to stop catering to my peers POV (even though it was only in my mind) and instead look at the PLAYERS and what they would enjoy.

The fact is they enjoy diner-dash/tapper clones and in this case you seem to be very passionate about making a game based on that mechanic so why on earth shouldn't YOU be entitled to do just that? If it's not a cynical attempt to copy a recent game's success then I doubt anyone (anyone that really matters to you) is going to have the power to put you down so long as you are genuinely happy with the finished product.

I've seen it a few times on the board, people complaining about not "being allowed" to make certain types of game because it "Looks bad" but personally I will make whatever game I am destined to make and 9 times out of 10 it will be mostly original. If the chance to really do an existing genre justice crops up and I'm really interested in the idea then I will pursue it and not let forums or articles put a dampner on it, really just hurting yourself by getting caught up in that way of thinking.

And I know this because I am guilty of doing it for quite a while during 2004/05, procrastinating based on articles, opinions and conjecture rather than forging ahead with any game I care to make.

Of course YMMV

[Andy]

they all made a lot more money on downloadable games then you (or me) last year!

Just out of couriousity have you published any game last year Dan?

[zoombapup]

sharp, yes, I agree basically. I wasnt going to let it stop me doing the game. But it might sway any decision on getting lots of art done up. I'll run it by a few people before I go ahead with full production to make sure it isnt just going to get lost in the morass (I'll still make it, but given this is ideal for portals, I'd prefer to make it so that the portals appreciate the quality).

Youre right in not caring about what people on here think. But I DO care what my potential partners think. At least a little bit

[Mike Boeh]

...check out this link about copyright lawsuits:
http://www.rethinkip.com/rssmojo/arc...st_6_2006.html

search for "playfirst" or "alawar" on that page and you will see:

PlayFirst Inc v. Alawar Entertainment Inc
candce
3:2006cv04581
7/27/2006

[Dan MacDonald]

Just out of couriousity have you published any game last year Dan?

Nope.. but I have a level 60 alliance druid, a 60 horde druid and a 60 hunter all who got rank 10 or higher in the old PVP system. (World of Warcraft)

I realized I was wasting my life on that game ( as fun as it is ) and quit a few months ago.

[Sharpfish]

Phil, I see what you are saying and I agree with that. I agree that I too have been put off for personal reasons when discovering a certain genre is over-served and as you say, not good to tie up time and money in a game that could be lost in the crowd especially if you have to justify it to partners (I don't thankfully). I was mainly highlighting how if you read too much (on here for example) it can cause restricted thinking. Likewise I'm sure it's stopped a few people from releasing blatant clones which is possibly a good thing for the collective but maybe not for the player or the developer themselves.

I am not a fan of clones personally but I recognise a derivative works right to be made/released so long as it doesn't encroach on copyrighted I.P (not sure if that is what Mike is pointing out there). From what you say you didn't want to make a direct clone but instead wanted to take the core mechanic and reuse it in a new/different/twisted way which has been happening since videogames first started as you know. Of course there is the danger that you can be perceived as being a cloner if people only look at the game in screenshots or superficially but even then if it's what you really wanted to do and it was a success then it has justified it's existence.

So basically there are two issues here, one being your logistical/personal reasons for/for not going ahead. The second being this "cloner" stigma (mostly coming from other developers) that should be disregarded if the former reasons are honourable or sound business, but only if that is the kind of developer you intend/desire to be.

I think over the last few years a lot of developers who released derivitive games have been "driven away" from this forum due to peer feedback but I guess they are still out there being very productive while us "games first money second" people are still on here showing concern for being taken seriously and trying not to step on other developers toes.

I suppose I could have just summed all that up with "Do what you want and if it bombs either commercially or critically then learn from it based on which is more important to you"...

[Andy]

I realized...

Dan-Dan!!! This explanation probably should work pretty well for you wife. But not for business.

It's pretty hard to get any money when you publish nothing.

[Dan MacDonald]

I don't need to make money from games and I'm not planning to. I have a house, a wife, 3 kids, 2 cars, there's no way I could provide a good life for them making the games I enjoy. Maybe if I released a casual game every 6 months I could come close to making what I do now, but frankly it's not worth it to me. I do enterprise software development with a small team that I've worked with for years, we are all good friends and we are really good at our jobs.

By not trying to make money from my game development time I get to work on whatever game interests me and play whatever games I enjoy without having to worry about trying to make money from those interests. I worked from home making cellphone games for a year (while my wife had our 3rd child) and the money was really good ( a little over 6 figures a year) but it wasn't worth it. I ended up hating game development, the pressure to make money forces you to make so many compromises. I didn't enjoy it at all. So now game development is back where it belongs, a hobby that I enjoy and something I do almost every night of the week.

I also don't feel bad when I spend time doing low poly modeling, writing articles, or helping beta test other indies games in development because it's not having any impact on my income or my financial future.

If I had had no one depending on me I might take a different course, I might go live on a friends couch and work full time to finish a game and try to build a business that way. But I have 4 people who depend on me to make money to live, I'm not willing to risk their futures to indulge my own interests.

[Bmc]

There are plenty more than the ones you listed... besides since you were planning on cloning Diner Dash why do you care?

Honestly, go ahead and do it.

Just make sure your visual theme is different and it will probably do alright, if not very good.

Hot ones at the moment included
Diner Dash: Flo on the Go (the 3rd DD sequel I believe)
Believe in Santa
Carrie the Caregiver
Flower Shop (which is the one you mentioned)

and I'm sure there will be plenty more by the summer, and I'm positive some of them will be big hits...

The only thing you need to consider is if you have enough money to bring the graphics/sound/story up to the level you'll need to compete.

[zoombapup]

I'm kind of in the same boat as Dan.

I've been developing games for over 20 years now. I did it professionally, I also did it for fun (i.e. its a passion). These days, I teach it to others.

But these days, I also choose WHEN and WHAT I'm developing. Which makes a big difference to me.

It's taken me a long time to really understand that I think. For a long time I cared about making the right game, worried about everything, over-analyzed it etc.

These days, I dont really care, I just like to create what I create, with good people. But I *do* have aspirations to actually turn this into a business, not just for myself, but for a few of us, so that I can pass on that feeling I had when I first got into games development. So my choices have to be tempered with a little business sense.

In this case, I think my design has enough to differentiate itself that it should get a reasonble reception, it might even benefit from the mechanic being "common" in some ways I guess?

[zoombapup]

BMC: my intention WASNT to "clone" diner dash. My intention was to use a similar game mechanic. There is a world of difference in the two approaches.

Cloning is basically roller rash, carrie the caregiver territory.

Thankfully, I have a totally different aesthetic in mind. If I can find the right artist I'm sure it would do pretty well.

[CabalDoug]

Nope.. but I have a level 60 alliance druid, a 60 horde druid and a 60 hunter all who got rank 10 or higher in the old PVP system. (World of Warcraft)

I realized I was wasting my life on that game ( as fun as it is ) and quit a few months ago.

I'm a former WoW addict myself. Three level 60 priests, a level 60 hunter and a level 60 mage later I realized that game is the death of all that is good and productive.

So that the thread isn't completely hijacked I'll throw my 2cents in. I don't think clones are a bad thing. Most have varying mechanics and themes. I know as a gamer, sometimes I'll want to play a varied theme on a certain game type so an overabundance of those types of games doesn't really bother me.

I've been following your blogs over on GG for a while Phil. I say go with whatever your feeling, clone or not.

[cyrus_zuo]

I think the word clone is probably thrown around too casually. A clone for me is something that is nearly identical to something else.

Game players like variety, but they also like what they like. If someone had just read 5 Fantasy books and decided they really liked Fantasy books, there is nothing wrong with making a Fantasy book for them, even if it is predictable and quite similar to other Fantasy books out there. Telling the Fantasy book lover that you have the perfect thing for them, and then handing them a Non-Fiction story about a boy in Somalia doesn't make sense. There is nothing wrong with it, but it shows a lack of consideration for the Fantasy lover.

There are a lot of people who like match-3 and will simply buy new match-3 games to meet their desire, like it's a new book. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with making a match-3 game to meet that desire. It isn't cloning unless your match 3 game is nearly identical to another match 3 game. (some might think that they are all the same...but there are plenty of people who think that Fantasy books are all the same too)

Where cloning comes into play, is those rare instances where the games, are just about identical. Snowy Lunch Rush, copies the way seating is done from Diner Dash. The game basically feels like a re-skin of Diner Dash, which would make it a clone by me. Another example, from Playfirst themselves, is Believe in Santa. They hired the same artist as the one who did Cake Mania and made pretty much an identical game. It's hard to tell the screenshots apart. I would call creating a game that looks and plays just like another game a clone (and since copyright comes into play when you copy 'the expression' of an idea it certainly could become a lawsuit).

Anyway, I think the discussion of cloning is a reasonable topic, but I don't know if it is always approached correctly. Usually by cloning we mean games that are variations on a play mechanic. Under that definition all FPS games would also clones. I don't believe they are. I think the cases of actual clones are very few. The cases of a game mechanic becoming a genre that is loved by audiences, to the point of many variations coming out are common.

Of course there is another issue here, which is that most of the readers of this forum like things that are a little different from the norm. That's how we feel like individuals with our own creative ideas. I think that feeling of wanting to do your own thing is stronger with indie developers than in most other industries (gaming or otherwise). I believe that the sense of wanting to stick out in a crowd is why seeing many games that are similar in how they are played, make us feel uncomfortable.

I personally have the same feeling in movies and music and every other type of entertainment. I look for things that are different because I appreciate them, and the way it makes me feel to be enjoying something that not everyone else enjoys.

On the flip side there isn't anything wrong with looking at Match 3 or one of the click-management games and deciding that you can do it better. Though this forum isn't always the best place to receive positive feedback for that type of thing, it certainly shouldn't decrease the value of doing it.

[Dan MacDonald]

I'm not above charging for something if and when I create something of value, I tend to work with a team and I'd want them to be compensated for their efforts. The general plan I have is work hard and pay down my house over the next few years. In the process work on some cool games and enjoy game development as a hobby. Having done that for a few years, when the house is paid down then there's a good possibility I could take my hobby and turn it into something that could pay enough monthly to support me and my family.

Until then though, I'm not going to rush it. I'm just going to take the time do continue to develop my game design and programming abilities.

[Nexic]

That game got me for a couple of months, luckily I escaped. (my girlfriend burnt the box)

[Christian]

the best thing you can do is learn game design, that will bring you confidence on the game designs you create, and then innovate, its the best way to compete with stablished games.

[zoombapup]

Thanks for the replies. The reason I brought it up, is that I had an idea for something that uses a similar mechanic to Diner Dash, not that it copied it in any way (Russ by the way, check out Carrie the Caregiver, its a COMPLETE clone of Diner Dash).

I just didnt want to make something that portals instantly saw as "just another diner dash" game.

Now that I think about it, I think the game I've got in my head is nowhere near that, in terms of punters actually thinking its the same initially. So it might work out well (the get familiarity of game mechanic to make the feel at ease, but with a completely different game style).

I'm going to work on a "neutral" un-themed version of the game initially though, using numbered blocks instead of sprites, so that I can nail down the gameplay and positioning before going too far with artwork. I figure if THAT feels fun, then having some beautiful graphics stuffed on top wont harm it

At the end of the day, I dont want to be locked out of ANY mechanic, but I do have to be aware of the customer and how they would view the product.

[Grey Alien]

Some great replies in this thread by the way.

What disappoints me is that I had a game plan doc called "Flower shop" on my hard drive since February, but it never got made because I was hired to make a match-3 game instead...oh well, great minds and all that.

So, let me get this straight...Believe in Santa is *not* by the same developers as Cake Mania - it just has the same artist/gameplay? If so then yep that's a pretty blatent clone. If it *is* by the same developer then it's just a Christmas reskin/sequal so fair play. My match-3s could be called reskins/sequals, although the last two had to be completely rewritten in a different language to make use of modern graphics cards; so anyway I think that's fair play - you make an engine, expolit it creatively and enjoy it until the market doesn't want it any more or you get bored I guess.

I'll tell you what, members of this forum (and others) are nearly enough to make me commit financial suicide by stopping making casual games and going back to making my retro platform game that I really want to make for "passion's" sake or whatever you want to call it. Except I'm not going to listen to their ideals which only make business sense in like 1% of cases where some wacky new idea actually becomes a hit instead of a flop. As many great business coaches say, you create money by giving social value - fulfilling the need of many. If you do something for personal value only, it won't make money *unless* it has social value too. So I'm going to try to find the middle line instead of being binary and choosing a "personal" financial-loser game or a sell-out clone that maybe I'm not 100% into. Having said that, I've enjoyed making my match-3s, finishing any game is a great feeling, so maybe there will be a 5th incarnation - the best one yet ;-) flame on...

Oh yeah, and as for WoW, Oblivion, NWN2 etc. I have deliverately avoided buying these as I know I'll become a hopeless addict and achieve nothing. My advice is steer clear until you are rich (or unemployed)

[edit]Phil, at the moment some portals are getting picky about match-3 games yet they accept Diner Dash clones with open arms - don't know how long it'll last though, so get in there!

[princec]

All shackles released
And you know what - I plan to make a living out of clones. Puppystyle.

Cas

[BIGZIPZ]

All shackles released
And you know what - I plan to make a living out of clones. Puppystyle.

Lucky for us your games are brilliant ya big cloner!

[arcadetown]

The Betty's Beer Bar / Diner Dash / Cake Mania genre certainly has earned it's sales stripes all over. Does nicely here. The bar's getting pretty high so if you do be sure to make a very good one with a healthy art spend.

[zoombapup]

Yeah, I appreciate the bar has raised somewhat.

I also have a very different aesthetic in mind, so that would be another differentiator. All in all, I dont think my game would be recognised as a "Diner Dash clone".

[Andy]

The Betty's Beer Bar / Diner Dash / Cake Mania genre ...

I'd say "genre" is pretty correct definition for this specific case. I really don't see how these games could be called clones being so different in basics (from player's POV! - graphics, objects of the game, storyline after all...).

[Christian]

If you do something for personal value only, it won't make money *unless* it has social value too. So I'm going to try to find the middle line instead of being binary and choosing a "personal" financial-loser game or a sell-out clone that maybe I'm not 100% into.

Thats a great way of thinking, it not only gives you satisfaction on what you do but also allows you to survive making what you do.
I think about it in this way, if you concentrate on making a game that you would love people to see you are not entirely thinking in your own taste but also on the taste of many people, but also you are thinking in your individuality in the sense that it is your own creation the one you think its going to be of value to other people. And it doesnt necesarilly have to be a clone or a tweak of an older design, it just have to be something of value, if it its different and original, then much better, because youll have less competition, and it will attract more attention.

[Jesse Hopkins]

---------------

[zoombapup]

Its a great game, thats why it took off. If you play it for a bit, you will immediately enjoy it. Thats the attraction.

A "working" game mechanic is a really big draw.