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Puzzle Games (Games)

The Casual Game Clone Wars 36

Posted by Zonk from the war-of-the-puzzle-siblings dept.
Casual games are ever more financially lucrative in the new world of everyday games. With money to be made, clones of successful games can be launched in a very short period of time, resulting in the original title vying for financial success with its johnny-come-lately play-alike. From the article: "But, while PopCap's James Gwertzman comments in a recent interview of Zuma's success in 2004: 'We were all very excited about it, but it's 2005 and there have been a ton of very obvious Zuma clones', we have to ask - how about Mitchell's 1998 title Puzzloop for arcades, also known as Ballistic for PSX in the States? The game's basic design seems identical to Zuma. There was even some talk of Mitchell, which has released a PC version of Puzzloop, taking PopCap to court over the issue, though neither company has ever made public statements about it."
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The Casual Game Clone Wars More

The Casual Game Clone Wars

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  • Hey, did you see how black kettle was? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irc.goatse.cx troll ( 593289 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @07:06PM (#14418797) Journal
    Meh, Not going to bother to install their browser component just to see what game they ripped off, but I strongly doubt anything popcap offers is original. Fun maybe, good implentations, I'll accept, but not originals. They have a bunch of old puzzle games that have been around since the win3.11 shareware days, just because they port them to a web browser plugin and give them a pretty name doesnt mean people copy them when they do the same.
    • I will easily admit that I don't know all games, but while Popcap's games are derivitave, it is usually less so than Zuma.

      Bejeweled owes its lineage only to Nintendo's Puzzle League, and it's a tenuous connnection.

      Heavy Weapon has some similarities to an 80s PC game which has gone by many names (Parachute and Sabotage being the two I knew of) and which recently appeared on the iPod as a hidden game. However, Heavy Weapon sports significant improvements, and works more as a redevelopment than a ripoff.

      Rocke
      • There's nothing wrong with borrowing an idea, as long as you twist/improve on it.

        Bejewled is VERY different from Nintendo's Puzzle League/Tetris Attack, yes there are similarities, but it is a different game, no doubt.

        On the other hand, the DS launch game 'Zookeeper' looks like a true rip-off of Bejeweled.

        The thing is, if you're first with a design, and market yourself properly, you'll have the brand recognition, then when people have a choice between the two games, they'll choose yours.

        Also, when the faker
      • Insaniquarium's significance can't be understated - it's one of the best PopCap titles, and among the most original I've ever seen in the hyper-derivative webgame field. Very solid game there. That's worth getting the plugin for.
    • Backing up the other poster, Insaniquarium is as completely original as any game can get. Who knew feeding fish could be so much fun!

  • It's not just Popcap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by deanj ( 519759 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @08:20PM (#14419087)
    Snood's the same way. It's a clone of an 80s game. Gotta hand it to the developer tho, started off as a one-man operation, and it's made him millions.

    The real problem is that some of these outfits have gotten so big, that if a small-time developer comes out with a new game gets any kind of good response, the big guys swoop in, draw some pretty graphics, and whammo, the little guy has just had his market taken away.

    Even with that, I hope that this doesn't turn into a legal battle. The only people that win those things are the lawyers, and lawyers have ruined (or nearly ruined) enough industries already.

  • That was my first thought, actually (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @08:25PM (#14419112) Homepage
    Someone sent a link to Zuma a little while back. My first thought upon playing it was "this is a PC version of Puzzloop."

    Now, if you want to trace it back further, Puzzloop was based somewhat more loosely on a linear version of Bust a Move, which in turn was a hexagonal interpretation of Columns. Columns was Sega's attempt to get in on the success of Tetris.

    Of course, the difference between stealing is how much interpretation goes on between the steps, and how honest the developers are about the originality. Puzzle Pirates has a swordfighting system with is clearly based upon Puzzle Fighter. Puzzle Fighter in turn was based upon Waku Waku Animal, which was an attempt to rip off Puyo Pop, which was a somewhat more successful attempt to rip off columns, who was going for tetris. However, if you look at the Swordfighting in Puzzle Pirates and Tetris, there is a huge delta between the two. Likewise, you can trace fighting games from Soul Calibur III -> Soul Calibur -> Tekken -> Mortal Kombat -> Street Fighter II -> Street Fighter I -> Karate Champ, and back up from Karate Champ -> Kung Fu -> Double Dragon -> Ninja Gaiden -> Strider -> Sonic the Hedgehog -> Sonic Adventures.

    My point is that fundamental game mechanics flow between games, in the same way that camera movements flow between movies and bad acting flows between TV shows. The mechanics are building blocks from which games emerge, but they are not the games themselves. It isn't the individual mechanics per-say, but the execution that matters.
    • Nice theory, the problem is that Zuma is a direct copy of Puzzloop. It's identical in all but name and graphic theme.

      None of the other games you compare are direct copies of each other. A game being in the same genre as another game does not make it a 'rip off' of the original game.
    • I hate to be a stickler for correctness, but Street Fighter II was the sequel to the game Fighting Street (which was available for the TurboGrafx-CD system).
      • Street Fighter II was a sequel to the Arcade game Street Fighter. The Turbo Grafx CD game was released in Japan on 12/04/88. The arcade game was released a year earlier, so the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx CD game was just a port from the arcade. Not to be an ass but if you are going to correct someone please check your facts first.
      • I hate to be a stickler for correctness, but Street Fighter II was the sequel to the game Fighting Street (which was available for the TurboGrafx-CD system).

        Well, I like being a stickler for correctness :) and it turns out that Street Fighter I is AKA Fighting Street on the PC Engine/Turbografx 16. It was released in the arcades first in 1987 as Street Fighter, and originally had buttons that were sensitive to the amount of force a player put on them. Push harder for stronger punches and kicks! That syst
      • To all those who corrected me, I hereby turn in my geek card. I had never seen the arcade game, and only knew of the TG-CD game. Please forgive me.
    • But when you're talking about games which are based on simplified, yet ingenious, play mechanics, a good number of which I count among my favorites, your argument breaks down. There is actually a world of difference, for example, between Bust-A-Move, aka Puzzle Bobble, and Columns, far more than your dismissive statement suggests. Columns has quite a bit more in common with Tetris, but there's substantial differences even in that. But if you want to look at it broadly enough, all these games have a simil

  • Just goes to show you (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vga_init ( 589198 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:13PM (#14419485) Journal

    Unless you want to market games on a really unique and proprietary platform, casual gaming and commercial gaming are two things that are difficult to mix. This article shows the most obvious reason why: cloning. The reason for this is that most casual games are so simple that most programmers are able to whip out their own version, possibly making modifications to suit their personal needs.

    The bright side of this is that these are ideal free software projects. When I delved into the world of free software, I could not help but notice that the majority of games available were small, casual games. Some of them were quite clever, many were unusually addictive, and the vast majority were clones of something.

    If you ask me, casual games ought to be free software because, among other reasons, it A) helps to ensure the longevity of your game and B) helps others to not have to reinvent the wheel. Why rewrite your game as a clone when they can just port it to a new platform or create their own skins? If they think they can make it better, they already have your code to start off with, so they can extend it or examine it while writing their own engine.

    I like to think of casual gaming as "generic gaming", and I find it to be healthy that there is a lot of borrowing going on.

    • Unless you want to market games on a really unique and proprietary platform

      ...or even if you are marketing your casual game on a proprietary platform, it'll get cloned. Just look at what happened to Lumines; there's now an accurate GPL'd clone for GBA [pineight.com].

      • The best thing about Lumines is it's sound, video and music. It's a strange kind of psychedelic game. The puzzle itself is good, but the music and video really make it shine. This clone does not have that, so IMO it won't be a fun to play.

        • The puzzle itself is good, but the music and video really make it shine. This clone does not have that, so IMO it won't be a fun to play.

          It doesn't have the video, but (if you're not using the GBA Movie Player v2) it does have custom soundtracks. Use GSM tools for GBA [pineight.com] to make a gsmsongs.gba file, copy it into Luminesweeper's folder, and then you can edit the skins to use your music. All is described in the readme file.

  • This is exactly the same game as Tumblebugs, both Zuma and Tumblebugs can be played on yahoo.com games site.
  • ...was called Block Out. It was available in the arcades and on the PC. To me, it seemed like a 3-d version of Tetris. And man was it ever fun. It got frustrating when you got to the three-dimensional pieces, and didn't have enough room and/or time to slot it in.

    To me that game was highly underrated. I love puzzle games, and chances are there's a puzzle game concept that's a template that will be used by several companies. I just wish they, when a clone was made, added some spice to it. Imagine alternate ve
    • I do not remember seeing BlockOut in the arcades. However I do remember it on the Sega Genesis. And thought it was strange to have a 3D tetris game on a system with no scaling capabilities. It would not have been underrated if they got the licenses for a 3D tetris name title.

      • I do not remember seeing BlockOut in the arcades. However I do remember it on the Sega Genesis.

        I'm guessing that this is what you're talking about [gamefaqs.com]. I'm more familiar with Technos's version of the 3D tetromino stacking game under the name "Geom Cube" on the PlayStation.

        And thought it was strange to have a 3D tetris game on a system with no scaling capabilities.

        Of course the Mega Drive aka Genesis had scaling capabilities; they were just done in software. It's possible to map most of the display of

  • For example Bejeweled (PopCaps big game)is extremely similar to Zookeeper [bobpitch.com](Not its original home, it went missing from the Jap site where it was originally).

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