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Pitfall! for Atari Lynx


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Exactly that is what I'm expecting we will do. :) Only thing is that if it's up to me I'll want to make it look much better than Colecovision/5200 graphics. :)

 

Oh, absolutely. I'm sure you could do a gorgeous version with the Lynx graphics. I mentioned those two 8-bit versions merely as examples of enhancing the graphics over the 2600 version. Personally, I'd probably go with a nice sunset, nice jungle leaves, maybe ferns in the underbrush, etc.

 

Is the name Jungle Venture taken? It IS a venture through a jungle. :) I realize David Crane referred to his kickstarter project as a "Jungle Adventure," but it was not my impression that he was gong to use that as the name of his game.

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What you can't do is copy the characters.

This made me think of fan-made TV shows like Star Trek: New Voyages... They have a Captain Kirk wearing a yellow shirt who does his best to mimic Shatner. There's also Spock, Uhura, Scotty... They even have some of the old cast come back and even call it "Star Trek!" I understand that they get away with it because they make no profit from it.

 

Not sure of the differences between a video game and a TV show, but logically (sorry, been watching a lot of Star Trek lately) I'd think they'd be a similar set of rules. Couldn't it be called "Lynx Pitfall" or "LX Pitfall" or somesuch?

Edited by Gregory DG
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This made me think of fan-made TV shows like Star Trek: New Voyages... They have a Captain Kirk wearing a yellow shirt who does his best to mimic Shatner. There's also Spock, Uhura, Scotty... They even have some of the old cast come back and even call it "Star Trek!" I understand that they get away with it because they make no profit from it.

 

Not sure of the differences between a video game and a TV show, but logically (sorry, been watching a lot of Star Trek lately) I'd think they'd be a similar set of rules. Couldn't it be called "Lynx Pitfall" or "LX Pitfall" or somesuch?

 

That you should mention Star Trek... I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread as well. :)

Yes, the Star Trek fanfilms make me wonder. I presume the difference is that Paramount probably actually permitted those projects; like an official license for specific film projects that are non-profit. Activision could do the same bet, but they won't see the value in it for them from a marketing standpoint. Like, those Star-Trek-fanfilms keep the franchise alive with no cost for Paramount, reaching tens of thousands of people. If we do a Lynx game, Activision will see 100 or 200 people ever playing it; the Lynx scene is so small they may think it's not worth anything as far as free advertisements go.

 

Getting back to Star Trek once more: The openness to fan projects made me suggest Stardreamer could have a Star Trek theme, but I think Karri likes Babylon 5 better. And if Babylon 5 rights are available for such projects I don't know.

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Like, those Star-Trek-fanfilms keep the franchise alive with no cost for Paramount, reaching tens of thousands of people. If we do a Lynx game, Activision will see 100 or 200 people ever playing it; the Lynx scene is so small they may think it's not worth anything as far as free advertisements go.

Yeah, that makes sense. Of course the reverse is true, if so few people play Pitfall on Lynx, what does it really matter? (Yeah, and I get the whole forced to protect copyrights or lose them thing.)

 

I think the solution is for Activision to be more open about allowing these small fan projects. Sadly, I think they're too big thesedays to care about their true fanbase.

Edited by Gregory DG
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Yeah, that makes sense. Of course the reverse is true, if so few people play Pitfall on Lynx, what does it really matter? (Yeah, and I get the whole forced to protect copyrights or lose them thing.)

 

You're thinking of "trademarks", which you have to defend. A copyright cannot be lost (it can expire eventually.) IANAL, but this is pretty basic stuff about trademarks and copyrights that is often confused.

 

I think the solution is for Activision to be more open about allowing these small fan projects. Sadly, I think they're too big thesedays to care about their true fanbase.

 

I agree... I think there are many different things going on though. One is that no one in a large company like this is willing to make the call without bringing in the lawyers, and to bring in the lawyers, you are going to have to pay them, get upper management approval, etc... all things you don't want to do lightly, especially if you're only a cog in the machine. I also believe that in some cases, it's not fully understood what you are trying to do and what the scope is. We all know a programmer sitting in his basement coding Pitfall for the Lynx isn't going to do any damage to Activision's interests, but do the Activision folks and lawyers? Probably all they see is a request for someone to use the Activision IP, and they, think "why would we allow that? We're releasing Pitfall for the iPhone 7 next week, they can play it on there." It's much easier for them to just say no.

 

Some programmers may want you to ask and get offended if you don't, but to me (again IANAL), it just seems better not to poke the sleeping bear. What they don't know won't hurt them, and everyone is happy-when talking about 20-30 year old hardware anyway... don't try to release Pitfall in the Apple Store. :)

Edited by Shawn Jefferson
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