A lawyer will be able to tell you broad strokes, like "gameplay itself is not covered by copyright, though specific expressions are."
I doubt a lawyer would give you advice one way or the other specifically about helicopters and ladders, unless you paid them significant sums of money to to a 'thorough' search for prior IP. By "significant' I mean dozens of hours of research time at hundreds of dollars per hour.
If you want to make yourself feel more comfortable, do some searching yourself. You can look to see if specific gameplay systems/processes are patented through places like Google Patent or freepatentsonline.com. And/or you can look to other helicopter games to see if they have similar mechanics.
IMHO ("O" of course stands for Opinion) Unless you're doing a blatant ripoff (literally duplicating gameplay, terrain layout, scoring, story, etc) you should just make your game, bringing your own unique elements, even if both your game and Desert Strike share helicopters picking up people and things (which is what helicopters do, afterall).
Btw, thanks for the flashback-- I worked on Desert Strike (SNES and Genesis).
Brian Schmidt
GameSoundCon
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#2bschmidt1962
Posted 01 October 2012 - 09:28 AM
A lawyer will be able to tell you broad strokes, like "gameplay itself is not covered by copyright, though specific expressions are."
I doubt a lawyer would give you advice one way or the other specifically about helicopters and ladders, unless you paid them significant sums of money to to a 'thorough' search for prior IP. By "significant' I mean dozens of hours of research time at hundreds of dollars per hour.
If you want to make yourself feel more comfortable, do some searching yourself. You can look to see if specific gameplay systems/processes are patented through places like Google Patent or freepatentsonline.com. And/or you can look to other helicopter games to see if they have similar mechanics.
IMHO ("O" of course stands for Opinion) Unless you're doing a blatant ripoff (literally duplicating gameplay, terrain layout, scoring, story, etc) you should just make your game, bringing your own unique elements, even if though both your game and Desert Strike share helicopters picking up people and things (which is what helicopters do, afterall).
Btw, thanks for the flashback-- I worked on Desert Strike (SNES and Genesis).
Brian Schmidt
GameSoundCon
I doubt a lawyer would give you advice one way or the other specifically about helicopters and ladders, unless you paid them significant sums of money to to a 'thorough' search for prior IP. By "significant' I mean dozens of hours of research time at hundreds of dollars per hour.
If you want to make yourself feel more comfortable, do some searching yourself. You can look to see if specific gameplay systems/processes are patented through places like Google Patent or freepatentsonline.com. And/or you can look to other helicopter games to see if they have similar mechanics.
IMHO ("O" of course stands for Opinion) Unless you're doing a blatant ripoff (literally duplicating gameplay, terrain layout, scoring, story, etc) you should just make your game, bringing your own unique elements, even if though both your game and Desert Strike share helicopters picking up people and things (which is what helicopters do, afterall).
Btw, thanks for the flashback-- I worked on Desert Strike (SNES and Genesis).
Brian Schmidt
GameSoundCon
#1bschmidt1962
Posted 01 October 2012 - 09:27 AM
A lawyer will be able to tell you broad strokes, like "gameplay itself is not covered by copyright, though specific expressions are."
I doubt a lawyer would give you advice one way or the other specifically about helicopters and ladders, unless you paid them significant sums of money to to a 'thorough' search for prior IP. By "significant' I mean dozens of hours of research time at hundreds of dollars per hour.
If you want to make yourself feel more comfortable, do some searching yourself. You can look to see if specific gameplay systems/processes are patented through places like Google Patent or freepatentsonline.com. And/or you can look to other helicopter games to see if they have similar mechanics.
Unless you're doing a blatant ripoff (literally duplicating gameplay, terrain layout, scoring, story, etc) you should just make your game, bringing your own unique elements, even if though both your game and Desert Strike share helicopters picking up people and things (which is what helicopters do, afterall).
Btw, thanks for the flashback-- I worked on Desert Strike (SNES and Genesis).
Brian Schmidt
GameSoundCon
I doubt a lawyer would give you advice one way or the other specifically about helicopters and ladders, unless you paid them significant sums of money to to a 'thorough' search for prior IP. By "significant' I mean dozens of hours of research time at hundreds of dollars per hour.
If you want to make yourself feel more comfortable, do some searching yourself. You can look to see if specific gameplay systems/processes are patented through places like Google Patent or freepatentsonline.com. And/or you can look to other helicopter games to see if they have similar mechanics.
Unless you're doing a blatant ripoff (literally duplicating gameplay, terrain layout, scoring, story, etc) you should just make your game, bringing your own unique elements, even if though both your game and Desert Strike share helicopters picking up people and things (which is what helicopters do, afterall).
Btw, thanks for the flashback-- I worked on Desert Strike (SNES and Genesis).
Brian Schmidt
GameSoundCon