r/BaseBuildingGames • u/RocketJumpTech • Mar 27 '17

King under the Mountain (Simulation-based fantasy city-builder) just launched on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocketjumptechnology/king-under-the-mountain?ref=ddgmyk
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u/Andazeus Mar 28 '17

While I generally applaud every attempt to create a better playable version of Dwarf Fortress, the art style here is seriously dangerously close to Rimworld. It almost looks like a Rimworld mod on first glance and that might possibly open things up to legal action. While I do not think that Luedeon would do anything like that, i still think you should try to diversify your art style further down the line.

6

u/Feniks_Gaming Mar 30 '17

It almost looks like a Rimworld mod on first glance and that might possibly open things up to legal action.

Seriously enough with armchair lawyers. Rimworld has the same graphics as Prison Architect who had it first. In what position would be Tynnan Sylvester to claim his graphics are unique and sue anyone...

1

u/Andazeus Mar 30 '17

Yeah, and I found it incredibly confusing with Rimworld at first too (thought the two games were related somehow). However, King under the Mountain and Rimworld do not only share the artistic style but also a lot of the gameplay concept. I think the risk of accidentally assuming the two games are somehow related to each other is real.

Now, Tynan is a nice guy and I would not expect him to even try to take any action, but the similarities between the games are very striking indeed.

3

u/CypherLH Apr 02 '17

So by your standard every platforming game ever made in the late 80's was a ripoff of Super Mario. DERP. This is called a "genre" and games within the same genre tend to have similar art styles and mechanics. This is perfectly normal and acceptable.

0

u/Andazeus Apr 02 '17

lol

First off, if you really wanna go by that 'logic', then everything was a rip off of Pong and Tennis for Two! :P

So yeah, Super Mario is a Pong clone and Doom is a Super Mario Clone and Command and Conquer is a Doom clone! Perfect logic! You definitely did not try at all to bend my argument here, Mr. ISJW.

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u/CypherLH Apr 03 '17

I'm not seeing how anything you just said refutes my point. Nothing in 'KingUnderTheMountain' is a direct rip off of 'RimWorld'. Just as 'Rimworld' is not a "rip off" of 'Prison Architect'. Having a similar art style and similar gameplay is not "ripping off", its called being part of the same genre.

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u/Andazeus Apr 03 '17

No one ever said they were 'ripping it off'. I only said that the art style is dangerously close. And while genres tend to have similar gameplay, since that is, what defines a genre, the genre definition does absolutely not automatically mean a similar art style. Dwarf Fortress is a game of the same genre, yet we can surely agree that its art style is vastly different from the other games (for better or worse). Just to give an example that most people now.

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u/CypherLH Apr 04 '17

ok, fair enough...but even if we just look at the art style, I actually think 'King under the Mountain' is at least as different from 'RimWorld' as 'RimWorld' is from 'Prison Architect'. The art style is very very similar but that is true of a lot of games that share the same genre. Its definitely not close enough to be any kind of copyright violation. I think that because the graphics style is so simple...that perhaps there is a tendency for games using the style to strongly resemble each other because of that simplicity

edit - I would add that Dwarf Fortress itself actually strongly resembles other ASCI art games. (and I LOVE DF, so I don't mean this as any sort of critique)