Pipanic - Movie Game Contest Entry

Started by Holzchopf, April 10, 2018, 21:07:38

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TomToad

the apk works fine. My guess is that when uploaded to Google play, an unneeded requirement was selected, keeping the app from installing on my devices.
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8 rabbits equals 1 rabbyte.

Holzchopf

#16
Well the permissions are stored within the APK, not chosen upon the creation in the app store. So I don't think it's a requirement thing. I just checked the Google Play Console and according to it over 90% of all devices should be able to run this game. And LG K20 Plus and Galaxy Tab 4 are even listed as compatible.

One question left: From where do you try to download it? I disabled some countries, maybe this could also cause issues.

Edit
Just checked your user profile: Florida. Florida US I guess. Well bad luck for you :P I first need to read deeper into the copyright laws of the states before I'm going to enable it. I've heard ugly stuff about it.

TomToad

What copyright are you worried about? The Titanic is a historical event. No one has a copyright on that. If you're worried about the movie, the game is nothing like that, so no worries there. If you're worried about the name of the shop itself, that is not owned by anyone in the US. If you're worried about your own IP being stolen, what makes the US worse than any other country (such as Sweden, home of Pirate Bay).

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8 rabbits equals 1 rabbyte.

Holzchopf

I'm only worried about the opening screen where the ship is shown from a perspective so it looks like a peak in combination with the title that uses probably the exact same font as the original film poster. Here I'm pretty sure that the pixelart of the ship and the title (which is NOT Titanic) are individualised enough plus it's easy to tell it's a parody. But I'm also pretty sure that I read once the "parody" criterion wouldn't count in the states. But that's a long time ago, maybe even from an era when the word copyright was more of a myth in the interwebs and therefore 99% of the articles about it were 101% incorrect.

Yeah, that's the thing I'm trying to figure out.

It's already hard to find useful information about this topic in my mother tongue; most of the articles are written by law firms overcomplicating stuff so you're more likely to contact them to clear things up - it's their business, I don't blame them. And the rest, the serious sources, unfortunately often just cover the basics.

Scaremonger

Hi,

Not sure how much detail you need to identify the black-box problem, but my Laptop is a HP ProBook 6550b: Full Specs Here.

dxdiag results are attached

Si...

Scaremonger


Just Installed it on android (Samsung Galaxy S2 10.1) and it plays very well. Very addictive.

Derron

@ Holzchopf
You might have a look if they have a registered image trademark ("Bildmarke" in German) for this logo/cover - I doubt that. But on the other hand I had issues years ago (and written here and on blitzmax.com a couple of times) with "red sky/dawn" background in a Settlers-of-Catan-computer-game-clone. They had a "Bildmarke" for it and this allowed for a CnD-letter for me hosting the download of this freeware game. So not the "logo" (text/name) but the image was the culprit. Means it could really be registered and "trademarked" somehow.

The "Titanic 2" movie poster has a very similar look - which might say, "no biggie, just use a similar shot an no problem there". "Titanic" itself wont be trademarkable for movies, games... - means "Pipanic" is no issue there.


What I suggest is: "just" create another startscreen image: including your iceberg and a ship in the background? Of course this is only useful if you get more than a handful of downloads.


bye
Ron


Holzchopf

#22
BTW my first submission was rejected because
QuoteThe app's full description mentions other brands: Titanic

But thanks for the trademark hint. There are a couple of image trademarks registered but none of them looks remotely close to my opening screen. Well, the logo from the film is registered by a company named Twentieth something idk and idc and uses indeed almost the same font. But that's not a US-only problem and furthermore I'm really positive there's no risk of confusion between Titanic and Pipanic (<edit>also, it's in a different class</edit>). We drifted off a little.

In the meantime I found several sources reporting about the "fair use" doctrine and I came to the conclusion to make the game accessible in the states as well.

Holzchopf

Quote from: Scaremonger on April 16, 2018, 20:38:03Not sure how much detail you need to identify the black-box problem, but my Laptop is a HP ProBook 6550b: Full Specs Here.

Thanks. I kinda hoped to see a OpenGL version that's too low, but it has 2.0 and therefore it should work. So unfortunately I can't be of help here :-X

But I'm glad you like the Android version :)

Derron

Maybe try with another simple monkey/cerberus-example ?

Just to check whether it fails with your assets, or with cerberus/monkey at all (so eg. OpenGL). Maybe it fails with some "MaskColor" - instead of a predefined AlphaChannel (PNGs).


bye
Ron