The site's in SWF, but no playable demo? Do we still have to go to neave.com for that? Well at least there's no detailed BS claim that the rules of a game can be copyrighted. A document such as the Guideline or a program can, but the rules it describes can't. That's patent territory, and last time I checked on uspto.gov, there were no US patents assigned to Tetris Holding, Tetris Company, or Elorg.
A patent on allowing pieces to be controlled in some manner during entry delay? Tetris & Dr. Mario's Tetris mode had initial fall delay, which is similar, although it allows movement in addition to rotation during delay. Lumines exaggerates this effect. A patent on not sampling the rotation buttons during line delay and entry delay, which makes it recognize keypresses as occurring just as the entry delay ends? I would imagine that a whole bunch of "buggy" clones are prior art. In particular, Carbon Engine had this "bug", although for line delay because it had no entry delay. A patent on taking people's money and redistributing it socialistically? Otherwise, it's a good thing that patents are limited in geographic scope.
All i seem to read nowadays in the few tech news sources I subscribe to is how bad patents are. It seems to me the whole system needs a overhaul.
@all: so - you seem to have quite some knowledge about copyright / patents. 1. my question: is a puzzle arrangement copyrightable? im talkning abput TDS touch puzzles. what will happen with me if i would clone (some / all of) the puzzles in my tetris clone? i see there a problem: some of the easier puzzle layouts are so obvious, that i can imagine them by myself without ever having played TDS... and what about if i ask here in the forum you fans to create some puzzles and they turn out to be identical by pure luck with some TDS puzzles (maybe just because the creator subconcisously remembers the puzzle mechanics from once playing TDS montsh ago) ? 2. is there any / some interest in making your own touch - puzzles? because i'm not that far away from beeing able to do them. i can already drag pieces around with mouse. ( http://www.coreloop.com/dump/gravytris.exe)
More than likely. If you have not played Tetris DS, then you may publish them as an independent creation. But if you have played Tetris DS, then you are infringing copyright. Case law in at least the United States is that access + substantial similarity = copying. Of course, if you plan on selling something, talk to a lawyer. Then you get into cryptomnesia, which is no defense to infringement. As long as your engine can do Puzznic and Klotski too, this should distract Mister Rogers.
@tepples: thanks alot!! i would be curious if they have licensing options for shareware. for example - 5% of each sold unit. that would allow me / us to do everything legal.. probably just adding a little re-appearing nag-screen and make an otherwise fully playable version of tetris. but i suspect that they will give licenses to small shareware projects.. i remember that ludusdesign.com (quadra) once tried to contact tetris comp. to officially licence tetris, but got no replies, none per email and no success per phone. any idea if this has changed nowadays? anyone knows details about licensing conditions for tetrs.?
Neave must have attracted some attention, because it was originally called 'Tetris', not N-Blox. The version I downloaded ages ago proves that.
yeah, i remember when that happened... makes sense, the thing is in every damn forum arcade there is.
