XBL Indie Dev Clones Minecraft With FortressCraft

[JackKrauserFtw]

Can anyone say breach of copyright?

Can you copyright things people do in the real world? It's not like he invented blocks or block based gaming and, like the article said, Infiniminer inspired minecraft.

Its a breach of intellectual property as far as I'm concerned, basically Microsoft being "Hey we have more resources and man power than Notch, lets try kill Minecraft!". Theres a fine line between homage and just plain ripping it off...

 

[Kakashi on crack]

Can anyone say stealing intellectual property and breach of copyright?

I mean, sure, it looks interesting, but this is blatant abuse of the hype for one game to try and get money for another game. They didn't even really change up the mechanics of the game. The only difference is that it's for the Xbox and has better graphics...

Maybe not others, but I like minecraft BECAUSE of its classical old-school style graphics and mechanics. Sure, this looks interesting, but as far as I'm concerned its abuse...

 

[tthor]

Minecraft with better graphics?! Hell yes!! This game better have creepers though, yes they suck to run into but they're just a key part of the experience. Nothing like running into four of them during your first dungeon crawl.

why would better graphics really be desired in something like minecraft? its a world made entirely of 1meter tall blocks, it already by nature looks pixilated from a distance. it seems like it would be no different then something like 'high definition stickfigures'. and plus, the graphics add to the charm

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I love minecraft but I'm not a fanboi, competition is good for everyone.

If you look at the videos it looks like he has some mechanics that minecraft doesn't like self propelled carts. Yes I know MC has cart engines but his carts look like they don't need them.

If the dev is good to his youtube comments then he is trying to clone dwarf fortress more than MC. If so good because MC needs a kick in the pants to introduce blatently obvious design improvements like oh MULTITHREADING, and 3d chunking.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

This reminds me of MaXplosion, for some reason.

 

[Ashsaver]

All we need now are similar games on Psn and Wiiware then the circle will be completed,we can then summon the almighty Notch from Heaven to take over the world!

 

[Feylynn]

I think if you are going to high res texture things you need to 'fake' the low res aesthetic or drop the block game play entirely. It looks really sloppy when you mix giant cube landscapes with attempted realism, this is the reason I don't re texture MineCraft.
Granted their water looks nice, I still don't think it compares to the 8bit charm.

On other notes, I don't have a reason to switch from MC. I don't imagine any level of innovation can trump the existing formula. It's brilliant in its simplicity. Also, I have friends on MineCraft, we've all bought it pre-beta and that means set for the rest of its life.

 

[ratman995]

Yeah, mojang better sue for this, since basically what they are doing is doing minecraft with a few mods such as minecolony (the one that gives minions) He is a bedroom programmer, any more capital to make minecraft bigger would be awesome

 

[Death God]

It does look reasonably well but I am surprised Mojang isn't even the least bit upset by it. I know I would be at least a tiny bit mad at a larger company taking all the basics of my game and making it their own.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Haha, about time Minecraft got some clones happening. But all this one seems to have added are minions and the HD textures... which isn't really that much of an improvement, to be honest. I've installed about 10 different HD texturepacks for Minecraft over the course of my playing with it, and you know what? I almost always end up going back to the default. Seriously, so many people like to fling their poo at Notch because they can come up with all these examples of what individual mods can do and claim that he's 'lazy' for not doing the same: but the reality is that he has to look at the big picture. And he does a good job of that. The reason Minecraft's default textures work so well is that they're designed first and foremost to be functional. Custom texturepacks are usually visually overindulgent, making enemies much more busy and slightly harder to process, making the icons way too elaborate, and most often messing up the biome grass colours that Notch has done an almost perfect job of using to create gentle transitions from grassland to plains to alpine regions and so on, minus the issue with the side of the block. Sooo many people look at the textures and think "16 bit? I could make that look prettier!" and do so without thinking about the functionality of it.

So don't fret, this game won't make a dent in Minecraft's popularity. Good to see the xbox owners getting some love though.

 

[Tdc2182]

My Minecraft has crashed on my computer, So I honestly will probably just splurge the money for this game.

 

[OniaPL]

Sorry but this seems just so plain wrong to me. FortressCraft? Seriously?

Notch deserves all the honor for his game, and these kind of rip-offs should be shot down immediately.

 

[PurplePlatypus]

It sounds like, by the end of it at least, it?s going to turn out fairly different to minecraft.

Unfortunately the video of it didn?t really give much of an indication of the differences the article started to talk about. Minecraft was once a lot more similar to Infinminer but it?s gone places since then.

 

[Chainsaws_of_War_2]

Heh, I could less about the humbleness of Minecraft's origins, all that matters is what its become now for the gaming community.

The honor and knighthood Notch deserves for creating Minecraft is grossly misplaced, as the game itself was a copy of another game that copied itself from yet another game. I'm afraid this thread will become just another PC vs. Console war, even though there is massive potential here for the fair discussion of clones as a whole and how they affect gaming.

 

[Yokai]

Oh, come on Goldman. Minecraft fans should look FORWARD to someone ripping off the game we already love? They're just jumping on the Minecraft bandwagon for the money. I suppose you'd support Microsoft making a game titled "Legend of Belda" in which a pointy-eared kid in a green tunic slew a pig and saved a princess and found four golden glowing squares of power too, right? This greed in the industry is exactly what we should be ignoring and not buying into. Indie developers should focus on making new, creative, innovative game experiences like Notch already did with Minecraft, not blatantly copying each other for profit.

Well said, sir.

It's not like they're just drawing inspiration from Minecraft here. I see the same terrain, the same tools, the same items, the same everything--they're simply taking advantage of the fact Notch doesn't want to develop for the Xbox. Hell, I even saw the little bookshelf cubes in there. It's true that this will be a great thing for console gamers who have an old PC, but calling it anything other than a blatant ripoff would be a mistake.

Also, the cube-based models mixed with the high-resolution textures look terrible. /petty complaint

 

[noble cookie]

Notch even said he didnt mind clones, apparentley.
Just let us console gamers get our fill of the action. This will hardly impact Minecraft.

EDIT: At least look more into the game before you insult it, it's not being made by Microsoft, it's being made by an indie developer.

 

[Stomponato]

It seems, nobody can be bothered by the fact that Minecraft itself is "inspired" (read: a ripoff with some green paint added) by Infiniminer, but suddenly ripping off Minecraft is considered "bad" and "wrong".

Sadly, my computer is in no state to run MC, so I'll probably give FC a look...

 

[Estocavio]

if MC was Copyright notched could sue their asses!
this is just a MC ripoff and nothing more!
also MC,s relativly bad graphics gave it charm this just looks too realistic

It isnt even the realism - Its the realism with the blocks. If it didnt use blocks itd be fine.
You cant blend Realism with Unrealism, and thats what these people dont get.

 

[Yokai]

Notch even said he didnt mind clones, apparentley.
Just let us console gamers get our fill of the action. This will hardly impact Minecraft.

EDIT: At least look more into the game before you insult it, it's not being made by Microsoft, it's being made by an indie developer.

If you meant this post:

Oh, come on Goldman. Minecraft fans should look FORWARD to someone ripping off the game we already love? They're just jumping on the Minecraft bandwagon for the money. I suppose you'd support Microsoft making a game titled "Legend of Belda" in which a pointy-eared kid in a green tunic slew a pig and saved a princess and found four golden glowing squares of power too, right? This greed in the industry is exactly what we should be ignoring and not buying into. Indie developers should focus on making new, creative, innovative game experiences like Notch already did with Minecraft, not blatantly copying each other for profit.

I believe what he was trying to do was compare Mojang and Projector to Nintendo and Microsoft. His analogy was that of Microsoft copying Nintendo's game, not of Microsoft copying Mojang's game. He mentions it's an indie developer at the end there.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

There is a difference between inspiration and outright theft.

The game is even stealing half of the fucking title, so let's stop kidding ourselves that this is anything but a blatant ripoff. From that trailer, it's just Minecraft with more sophisticated rendering (and worse graphics IMO, no charm to the simplicity there at all). Every block in that trailer was a direct copy of a block in Minecraft and there was even a minecart.

The difference between Minecraft and Infiniminer is immense and it's very clearly an instance of inspiration. This is just the same damn game and I'm saddened by the comparison between what Notch did with his inspiration and what this guy is doing with his copying.