The Zelda-inspired indie game that causes excitement

A new entry in IGN‘s quirky indie developer funding contest, Rogue Jamraised eyebrows at its apparent visual resemblance to Nintendo’s 2019 Switch remake The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. In response, many try to stir up some kind of controversy, as if art hasn’t worked that way since the dawn of mankind. As a matter of fact Myplacedthe game in question, looks intriguing.

Mighty powerhouse for money IGN somehow turned indie development funding into a reality TV show. Rogue Jam is a heavily sponsored video series that sees a number of industry figures – including Reggie Fils-Aimé – judging unsigned games in development in order to secure a deal with publisher Rogue. In the latest episode, they decide the Audience Award, which apparently at one point has an audience voting for their favorite games from a selection, creating a Final Four from which the jury only chooses one.

In all of this over-produced, confusingly edited creation zelda-Doppelganger Myplaced, and his co-creator Soheyl Ghiami. The whole episode plays out as an awkward confusion asking unknown indie developers to reach out to major industry figures who would otherwise ignore them so IGN can sell Galaxy Racer ads. (Be sure to watch 26:36, when the music “DUH-DAH-DUUUUUN” plays after the most mundane Reggie comment about a game being called Cold happinesswhile the show throws to imaginary commercials.)

Although the name makes it seem like someone tried to remember this pre-Facebook social site, this is actually a game that looks very similar to the recent remake of Instant Link’s Awakening. And in the panel’s honor, they’re not condemning the game for its visual resemblance to the 2019 Switch remake, instead focusing more on issues with difficulty and, of course, how it will differ from its inspiration. (Although Reggie oddly demands that this particular game be “something that… a player will say, wow, this is something new and not at all like anything I’ve ever done before.”)

Others, however, have responded far less kindly. Several sites are Covering the story through the lens of outraged fans, with words like “ripoff” in their headlines. In the meantime, IGN framed the whole episode to feel that there must There’s some controversy here: Reggie explains out of context that “the community can be tough” when a game looks too similar, and his promotional copy uses phrases like “cheeky clone” and “A shameless Zelda clone.”

It worked, and audience reactions are hostile. “They are about to be forgotten,” read a reply on Twitter.

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“Imagine using words like ‘reminiscent’ and ‘inspired’ when discussing what amounts to outright plagiarism,” says another, before poking fun at and bemoaning the state of modern games journalism.

All of which betrays a deeply peculiar lack of understanding of art history. Art has been a process of copying ever since the first Neanderthals painted cave walls. It is only in the last hundred or so of the intervening 64,000 years that humans have decided that this is somehow an inherently wrong act.

If anything, it speaks to the copyright industry’s thoroughly successful brainwashing of an entire species. Instead of celebrating someone else’s ability to create something that looks like something we used to love, we indulge in accusations of a crime, declarations that the individual making some art is different from the gargantuan Any company that has done something similar will be joyfully and justly crushed first.

The thing is, copying an art style just isn’t plagiarism, and even in our day and age when wealthy musicians are successfully claiming ownership of the sheet music, you still can’t sue anyone for making a game that looks like your game looks. “Steal” the fortune, and then lawyers will surely get rich. But create a simulacrum and you’re good. Which, intriguingly, seems to make people stray from “CALL THE POLICE!” to: “Well, then it’s morally wrong, isn’t it?”

However, pick any art epoch and you will see exactly the same thing, which is that it is celebrated. Picasso and Braque did not sue Metzinger, Léger, Gleizes and Delaunay for “ripping off” Cubism. Michelangelo and del Sarto issued no cease and desist letters to the Mannerist movement. Art copies art, always has, always will.

what does Myplaced It is all the more interesting that the couple met development team shortcut‘s awakening‘s palette as a basis for a different kind of game. Ghiami describes it as far more Metroidvania in his approach, with the intriguing twist that it takes real-world research to solve some of its in-game puzzles.

I think this should be encouraged! In fact, I think it should go much further. I’ve long believed that one of the saddest aspects of modern game design is that AAA developers spend hundreds of millions creating extraordinary, sprawling worlds and then throw them away after a game. Let people “tear down” this world, create their games in it. Let this industry be one where people freely and joyfully share their art, whether by giving it away as a gift or encouraging others to learn from it, imitate it so they can then develop it and find their own personal style. One that is then copied by others!

Anyway, Myplaced went on to win the vote not just by IGNThe audience of . So, despite the framing of IGNand that of others reporting, this was a victory of sharing, of inspiration!

It’s unclear from the video how much further involvement Rogue will have in the game, and we contacted them to ask about it and if they fear a response from the notoriously cantankerous Nintendo.