/fg/ - Fangames

Um

Okay

A lot of outside material appears in Yume Nikki so I guess that means it can't be validated as a Yume Nikki game?

Personally, I think you should tell them to go eat a dick

No, not literally. But just ignore them. There really isn't a reason to even listen to them in the first place, since it's not like a random group of Japanese people hold the power to decide which games are legitimate

Lol nobody even cares enough about Hell Diary over there, I'm safe.

I sense a war approaching.

*Goes and plays more D&D

I posted this on tumblr and I'll repost it here for REASONS

ALSO BEFORE THIS HUGE TL;DR I agree that unless they have direct contact with Kikiyama and his sentiments about fangames, it does seem rather rude to insist we follow their rules IF we want to be regarded as worth anything in their own fangame circles:

First of all I suppose I understand their sentiments. Originality is always a plus in fangames and seeing devs take graphics from other games might not appeal to some people, even if they’re small things nobody would notice. On the topic of the pokemon worlds, I find that really interesting because these are made in tribute to those games we loved so much as children. Disclaimers in my game say outright that I do not own any graphics I borrow and that things such as Pokemon are copyrighted to their respective developers.

Not only that but didn’t YN and Other Line also use tilesets very similar to, if not extracted and modified, the ones you may find in Mother? I have not played the games myself but that is what I’ve picked up and if so, how come the japanese fangame community is up in arms about us using pokemon sets and alterations? Is it because they’re japanese? Are only japanese developers allowed to use those or imitations? I might be wrong so if I can be corrected that would be great.

Another word of note, I’ve seen many japanese fangames that have used resources or rehashed images from YN and they’ve been hosted and regarded just as well as others. Yumewo, for example, is like a direct copy of YN in some cases!

Are we not allowed to borrow YN pieces just because we aren’t japanese? Who is entitled to borrowing/remaking? And I know it was mentioned that some japanese devs don’t follow these rules as well, but like I said, I’ve seen some basic rips or alterations in .flow and Yume 2kki as well.

Also might there be a translated version of that fangame validity site?

By the by, I’ll go through my files and list all things I find that are directly from Yume Nikki (seeing how pokemon is a given, and it only seems that YN content is what’s ruining TLG’s rep):

Blood Animation (I think, I cannot remember)
Door Style and Animation
Bike Effect (not included in current version)
Ceiling Tiles (found in bedroom, apartments, mansion)
Bookcase (recolored)
Balcony (keeps layout but everything drawn for the balcony is original)
Bed (recolored)
Glass Door to Balcony (recolored)

No music, panoramas, sound effects, pictures, or npcs are ripped from YN. All chipsets are original or used free content (excluding the listed items in them). Disclaimers are also written in a readme in the game files as well.

I hope this information I’ve provided is useful.

BUT ALSO I really am glad we finally have you to communicate to the Rusch; I honestly think we haven't had anyone who could talk to the japanese devs before and this really helps and explains many things.

>>5038
them* blhkuhlkkfglkhikjimtohmoe

Stranger here to say:
It's a cultural thing, I've seen countless stuff like this letter go around before claiming these points because the Devs are not Japanese, kinda silly if you ask me.
If they chose to ignore the obvious fact that YN has a grand ton of recolored sprites and tiles that are used in the game in contrast to a game that doesn't even USE said content and just had it there, I say ignore them or write a polite response stating just the facts.

It sounds unfair in my opinion.

It's up to them though. If they don't want to "validate" western games with "outside content", then they don't have to. You could try to change their minds, but again, that's up to them.

Really though, you should ask yourself if it's that important to have your game "validated" by these guys. Do you want to make a game for them, the fans of your game, or yourself (or maybe a combination of these or other things)? If it's that important to have your game validated by this group, then I suppose you'll have to play by their rules. But it's not like they are the only people out there that play your games.

You have to decide how you want to make your game. You can take advice, look at tutorials, strive to be accepted by specific groups; but in the end you have make the game for you.


Sorry if that sounded preachy or something like that. I've been having a hard time not blowing a gasket over this, and I wanted to post a bit more of an objective post rather than an angry rant (and if it sounds like an angry rant…Uh, well, I didn't intend that (I_I) ).

Also, I'm less on the side of these "validators", but I think I can sort of understand how they may feel; perhaps it's like seeing foreigners misrepresent or disrespect their culture (as >>5040 may have alluded to).

I don't really see why you would ever care whether or not they think some of the content is lifted from other games. Note that this IS Japan. They will never treat an outside fangame as an equal to their own. (if you disagree, try live in Japan)

Make your fangames for yourselves and the international community, is my advice.

Good luck showing them they're wrong either way.

They're bashing overseas fgs because they "have no original content"? In a way, all Japanese fgs aren't original since they're Yume Nikki clones.

I disagree with Japan's opinion. What exactly makes a fangame a true fangame? A dreamer? Suicide? Looping maps that annoy the hell out of you?

But that's just me.

Films commonly reuse actors, props and even sets. Animation studios commonly recycle material: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJGjZsrk0YI

The Japanese recycled a great deal of their culture from the Chinese. Perhaps you should mention that. lol.

I'm a sprite ripper. I've been up and down the archives of many of the major sprite databases online and it is certain that Yume Nikki excised a hefty percentage of its graphics from commercial and noncommercial games. The entire forest area, sewer and train were adapted from preexisting rpg 2k3 tilesets. I've always figured people knew this, but I guess not. I have these files on my comp and can share them if it's not beating a dead horse.

No throne of hooded elders has a true say in the value of an artists expression anymore than Roger Ebert arbiters over what's fine film(he gave Blade Runner two stars by the way).

On another note, I feel like this argument was already validated in the Middens thread. This board tried to play gatekeeper to that game, and it seems just as well that karma comes back to them in the form of the irony evinced here.

>>5048
I do have to admit it is ironic. What's ironic too is that they flag half of our games for "stolen content" and only two of their own games for it (in that list posted anyway).

The difference here is that it appears for them it's generally acceptable to make recolors of yume nikki sprites (as MANY of their accepted games do so), or "recolor" events like .flow's version of the Witch event, but we apparently aren't allowed to.

Irene's bed was a recolor of Sabitsuki's, whose in turn was a recolor of Madotsuki's. I've fixed it now because I did promise I would and this current situation got me motivated to do it, but I still find everything rather silly.

They're deliberately excluding games to bolster their agenda of a "true canon", which just happens to split along national interests.

I wouldn't take them too seriously. Anyone that fancies themselves the giver and taker of "fangame legitimacy" is–-well it speaks for itself.

I don't mean to make it sound like they are right, but there is a easy solution to the problem… Just don't use others stuff.

>>5051
Well of course this is a valid point. In defense of my own game I clearly stated in the README file that there are graphics borrowed as placeholders until I designed my own. Not all fangame makers might admit to that or promise that, but I feel it shouldn't be nearly as big of an issue if the dev takes responsibility for any rips they have done.

I myself have no problem with other devs borrowing my tilesets and etc as placeholders as long as they are responsible and eventually make their own. I've had to go into various fangame files myself and extract chipsets or animations or character sets to learn how layering tiles work or animating things work and etc.

And even though I encourage originality, I still acknowledge that these are free games made from free sources and to expect every single person using them to create original content is laughable.

>If you would like to make a fangame, I would like you to behave in a way of Japan.
もしあなたがファンゲーム（＝派生）を作りたいのであれば、日本でのやり方でふるまってほしいです。

>There are some Japanese people who cannot keep the rules, too.
日本人の中にもルールを守れない人はいます。

>However, you do not need to imitate them.
しかし、彼らを真似する必要はないのです

I didn't know there was a rule book to making a fan game. I agree you shouldn't recolour an entire game but if somebody had done that then I'm more than certain Ubuu would flip and not accept their game.
Really, do they think they are now the police of the fan games? They can decide what's acceptable and what is not? Last time I checked nobody is making very much, if not no, money from these fan games.

Another thing that kinda bothers me is that they tell us to act by the Japanese "rules but then tell us not to act like the Japanese? Conform in our way only I guess.

I completely see their beef and why they would intend to set out and fix it but I don't agree with their method of doing it.

These organizations only really exist to uphold their version of the status quo and congratulate themselves on behalf of themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art

I'll just leave this here.

>>5051
Well
1) Were not flaunting it in our game. All the borrowed materials stud on the image file.

2) Of course you can make a Yume Nikki fansprite from scratch. No guide or anything. Totally possible.

Sheesh

>>5051

I'm not sure why you consider a bunch of unknown people throwing a tantrum to be a problem, to be honest

Either way, an easier solution to this problem would be for them to either keep their opinions to themselves or work towards resolving their own issues, i.e. their patronizing attitude, their over-inflated ego and their undue sense of self-importance

>>5040

It does seem to be a cultural thing. This isn't quite like the Doom WAD community, where a significant chunk of files there, even the stuff from KDiZD, are free to use.

Japan isn't quite as conducive to sharing stuff as, say, America or Europe, where a lot of freeware is either open source or at least allow verbatim redistribution. A lot of Japanese fansites don't even allow ordinary linking without permission. They do this in an attempt to remain fairly invisible, perhaps to save face. (e.g.: somebody might lose their job if their yaoi or loli fan art is scattered all over the Internet.)

What really surprises me, though, is that no Japanese YN fangame author ever freaked out over spoilers in gameplay videos like many other Japanese game developers, big and small, have.

Plus even if were using stuff almost all the overseas games are much higher quality than some of our japanese counterparts

There's a lot of things wrong with this whole thread, but it wouldn't make a good topic to drag each and every one out. So,

It's a simple request; no finger pointing or any other nonsense about validation. Honestly, to me this is just the norm for how they do things, with the added exception of someone overseas taking a look at all the fangames made here, noticing a particular trend of ripped graphics, and going, "What the hell?!"

I'll agree that the validation part of this tangent shouldn't faze you, but maybe you should take their advice before coping a rebellious attitude.

However, I will agree that this snippet

>If you would like to make a fangame, I would like you to behave in a way of Japan.

is awful and pretty dictatorial. I lost a couple handfuls of respect towards this because of that, but I'm not going to go ahead and say "stick it to the japs".

I dunno, it's just, they could've passed the message "Stop pirating shit please since we don't want to take any chances." along without getting all "YOU IN OUR COURT YOU PLAY BY OUR RULES" about it.

>>5048
This is very interesting. I would appreciate you sharing the files and sources with us.

>>5135
I think I agree with this whole post.

From what I hear, in Japan "Western Game" is pretty much synonymous with "Shitty game," anyway, and that's not a bias we will overcome easily. Yes, it is a good thing to make better games with more original stuff e.t.c, but I really doubt that trying to please Japanese people will get good results if this view is as widespread as I think it is. All we can do, all we SHOULD do, is make games that are good IN THEIR OWN RIGHT, references and all if need be, rather than having "Will japan approve?" in the backs of our heads all the time.

>>5160
And by "more original stuff", I DO mean not using other people's resources (except, you know, where you have permission and stuff like that).

>>5160

Yeah I agree, its not a good idea to confuse the worth of our own culture(s) productions with what Japan will think of it. We should just attempt to make the best games we can regardless of the criticism it may receive.

As I stated before, I dont understand the big issue. You would only know that we used other stuff IF AND ONLY IF you actually looked in the game files.

>>5160
It's okay. The same can be said of Japan games here, really.

We're just not going to escape how different our and their tastes are. Things like this just proves how you will never be friends with GLORIOUS NIPPON and vice versa.

Course, don't take that too literally. There'll always be the people who can put their differences aside. I'm talking about in general.

>>5172
Given the immense popularity of games like Mario, Silent Hill and Final Fantasy here, I'm not so sure.

>>5175
I'm just talking about culture in general, using vidya games to keep it topical. You have the Japanese video games which can be enjoyable no matter how your tastes are influenced by your culture. And then you have nippon games that follow trends, niches, memes, standards, etcetera, that would normally work in its own country where said culture is made and appreciated, but will only serve as a detriment anywhere else.

You can replace Japan with any country of origin and you can bring forth the same problem found in games too influenced by the culture they're in.

I mean, hell, all of us can probably put our differences aside when it comes to agreeing upon something or working together, but, the majority of humans tend to refuse to. It's just how life is.

>>5184
It probably wasn't your intention, but you just made me feel better about this whole thing. So, thanks. (^u^')

>using YN material
>JAPAN IS A BITCH

That's not how it works. How shitty are you?

>>5218 That's not what they did, either. They just found some leftover tiles or stuff. I don't even know.
Basically they nitpicked to find stuff or just flagged them falsely.

I'd love to know what Kikiyama thinks of this.

They say Yume Nikki recycled some tiles for other games… is it fair to do the same with YN fangames then?

>for other games

I meant *FROM* sorry D:

It's not about Japan vs whoever. This is just one small group against another. These people aren't ambassadors from Japan and don't speak for that country's mentality as a whole.

Whatever your method of making a game what matters is its relationship to its direct audience. RPG Maker games entirely composed of one game series library of assets are often popular–even the most popular in their niche.

Don't worry so much–create the game you want to and it will find an audience.

It's not about where you derive your resources but where you take them.

>>5222
They may not supposedly "represent" the country's attitude as a whole, but it's strikingly similar still.
Really, I have relatives living in Japan. I'm not just making things up on how they act so elitist to anyone not natively Japanese (and god forbid if you're part Chinese or Korean!)

It's quite true though that we might be blowing things over proportions here, and we should be making our fangames for the community here rather than for credits from the Japanese.

>>5220

Supposedly everything in YN was made by Kikiyama himself, although of course the art styles were imitated. That makes it stand out from other RPG Maker games, most of which rely heavily on RTP, First Seed Material, etc.

Which makes me wonder though if Urotsuki, Sabitsuki, Chie, etc. were really drawn from scratch too? o-o (I'm not advocating stealing here.)

>>5231
Actually, alot of fangame characters appeared to be recolored from Urotsuki, rather than Madotsuki. (though Uro herself is a recolor, so I guess that makes them recolors of recolors? Something like that.)
How can you tell?
Well, sometimes it's easier than others. Here's just a couple of examples:

Sabitsuki: Has the same skirt length as Urotsuki (Mado's was a pixel higher, while the 2kki devs slightly redrew it). In addition, older sprites of Sabi reveal a stray pixel on Sabitsuki's side sprites that were removed in later versions (ver.0.09 to be exact). I was intrigued about the small detail, and upon closer inspection noticed it matched up with a pixel on the side sprites of Urotsuki (see pic), meaning that lol didn't use Madotsuki's sprite as a base, but rather Urotsuki's. Probably due to the fact that all of YN's data files are compressed into .xyz files while 2kki's are just regular old .png.

Irotsuki: Kinda obvious, actually. Not really any explanation needed.

Gorotsuki: (from Dream Book) Just
Urotsuki with the twintails effect colored black.
Chie: Look closely at the highlight spots in her hair. And again, same skirt length as Urotsuki.

Note that in later versions of LcdDem, Koronba added more detail to Chie's sprite, and even tweaked the walking sprites a little (compare to the "final" sprite underneath the original).

I'm also pretty sure Yume Nikki graphics are done from scratch.

>>5037
>Not only that but didn’t YN and Other Line also use tilesets very similar to, if not extracted and modified, the ones you may find in Mother? I've actually seen people say that the trees in the YN FC world are direct rips from MOTHER. They aren't, they just look similar.
Compare:
http://images.wikia.com/yumenikki/images/1/1c/Fchouse.jpg ←- Yume Nikki
http://images.wikia.com/yumenikki/images/7/74/Home.gif ←- Mother 1

(images courtesy of Yume Nikki Wiki)


And in The Other Line's case, all the trees in the 8bit/FC world were made from scratch.

Deciphering Yume Nikki's borrowed assets requires that you atleast have a large familiarity with the games it sources from and a rudimentary understanding of sprite modifying techniques.

I don't have a YN's mall rooftop image to compare, but it's fairly plain that Kikiyama recolored EB material and embellished the differences by overlaying color and adding atmospheric details. This method is quite valid, and it makes sense that a developer unvetted in pixel art would incorporate outside material for purposes of efficiency and reference.

>>5233
Recolourception o.o"
(That was actually pretty interesting. Thanks!)

>>5233
I'm pretty sure that Kikiyama did not at least draw inspiration from the sprite design of Earthbound.

>>5252
*did at least
Damn.

>>5252
He has a whole area set up as basically a massive love letter to the Mother series.

Nope, I'm definitely sure he didn't draw any inspiration from that. Nooo sir.

I don't mind the nitpicking, but could you try to not sound like you're trying to stick it to them?

>>5279
To be fair, it really doesn't help that the original letter has a tone of talking down to someone. Which might be an issue of translation, I don't know.

Not to mention, a group of people who have taken it upon themselves to verify the validity of -fangames-, really?? I mean, it's good that they're keeping an eye out for non-original material but c'mon.

Criticism without the over-inflated ego would be preferable.

>>5236
He might have gotten the idea from Mother, but he didn't just take the building and recolor it, he drew his own. If you look at 'em side by side, they're quite different.