The Game-Maker Archive — Part 15c: The Easiest Lifting, Act III

September 15, 2010

by Eric-Jon Rössel Tairne

It’s one thing to borrow from popular sources — say, the work of Eadweard Muybridge or id Software. I can understand a wholesale tribute to a work that has inspired you. It makes sense to copy from and build on sample material, or even to quote from your peers. Regardless of any ethical lines, all of that makes sense.

Maybe this is just me, but I find Erwin Bergervoet incomprehensible. I don’t mean to dismiss him or poke holes in him; merely to marvel at something beyond my understanding. As these things go, he did a pretty good job with his games. It’s just… well. You’ll see in a moment.

Bergervoet is a Dutch fellow who goes under the developer name Multigames. In 1998, probably about two or three years after RSD pulled support for Game-Maker, he found the software and threw together a few games. For his inspiration… it’s not that he just lifted sample material and called it his own; he drew all his own sprites and tiles, and I think recorded most of his own sound effects. And unlike Felix Leung it’s not that he directly quoted popular references and based a game around them. Strictly speaking, everything in his games is original. It’s more that his games are strongly inspired by other, existing games.

There’s nothing unusual about that, of course. Without Mario Bros. we wouldn’t have Bubble Bobble. Without Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble, we might not have a casual game industry. What’s unusual is that all his games are overtly based on, well, my own.

PC-Man’s World

On the left, PC-Man’s World; on the right, Pac.

There’s nothing strange about cloning Pac-Man. It’s probably one of the five most significant videogames ever made. Its appearance changed the whole face of the game industry. Without it we wouldn’t have Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., or the aspiration-based design that the whole industry has been based on since 1985. What’s strange is, instead of going to the source, cloning someone else’s half-assed clone of Pac-Man.

If anything, Bergervoet’s game is probably better than my own. Strange and slightly creepy as it might be, he put more work into designing original environments and hazards. Rather like Glubada Pond, my clone was just a study on Game-Maker’s goal structures; I was trying to see how a pre-Miyamoto design style would work in a very specific post-Keen design environment. As it turned out, not that well. To move on to the next level, the player has to cash in all accumulated dots at a door in the center of the level. To prevent any consumed dots from carrying over after death, I had to give the player just one life — a boring and frustrating compromise all around. And Bergervoet copied my tricks almost to the letter, down to the weeping Pac at death. Then he threw in scary interstitial screens, positing PC-Men in all manner of guises and professions.

So that was weird. I guess I can understand seeing a clone of something that’s hard to clone, then disassembling it to understand the decisions involved. And I guess I can understand shrugging and putting out your own spin after you’ve invested all that effort. I can contrive a scenario where it’s all impersonal and rational, and it has nothing in particular to do with me. Maybe.

QIQ – Part 1: Please Peace

On the left, QIQ; on the right, Octolris.

And then we come to QIQ. Am I crazy here? Octolris is a game about a springy red octopus who can climb up and down webbing. Whenever he leaps, he makes a loud boing; whenever he’s injured or gratified, he makes high-pitched meeping sounds. QIQ is a game about a springy red… something who can climb up and down webbing. Whenever he leaps, he shouts “Boing!”; at every opportunity he squeals in a high-pitched voice.

In both games there are basically no other moves. You make precise jumps, you climb up and down webbing, and you try to avoid injury. Both games have a similar, bright palette.

QIQ is… an okay game, I guess. The only thing I can say against it, all things considered, is that its difficulty balance is way too high. I’m no one to talk, though; back then I had no concept of game design. That’s just it, though. I don’t understand why someone would clone my own lousy work. Viper, I get him. He liked the Octolris sprite, so he took it and reused it. If Bergervoet had been inspired by Castlevania or Jill of the Jungle or something, that would make sense. If he had liked and reused some of my techniques or stylizations in his own designs, that’s natural enough.

I guess I’m flattered, but I suggest that a fledgling designer set his sights a little higher. If you’re going to learn, you’ve got to pick apart either the truly excellent or the truly horrible. Mediocrity neither expects tribute nor knows what to do with it. It’s just a giant tar pit, waiting to suck you in.

What I’m saying is, don’t be like me. Be wonderful.

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