Icemare with Sgt. Super

Icemare with Sgt. Super

Release type: Shareware
Release date: 1992 (original release)
Levels: 10
Author: Gary Acord
Website: Acord Games
Registration bonus: Icemare 2 and Icemare 3, hint sheet, secret bonus game, copies of all shareware games, membership in the Zapper Game Club
Registration price: $20
Related games: Penguin Pete

THIS ARTICLE IS INCOMPLETE
FULL ENTRY COMING SOON!

Tools like Game-Maker tend to include demonstration software for a reason. The user is expected to use the demos and learn from them: pick them apart, tweak them; suss out how they work. And during that novice phase, they can be raw material for a test game. If you're roughing out a courtyard, rather than spend time on your own brick and concrete tiles you can plug in some from a library. If they're not too distinctive and they suit what you're doing, then you can even leave 'em in. They're meant to be used.

The user agreement tends to cover these cases under fair use. What exactly constitutes "fair use" is hazy on purpose, as the concept is more of a judgment call than a science. To set hard lines would be to defeat the concept through an ever-present threat of overzealous application. Responsibility, then, lies with the end user, and their reading of what feels appropriate. That reading in turn depends on what the user means to do. Many games hang a new character off of the Sample animation. A game like The Descent lifts sprites and tiles wholesale, then configures them into something wholly original. These are compromises to the integrity of the author's work, but on balance they're justified as shortcuts toward achieving a larger, more difficult vision.

A game like Icemare complicates this equation by the peculiar weight it carries, which makes it hard to find or understand the author's point of balance. Icemare is, in effect, Joan Stone's Penguin Pete, one of the core demo games packed with Game-Maker, with a blocky robot in place of the original character. Despite some protests from its author, any other changes are minimal. It's got a new title screen, a new story, and all trace of the original author or Recreational Software Designs has been scrubbed from the game. In its original release, the "About Game-Maker" text is even hex-edited out of the game's executable.

So where's the pivot point here? On the one hand we have an entire game created by someone else, except for the attribution; on the other, we have a new character and story, and a great effort to claim full attribution for the new author. Again there's nothing to say a user can't do this with the demo material (though hacking out RSD's identifying text may conflict with the terms of use); the resources are there to be used how one deems best. It's just, well, consider that statement. What do we make of a situation where, given such wide berth of reasonable use, one decides to just... use it all? Then ask for a registration fee?

This is another consideration. It's easy to over-state the case in an era where shareware is largely a relic, as in the early '90s a registration fee was as obligatory as (in 2010s protocol) plugging your Patreon after a tweet goes viral. It was just a thing you did; a hail-Mary that probably would go nowhere, but hey; might as well try, right? But, the request for money is not insignificant. And neither is money requested; here, Acord asks for $20 if you like what he's done to Penguin Pete. In 2018 currency that's $36. (Yeah, inflation sure sneaks up on you.) Consider what else you could buy for that money. Say, a copy each of Pipes and Shorty Da Pimp, with enough left over for lunch.

Those two games are relevant, as each takes basically the same tack as Gary Acord's debut release (Pipes even replaces the character with another blocky robot), yet both demonstrate a comparable restraint and vision that helps to better explain their creative balance. Ideally if you're going to just take someone else's work -- even work that's essentially given away for free -- and slap your own name on it, you will in turn do it free of charge, as an exercise in flexing your wings, finding your boundaries. Neither Roy Person (Pipes) nor Terry Chatman (Shorty) does this, but Person charges half of what Acord wants, and Chatman half of that.

There is also an inverse ratio between the author's demands and their mix of attribution and original input. Though Person does not openly credit Oliver Stone or RSD, neither does he take the time to hack any reference of RSD out of his game. Furthermore, Person seems to have written original music for the game -- a puzzling development, considering how difficult the music format was to work with in 1993, especially next to the ease of RSD's design tools. So though the game is largely unchanged, Person has more to claim over his release and he puts less effort into his claim.

Shorty is another case entirely: though it's basically just Nebula with a sprite edit of Billy Blaze from Commander Keen, Chatman is entirely open with his credits, correctly attributing both G. Andrew Stone and Joan Stone, and mostly just taking credit for his own contributions. Furthermore, what credit he does claim, he does so under a pseudonym -- and then only charges a perfunctory $5, which he admits he only added because everyone else was doing it. Despite his modest changes, Chatman also does more with his game, using the sprite edit, story text, and newly recorded voice samples to turn Nebula into a genuinely funny, if strange, comedy game based around punch-up racial humor. In appropriating the work of others, Chatman twisted it to a new purpose and in so doing conceptually put more of a stamp on his release than either Acord or Person in their otherwise similar efforts.

None of this is to compare Icemare on its merits; the game is what it is, and must be read on its own terms. This comparison does, however, help to narrow down what those terms may be. This all goes back to the question of balance; on where the author places their weight to justify, or at least, explain the methodology behind their process. The game exhibits fewer external justifications for its appropriation even than similar projects that lift entire demo games, and similarly ask for money. So any strong justification, it seems, would have to be internal, and particular to its author's wants, needs, and personal value system. Though any work of creation is a work of communication and therefore reflective of its author's own perspective, Icemare has so few terms to engage with on a material level that as a publication it is peculiar as little more than a portal into its author's mind. As a profile piece, it therefore, may serve as a key for Gary Acord's larger body of work.

Legally, there's rarely a boundary with these agreements. It would be hard, and self-defeating, to try to define just where fair use ends and full-on appropriation begins. What about a game ? What if you were to include a level from an existing game? Multiple levels? What if you were to take a whole game like Nebula and expand it with new levels, items, and abilities? (Andy Stone even suggests that users do the latter, as an exercise.) The answers are in most cases gray, and depend on a perception of intent. Extenuating factors include an underlying honesty, demonstrated in things like credit and attribution, and an expectation of financial return.

It's tiresome and impractical to draw up a strict licencing framework for what amounts to spare parts and schoolwork, so it's common to just release this material as a gift to the user. Do with it what you will; may it help you in your efforts to create something new.

How, then, do we read a game like ' or Icemare? Gary Acord's first release is to Penguin Pete as Roy Person's Pipes is to Pipemare: take one of RSD's demo games, swap out the character sprite for a blocky robot, change the title screen and credits, and call it one's own. Instant shareware release.

If art is a language unto itself, that serves to communicate ideas, it's this judgment -- as nearly the sole driving force behind the release of Icemare, that forms the basis of any reading and that, in turn, serves as at least an initial thesis for Acord's subsequent work. The difficulty in reading a work like Icemare, which to be sure is more blatant in its appropriation than Acord would be with his later games, is to detach one's analysis from any judgment. Icemare simply is; it's a fact, and it isn't going away. Its origins are clear. Its relationship to Acord's later work can be examined. Any intentions are supposition, but to an extent are fair game for reconstruction. So let's try to engage with the release, and see what happens.

That right there is the conflict: between achieving an end (what end?), and integrity of vision. What is the reward? What are they looking for? Pride? Where does pride lay? How do they weight integrity, or quality (either of substance or virtue) versus the fact of a thing's existence?

Need for attribution; for credit.

Let's say that a person tends to take whatever means they feel justified to achieve their goals.

It's fair to say that given a choice, in most cases users of a creative tool would prefer to create all their own material.

ambition. Pride. Need for integrity versus Need for an end regardless of the method.

to avail the tools to hand with care, judgment, and a sense of personal pride. It's up to the user to determine whether or not a shortcut is warranted, to what extent that debt merits acknowledgement, and what sort of a reputation they want to build for themselves. Typically, a tool like Game-Maker attracts users who need to create. The greater the effort one puts into a work, the more of it that one creates one's self, the greater one's sense of pride. Every shortcut is a compromise with that pride, in aid of a personal goal. If they happen to repurpose a brick or stone texture, or skin a new character over an existing animation, the weight of the element's origin may be incidental to the weight of the new purpose -- but it's a compromise nonetheless.

[Not about moral dimension; more puzzlement over the components of a creative drive.]

I don't know if this is the best way to state it. What is a "character swap?" I know you probably mean that Icemare is a version of Penguin Pete with the character swapped to Sergeant Super, but I'm not sure if that's what you said. Also, the enemies and blocks have been redefined and the whole game compiled with the new GM engine. Also, [the documentation states] that, "You are free to enhance Penguin Pete and you may borrow any of its Gameware for use in your GAME-MAKER games" But does this mean that the game you make will forever be called a Penguin Pete game? I don't know if that's entirely fair. Also, Penguin Pete was made with the old Game-Maker engine. Icemare is made with the new GM engine. And a lot of elements of the game are different. The properties of the blocks, the character, and enemies are different. The maps are different. And I’m not sure if the pieces are all still in the game, and I don't think it works like Penguin Pete did. A few of the levels are totally different. It was the first game I designed though, and it did rely more on the demo game than the others.

One wonders about the relationship between Sgt. Super and Jaxon Zoose.

Story

Trapped in arctic ice flows, a nuclear powered submarine is torn apart, its sections strewn about on the arctic ocean floor and numerous huge icebergs.

Sgt. Super has been recruited by Earth's Super Powers to undertake the rather dangerous task of finding & recovering the lost sections of the submarine from the icy waters & regions. After Sgt. Super gets the 8 submarine pieces, he'll be able to board the ship & reach the game's final scenes.

Instructions

Skidding on thin ice in 'Icemare'

Use the following keys to move Sgt. Super.

• ARROWS move up, down, left or right.
• Z - jump left.
• X - jump right.
• SPACE BAR - throw harpoon.
• M - throws snowballs.
• B - drops bombs, if you have any.
• N - jump up and back down, killing some monsters.
• P - pick up objects.
• D - drop objects.

Power level of weapons is:

• Harpoon (lowest)
• Killing Jump
• Snowball
• Bomb (highest)

Touch a bomb and you acquire it. Food (such as algae, fish, some starfish, some crabs) increase hit points.

Items such as mines and pebbles increase score. Gold increases money. Hearts add a life.

You can also use the numeric keypad (set NumLock to on). 4,6,8, and 2 move left, right, up, and down. 7 jumps left, 9 jumps right. The 'j' key jumps straight up.

Credits

Acord Games

Resources

The entire game, save the character sprite, is largely based on Joan Stone's Penguin Pete. Some of the tile properties are different, and there have been some small alterations to the maps.

Availability

Distributed through contemporary bulletin boards, through the author's Website, and through several third-party mirror archives.

Archive History

On November 7, 2010, Demu.org maintainer Swizzle pointed out the archive of Gary Acord material on the site -- which was swiftly added to the Game-Maker Archive.

Links

Interviews / Articles

• Inside the Mind of Gary Acord (Gamasutra)

Listings

• archive.org entry
• demu.org entry

Misc. Links

• Play Icemare online

Downloads

• Icemare with Sgt. Super (439 kB)
• Overworld Map (? kB)
  • Maze 1 Map (? kB)
  • Maze 2 Map (? kB)
  • Maze 3 Map (? kB)
  • Maze 4 Map (? kB)
  • Maze 5 Map (? kB)
  • Maze 6 (and ending) Map (? kB)
  • Underwater Map (?4 kB)