Garfield: Attack of the mutant lasagna - FINISHED!!!!

[Raku]

  Well, I think I've run through the demo, but I want to be sure so is there anything left to do after

Spoiler

I have woke up Jon, kicked Odie, unleashed the lasagna mutant, got the key to the garden, got the stick, got the cat hair, got the blanket, got the shirts and pants, got the cheese and gave it to Squeak, got the key to the fridge, got all the food, got the scissors, unsealed the container with the scissors

[close]

Also, if I choose 'Action' then select any inventory item, the game crashes, so I'm wondering if there is a way to open the mysterious container. Man I wish I had the full version.

[Potch]

Hey everybody.  

I also want to let you know that it is too bad that PAWS is being so butthole-ish about this.  Your game is terrific, and had a blast playing... (well, up until I got the infamous no-walking bug, which coincendently also happened in another game, by another author, The Adventures of Fatman", and I was never able to finish that game either *sob*)  Anyway, I think your game is fabulous.

For my take on the PAWS thing... if you want to hear it. :-)  I don't think it's completely about money.  See, I've often wondered about why they shut down fan games and such.  I've always thought it was really stupid myself.  I mean, it's not like your making any money on it, and it's not like they're losing any money on it.  But last night, I was thinking about this, and I thought about something no one had mentioned before.  Now, although this is a fan-based game, and you have the giant disclaimer at the beginning.... There is a possibility that someone could play it and still associate it with PAWS.  Lets say there was something offensive in it... not that there is anything offensive in yours, but there's the possibility.  All of a sudden, people start associating PAWS with that offensive material.  Even though there is a disclaimer, it's already too late.  The word is already out there.

Ok, I hope that made sense... I'm not defending PAWS by any means.  I think it is totally ridiculous that they won't let you post the game.  I just wanted to throw that thought out there to give everybody an insight to the way this company may be thinking.  I could also be totally off base on this one!

[Me]

Me too, PAWS suck. Your game is great. Though the walking bug happened to me a few times (especially when it happens right after a restoring), I managed to beat it. I don't know if this helps or not, but I restarted the game and did everything I was supposed to without any unnessisarily things. There should be some kind of petition thingy.

[InCreator]

Aw hell!  
This is stupid. I don't know much about law, but fact is:

You're not giving away anything with your game people could buy from PAWS otherwise. YOU made the game. YOU drew characters and did all the crap. Like, when I get a child and want to name him "Garfield" then what? Have to pay to them for using that name? Stupid.
What does logic say?

-> It's a company. Sells comics, games, cartoons etc.
-> I don't think PAWS has "selling rights for amateur games" in their working license.
-> So they can't and don't sell such a thing as allowance to make a fangame.
-> So you haven't taken anything from them and you're not selling anything related to them. It's a freeware game, after all and they don't have right to sell it too. It's yours.  
-> so you also haven't made any material damage to them.
-> and any other kind of damage is about impossible to prove

All of a sudden, people start associating PAWS with that offensive material. Even though there is a disclaimer, it's already too late. The word is already out there.

This is stupid. I could write "garfield sucks balls!!!" onto wall on largest street and pee on it. Police would only punish me under paragraph of vandalism. This is democracy, right? Right for opinion and everything. If making games would be easier and not based on love making them, hategames could be as popular as fangames.

Word is ALLOWED to be out there, good or bad. Or newspapers would be shut down immediately aswell. And our critics lounge. And everything else that reflects opinions of different people.

I suggest to research every bit of law around that case and maybe you could even make some money from a that game. If they really are upset enough to sue you, that is.

...actually, I think were very heroic. We, simple, creative individuals, fight for entire dead games genre, and against big companies. What's going on? Is CJ actually a fighter gathering his army for world domination? Sound like a movie "Fight Club" already.

[ElectricMonk]

You're not giving away anything with your game people could buy from PAWS otherwise. YOU made the game. YOU drew characters and did all the crap.

Nevertheless, they own the RIGHTS to the character.
Jim Davis did the groundwork years ago, without which this game wouldn't exist.

Like, when I get a child and want to name him "Garfield" then what? Have to pay to them for using that name? Stupid.

You don't, since Garfield is a name that was around before the fat cat, including Leon Garfield the writer and James Garfield the US president.

What does logic say?

Unfortunately, logic and law are not always compatible...

-> I don't think PAWS has "selling rights for amateur games" in their working license.

But they do have "selling rights for computer games". There have been several commercial Garfield computer games to date. The sad fact that they all suck balls doesn't change that.

-> So you haven't taken anything from them and you're not selling anything related to them. It's a freeware game, after all and they don't have right to sell it too. It's yours.  
-> so you also haven't made any material damage to them.
-> and any other kind of damage is about impossible to prove

It's not about causing the company material damage. Actually it is, because people who want to use the Garfield likeness have to pay PAWS, Inc. to use it. Whether they make money with it or not is their problem.
When someone comes along, takes the Garfield likeness without paying and makes money with it, the company potentially loses money. And how can they be sure Kairus doesn't make money from his game?

All of a sudden, people start associating PAWS with that offensive material. Even though there is a disclaimer, it's already too late. The word is already out there.

This is stupid. I could write "garfield sucks balls!!!" onto wall on largest street and pee on it. Police would only punish me under paragraph of vandalism. This is democracy, right? Right for opinion and everything. If making games would be easier and not based on love making them, hategames could be as popular as fangames.

Not quite the same. First of all, graffiti is obviously not an established form of publishing. Computer games are, more or less.
Secondly, writing "Garfield sucks balls" is free speech. Mass-publishing images of Garfield actually sucking balls might be considered harmful to the company, even if you do add small print that you're not associated with PAWS, because people tend to look at the image and forget about the small print. No matter how large it is written (see Kairus' game).
For example, there are several instances of Garfield saying "god damn" in the game. Potentially people could be highly offended by this and I doubt PAWS would ever authorize such an act in their own material.

I suggest to research every bit of law around that case

Definitely, I'd love to be proven wrong.

and maybe you could even make some money from a that game.

No, no, no!

If they really are upset enough to sue you, that is.

Oh, you mean from winning a lawsuit against them. Forget it. Their lawyers likely earn more than the whole bunch of us put together.

Please don't think I'm taking the side of PAWS and their lawyers here, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate, as it were, and show the other viewpoint.
I'd love it if the company would just say "a little fan production won't hurt us", and if they had actually taken a look at the game, they probably would, but they are busy guys (what with the shitty movie coming up and all) and very likely get dozens of requests like these per week, so they prefer to play it safe and ban all fan productions from the start.

I wish it were different. If Kairus hadn't informed them, chances are they never would've bothered. I doubt they employ people to surf the web to look for games that infringe their copyrights.
I myself have written a text adventure based on "The Sandman", a comic book by DC/Vertigo Comics on my old Amstrad CPC a few years ago (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/1842/amsgames.html), it's been up on my website for years and nobody from DC's law department has ever bothered me about it. I may yet remake it for AGS some day. If that day ever comes, I sure as hell won't tell DC Comics about it.

...actually, I think were very heroic. We, simple, creative individuals, fight for entire dead games genre, and against big companies.

Actually, we're not. We're not fighting "against" anyone. I'm not sure we're even meant to be fighting at all. The big companies aren't even noticing us most of the time. And that's a good thing.

Sure, by catering to a very select market and to a "dead genre" as you put it, we're not very noticeable, and sometimes it sucks not being in the spotlight and working unseen and unappreciated by the masses. But sometimes it's a blessing as well: What they don't see, they don't sue.

[InCreator]

Oh well, Electricmonk, right. Right.
And It's not good at all that you're right.
In matter fact, I think that you won't question my last statement here which is "whole thing sucks!".
Right?

P.S. The copyrighting problem is smallest on Garfield character himself in game, because his feet seem to be too thin to me. But all other characters look even more like original themselves than in any PAWS product... Very impressive!!!! ...an bad. sadly.

P.S.S. About that us fighting thing: Electricmonk, I think you have at least two working humanoid-compatible eyes and so you can make difference between serious talk and total crap. This, in case is just caused by my semi-humorous way to romantise stupidity and give reason to nonsense. Ever noticed my Rogery avatars? In other words: just kidding! CJ gathering underground army? Come ooon...

[Queen Kara]

Dang. I was looking forward to playing the final version because I had finally found what I initially thought was the full game but it turned out to be the demo....anyway I'm a big Garfield fan and was hoping to play the full game , it always ticks me off when people get in trouble over things like this because it's not really hurting anyone so why is it such a big deal? *sighs*

===============================
I don't know how often Raku visits but I hope
he sees this and I'm sorry in advance that this has nothing to do with Garfield but I didn't want to annoy everyone by making a seperate thread because Raku's comment is in this thread...any way - Raku : I just joined the forums over at the website that used to be Tierra ( it's now called some thing like "anonymous game developers" ) and asked about the KQ parody. They told me that they did stop work on it and from what I can tell they don't have any plans on restarting it any time soon , may be not even ever.
So , no , Josh Mandel nor any one else is going to be doing the voice for King Graham in a Tierra / AGD KQ parody because they abandoned the project. I don't know about any other KQ parodies but , again , Tierra / AGD will not be making one.  Mmmkay?  Sorry to sound gripey but it annoys me when people imply that I'm wrong about some thing when I am pretty darn sure I'm right.

[Queen Kara]

Kairus: Sierra are neglecting the VGA remakes, and lucas have already closed down two fan projects, and seeing as there are more to come, will most probably close down MI 1,5/ not that I hope so, Im just stating facts - they closed scurvyliver's project for using ripped graphics/.

I disagree , at least on the Sierra thing. I don't know what you mean by neglecting , but last time I checked , Sierra no longer makes adventure games any way....so why would they make a big deal about people doing fan versions of older games? I could understand if they got upset about a fan doing a remake of an old sports game since that's why many of the people who worked on the adventure games got layed off in the first place...the president or whatever was more into sports and didn't give a flying fig about adventure games. ( *growls* ) I don't remember seeing any news about lucasfilm / lucassoft so I don't know about that but as far as I know "New" Sierra either doesn't know or doesn't care about fanmade versions of old adventure games and they don't make adventure games , while "Old" Sierra totally is in love with the idea of fans remaking older games , in fact , there was going to be a King's Quest parody and the guy who voice acted in the older games was going to be working on the project / as the voice for King Graham again! Eventually though they decided to trash the project , not because of anything Sierra stated but the group working on it ( Tierra soft...they have a new name now...I can't remember it ) stopped because they were starting to feel as though it was too rude...They stopped themselves ..not Sierra, so , in my opinion , if Sierra did give a flying fig about this sort of thing , then they aren't doing anything about it. Weird , eh? I'm kinda glad though , I'd hate it they started cracking down on stuff because it's almost always over something stupid when big companies crack down on stuff. Why don't they go after people that deserve it , like if anybody that is selling games that they didn't buy in the first place?!

btw , in case anybody needs to know , I posted this in the thread instead of just pm-ing Vel because I wanted people to see what I knew about the whole Sierra thing.
Hope that's ok. Sorry if I've upset anybody , especially you Vel because I don't mean to upset anybody.

[ElectricMonk]

Oh well, Electricmonk, right. Right.
And It's not good at all that you're right.
In matter fact, I think that you won't question my last statement here which is "whole thing sucks!".
Right?

Couldn't agree more, man.

P.S.S. About that us fighting thing: Electricmonk, I think you have at least two working humanoid-compatible eyes and so you can make difference between serious talk and total crap. This, in case is just caused by my semi-humorous way to romantise stupidity and give reason to nonsense. Ever noticed my Rogery avatars? In other words: just kidding! CJ gathering underground army? Come ooon...

Sorry, I just got an overdose of the "we're undergrounders/software pirates/l33t hax0rz/whatever and we're fighting big companies/lamers/other computer groups/whatever" rhetoric over the years that I fear I'm now unable to distinguish clever irony from puberty-induced ranting in that department.
Yours being the former of course. And I like the Roger avatar a lot.

And the underground army: Hmmm. Judging by my fitness, I'll be the guy who ends up on the table while the others stand around him chanting "His name was Robert Paulsen"...

[Raku]

 Queen Kara: Just thought you might want to know that according to an interview with the Tierra team, they decided not to use the original voice in the parody because they didn't want it to be associated with the dirty language of the parody. They did say however that they would use Josh Mandel (the original King Graham voice actor) in their KQ1 remake.

Just to add my two cents to the copyright discussion above, I've heard that one of the reasons companies are so protective is that if they *know* that someone else is using their stuff without permission, but nothing is done about it, then the company could potentially lose its copyright because it failed to assert its ownership, according to US jurisprudence. I know that some companies have lost trademarks because the term became generic (like Kleenex) but has anyone heard of a case where somebody 'stole' a copyrighted work because the original holder failed to send a "cease and desist" letter?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I had this wierd feeling of Deja Vu when reading the above post... almost the same thing had already been posted a while ago, by the same person. I don't see the point.

And I've already said a lot about my standing towards this. The only thing I have to add is that this is probably our fault, in a way - the public's fault.

Here's what I mean - awhile ago, I read, in this very forum, that someone had some problem with some real OLD infogrames game, called them on the phone, talked to Bruno Bonnel himself, and actually got shipped a disk with a patch. All as friendly as you please. But that was then, and back then PAWS would probably not be this strict. But illegality is easy nowadays, I mean, just look at E-Mule or KaZaa! No one can afford to be friendly, they don't have the time, they're too busy protecting their interests. They can't know fore sure whether Kairus is a threat, so they play it safe.

Not to say that I agree. I almost want to email them and tell them I've got MY copy and I'm giving it to my friends and there's nothing they can do about it!

[anony]

Since you spent a lot of time and effort making this game it would be a shame to throw it away

You can get around most of the copyright problems by changing the name of the game and ingame text by substituting "garfield" and other copyrighted names for others

The graphics on the other hand are a "grey" area and it would be hard for Paws inc. to prove copyright violations especially since they are all your own artwork, however companies like disney have tried to shut down fan websites that display fan created artwork of their characters, I am not sure what the current legal situation is, can anyone comment?

Although if you are really worried, just changing the color of garfield would null any objections they could raise.  Dont give up on your game.

[Wormmaster]

I agree with anony.
Just change the colors of Garfield, Odie and others so PAWS can't say a f*****g stupid word to that.

TAKE THAT, PAWS!!!

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

It wouldn't be the same. Garfield by any other color wouldn't be Garfield. Or by any other name.

[Wormmaster]

Oh yeah...
But...
That doesn't matter!
Garfield could be...

MARFIELD
or
KARFIELD


Odie would be...

KODIE
or
NODIE

[SSH]

Well, if you look at what happened to the Linux distributor "Lindows", they ended up changing their name because MS were suing them in aboiut a hundred different countries. Some countries said "don't be silly"  to MS, but others said OK...

[Blane]

How do you rate it in bad stuff? Swearing, violence, etc???

AND ALSO: May I suggest if you do a sequel or a remake that words should be in bubbles?

[Metman]

I found the full version at www.the-underdogs.org

dont know why considering all the PAWS brew ha ha, but its up and full

[Magicscroll]

This is quite a game! Too bad I get stuck often though.

And here is a short review of the game in Korean.

http://game.ivyro.net/zeroboard/view.php?id=freeware&no=26

[Primus]

This is quite a game! Too bad I get stuck often though.
And here is a short review of the game in Korean.
http://game.ivyro.net/zeroboard/view.php?id=freeware&no=26

Fortunately, I've not experencied any of those bugs!

Gulp... er... so...Ã,  Is a translation available?...Ã,