There will always be people who will say you rip something or the other off.
The core thought should usually be not to have too many things in common with other games. Superpowers are superpowers, neither of the above writers invented them. But if you, for example, give the characters the same personality and backstories as in those other games, then it gets a bit yikes.
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@MonkeyLottery, Iād be happy to talk with you whenever!
Trust me, I know what itās like to be nervous about appearing to be ātoo inspiredā by certain properties.
I started writing CCH1 back in 2013, and I stayed as far from Heroes Rise as I could, but over the years Iāve gotten more āHave you watched My Hero Academia???ā emails than I can count!!
I do think that when an author starts to wonder, āAm I too close to xyz?ā that that might mean a bit more scrutiny is in order. Iāve always thought a good take is to combine features inspired from 2 or 3 different properties so that the end result is something fresher.
For example, for CCH, my original idea was to combine some of Kick Ass (the lame costumes and names, especially, plus the cussing) and some of the humor, camaraderie, and setting of the NBC show Community and yes a bit of Harry Potter in the most general āin a school, taking classes, leaning the ropesā sense. And STILL Iām told that 'My Hero Academia" is much like CCH, or perhaps CCH is much like it? (Iāve never watched it, and I still have no clue what it is other than an anime, which is not my thing).
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@MonkeyLottery Sorry for the super-late reply. Normally I try to reply to everything, but this somehow slipped!
But, I basically agree with @Eric_Moser. Note also that its almost impossible to come up with something nobody has thought of before. But, note also that you may think you are ātoo close to xyzā and somebody might say, āthis story remind me so much of abcā (Iāve been really surprised by this).
Iād say, just go ahead with whatever you want to write, and draw inspiration from many places (As @Eric_Moser said). Its good to think about āam I too close to xyz?ā as this will then force you to change the story and characters a bit more, driving the creative process (Iām often wandering around the streets thinking how to make my story differently, yesterday a friend told me I past by her without saying hiā¦ I hadnt even noticed her!!)
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copied off episode interactive
Depends on what exactly is in your story is my guess. I canāt say for sure because you havenāt explained what your story is about.
Just remember that you canāt copyright ideas.
The trope of having a protagonist thatās the son of an evil deity (read: Satan) and decides to revolt against said parent is pretty common. An example - sort of - would be Netflixās Lucifer. Or maybe Devil May Cry.
The trope of having a flaming sword or some sort of magical weapon that serves another purpose is also pretty universal. An example would be Bleach.
Having your story take place in an urban fantasy environment is again a universal trope to the point where thereās a genre category for it. Examples would be pretty much every vampire/werewolf novel in existence.
Having the Catholic Church (least I think itās the Catholic denomination thatās featured in Blue Exorcist canāt remember) be demon hunters who wield guns and all manner of things is a common trope. An example would be the movie Priest.
If youāre protagonist had blue hair, blue eyes, and looked just like Rin from Blue Exorcist then you could run into a copyright issue since youāre stealing his image/likeness. If the events in your story mirror the anime or manga word to word or nearly word to word then youād run into copyright troubles.
Having the idea of a half breed protagonist who sides with humanity against evil deity parent with their magical sword and is also in high school is an idea and you canāt copyright ideas.
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This isnāt about taking inspiration from plots of other works, but Iām interested in trying to get mine and @generalsquishyās first game Baguette Quest hosted and Iām wondering if I need to change a couple of things due to copyright rules that Iām ignorant about.
In our game thereās a very minor character named Smeegle who is a strange doppelganger of one of the kings in the story, behaves somewhat like Smeagol from LOTR and at one point says āstupid hobbitsesā, though thatās really the extent of the similarities. Also, the castle of that king is basically IKEA but repurposed as a castle, blue building with a giant yellow IKEA sign and all, full of Swedish furniture and with a layout based on the general IKEA layout. Itās a pretty lighthearted game, if you canāt tell already 
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Iām wondering if either of these would pose an issue with trying to get the game hosted? I really donāt know anything about this sort of thing and donāt want to run into any issues.
@AngelNerd I canāt speak to how it will affect your game being published by Hosted Gamesāan email to the staff would be the only answer thereābut I do want to let you know that parody is protected under copyright law in the US. 
So if your character is named Smeegle to lampshade the ārealā SmĆ©agol (which the stupid hobbitses comment supports) I think you are good!
Also, are you using the name āIKEAā in your game? If not, I think youāre okay on that front as well!
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Thereās a Veggie Tales parody of LTOR, so Iām pretty sure that one character making references is fine.
Iām not a lawyer tho, please donāt take my word as fact and then get sued
We actually do refer to the castle as the āIKEA castleā several times in the game, so Iām thinking we might need to rename it to something similar, like in the Smeegle example. Iām also from Canada, if that makes any difference. I might email the staff just to be sure. If we have to change the name then it wouldnāt make a big difference on the game anyway. Thanks for your reply!
I personally never name real-life entities in my works if I can help it, just because I find the potential legal complications of dealing with them to be too much of a headache to be worth it. I think changing it slightly would be your best bet: thereās a horror book thatās set in an IKEA and told in the form of an IKEA catalog, but it uses āORSKā instead of IKEA, even though the branding and similarities are extremely obvious! Iād recommend doing something similar, but of course, itās up to you!
It does make a bit of a difference, as in Canada, there are several provisions to whether parody is classified as āfair useā: the parody must not have the intent to punish, defame, or criticize, and must be distinct enough from the original thing that no one could confuse the parody for a depiction of the real-life thing, etc. etc. (For example, a cartoonist who used UNTIE(.)COM to parody the United(.)com airlines, and with a similar font and logo to United, lost a lawsuit because his spoof was considered too confusing/similar to the original, even though it was intended to be parody.)
But I donāt know how Canadian copyright law would also interact with COG/HG publishing, as itās a US-based company. So, uh, anyway, copyright stuff is tricky, and I tend not to mess around with it if at all possible! Hope that helps!
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Rinari is spot on ā¦ whenever any issue occurs in your writing that touches a business, it is always a good idea to change things up slightly.
Not only are there copyright considerations, there are trademarks and even state and province legalities that dictate the businesses in question aggressively pursue any infringement or possible infringement. That is why you often see crazy law suits filed against games.
A recent example: Monster Energy Drinks sued a game producer for using āMonsterā in their gameās titleā¦ while this most likely will not happen, it is best to be as proactive in your writing as you can be.
CoG is based in California, so the laws that would apply are US federal law and California state lawā¦ but it is best to confirm with the CoG staff, for the nitty-gritty details. Especially since I, too, am not a lawyer 
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Thank you and @rinari for the info! We originally wrote our game just for ourselves and our friends so we didnāt think about copyrights and trademarks at all, but now that thereās an opportunity for us to try to get it hosted we of course want to avoid anything that could come back to bite us.
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Hmmm does anyone have any advice on how to search/find out if your premise or world building is too reminiscent of another already copyrighted work? Iām currently working on what I perceive to be an original setting/premise, solely since I havenāt come across it anywhere else(but in my mind it seems feasible that someone else may have come up with a very similar idea). This leads me to worry that some people will view my work as having drawn inspiration from a source iāve never interacted with(I guess kind of mimicking what @Eric_Moser brought up earlier with how theyāve never seen My Hero Academia & people emailing them about it?).
But yeah if anyone has any advice or helpful resources for comparing my world building/premise against it would be heavily appreciated 
I donāt think thereās anything around like that. Ideas have been used and reused for inspiration so many times that itās hard not to run into at least some similarities in concepts. I wrote something once for a comp where I had multiple people commenting that I must have been heavily inspired by movies and shows Iād never watched and in some cases never even heard of! No one suggested Iād copied anyone, but it shows how some ideas can pop up in multiple storylines independently.
I guess the best advice you can have is try very hard NOT to deliberately copy anything too closely. If someone says your work seems the same as something else you have seen/read before, take another look at it and see if youāve accidentally incorporated stuff or if itās just an incidental resemblance. If you are inspired by something existing, try to take inspiration from a lot of different sources, not just one and make sure to use it as inspiration only to make an original story, rather than as a template.
Accidental incidents of near plagerism/heavy inspiration have been known to occur. Sometimes itās someoneās seen/read something a long time ago, and forgotten mostly about it, but it ends up creating inspiration that can be a bit to close many years down the track. If itās genuinely accidental like youāre describing, thereās not much you can do to outright prevent it except be mindful and check on any concerns from others as above.
If youāre concerned about having lifted outright passages of text, there are programs for that, but youāre not going to accidentally do that. Itās more useful for things like literature reviews where you need to consolidate and evaluate information resources without cutting and pasting text, than in the case creative stories.
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Iām sort of new around here, I am hopping to write a game inspired by Paradise Lost by John Milton. Is making a retelling of the same story from the point of view of a new protagonist a valid option or would it be better to instead create a story inspired by such work?
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Hi @Vex, welcome to the forum! I moved your post here as itās related to this discussion.
A game based on a book thatās in the public domain, as Paradise Lost is, would be fine to create. Something to keep in mind when writing is whether the game is enjoyable regardless of whether the player is familiar with the original work - but thatās a creative matter not a legal one.
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As the title suggests, Iāve found myself deeply inspired by The Odessa Dating Games a WIP that, sadly, is no longer available to read. For those unfamiliar with it, you can find the original thread here: The Odessa Dating Games (WIP).
The reason Iām making this post is because Iāve been struggling with how to recreate a similar concept without directly copying the original authorās work. What really has me in a chokehold is the ability to not only romance the heir, but also shape their personality, how they looked and their, responses. That level of customization felt deeply personal and immersive, and I would love to capture something similar in my own project.
At the same time, I suppose Iām also looking for a bit of reassurance. I want to honor what inspired me without feeling like Iām treading too closely to someone elseās ideas and, admittedly, Iād hate to end up feeling embarrassed if others see my work as too derivative. That said, Iām absolutely open to tips, tricks, advice, or resources (including links!) since this will be my first serious attempt at a project like this.
Apologies for the long post Iāve been sitting on these thoughts for quite a while, and I finally worked up the courage to voice them.
Thank you
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Hi @Simskidd0, thanks for posting! Iāve moved your post to this thread as itās somewhat related - the posts above may be of interest for you to have a look at.
I donāt think you need to worry too much about being inspired by particular mechanics. If youāre interested in making romanceable characters very customisable by players, thatās not something that anyone has a āclaimā over. Very similar plots might raise more eyebrows, but even so, there are very varied ways of handling similar themes.
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Thank you I really appreciate it
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Hereās my best suggestion. When you find yourself really immersed by a piece of media so much so that you long to create somethingābut then, when you think about your own project, it feels too much like the thing that inspired youāread more things.
Put the original piece down, and read something else, or two something elses, which are quite different from the original and let those other worlds and authors wash over you. Then, return to your own project, and now, the thing that inspired you will be less overwhelming, and you can come at it with more context, more distance, and even more story and authorial voices in your mind.
Sometimes when something is so good it is briefly hard to see how you can ever detach your artistic sensibility from itābut as with all real problems in the world, the answer is āread more.ā
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