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This is a bit of a shame. Jeff Minter released a game called TxK last year on the Vita. By all accounts it was a pretty drat good shoot 'em up, and by all accounts it was a spiritual successor to Tempest and the Minter developed Tempest 2000 / 3000 on the Jaguar and Nuon respectively. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2TTa0z2o0M Anyway it appears that Atari have tried to block any release of TxK on the PS4, PC, Oculus Rift, Galaxy Gear (apparently it's incredible in VR) because it infringes on their Tempest IP. In Minter's own words the accusations from Atari are as follows: The accusations were addressed not only to Llamasoft as a company but also directed at me personally. Basically most of it came down to "looks like Tempest 2000", and it included such gems as: - in order to create TxK I must have had access to, and stolen secrets from, Atari's source code, in order to steal the work of the other people who worked on Tempest 2000. (I *wrote* the source code for Tempest 2000, and didn't need to refer to it at all to create TxK, even if I still had it. The only other people who worked on the game were Joby Woods who did bitmaps (TxK has no bitmaps apart from one 64x64 graduated dot) and the Imagitec musicians (TxK has neither a modplayer nor any of Imagitec's music). So I stole my own work out of my own brain I guess. - The soundtrack to TxK sounds identical to the soundtrack of Tempest 2000. (In fact the TxK soundtrack is entirely original and highly acclaimed; it won a Develop award and went to #1 on Bandcamp). - The player ship can jump. Apparently Atari owns jumping. - There is an AI Droid in TxK. Yes there is, and there has been an AI Droid in almost every game I've made since Llamatron. Which I made 3 years before Tempest 2000. The AI Droid is a staple of my design style. - I deliberately set out to cash in on Atari's copyrighted Tempest name (by giving my game a deliberately obscure name of TxK). - I deliberately set out to cash in on Atari's stellar reputation by associating my game with their illustrious name. (I never mentioned Atari at all as the last thing I really wanted was for Llamasoft to be associated with the undead Atari responsible for turning Star Raiders into a loving slot machine). The really screwy thing is that back in the day Atari released a version of Tempest on the PlayStation called Tempest X which was based on Minter's Tempest 2000 but just different enough so that they didn't have to pay him royalties: Wouldn't it be nice if there were actually some kind of precedent set that determined how different a game had to be to be considered a different game legally? Well, it just so happens there is, and it involves Tempest 2000 and Atari! Do you remember there was a Playstation port of Tempest 2000 called "Tempest X"? I always wondered why the name was changed, and other little aspects of the gameplay were altered. years later I managed to chat online with the guy who did the port, and he told me that the changes were made "to reduce the royalty burden". How so? Well, my original arrangement with Atari was that I was to receive a royalty on any ports of Tempest 2000. "Tempest X" was made exactly enough different that it would be legally considered a different game, cutting me out of any royalties. Now Tempest X: - was derived from my source code; - had exactly the same soundtrack; - used the same kind of powerup progression as Tempest 2000; - had a changed name, some extra background effects, and some different web shapes; - but was close enough to Tempest 2000 that *Tempest 2000 was available as a hidden unlockable by entering a specific word into the highscore table*. It seems a shame and I am just posting this thread to make people aware because this just seems silly, it appears that Minter and Llamasoft have tried to engage with Atari to see if they can come to some arrangement. TxK was a relative commercial success on the Vita but it's not as if it generated millions in revenue and clearly Minter holds Atari and Tempest dear to his heart and would be willing to compromise to get the versions of the game out there. I feel for the guy. This has got to be a real kick in the balls. Here are some articles about the situation: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/atari-to-indie-dev-stop-ripping-off-your-own-work-on-tempest-2000/ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/19/atari-threatens-jeff-minter-copyright-claims-playstation-txk-tempest http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-18-jeff-minter-beyond-disgusted-with-atari-over-txk-block
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Mar 19, 2015 18:31
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I think his llama farm is 5 minutes from here.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:33
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Have you petted them?
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Mar 19, 2015 18:44
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txk does look a hell of a lot like tempest but that is not and has never been a case of copyright infringement unless it's straight up asset stealing zombie atari must have some hosed up lawyers
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Mar 19, 2015 18:53
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Yeah, I have not played enough of Tempest 2000 or TxK to know if there are any assets common, but it seems unlikely as Minter is no doubt aware of this and the fact that with 20 years between them on massively different hardware there would be no value in using any assets created for Tempest 2000. Also the claim that the soundtrack is identical is pretty hilarious given it's blindingly obvious that the soundtrack for TxK is original. In fact I believe Minter solicited contributions through his website. The whole this is laughable but a bid sad because Minter has been plodding along doing his own thing, respected but relatively on the fringes and bringing this to PS4, PC and VR platforms could have been really successful for him and he deserves it.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:58
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Heard about this horse-crap and rushed out to acquire a Vita to own TxK before it gets pulled (like that will happen). Funny story, just last week I found a Toshiba SD-2300 Nuon at Goodwill for $20. Then tracked down a Samsung N501 for $50 just this morning. (VLM is a thousand times better on the N501). Anyone got a spare Nuon controller and an iso of Tempest 3000? I'd be willing to hit up YaK to get some pics of his prototype Nuon spinner controller to clone; legend states it's built from a hacked wingman warrior controller by dudes at VM Labs, and I"m %98 sure I've got a WW floating around in my warehouse. Some dude was trying to pull it off but didn't have the requisite EE hacker skills to figure out the Polyface chip pull-ups, I've probably got the chops but getting obscure gear more than a decade after it's short lifetime is not easy.
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May 16, 2015 07:34
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