Wait... Either I have entirely missed a clue that connects those locations to this puzzle, or all the locations in the song do not correspond to their in-game locations. According to the game's map, it would start in zuruth plains, go north to the temple (quite far north, actually... or north-northwest), then south (or south-southeast) to the college, then (after a short jaunt back north a bit) east across the river:
Also, there seems to be multiple names for these places:
Gar'ashi Monastery vs Monks Temple
Templar Academy vs Knights College
Canal vs River
That, or none of the places referenced in the song are experienced by the player up to that point. Which, if that is the case, how is the player supposed to know where those locations are in relation to one another?
Regardless, I think including the specific compass directions in the song is an adequate solution. If it were me, and there was room for one more bookshelf in the mausoleum, I would leave the explicit compass directions out of the song, but add an atlas somewhere that shows the general location of the places mentioned in the song, so the player can put together their relative directions themselves:
Though, maybe there isn't enough pixel-real-estate for a map like that.
P.S. I did also enjoy the nod to day the earth stood still and/or army of darkness on the portal incantation puzzle. An excellent red herring (or alternative solution, I guess)
shortcut over the fire: That is a fantastic solution. Anyone (like me) who isn't quite getting it and clicking the top of the wall (which means they understand the puzzle in principle, at least) will see that extra clue to guide them.
portal incantation: Haha! wonderful. I like that as well. Again, this one didn't bother me so much, but that is a good way to flesh it out in my opinion. I must admin I'm taking notes from you on how to craft clever puzzles.
folk song: Like, literal compass directions traveled by the knight? From the plains, north to the temple, back south through the plains, south (or possibly southeast?) through the town, south to the knights college, (so ... south twice?) Then over the river east? If that is even remotely related to the solution, the issue is I am unable to go back and retrace the knights journey outlined in the song because I am trapped in the mausoleum. The only other "directions" in the song that I could find was "up", so I assumed the solution was based on Futhark esoterica:
"... as wisdom was his goal..." (Ansuz rune: understanding and wisdom)
"...to become the bravest..." (Uruz rune: courgage and strength)
"...of the newborn realm..." (Berkano rune: birth and sanctuary)
So far really enjoying this. A PDF, yet there is more content than the original Heroine Dusk.
A stateless game (rather, a game with ~200,000 discreet states) very clever.
Gating player progress to keep the number of discreet states less than infinite. Very clever.
(Most of) the puzzles are very clever. The clues are not obvious, but also not so obscure that I can't figure them out. I am enjoying them quite a bit.
(exceptions to the above) The shortcut over the soup thing I find incredibly irritating. Having the player scroll to an otherwise unlreated page as a solution to 'climbing' up a wall would be clever, except that the game so far has established that scrolling to other pages outside of the internal hotlinks is outside the scope of the game. For instance, the 'unwinding time' mechanic uses the previous-page hotkey. Very clever, but you had established that within the context of the game. This solution never occured to me because it felt like cheating. I kept trying to click the top of the wall looking for a hotlink that would take me to the appropriate page for climbing over it. If the clue had said "use your mouse scroll wheel to climb the wall and find a shortcut above the blah blah blah..." that would have established that scrolling to an adjacent page is within the game's intended mechanics.
The portal activation/Druidic numbers puzzle was not quite so egregious, but adding some clue like "press Ctrl+G to chant an incantation" would have helped establish that jumping to a specific page number is not cheating.
The book based puzzle for opening the portcullis to exit the mausoleum is beyond my ability to solve. Either the clues within the folk song are far too vague, or there are some ambiguous interpretations of the underlying meanings of the Futhark runes. Again, this strikes me as expecting players to break immersion to solve an in-game puzzle. Did I miss a book/clue linking the folk song to the rune's meanings within the game? or are players expected to 1) know what futhark runes look like, and 2) know they each have underlying meaning beyond their phonetic componenets? Either way, the hidden clues within the song correspond to more than one rune in such a way that the total number of valid combinations is still over 64, or they correspond to the wrong runes entirely. What am I missing?
At first nearly all of the music hotlinks go to urls that simply say "Page unavailable", but that doesn't seem to be the case any more. Loving the music. Excellent ambience.
What did you have in mind for a forest canopy? Seems inspiring.
I mean, I know what a forest canopy is IRL, but it seems like you're using it as an industry term for a specific style of game art depicting trees in a certain way. Can you share examples of canopy tiles from other games?
"at least in Russia, at the beginning of the trial, the judge says: "guided by the law and COMMON SENSE." By your logic, if I take a picture of a black square on the screen, will it cease to be a derivative? where is the logic? if none of those present can tell me something that I do not know, let me speculate. to understand whether a file is derivative or not, we need some features of the original that make it different from most. in this case it is: the shape and color of the handle, and the folded stock. accordingly, if these characteristics of the source file are absent, then these are 2 different projects, albeit made in the same style.
Hmm. It seems like you are moving the goalposts after the game has started, my dude. The original (paraphrased) question was:
"what constitutes a derivative, according to copyright law?"
Now it seems to have changed into:
"what could someone get away with in court, despite copyright law?"
What is true and what can be proven in court are two different things. (Because OGA is a US-based site, you can always safely assume any license discussion on OGA is about US law by default unless stated otherwise)
The truth is if you use any part of someone else's work to create your work, it is a derivative of that other person's work.
What can be proven is ... well, not much if the derivative looks nothing like the original. It doesn't change the fact that a 1x1 pixel black square is a derivative of a 32x32 pixel gun which is a derivative of a 256x256 2D rendition derived from a 3D model, but like you say, the Judge is going to say "according to COMMON SENSE, there is no evidence this is a derivative. Case dismissed!". However, if you discussed on the internet about using a particular 3D model of a gun to make a black square, then there IS a way to prove that it's a derivative; that internet discussion can be used as evidence.
Common sense works both ways, though. As in my hypothetical scenario about rrodg84 creating a door that, by REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE is exactly the same as a Legend of Zelda door, even though he didn't use any of Nintendo's assets as references or guides, the judge is going to say "according to COMMON SENSE, this is a derivative. In fact, its a blatant rip-off copy!" even if that's not actually true.
"...By your logic, if I take a picture of a black square on the screen, will it cease to be a derivative?..."
No, that is not what I was trying to say. If you took a picture of a black square on the screen, then it would indeed be a derivative; You used someone else's work (the black square on the screen) to make a different asset (the picture you took). That particular scenario tends to fall under Fair Use, so it doesn't matter much, but the other scenarios we've been discussing would not be so forgiven by Fair Use.
... to understand whether a file is derivative or not, we need some features of the original that make it different from most. in this case it is: the shape and color of the handle, and the folded stock. accordingly, if these characteristics of the source file are absent, then these are 2 different projects, albeit made in the same style."
Nope. Sorry, that isn't what makes something a derivative or not. Yes they would be two different projects, but one would still be a derivative of the other, and therefore subject to the original copyright. The uniqueness of the original asset, nor the absence of such unique features in the new asset, are irrelevant to it being a derivative or not. Those things tend to make it easier to prove, though. If you used any part of someone else's work as a base, a guide, a shape reference, whatever, in the process of making your new asset, then your new asset is a derivative of it. It doesn't matter if the new asset looks nothing alike, though that does make it difficult to prove.
I have no idea why you would bother using another asset to make some new asset that looks nothing like it. It would be easier to just start from scratch at that point. Never-the-less, the truth is, it's a derivative, even if it's too difficult to prove that in court. Which is why buttons is right as well. It's usually about money, not the truth. The chances of actually getting in trouble for failing to attribute a derivative are shockingly slim.
Wait... Either I have entirely missed a clue that connects those locations to this puzzle, or all the locations in the song do not correspond to their in-game locations. According to the game's map, it would start in zuruth plains, go north to the temple (quite far north, actually... or north-northwest), then south (or south-southeast) to the college, then (after a short jaunt back north a bit) east across the river:
Also, there seems to be multiple names for these places:
That, or none of the places referenced in the song are experienced by the player up to that point. Which, if that is the case, how is the player supposed to know where those locations are in relation to one another?
Regardless, I think including the specific compass directions in the song is an adequate solution. If it were me, and there was room for one more bookshelf in the mausoleum, I would leave the explicit compass directions out of the song, but add an atlas somewhere that shows the general location of the places mentioned in the song, so the player can put together their relative directions themselves:
Though, maybe there isn't enough pixel-real-estate for a map like that.
P.S. I did also enjoy the nod to day the earth stood still and/or army of darkness on the portal incantation puzzle. An excellent red herring (or alternative solution, I guess)
So far really enjoying this. A PDF, yet there is more content than the original Heroine Dusk.
Haha! I was just about to link to the exact same asset, but wasn't sure it matched the invisible style example.
Re: "this is our current art style": I don't think that pasted image shows up for anyone else.
...wouldn't 3 parts coal to 1 part iron make... brittle castiron? Or are the coal parts for smelter/foundry fuel?
What did you have in mind for a forest canopy? Seems inspiring.
I mean, I know what a forest canopy is IRL, but it seems like you're using it as an industry term for a specific style of game art depicting trees in a certain way. Can you share examples of canopy tiles from other games?
Ooh! 404'd!
This is amazingly diverse for only 128.
Those paintings are great. Are they (will they be) officially shared on OGA?
Hmm. It seems like you are moving the goalposts after the game has started, my dude. The original (paraphrased) question was:
Now it seems to have changed into:
What is true and what can be proven in court are two different things. (Because OGA is a US-based site, you can always safely assume any license discussion on OGA is about US law by default unless stated otherwise)
The truth is if you use any part of someone else's work to create your work, it is a derivative of that other person's work.
What can be proven is ... well, not much if the derivative looks nothing like the original. It doesn't change the fact that a 1x1 pixel black square is a derivative of a 32x32 pixel gun which is a derivative of a 256x256 2D rendition derived from a 3D model, but like you say, the Judge is going to say "according to COMMON SENSE, there is no evidence this is a derivative. Case dismissed!". However, if you discussed on the internet about using a particular 3D model of a gun to make a black square, then there IS a way to prove that it's a derivative; that internet discussion can be used as evidence.
Common sense works both ways, though. As in my hypothetical scenario about rrodg84 creating a door that, by REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE is exactly the same as a Legend of Zelda door, even though he didn't use any of Nintendo's assets as references or guides, the judge is going to say "according to COMMON SENSE, this is a derivative. In fact, its a blatant rip-off copy!" even if that's not actually true.
No, that is not what I was trying to say. If you took a picture of a black square on the screen, then it would indeed be a derivative; You used someone else's work (the black square on the screen) to make a different asset (the picture you took). That particular scenario tends to fall under Fair Use, so it doesn't matter much, but the other scenarios we've been discussing would not be so forgiven by Fair Use.
Nope. Sorry, that isn't what makes something a derivative or not. Yes they would be two different projects, but one would still be a derivative of the other, and therefore subject to the original copyright. The uniqueness of the original asset, nor the absence of such unique features in the new asset, are irrelevant to it being a derivative or not. Those things tend to make it easier to prove, though. If you used any part of someone else's work as a base, a guide, a shape reference, whatever, in the process of making your new asset, then your new asset is a derivative of it. It doesn't matter if the new asset looks nothing alike, though that does make it difficult to prove.
I have no idea why you would bother using another asset to make some new asset that looks nothing like it. It would be easier to just start from scratch at that point. Never-the-less, the truth is, it's a derivative, even if it's too difficult to prove that in court. Which is why buttons is right as well. It's usually about money, not the truth. The chances of actually getting in trouble for failing to attribute a derivative are shockingly slim.
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