A few questions about the movie mashup RPG contest

[Gryffudd]

Hi there. Lurked here occasionally, but haven't participated before. Saw mention of the movie mashup RPG contest and figured I'd give it a try. First, though, a few questions.

1) I have stock art I purchased for other projects and can legally use in this; can I use it, or is everyone limited to art obtainable for free by everyone?

2) Three and a half months is a long time for me to go without doing further work on an idea. After submitting a game, can we keep working on it, or would you prefer we wait until the judging has finished?

3) Can we use more than two movies?

Can't wait to get cracking. I've got three possible ideas right now.

Pat

[Gryffudd]

Edited to remove a question that was answered by me actually reading the rules.

Pat

[Rob Lang]

Hey pat, welcome and thank you for delurking.

I'll get straight down to the questions.

1. Please do use any stock art you legally can. It's not really about being 'completely free', it's about trying to do it in just 24 hours.

2. Submit the 24 hour one when you're done and then please please please keep working on it. I found that with Cloudship Atlantis (my 2009 attempt) that there were some bits that were rubbish. So I've been morphing it ever since. We'll only judge on the 24 hour one, so you might not get any feedback from the judges on the expanded version. The rest of the community here are very supportive, tho.

3. Only two movies, please!

[shinobicow]

LOL. I love this. Sounds like it is going to be a great competition this time around. I had a lot of fun in 09 with Teddy Bear Bloodsports

Question!
How close do we need to be stay toward the source material to remain valid. I mean essentially we are making games made off of copyrighted material. So, my issue is if we make a game that resembles the ghostbusters and have a bunch of characters in the game which very closely resemble them, is that a problem?

Are we just generally making a game that draws from the two sources? So, like a cross between ghost busters and robin hood would be a bunch of medieval dudes in tights fighting ghosts in order to save and free the people?

[Rob Lang]

To be truthful to the competition, the more you can make your game feel like a mashup of the two films, the better. You don't need to stay true to the precise films - your example of ghost busters is good. You could turn it on its head and say that Robin Hood is a ghost... That would be a less literal take on that mashup. Of course, there aren't proton packs in medieval England (not even in a Hollywood one) so getting rid of ghosts might be either magical or regligeous exorcism.

[shinobicow]

Okie Dokie. Thanks for answering that.

[Rotku]

Another question for the ranks. How can we tell if a picture is legal to use? Are screenshots from the movie legal? Are just random images popping up in Google Images legal for this sort of thing?

And second, would it be conceited and arrogant of me to start a little Rotku's Reverential Reviews thread, seeing as I'm wanting to read them all anyway?

[Gryffudd]

Not speaking as anyone official at all, but it can be quite hard to find free, legal to use pics. Wikimedia commons ones are supposed to be all public-use, but general Google image results are almost always illegal. I think I heard one of the photo posting sites had a public-use section, but I'm not sure who. I have a bunch I've bought through DrivethruRPG.com from people who sell the rights to use the picture (many with specific limitations), so anything like that would be fine, as long as you follow any restrictions they include and any requirements for giving credit that they want.

I'm not a legal expert in any way, but the safest thing is to only use pics you absolutely know are public domain (like really old paintings and such). Even some of the ones I've bought rights to I can't currently use until I contact the person I got them from to see what their limitations and requirements are.

Pat

[Rotku]

Thanks, Gyrf. I just found a page on Rob's blog about . Seemed useful.

Wikimedia is a very good start point though! Will have to check there.