Oolite Bulletins

The iPad runs a Mini-OSX and it supports OpenGL.
But the OXP can not been added by user, so the community has to decide, whitch OXP shall be taken into the iPad-Version and the Updates.

As written in the iPhone Thread, IS there any limitation from the lawyers or not ? (It will be a free app)

I will become an iPad programmer (already registered developper), I like the game so let's do it!

What do you think? (Who join in?)

SwissMäc wrote:

As written in the iPhone Thread, IS there any limitation from the lawyers or not ? (It will be a free app)

Good question. You probably need to take advice from a lawyer who specialises in IP.

I dont think anyone here is qualified to tell you yes or no, but my impression from the previous discussion is that the consensus is legally grey and not worth the risk.

"If in doubt, do nowt"

How would you control Oolite on an iPad though? Oolite is a game that has a lot of control keys. Doubt it would work well.

The control keys can be added at the lower edge of the screen, like FFE who was payable my mouse:


But at this point, we can port the game, or we design a complete new one.

"Frontier Developments" brings no new games, they just say "no".

David Braben himself called the iPhone a "pile of rubbish" ( http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=224524 )

So the idea of a complete new game sounds better and better... (I don't want to go to jail... )

SwissMäc wrote:

David Braben himself called the iPhone a "pile of rubbish"

So the idea of a complete new game sounds better and better... (I don't want to go to jail... )

Actually, he didn't call the iPhone a pile of rubbish he was referring to the "majority of games" which would be consistent with his high opinion of his prior work and an indicator that he probably would pursue something on this if he felt he wasn't getting a fair shake.

As far as going to jail...not the normal consequence for loosing an IP infringement case. Usually that is all about money...

As to designing a new game, you could certainly do that, and if it's interface and mechanics are different enough IP wouldn't be a problem. Additionally you could incorporate some of the OXP functionality via the in-game content purchase mechanism. I don't know if you can set those to $0, it just would make it so that users could pick what items to add into their game.

I think there is quite a bit of merit to developing a new game that takes some game play elements from ooLite, and I think that there are some other game elements that could be incorporated into the play. Multiuser economy impacts like in the old TradeWars BBS game and in some of the online RPGs floating out there. Send me a PM, perhaps there is something worth pursuing here.

If Elite can be released on the NES, then Oolite at least from a practical standpoint can be released on an iPad. From a legal standpoint... pass.

The NES version would be just fine with an emulator on the iPhone/iPad/Android if any of the emulators allowed changing the settings needed to display the screen properly. If you just booted up the rom, you don't have the radar and the bottom portion of the screen when a ship or something is there gets all warped.

However, using iXpectrum all of the Elite games are perfectly playable, though you need to set the joystick to KEYBOARD mode in order to configure the controls so you can pitch and roll with the arrows.

As for the legal issues of porting the game to a native mode: There's nothing stopping anyone from making a clone. If you use no assets from the original game, do not use any of the names from the originals, and write the code from scratch it wouldn't be violating any copyright laws. If just using some of the same ideas from these games would constitute a breach of copyright, then games like X wouldn't exist; nor would there be games like Path of Exile or Torchlight that are just (basically) copies of Diablo.