Posted By
DrMistry
on 2010-04-09
20:03:07
|  Re: Trailblazer remake for XBOX360
Hi everyone, I'm the developer who wrote Blazin' Balls for the Xbox 360. I'm sorry you feel the way that you do about the game, but there are plently of other examples of Trailblazer being released for other platforms (including the Atarti ST, PC, Acorn Electron, BBC and Spectrum) as both full commercial products, indie games or PD/Shareware and I've made reference to the game's origins on our website.
I would never have embarked on the project of writing the game if I thought it would be breaching any intellectual property rights. Microsoft are indeed VERY strict about breaches of IP, and the game was reviewed before release. I don't work for Microsoft, but the terms and conditions of releasing Indie Games are very clear about breaching copyright or using other unauthorised material, and quite rightly. Every single bit of content and code in the game is mine and mine alone.
The entire history of game development is littered with tales of games being remade, adapted and updated - remember how many Uridium clones there were for the 64? How much of a debt modern gaming owes games like Elite, Manic Mansion, Les Mans, PacMan, Tetris, Wolfenstien and other genre-forming games is a matter of public record and no-one involved with making games would deny it. When deciding to write the game, I had to think about the legal issues around creating a "clone" of another game. I looked in to the copyright status of the game, checked for prior examples of "clones" of Trailblazer being availabe on other platforms and what the licence terms were for them both at release and currently. I'm fully confident that my position is defensible. But "legality" isn't really the argument, is it?
I grew up with a Plus/4, a 64C and a couple of Amigas and I remember the games from Mr. Chip, Gremlin, Mastertronic and all the other great 8-bit developers and publishers with real fondness. I've spent a lot of time over the last 2 years writing games for the 360 and getting involved with other game developers, getting advice about what's safe to write and release and what's not, and I've tried really hard to make my game a fitting tribute to Shaun and Trailblazer. It was an absolute breakthrough game when it was released (and one of the few "written for c16 / plus/4" titles to break through to other formats) and I'm sorry that you're willing to dismiss a genuine effort to recreate the joy which I felt playing Trailblazer the first time for other gamers as an attempt to rip anyone off, or insult Shaun or to take the food from his table. In interviews that I've done for indie scene websites I've been very careful to acknowledge Trailblazer as the direct inspiration for Blazin' Balls. That, combined with the fact that I almost certainly won't make any profit from the game at all, in exactly the same way that people who organise emu and retro scene websites and image archives don't make any profit from distributing old games. I think that sites just like this one are very important - we have a serious heratige of superb game makers in the UK and that's something we should be proud of.
You don't have to like the game I've written, you don't even have to play it. But please, I'm not some fly-by-night conman who's ripped of one of your (and my) heros. And the indie scene is most certainly not populated with schoolkids. I'm married, in my mid-30s with a daughter and two cats and I've been programming since the Plus/4 days. It's what I still do for a living. There are even some old Gremlin employees on the scene, one of whom I've had the pleasure of discussing Blazin' Balls with.
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