copyright in game art baseds on another game

Hi People.

This is my first time in Unity Forum. I'm beginner in Unity and all game process.

My question is about creating an art based on another game. For example, if you create a scenario based on the arts of games like Sonic and Super Mario. I would like to create a terrain that looks a lot like the Sonic (Hill Zone) terrain. I intend to create the very similar tiles (grass, chess textured rocks, trees) so that the player actually remembers Sonic, although the game is totally different (I'm creating a casual game and not a platform game). Could this cause a copyright problem on the part of SEGA?

 

Don't copy and you will be fine. Also --

To be blunt this is kind of silly. Anyone playing your game will 'remember' Sonic unless they have been under a rock for the past 20 years, so that really isn't a good reason to recreate art to 'resemble' the sonic assets.

You can create 'similar' art to the sonic titles but if you copy everyone will call you out on it, and the discussion will not be about the game play, it will be about how you copied the assets from a sonic game. Even if you recreate everything to look only similar to the game assets - the discussion might be about this instead about how interesting and fun the game is. It is risky.
And - don't copy the player - or make it look anything like sonic - because then you will get unwanted attention from the sonic team.

 

Copy one artist, it's plagiarism
Copy many artists, it's influence
Copy all artists, it's genius

Great artist don't copy, they steal -picasso (not historically true, he didn't say that, but a critic of his words did)

Note that the market for inspired by sonic is taken by some success like freedom planet, they didn't just rip sonic though, they ripped all the action catalogue of the megadrive, from sparkster to gunstar heroes:

Just don't be blatant Original the Character (don't steal) like sonic chu or coldsteel
Remember that sonic himself is inspired by felix the cat and those kind of cartoon

 

And that art is very original looking and - beautiful! Definitely gameplay was 'inspired' by sonic, but the visuals seem pretty original - as much as we can label anything original in these days.

 

In fact, I do not intend to copy the game, or copy the gameplay. Not even the player will be the same, or the game will be platform. I'm wanting re-skin a game of a course, an endless game. I thought of something like a mountain, the player has to go up or down (I have not decided yet), but it would have to be a mountain and I thought of using elements of the Sonic level, or that it would go back to Sonic's initial level, but it would be totally different. The game is just for training anyway, because I'm still crawling in game creation. I'm taking a course at Udemy and would like to create a game similar to what I learned in the course, but with some differences to reinforce the concepts I've learned. So, it's just a simple, casual game, and I wanted to base the art on ready-made assets (free or purchased) or even create my own based on existing models (hence the idea of basing myself on Sonic tiles. , I would make minor changes, of course)

 

Well...I wouldn't encourage you to design a game based on another game, the copyright thing is complicated to make your way out of it. However, I see lots of games similar to Sonic and Mario and still alive in store. I suggest you apply for copyright of your game after finishing it. You can register your program online though, won't take much time.

 

Ok. I'll try to not copy arts to avoid headaches. Thanks for all!

 

Smart move!