angellondon

I used to despise cloning too, thats why my Flappy came so late. But it all changed when I was seeing even established studios releasing their own versions, just for fun or to catch that wave...

Noodlecake

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deve ... 0Inc&hl=en

Butterscotch Shenanigans

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deve ... henanigans

And many more.

Here's the thing about your point regarding creativity: Flappy itself wasn't unique. There were games very similar to it, many years before it. Flappy Bird was a flop for many months UNTIL it was promoted by popular youtube reviewers. That got the press going.

Swing Copters isn't unique. It's a derivative of endless jumping games, many of them have lots of obstacles and whatnot. I see no creativity there to be honest with you.

If you, I or other nobody indie devs made the EXACT same game as Swing Copters and released it, nobody would give a shit (pardon my french). But the reason we all know about it and many want to play it ASAP, is because of the press and what it has given Dong Nguyen, fame.

I don't make a clone out of malice, to me, its riding the press wave. All the press want to devote themselves to cover the search term Swing Copters and so the potential free publicity is just waiting, if you don't do it quick, the opportunity is gone. Once the wave dies down, the press moves on to something else.

It took me 5 hours to make starting to online on the store, most of that time was spent hand drawing my own assets (stealing art assets is definitely crossing the line). If it can make me a few hundred $ for that 5 hrs, great, that's another device I can test my big games on. If I did not make any money with the Flappy clone, I would NOT have been able to afford porting games to iOS.

Your point regarding the profile of developers, I speak as a gamer, I don't care about what you've made that nobody plays. I care once you manage to make a hit, for many reasons (a good game itself is not a guarantee to success), and after that, your later games already have a good foundation/fame to start with.

Edit: Do you care that Noodlecake did multiple Flappy clones? I doubt it.

Edit2: Also let's not forget, a new game with a few copy cat is being cloned, but a lot? It's created a new genre. Think Endless runners, jumping, match 3, etc. I had some funny comments from Steam regarding my big game Star Nomad, they were saying "it's just a Space Ranger/SPAZ/Drox Operative clone!".. really, it's a bloody SPACESIM, all the games of this genre are similar.

Edit3: Lastly, regarding your creativity concern, here's my own take on a unique quick tap/puzzle game: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... rewallfree

I came up with the idea out of the blue. Is it a good game? I think so, as well as everyone who have tried it. The problem is I am a nobody, so no gaming site is gonna mention it (I've tried), so gamers out there don't even know it exists. Now if this game was mentioned and covered by popular youtube reviewers? I bet you it would have heaps of players. Thus, as much as its about creativity, talent and what else, marketing/publicity and pure dumb luck plays a major role. Which leads back to the other major point: Ride the press wave.

— Sorry for my late reply, I'm back at work after a long weekend <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

Thanks for sharing your views, they were well articulated and interesting to read. You raise a lot of good points; I think I understand it a bit better, now.

Not condoning either Flappy or Swing Copters as original or creative titles, they're clearly not. By suggesting that it's okay to clone games that aren't creative though, it sort of suggests that it's not okay to clone games that are creative. It's hard to define what counts as "creative" and "not creative", and "original" and "not original" actually. Where do you draw the line? Is there a line to draw? Or is this a totally irrelevant question, and the question is more about what the cloner could gain from it?

If I were to clone a game to ride the wave, gain publicity and make a quick buck, I would feel worried for the profile that I was creating for myself. Would I make a name for myself that I wouldn't want to have? As a "cloner", as being "greedy", as one who "steals others' ideas". Is it the right sort of attention and publicity to draw towards myself if you want to raise your profile as a creative person, let alone as a games developer? I'm not sure.

I do care about the number of clones on the store, and that Noodlecake made so many of the same game. I think it's pretty crazy! I'm trying to understand it, beyond the financial gains to be made.

I empathise about the visibility problem. This has plagued my career in games so far, I've worked on PSN, XBLA and iPhone titles that were just buried because of poor visibility. We actually had press reviews in major online gaming sites, took the games to conventions, plugged them everywhere to everyone that would listen... still not enough. It's frustrating as all hell.

At all the games conventions/conferences I've been to lately, all the suits on the podiums have been telling mobile game/app developers that the only way to break through this problem is to buy players. That each audience member you could buy could potentially cost you between $5-7. And they have all these formulas for calculating the revenue you can "extract" from your players and how to retain their interest through cheap tricks and behavioural conditioning and all this and that... I don't have an answer. I don't know if they're right. When asked "but how can a new developer break in, if the only way to be seen is to buy players?", they replied "get a loan."

I wish you every success with your Firewall title, nonetheless. It looks like a fun game, and I'll download it at lunch break <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

Edit:

Honestly I would be 100% FINE and happy if clones weren't allowed. But I am quite annoyed at the double standard and special treatment.

Yeah, I saw this over the weekend. I don't understand the special treatment either; I think that's bullsh**. Either ban them all or ban none.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/21/605348 ... OS-Android

<img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad">

Whilst it's great to clone games as a means of learning to further your own craft... don't you feel a sense of guilt when making money from another person's creativity (not that this is the most creative game in the world) and riding on the back of their publicity for a quick buck? You might not agree with me, and that's okay... there's just something ethically grey about this for me, personally.

Myself, I'd much rather scope out and make an original title to build my own fame. Doesn't feel like there's any point in making clones if you want to raise your profile as a games developer; seems that the only thing to gain is cash, which, I understand the need to pay the rent and all... I'd be interested to hear how you feel about this.

Disclaimer: My views don't represent views of my company.

New update: tried to convert the base64 string to binary and store it this way, but still no joy! Firebug is loving it; still thinks that it is 200 OK!

//Just FYI - code used to convert base64 to binary
$importedData = $_POST['BASE64'];
$str = $importedData;
base64_decode($str);
$qz = "INSERT INTO `user_images`(`base64_string`) VALUES (".$str.")" ;[/code:46snnak0]

Edit: Update update: copying and pasting the base64 string manually into the database works! So it isn't our database, it isn't my PHP file, and Firebug still seems to think it is all working okay.

Ah, well that's the first mystery cleared up. Thank you, Ashley .

Update: used a POST request instead, and Firebug comes back with a success, however the database is not updated.

Changing the default value of the base64 variable to '123' does update the database, which confirms that my PHP file is working.

It's unclear where the problem is occuring. Perhaps something to do with my data type, or simply the exceedingly long string? (768692 characters in the version generated on the server).

Nope, doesn't seem to be the case. In this instance, I'm not snapshotting the canvas in any case. I'm using Pode's ExtractImage plugin to convert the image to a base64 string, and trying to send this to the db.

Live (not working) test here: http://dev.angelserver.in/construct2_test/db_test/

Inspect with Firebug or something to track what's going on.

Event sheet for new test below:

So, with this I get a rare 414 error: URI too long! Haven't ever actually seen one of these before. I'm not sure how to handle this. You'll be able to see the length of the base64 string in the Firebug console.

Oh my, I just converted a test image (a black and white 512px × 608px PNG) to a base64 string, and it came out at 700,046 characters!

Is this expected? Is a string this large an appropriate size to be stored in a database? It slowed my browser right down.

Thanks — ! I will check it out and see how it goes. If I arrive at a solution using this method, I'll post it here to share it with the community.

Any ideas why my original execution with AJAX didn't work out, however? I'd still like to know.

Wow, just seen this. Following with interest!

I did consider this; I've just been exploring my options really. Can you point me in the direction of some resources on this so I can try it out?

My SQL is alright, but I'm not sure where to start, integrating it into a Construct 2 application thank you — , for your suggestion.

Thanks for your reply — Ok, for testing purposes, this is what I'd like to happen:

1. Click img sprite button

2. AJAX calls an image file from the server (crucial that I can set this dynamically - it cannot just be a part of the project files)

3. Upon AJAX load complete, the so-far-empty sprite named 'imgReturnedData' should load the image called by AJAX (LastData).

For the final app, this will be expanded somewhat:

1. User creates their user content (in this case, it will be a mugshot generator which they can upload their own photo to. Functionality-only version here: http://www.angelserver.in/html5/mugshot_generator/ )

2. Upon completion, their image is uploaded to our database using a filename generated within the app

3. The user might want to share the completed image on Facebook, Twitter etc, so they click on the particular 'share'

4. AJAX makes a call to our database to retrieve the user-generated image

5. AJAX.LastData is used to pinpoint the share function to the particular image URL on our database. i.e. Image: "http://our.server/images/" & AJAX.LastData & ".png"

Thanks for your reply! Yes, I'm rendering the same result, thanks for confirming it.

I haven't been able to retrieve an error message that's more meaningful unfortunately, so haven't had much luck in further debugging it

Am I using the wrong sort of AJAX request? I'm using "Request URL", for which the help text reads "Request a URL by a GET request and retrieve the server response."