Public domain IPs

[Jackolantern]

Has anyone here ever considered making a game or PBBG based on a public property? Obviously, being in the public domain, you would not have to pay any royalties, your project would not be in any danger of C&D orders, etc. And some of them have gotten resurgence since their original runs due to movies. Of course you could not use any of the art from any modern movies based on the IPs, and you would have to avoid any character or place names added by any non-public domain movies or books based on the property, but the base properties are up for grabs for any other works. Some that still interest people today and could be ripe for games include:

1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
2. The Jungle Book
3. Peter Pan
4. H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu universe
5. Dracula
6. Frankenstein
7. Many Nedor/Standard Comics Superheroes
8. John Carter (just had a major movie made about it, and yes, you can make a game based on it right now, with no permission)
9. Little Nemo (already has a beloved 8-bit NES game, and an unofficial indie sequel would be awesome if done carefully to not infringe the Capcom original)
10. War of the Worlds
11. Sherlock Holmes

[Callan S.]

Yeah, that's a good idea, Jack! Can ride on the movies publicity machine!

Though I guess we all fall in love with our own ideas.

But if you can write a small game quickly (ludlum dare style, even), that works out. Can always write out a subversive version of the IP...

[Jackolantern]

Yes, that is very true

Oh, and I did want to add to my blurb about John Carter is that obviously you can make a game based on the book, not the recent movie. The way I wrote "it" was kind of ambiguous.

[hallsofvallhalla]

Oh wow I had no idea. Great post! This opens up plenty of opportunity to get some extra interest. The John Carter thing actually intrigues me. Could base a Mars War style game or something off of it. I might have to read the books.

[Jackolantern]

I have heard the John Carter of Mars books are awesome. George Lucas has stated before they were some of the largest influences on the style and setting of Star Wars, although there is a big dose of 50's and 60's serial space opera mixed in as well. But a big movie based on a public domain story could only be fertile grounds for indie games

[hallsofvallhalla]

although there is a big dose of 50's and 60's serial space opera mixed in as well

What do you mean?

[Jackolantern]

I don't have any specific names, but basically, between the 30's - 60's, when you went to see a movie at the theater, you didn't just see the movie, but also shorts in the beginning. Obviously the most famous are Looney Tunes, which emerged beyond that setting and made a huge name for themselves. But cartoons were not the only shorts. Others were called "serials", since they were broken down into episodes that continued week-after-week. The main idea was to get kids to continue coming to the movies weekend after weekend, as they often ended with cliff-hangers and teasers of the next episode (the Rocky and Bullwinkle show heavily made fun of the sometimes-cheesy cliff-hangers in classic serials). One popular format of these serials were sci-fi, featuring spaceships in outer-space, attacks on Earth from UFOs, etc. That is actually why George Lucas had Star Wars start at Episode IV. He had no intentions of any sequels or prequels, and wanted to make it feel like you were jumping into one episode of a long story arc serial. Of course when it was a break-out hit, the publishers wrangled him into making more, and suddenly the episodes meant something different than what he intended. The classic sci-fi serials are also the inspiration for the strange "wipe cuts" that are all over the Star Wars, where the a new scene pushes the old scene off the screen from the bottom, left, etc. These strange (and heavily prevalent) scene cuts were heavily inspired by his childhood watching serial sci-fi shorts, or, as they are also called, "space operas"

[hallsofvallhalla]

wow thanks for that blast of knowledge. I never knew but that is hella kewl.

[Jackolantern]

I know no one is going to believe me, but I am actually not a huge Star Wars fan It just so happened that your question created an opening to drop the largest chunk of Star Wars knowledge I had haha.

EDIT: And not that I dislike it either. It is just another cool movie series to me. I was just about 5 or 6 years too young to have been truly changed as a child when Star Wars came out, which is the story of most rabid Star Wars fans (and I think that may create a herd of rabid Avatar fans in about 10 years or so when the kids who were about 10 - 13 watching it reach their 20's )

[Callan S.]

I assumed he started at 'A new hope' because back in the day there were people who would still argue with him and he'd listen. So he got argued into a in media res. Also other stuff, like being argued out of Han Solo being a lizard guy.