Is this a Pandemic rip-off ?

[Seven]

I was quite surprised to find this game on steam as it looks like a shiny version of Pandemic 2.
And to be more precise, Pandemic 2 was created in 2008 by another developer and is available for free.

So is this a copy of a 5 year old free game, but with a price tag on it ?

Because so far, it reaallyyyy looks like it. I understand it's an alpha, so maybe some genius brand new ideas will be implemented and make this game a game on its own. But my 6th sense tells me "hundreds of upgrades you got to farm for" and that's it.

But if you prove me wrong and this game becomes awesome, I'll get it !

[Chowder7116]

It sure seems like it.

[EpicRice]

"The core game of Plague Inc: Evolved is the same as Plague Inc. - the player controls a plague which has infected patient zero. The player must infect and kill the whole world population by evolving the plague and adapting to various environments. However, there is a time pressure to complete the game before humans, the opponent, develop a cure for the plague. The developer has said that the game was inspired by Pandemic 2, a browser-based Flash game released in 2008 by Dark Realm Studios"

Seems like the game was inspired by it, doesn't mean its a rip off though, based on the game it seems like it's going to have alot of interesting features not in the mobile plague inc and as you mentioned a more 'Shiny' interface. Multiplayer on this will definately seem interesting though.

[COVID's Patient 0]

I played pandemic, but in my opinin, i think its not a rip-off of pandemic. Im shure pandemic started a little more late than plague inc

[COVID's Patient 0]

Atleast the iphone version :P

[Noesanity]

The funny thing is Pandemic 2 was a stolen rip off of the board game pandemic. the reason Pandemic 2 is free (was originally supose to be a $30 title) is becuase when it was being published Z-Man Gameing (the people who made the board game) sued dark relm games for copyright infringement and theft of a trademark. (both in stealing the idea, and the name)

but on the same note Z-man gameing has gone so far as not to sue, and to even endorsed Plauge. Inc as being "interesting, Intutive, and fun" so if the people who own the copyright havne't sured it is not a rip off.

Also note that owning (not holding) a copyright requires you to "agressivly" defend it, or you could lose your legal claims to it.

[Game of Ur]

This game costs 15 dollars. It includes all of the DLC of the mobile phone app version, is much much shinier, better music, is going to have multiplayer, steam workshop support, many more disease types that would probably all be costly DLC on the mobile phone version.

Now that the first arguement is over, this game, you start the game off, and don't have any genes (passive upgrades) and only have one disease unlocked: Bacteria. The bacteria is the all-rounder, and if you wipe out all life on earth on atleast normal difficulty, you gain access to the next, Virus.

There is atleast 7 of these ''standard'' types, and then there will be special types that usually defy the laws of microorganisms (And even organisms!) these are not in the game yet, though soon we shall get the Neurax Worm, an ORGANISM that controls the mind. Another is the necroa virus, essentially zombies. There will be maybe 4-6 of these in total. The reason I know about the necroa and neurax, is because they were in the phone version, and the neurax worm will be included in the first major update, according to the news.

There will also be ''cheat diseases''.

Every disease has it's own depiction and is actually animated and looks differently the more upgrades you have. You also have a thing in the bottom-right showing what your disease will affect on the human body.

You pick a disease, pick some genes, and then you pick a difficulty, and you go into the game. You then have to pick a country to start in. The country you choose can affect your disease, for example, if you start in india, you basically have a small version of heat resistance 1 built into your disease.

You can upgrade your disease via DNA points, gotten at certain times. (I cannot in-depth tell you about DNA, I don't have the game, I only have about 12-hours worth of knowledge on the phone version of the game, and a bit on this, alot of it still applies).

You have three factors about your disease evolution. Infectivity, which is just how infectious your virus is. Severity, I don't really understand this one much, but it's how severe your virus is, if you have, for example, diarrohea and then vomiting and sneezing and coughing but no real proper lethal symptoms, your severity will be quite high, but your lethality will be quite low.

Which leads me into the next factor, lethality. Pretty self-explanatory, how lethal your virus is. Severity and lethality basically affect how humanity looks at you, if you have low severity and lethality but you are detected somehow magically (say, you are on mega brutal, and had a random medical check-up happen), humanity will not really put much attention into you, and will wait a while before starting to even make a cure or alert the public. If your virus, for example, is detected, and then goes all-out severely lethal, humanity will put all research into eradicating you, and will alert the public quickly.

This, however, (how humans look upon you) is not linear to those 3 bars. Certain symptoms can make them suspicious, also there's things like combos. One of them is the swine flu combo, where you have symptoms similar to swine flu, meaning humanity will waste time researching swine flu instead (slowing cure research rate).

When humanity detects you, it will say a new minor disease is spreading, at this point if you've infected enough you'd make yourself as lethal as possible.

Then, eventually, humanity will start work on a cure. if the cure reaches 100%, your disease basically dies off because of it.

The game will include scenarios, things like ''alternate reality'' or ''black death'' or ''Swine flu''. Which allow you to do things and use special diseases only available in the scenarios mode. I think this is enough to tell you that this game is very much more in-depth and better than Pandemic.

[kabukiman]

My first thoughts when I saw the game on Steam was - "Hey, finally they made Pandemic 3."

Having played both games, I can say that the differences are marginal at the moment. Well, it's way easier to infect Madagascar in Plague Inc...;)

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Noesanity:

The funny thing is Pandemic 2 was a stolen rip off of the board game pandemic. the reason Pandemic 2 is free (was originally supose to be a $30 title) is becuase when it was being published Z-Man Gameing (the people who made the board game) sued dark relm games for copyright infringement and theft of a trademark. (both in stealing the idea, and the name)

but on the same note Z-man gameing has gone so far as not to sue, and to even endorsed Plauge. Inc as being "interesting, Intutive, and fun" so if the people who own the copyright havne't sured it is not a rip off.

Also note that owning (not holding) a copyright requires you to "agressivly" defend it, or you could lose your legal claims to it.

It's hard to call even the flash Panemic game a 'rip off' of the Pandemic board game. They're not even close in terms of gameplay. The board gtame is more about stopping the pandemic and is a "german" style board game with entirely different mechanics.

Z-Man does have a decent trademark case in that people are likely to be confused between the board game and the video game being realted properties, when they are not.

Do you have a reference for this lawsuit though? I can't seem to find any references concerning this at all.

[Game of Ur]

Originally posted by kabukiman:

My first thoughts when I saw the game on Steam was - "Hey, finally they made Pandemic 3."

Having played both games, I can say that the differences are marginal at the moment. Well, it's way easier to infect Madagascar in Plague Inc...;)

Greenland is the new Madagascar. Though, possibly not quite as severe, especially if you're a fungus and can just spore burst your way into greenland if you have bad luck. Even if you have too much bad luck on getting there, I saw in the phone version of the game, there were two spore burst parts. they both went around in rings with a hole in the middle, if you got the entire ring around and still need more spores, there's a thing in the middle that you can use. It's like a mega spore burst that I know nothing about because I've never seen it happen. I'm guessing it'd infect more than one country.

[zen]

Plague > Pandemic

[Seven]

Ha ha, Madagascar...
http://oi46.tinypic.com/vy42km.jpg

[☭☢☣☠Vincent☠☣☢☭]

Originally posted by Onno the Cat:

Plague > Pandemic

so true

[Epoferute]

Pandemic or Plaque, I choose Plaque, it is a much better game with more options and realistics, and is definitely not a rip-off, just inspired by the game.

[Dipnderps]

plague inc is VERY similar to pandemic, but it has, for lack of a better word (and because i very much wanna use it) evolved, i will say that if you enjoy pandemic and are satisfied with it then dont buy plague you will feel ripped off, but if you want a similar game with so much more depth (though not right away) then $15 is a fair price even in its early stages now (but it is recomended that you wait for the full game if your gaming budget is actually $15)

[Flocton]

Originally posted by -777-:

I was quite surprised to find this game on steam as it looks like a shiny version of Pandemic 2.
And to be more precise, Pandemic 2 was created in 2008 by another developer and is available for free.

So is this a copy of a 5 year old free game, but with a price tag on it ?

Because so far, it reaallyyyy looks like it. I understand it's an alpha, so maybe some genius brand new ideas will be implemented and make this game a game on its own. But my 6th sense tells me "hundreds of upgrades you got to farm for" and that's it.

But if you prove me wrong and this game becomes awesome, I'll get it !

are you them type of people that think this is the same as pandemic? Bullsh*t