Thimbleweed Park a spiritual sequel to Maniac Mansion (mild spoilers)

[Doesnotcompute83]

I am surprised that the game is chalk full of MM references. I wasn't surprised that the game had references of the meteor (Wanted poster in Sheriff's office), but I was a bit surprised that Sandy and Dave are characters in the game. Even Leonard, who I initially mistaken as Bernard (the face design is that of Bernard from MM VGA) is said to be Bernard's cousin in the game; is Leonard the same individual seen in Sam and Max: Hit the Road? I was also shocked to see that Ed and Edna (who you can dial her number in the game and hear her voice; Edna sounds similar to the voice actress from Day of the Tentacle, which is a nice touch considering that Ron Gilbert had no involvement with DOTT) have a cameo appearances in a flashback since I would assume Disney/LucasArts be strict in allowing Ron Gilbert to use the characters; I knew that the creators of the Quest for Glory game tried to make HeroU connected to QFG, but had to sever the connection due to Activision owning the rights to the old Sierra series. Because the Maniac Mansion characters are shown in the game without any name or character design changes, it is likely that Ron Gilbert got the okay to use the characters with permission by Disney.

Anyway, with Sandy and Dave being characters you can interact with, as well as the various mentioning of Maniac Mansion, makes me think that Thimbleweed Park is a spiritual sequel that exist in the same universe as Maniac Mansion. This was a pleasant surprised since I have wanted a sequel to MM even if it is indirect; Day of the Tentacle can be seen as an indirect sequel to Maniac Mansion, afterall.

[avoidconfusion]

It is not just Maniac Mansion. There are plenty of Zak McMracken (the audience member in the circus witj the nose glasses ) and Monkey Island references (vodoo lady etc)

The tentacle (s) also feature in the game hehe

[Iron Curtain]

I would have to agree on the Disney licensing bit. Otherwise, why else would the word "Lucasarts" appear in-game? It just seems like a trademark violation otherwise…

[NickNack]

Maybe he owns the copyright? Remember. What really matters is who owns it.

[Iron Curtain]

Originally posted by NickNack:

Maybe he owns the copyright? Remember. What really matters is who owns it.

Nope, Disney bought all the George Lucas properties when they bought Star Wars. So that means Disney bought all of the Lucasfilm Games/Lucasarts properties too, including Maniac Mansion & Monkey Island.

[KevinKC]

Yeah, to me Thimbleweed Park is Maniac Mansion 3.

I really hope they had the permissions from disney for less important characters like Sandy and the tentacles etc... It would really be infuriating to see the game suffer a lawsuit when Disney is already preventing a lot to happen (Monkey Island 3) for no justifiable reason (Yeah, they own the rights and Monkey Island 3 would overshadow Pirates of the Caribbean 24, so what ? )

[reboog711]

I had no idea Sandy and Dave were characters from Maniac Mansion..

[TangoBravo]

There is a level of abstraction which would make any legal action futile. Just look at how little of the actual creative work covered by the license makes it into the game. Pretty much nothing, as it is mainly hinted at. It is always "MmucasFlem" instead of Lucas Film Games. We get character resembling other characters, but never is their background history explained. All connection happens in the players minds.

[KevinKC]

Well... if you are right, they are really flirting with the devil at times. And they should.

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

There is a level of abstraction which would make any legal action futile. Just look at how little of the actual creative work covered by the license makes it into the game. Pretty much nothing, as it is mainly hinted at. It is always "MmucasFlem" instead of Lucas Film Games. We get character resembling other characters, but never is their background history explained. All connection happens in the players minds.

They actually do mention LucasArts by name at the beginning of the game when one of the characters (either Agent Ray or Delores mentions how LucasArts removed deaths from their point and click adventure games, making them more satisfying. I think MmucasFlem is done intentionally as the game doesn't have a problem stating the adventure names nor LucasArts games such Monkey Island and King's Quest 3 (the books in the library and bookstore). While one can argue these may have been inserted by the backers, I am sure the lawyers Ron Gilbert's company either got permission or checked if it was okay to add.

I understand it is one thing to have one character resemble another as homage, but Leonard, Dave, and Sandy's face are copied right from the EGA version of Maniac Mansion. For those who haven't played Maniac Mansion, here is how the characters appear in the EGA ver. of the game:

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/32635-maniac-mansion-amiga-screenshot-character-selection.gif

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by avoidconfusion:

It is not just Maniac Mansion. There are plenty of Zak McMracken (the audience member in the circus witj the nose glasses ) and Monkey Island references (vodoo lady etc)

The tentacle (s) also feature in the game hehe

There is quite a few Monkey Island references as well. For example, Guybrush Threepwood in the audience, his jacket behind the stage, etc.

I find it odd that the references are so obvious like an old LucasArts game if Gilbert did not get permission. In the Monkey Island remakes, references to Sam and Max were removed from the remastered editions (though they remain when playing it in original settings in those editions) even though they are left in-tact in Day of the Tentacle.

[TangoBravo]

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

They actually do mention LucasArts by name at the beginning of the game when one of the characters

Right, and Sierra if I remember correctly. But there they just state the obvious. Nobody can sue for having their product or brand portrayed in a movie within the common context as in reality. They don't use Pepsi, because it kills the plant. They can use Star Trek, as it is represented in its common context. They could not use Star Trek if they beamed onto the bridge during game play. I did not read all the books so far, but I guess they are prepared for a c&d sitaution and can pull them out immediatly. Also they avoided copyrighted content beyond what one could consider as fan fiction. Times have changed an I doubt a greedy Anne Rice would be able to prey on her fans the way she did a few years ago.

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

I understand it is one thing to have one character resemble another as homage, but Leonard, Dave, and Sandy's face are copied right from the EGA version of Maniac Mansion.

We are talking about a limited amount of pixels. One can protect the concept of PacMan within limits, but the yellow circle with the black triangle is such a rudimentary design that there is no danger when using it as a door knob. Those face are so limited and even differ in the versions of the product, and there is no item of the plot which identifies them as the copyrighted characters, that I doubt any judge would bother to waste his time on a trial.
The audience in the circus probably is the grayest territory, as the selection allows reasonable suspicion that each character must be a reference. But there those characters add nothing to the scene and are not interactive.

[Iron Curtain]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

They actually do mention LucasArts by name at the beginning of the game when one of the characters

Right, and Sierra if I remember correctly. But there they just state the obvious. Nobody can sue for having their product or brand portrayed in a movie within the common context as in reality. They don't use Pepsi, because it kills the plant. They can use Star Trek, as it is represented in its common context. They could not use Star Trek if they beamed onto the bridge during game play. I did not read all the books so far, but I guess they are prepared for a c&d sitaution and can pull them out immediatly. Also they avoided copyrighted content beyond what one could consider as fan fiction. Times have changed an I doubt a greedy Anne Rice would be able to prey on her fans the way she did a few years ago.

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

I understand it is one thing to have one character resemble another as homage, but Leonard, Dave, and Sandy's face are copied right from the EGA version of Maniac Mansion.

We are talking about a limited amount of pixels. One can protect the concept of PacMan within limits, but the yellow circle with the black triangle is such a rudimentary design that there is no danger when using it as a door knob. Those face are so limited and even differ in the versions of the product, and there is no item of the plot which identifies them as the copyrighted characters, that I doubt any judge would bother to waste his time on a trial.
The audience in the circus probably is the grayest territory, as the selection allows reasonable suspicion that each character must be a reference. But there those characters add nothing to the scene and are not interactive.

The problem with all this is that other, larger companies had to change content for far less. Did you play Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People? When Strong Bad is sleeping in the first episode, he mumbles the words "Rhino Feeder", a game made by Harmless Junk, Inc.'s internal flash-game-making company Videlectrix. In some of the older flash cartoons, Strong Bad mumbles Super Nintendo games from other companies when he's asleep, e.g. ActRaiser and Chrono Trigger. If something as small as THAT would trigger a lawsuit, what does that say about the mountains of callbacks in Thimbleweed Park?

Not to mention that if all of it were legal, would Terrible Toybox risk a lawsuit? It just seems weird…

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by Iron Curtain:

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

Right, and Sierra if I remember correctly. But there they just state the obvious. Nobody can sue for having their product or brand portrayed in a movie within the common context as in reality. They don't use Pepsi, because it kills the plant. They can use Star Trek, as it is represented in its common context. They could not use Star Trek if they beamed onto the bridge during game play. I did not read all the books so far, but I guess they are prepared for a c&d sitaution and can pull them out immediatly. Also they avoided copyrighted content beyond what one could consider as fan fiction. Times have changed an I doubt a greedy Anne Rice would be able to prey on her fans the way she did a few years ago.
We are talking about a limited amount of pixels. One can protect the concept of PacMan within limits, but the yellow circle with the black triangle is such a rudimentary design that there is no danger when using it as a door knob. Those face are so limited and even differ in the versions of the product, and there is no item of the plot which identifies them as the copyrighted characters, that I doubt any judge would bother to waste his time on a trial.
The audience in the circus probably is the grayest territory, as the selection allows reasonable suspicion that each character must be a reference. But there those characters add nothing to the scene and are not interactive.

The problem with all this is that other, larger companies had to change content for far less. Did you play Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People? When Strong Bad is sleeping in the first episode, he mumbles the words "Rhino Feeder", a game made by Harmless Junk, Inc.'s internal flash-game-making company Videlectrix. In some of the older flash cartoons, Strong Bad mumbles Super Nintendo games from other companies when he's asleep, e.g. ActRaiser and Chrono Trigger. If something as small as THAT would trigger a lawsuit, what does that say about the mountains of callbacks in Thimbleweed Park?

Not to mention that if all of it were legal, would Terrible Toybox risk a lawsuit? It just seems weird…

True. I feel that Toybox did a lot name dropping that would trigger some sort of lawsuit if they didn't get permission especially how Disney owns a lot of the things referenced in TP especially Star Wars. I wonder how they had gotten away using "You Tube tm" without copyright infringment if they didn't ask permission.

As said before, it is one thing to do name drops of characters' first name from a game owned by a different company without permission, but to actually use a pixel-perfect facial representations of Maniac Mansion characters is a whole different thing. That is akin to me adding Mario (with his snes sprite intact) as a minor character in an adventure title. Although his back story is not explained, I am sure it would trigger a lawsuit by Nintendo as they would shut any fan-games down if they use their assets.

As mentioned before, the Coles had to remove all references of Quest For Glory from HeroU as they didn't have the license to link the two as they originally envisioned despite creating the GFQ series. I remember when Leisure Suit Larry Reload was in development and how AL Lowe mentioned that he couldn't use the original death sequence as they only had the rights to Larry (Activision sold the ip a decade ago during the development of Box Office Bust). In the first version of LSL (second version if you include Softporn or third if you include the Japanese remake of Softporn), Larry gets fixed at Sierra Online where Graham and the dragon from KQ can be seen. While this scene was already changed in the VA version of LSL, it was no big deal for Al Lowe to change it again.

Speaking of Sierra, they were sued before with names like "Droid R Us" in the original Space Quest game.

I am sure Ron Gilbert knows a bunch of people at LucasArts even if it is now owned by Disney and asked permission since seeing the Edison in all their EGA would be almost impossible to do without it. I guess to end such a discussion, I would have to finish the game and see the end credits.

[Lord Dem]

Suddenly everyone is an infrigement lawyer LOL!

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by dthoupis:

Suddenly everyone is an infrigement lawyer LOL!

LOL I don't claim to be one, but putting the MM reference aside, I find it odd how TP can get away with non-Maniac Mansion references such as the Star Wars references such as a poster of Darth Vader in Delores' room, the Batman cosplayer, and Sexy Riker who makes crystal clear references from Star Trek.