Shadows of Lylat: Starfox freespace mod

plufim

From 4 color rebellion:

Some fairly dedicated Nintendo fans released a little surprise for us last night. Star Fox: Shadows of Lylat is a fan-made title using the FreeSpace_Open engine. It looks like they plan to make this more of a space simulation type of game, something that FreeSpace was known for. Not much is known yet, but the game is set to take place between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures.

Here are a few of the promised features:

* Lots of playable crafts, including 3 different Arwings
* Weapons galore
* Enemies, both new and old
* Space and ground based missions
* A deep storyline
* Multiplayer

The demo is set to be released by the end of this month, but a high-res video is available now on their website. Nintendo has not yet commented on this game, but they have taken efforts to stop fan-made games before.

The site for this fangame
Youtube of trailer

Dylan Cuthbert of Q games (who made starfox command) weighed in on this, being fairly confident that nintendo wont be bitches like square and block the whole thing (as with the chrono trigger remake)

After reporting on the fanmade Star Fox: Shadows of Lylat yesterday, I thought it might be interesting to see what Dylan Cuthbert thought about the fan efforts. Dylan is the president of Q-Games, and was involved with several of the Star Fox titles. Their most recent releases were the Bit Generations title, Digidrive, and Star Fox Command for the DS.

Here are his comments:

Well, as long as they don’t try to make money from it, it is “fan-art” and ok as far as I’m aware.

I think I saw a video of this on youtube a while back and it looked interesting in a hard core kind of way, but I haven’t seen any recent revisions.

Interesting comment? Hmm.. Best of luck to them - I know personally how tough it is to make a Star Fox game (having made 3 of them), and it’s not as easy as it looks.

This is probably the closest thing to an official blessing that these guys will get. Good luck to them! We’ll be keeping an eye on their project.

This looks fantastic. The ground based stuff looks pretty basic for now, but I'm sure that'll improve.

chaossoldier

Hmm...Might have to look into this freespace game if this goes through to completion.

agoaj

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

YesNoMu

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Exactly what I was thinking. At best, this is a lot of work for something they can't put on their resume. And there's nothing wrong with a generic arcade space shooter.

EDIT: Not to say I won't play and enjoy this, if/when it comes out.

TheSonicRetard

YesNoMu wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Exactly what I was thinking. At best, this is a lot of work for something they can't put on their resume. And there's nothing wrong with a generic arcade space shooter.

EDIT: Not to say I won't play and enjoy this, if/when it comes out.

Why can't they put it on their resume?

YesNoMu

TheSonicRetard wrote:

YesNoMu wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Exactly what I was thinking. At best, this is a lot of work for something they can't put on their resume. And there's nothing wrong with a generic arcade space shooter.

EDIT: Not to say I won't play and enjoy this, if/when it comes out.

Why can't they put it on their resume?

Not their IP, might start infringing on copyrights if they tried to use it as credentials. I could be totally wrong on that, though.

EDIT: And of course, if it turns out really nicely, they'd never be able to make money off of it.

BaronVonSnakPak

love starfox, love freespace.

shall love them both....together.

edit: that being said, im REALLY glad they went with the assault version of the arwing. its my favorite.

Campion

The Forum has a call for VOICE ACTORS! There's going to be voices in this!! People are going to be making Fox and Peppy sounds!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

slash000

"Bubbuh duh geddon!"

-SPI-

slash000 wrote:

"Bubbuh duh geddon!"

"Wuh wuh windabbid!"

Glal

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Because having it be Starfox is kind of the point of the mod? It's not like they designed the thing, then went "hokay, which IP shall we use for this?".
I doubt it'll be shut down, as they're not remaking a game as a whole (as CT was), they're simply making their own game using Starfox as the theme. It could, but I doubt it.

BaronVonSnakPak

-SPI- wrote:

slash000 wrote:

"Bubbuh duh geddon!"

"Wuh wuh windabbid!"

dadubdub buhbah

YesNoMu

Glal wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Because having it be Starfox is kind of the point of the mod? It's not like they designed the thing, then went "hokay, which IP shall we use for this?".
I doubt it'll be shut down, as they're not remaking a game as a whole (as CT was), they're simply making their own game using Starfox as the theme. It could, but I doubt it.

The precedent for this, ironically, is one of the best-known examples of Foxing. See the second paragraph of "Origins."

Captain Vash

So like...
Look out it's a trap?



(Why can't anyone just make another rail shooter? It's the only fucking thing I want to see out Starfox. Ever.

TheSonicRetard

YesNoMu wrote:

TheSonicRetard wrote:

YesNoMu wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Exactly what I was thinking. At best, this is a lot of work for something they can't put on their resume. And there's nothing wrong with a generic arcade space shooter.

EDIT: Not to say I won't play and enjoy this, if/when it comes out.

Why can't they put it on their resume?

Not their IP, might start infringing on copyrights if they tried to use it as credentials. I could be totally wrong on that, though.

EDIT: And of course, if it turns out really nicely, they'd never be able to make money off of it.

None of that matters on a resume. If you're trying to get hired by a company in order to make games, this sort of project will look absolutely stunning on a resume.

Noray

Thread needs more DO A BARREL ROLL!

bombardier

Noray wrote:

Thread needs more DO A BARREL ROLL!

I disagree!

LewieP

bombardier wrote:

Noray wrote:

Thread needs more DO A BARREL ROLL!

I disagree!

that happened to me once...

mausmalone

plufim wrote:

(snip)

Dylan Cuthbert of Q games (who made starfox command and the original SNES Starfox) weighed in on this, being fairly confident that nintendo wont be bitches like square and block the whole thing (as with the chrono trigger remake)
(snip)

fixed/added to there.

Man... I've seen the credits to the original Starfox more times than I can remember.

LewieP

mausmalone wrote:

plufim wrote:

(snip)

Dylan Cuthbert of Q games (who made starfox command and the original SNES Starfox) weighed in on this, being fairly confident that nintendo wont be bitches like square and block the whole thing (as with the chrono trigger remake)
(snip)

fixed/added to there.

Man... I've seen the credits to the original Starfox more times than I can remember.

where they called Qgames then? I swear Crave had something to do with it

mausmalone

LewieP wrote:

mausmalone wrote:

plufim wrote:

(snip)

Dylan Cuthbert of Q games (who made starfox command and the original SNES Starfox) weighed in on this, being fairly confident that nintendo wont be bitches like square and block the whole thing (as with the chrono trigger remake)
(snip)

fixed/added to there.

Man... I've seen the credits to the original Starfox more times than I can remember.

where they called Qgames then? I swear Crave had something to do with it

No ... I'm not sure but I don't think Q! is the same company as the one that made the original Starfox... but the original Starfox was a collaboration between Nintendo of Japan (NCL) and Argonaut Software. My assumption all these years has been that Nintendo came up with how the game should play and what the characters should be, etc ... then Argonaut came in and actually made it all work in 3D.

At the time, they were considered to be solidly knowledgeable in the world of early 3D gaming, having done Birds of Prey on the Amiga and Race Drivin' on the Atari ST and Amiga.

EDIT: Yeah, Argonaut fired 100 employees and put itself up for sale in October 2004 acording to Wikipedia. Dylan Cuthbert then founded Q-Games, a wholly separate company.

EDIT2: Other trivia: the original Starfox soundtrack wasn't written by Koji Kondo, NCL's main music guy ... it was actually written by Hajime Hirasawa. Before Starfox he was a classical composer who did work in the film industry. After, he started his own company (Faith Inc.) that composes ringtones for mobile phone companies.

Pata

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Because they want to make a freaking StarFox fangame/mod.

LewieP

aha, Crave published the Argonauts game "Red dog" for the Dreamcast, thats the connection I was making.

agoaj

Pata Hikari wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Because they want to make a freaking StarFox fangame/mod.

Tough nuts, it's not their property. They don't have the right to use these characters or design. They should come up with their own ideas, they can rip off starfox but they shouldn't straight up steal starfox.

MiSTieOtaku

DO A BARREL ROLL! To Barrel roll, press Z or R twice! Try a somersault! Use bombs wisely! Don't mess up that Ar-Wing!

Ahem, now that that is out of the way, I have to admit that this has me really interested. I hadn't really been entirely interested in any Freespace mods, and had dismissed the Battlestar Galactica mod when I heard about it. However, this one seems really, really, intriguing. A Starfox game that is more simulation that arcade-y, as well as apparently having some old bosses around like the big ship that transforms.

I wonder if it'll still have the glowing weak points that you hit for massive damage...

s3rial one

agoaj wrote:

Tough nuts, it's not their property. They don't have the right to use these characters or design. They should come up with their own ideas, they can rip off starfox but they shouldn't straight up steal starfox.

Right. Sure.

Regardless of any legal right, they've done it. I'm glad they have. It's a cool game using a property people like, and it's something Nintendo quite clearly wouldn't have ever done.

Woohoo!

Mitten

I thought I may as well.

apotheos

agoaj wrote:

Pata Hikari wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Because they want to make a freaking StarFox fangame/mod.

Tough nuts, it's not their property. They don't have the right to use these characters or design. They should come up with their own ideas, they can rip off starfox but they shouldn't straight up steal starfox.

Which is why you only announce this sort of thing when its DONE and RELEASED which means while you get a letter from the lawyers your work will live forever.

Buchwald

yaoi girls are so scary.

MiSTieOtaku

Thanks a lot. That cartoon is going to give me nightmares now...

AlienCowThatMoos

apotheos wrote:

Which is why you only announce this sort of thing when its DONE and RELEASED which means while you get a letter from the lawyers your work will live forever.

Why doesn't anyone doing this sort of project ever do that? Do they secretly hate their own work?

Athenor

AlienCowThatMoos wrote:

apotheos wrote:

Which is why you only announce this sort of thing when its DONE and RELEASED which means while you get a letter from the lawyers your work will live forever.

Why doesn't anyone doing this sort of project ever do that? Do they secretly hate their own work?

No, you announce like this in order to get support in the form of more manpower, or maybe sympathy money/donations.

apotheos

AlienCowThatMoos wrote:

apotheos wrote:

Which is why you only announce this sort of thing when its DONE and RELEASED which means while you get a letter from the lawyers your work will live forever.

Why doesn't anyone doing this sort of project ever do that? Do they secretly hate their own work?

I personally believe that most of them never intend on release anything. They just want the press/job opportunities from real companies.

The last 5% of a project is 95% of the work. Who needs that trouble?

Stormwatcher

you guys sound like you got to the internet yesterday or something...

I've been playing 5 different Wing Commander Mods and Conversions over the last years. WC Saga was just released (using FS2 SCP engine), WC Unknown Enemy and Standoff use the Vision Engine (from WC Prophecy), there is another one that uses Homeworld 2 engine. And those are just a few of the released mods on ONE game series.

You also have Exult, Lazarus, and lots of other examples.

People make new stuff using big Corp IPs all the time. Even EA is ok with it. As long as people don't want to earn cash with it.

BTW, they NEVER take a dime as donations. No money whatsoever.

I find it a cool way of extending great gaming franchises and for people to break into the industry. Only retarded aliens would object to it.

Dirty

Damn it. I want a Star Fox game that plays like Star Fox. Nintendo denies me 3 times in a row with a Zelda clone, a shitty 3PS, and a "who needs levels, we can finish this game in two months with just a bunch of random all-range mode battles" cock-tease! I got all excited about this thread until I read, "space simulation type of game."

Damn it.

LewieP

Stormwatcher wrote:

Only retarded aliens would object to it.

Stormwatcher

Dirty wrote:

Damn it. I want a Star Fox game that plays like Star Fox. Nintendo denies me 3 times in a row with a Zelda clone, a shitty 3PS, and a "who needs levels, we can finish this game in two months with just a bunch of random all-range mode battles" cock-tease! I got all excited about this thread until I read, "space simulation type of game."

Damn it.

Well, then you should make one yourself then

YesNoMu

TheSonicRetard wrote:

YesNoMu wrote:

TheSonicRetard wrote:

YesNoMu wrote:

agoaj wrote:

Why can't they make their own game? This will get cease and desisted.

Exactly what I was thinking. At best, this is a lot of work for something they can't put on their resume. And there's nothing wrong with a generic arcade space shooter.

EDIT: Not to say I won't play and enjoy this, if/when it comes out.

Why can't they put it on their resume?

Not their IP, might start infringing on copyrights if they tried to use it as credentials. I could be totally wrong on that, though.

EDIT: And of course, if it turns out really nicely, they'd never be able to make money off of it.

None of that matters on a resume. If you're trying to get hired by a company in order to make games, this sort of project will look absolutely stunning on a resume.

Well, if that's the case, fantastic! I just hope it doesn't get shut down.

mausmalone

Stormwatcher wrote:

Dirty wrote:

Damn it. I want a Star Fox game that plays like Star Fox. Nintendo denies me 3 times in a row with a Zelda clone, a shitty 3PS, and a "who needs levels, we can finish this game in two months with just a bunch of random all-range mode battles" cock-tease! I got all excited about this thread until I read, "space simulation type of game."

Damn it.

Well, then you should make one yourself then

I've been toying around with this idea for a while myself, but I keep getting sidetracked by the handfull of other side projects I have going.

Unfortunately, also, my 3D modeling skills are even too weak to model a proper Arwing.