Including Colossus

Bruno Wolff III bruno at wolff.to
Sun Nov 25 19:07:08 UTC 2007


Colossus is a game written in java that didn't work using gcj, but does
appear to work with icedtea. (Though I haven't done very extensive testing
yet.) The program is GPL 2 licensed.
The game is based on the classic Avalon Hill game Titan that is in the process
of being reprinted by Valley Games.

The name change should avoid the main potential trademark issue, but Valley
Games might still threaten to sue even if they don't have a good case.
Some of the artwork is clearly too similar to the original artwork to use.
(In particular on legion markers, but at least some alternate colors are
provided with artwork that wasn't in the original game.)
(Valley Games is redoing the artwork, but the original creators would still
hold copyright on it.)
Also the board design has potential copyright issues as well. The masterboard
is fairly unique and the interconnections of the various terrain types may
be copyrightable even if the artwork isn't the same as the original board.
Also each of the battle boards also has terrain where the actual locations
of particular terrain types might be copyrightable even if the artwork is
different.
The data for the maps can be changed and does include some variants, so it
might be possible to ship the game with only some varient data and let
people grab the "standard" maps from sourceforge.

I would be willing to try to package the game. (I've done the CLA
but haven't packaged anything yet and don't have experience writing spec
files from scratch, though I have mnade minor modifications to existing
ones.)




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