SHP Forums

Posted: **Thu Aug 06, 2026 9:26 am**

Perhaps it comes down to...

Hero-U has QFG references in it. While it's set in the same "world," are there enough references that the average player would believe it's a de facto QFG game? If all of the QFG references were removed, would it affect the Hero-U game in any meaningful way, or does it rely solely on those QFG references?

Is Hero-U merely 'disguised' as a pseudo-QFG game? Like the new Laura Bow game, where people say, "Just change some things, and it's okay to release!":

Main character is "Laura Bow" => Main character is "Maura Crowe"
Laura is a "reporter" => Maura is a "journalist"
Laura "solves mysteries" => Maura "uncovers riddles and completes puzzles"
The setting is the 1920s => The setting is the early part of the 20th century

See? It's all different!!!

It also probably doesn't hurt that the Coles were the originators of both the QFG & Hero-U worlds...

Posted: **Sat Aug 08, 2026 2:53 am**

Collector wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2026 8:39 am But you could use use it in eight years, since that is the time that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fall in to public domain then. For all of that, they are already in public domain in much of the world and all you would need to do would be to publish in one of those countries.

Ahem. The Tolkien Estate would beg to differ.

It is true that some countries, especially those with weak copyright protection (and especially communist countries - Russia, China, I'm looking at you!), LOTR is fair game. But in those countries, other western IP (like Harry Potter and Warhammer) are also not protected.

To give just one example, there was a bizarre and infamous piece of literary history in 2002, when a Chinese counterfeit book was published, entitled Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon (a mistranslation of Harry Potter and Bao Zuolong). This bootleg novel is actually just J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit with the character names swapped so that Bilbo and Gandalf become Harry Potter and Dumbledore (frequently misnamed "Gandalf" in the text).

In the same year, the Chinese black market publishers also published Harry Potter Vain Porcelain and Harry Potter and the Chinese Empire, both completely false bootlegs about how Harry Potter would battle creatures from Chinese mythology.

Having said that, Terry Brooks's "The Sword of Shannara" and David Eddings's "The Belgariad" series were both very close to the LOTR formula without breaking copyright, so they're fine. There was also the earlier Bored of the Rings, which is fine because it's obviously a parody. But Chinese and Russian bootlegs like the above are not fine, because they simply copied the same text without doing anything original of their own.
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As for Laura Bow ... I can tell goatmeal is taking the pi-- er, extracting the urine.

But obviously, turning Laura Bow into "Maura Crowe" etc. doesn't make the game any different. But I'm sure NineZyme will be very respectful of the LB IP. After all, they strike me as dedicated fans of the LB games ... and yes, not all fans treat the original respectfully, but NineZyme don't strike me as "those" kinds of fans.

Posted: **Sun Aug 09, 2026 12:15 am**

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2026 2:53 am As for Laura Bow ... I can tell goatmeal is taking the pi-- er, extracting the urine. But obviously, turning Laura Bow into "Maura Crowe" etc. doesn't make the game any different. But I'm sure NineZyme will be very respectful of the LB IP. After all, they strike me as dedicated fans of the LB games ... and yes, not all fans treat the original respectfully, but NineZyme don't strike me as "those" kinds of fans.

Changing the names might be enough to cover themselves, but it won't necessarily stop Microsoft from taking legal action. The former producers of "ER" are suing the producers of the medical drama "The Pitt". Noah Wylie wanted to produce a revival of "ER" with him reprising his role as Dr. Carter. They couldn't come to agreement with the producers of "ER", so they changed Wylie's character's name and placed the show in Pittsburgh instead of Chicago. The producers of "ER" thought this was copyright infringement, but what protects "The Pitt" is the copyright doctrine of "Scène à faire" ("scene that must be done"). There's only so many ways you can make a new medical drama (or police drama, or legal drama) so certain elements can't be copyrighted.

(really helpful "Legal Eagle" video on the subject)

Now that I think of it, changing the names might not be enough. There are a few specific elements of the Laura Bow games that, taken together, could cause problems for Ninezyme's game. Both have a female protagonist who is a journalist. Set in New York. Set around the time of Prohibition. Solves a mystery. The other thing is gameplay. Both "Colonel's Bequest" and "Dagger of Amon Ra" has the "clock-advances-as-you-progress"-thing. Will Ninezyme's game do the same thing?

Posted: **Mon Aug 10, 2026 7:34 pm**

notbobsmith wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2026 12:14 am There's a room full of statues of heroes and one of them is of Rakeesh. A liontaur. That pretty specifically references QFG. Maybe you could get away with calling it an homage or Easter Egg, but with all the other character (Uhura is there, I believe) and location references, it seems like they are crossing a line. Imagine what would happen if a fantasy novel had a statue of Frodo Baggins. I think you could get away with if it was parody ("Frodo Baggins... What was he famous for again?"), but if you keep it serious and stack other LOTR references on top of it, you are going to get in trouble.

Well, I wouldn't say Rakeesh or Uhura are main characters... and the main character of Quest for Glory is whatever you name it.

Like if you used the same name as some random hobbit named during Lord of the Rings, I'd wager you'd get away with it, because there's not much defined about the character, other than their name.

Where as Frodo, Samwise, Pippen, etc., are a core part of the story and quite developed.

Posted: **Mon Aug 10, 2026 7:36 pm**

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2026 2:53 am As for Laura Bow ... I can tell goatmeal is taking the pi-- er, extracting the urine. But obviously, turning Laura Bow into "Maura Crowe" etc. doesn't make the game any different. But I'm sure NineZyme will be very respectful of the LB IP. After all, they strike me as dedicated fans of the LB games ... and yes, not all fans treat the original respectfully, but NineZyme don't strike me as "those" kinds of fans.

They could just call her LAURA and never mention her last name, too.

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:23 pm**

Tawmis wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 7:34 pm
notbobsmith wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2026 12:14 am There's a room full of statues of heroes and one of them is of Rakeesh. A liontaur. That pretty specifically references QFG. Maybe you could get away with calling it an homage or Easter Egg, but with all the other character (Uhura is there, I believe) and location references, it seems like they are crossing a line. Imagine what would happen if a fantasy novel had a statue of Frodo Baggins. I think you could get away with if it was parody ("Frodo Baggins... What was he famous for again?"), but if you keep it serious and stack other LOTR references on top of it, you are going to get in trouble.
Well, I wouldn't say Rakeesh or Uhura are main characters... and the main character of Quest for Glory is whatever you name it.

Like if you used the same name as some random hobbit named during Lord of the Rings, I'd wager you'd get away with it, because there's not much defined about the character, other than their name.

Whereas Frodo, Samwise, Pippen, etc., are a core part of the story and quite developed.

Well, I don't know. If you created a character called Lotho Sackville-Baggins, I'm sure lots of eyebrows would be raised at the Tolkien Estate.

Tawmis wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 7:36 pm
Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2026 2:53 am As for Laura Bow ... I can tell goatmeal is taking the pi-- er, extracting the urine. But obviously, turning Laura Bow into "Maura Crowe" etc. doesn't make the game any different. But I'm sure NineZyme will be very respectful of the LB IP. After all, they strike me as dedicated fans of the LB games ... and yes, not all fans treat the original respectfully, but NineZyme don't strike me as "those" kinds of fans.
They could just call her LAURA and never mention her last name, too.

You mean Laura Doe (as it John Doe)?

Posted: **Fri Sep 04, 2026 3:07 pm**

A Tale As Old As Time
Happy August everyone, we hope that you're all doing well out there. We're not going to dilly dally around this month. It's just going to be a quick progress update on everything. So let's go!

Build-A-Pirate
Our new update for Tile Tales: Pirate is coming along nicely. We're in the process of putting together all of the various builds of the game for different platforms, including the new version for Nintendo Switch 1/2, which we will be submitting any day now.

The submission process could take some time still, but we're hopeful that everything will go smoothly. During that time, we'll continue testing the different versions of the game, and making sure that it's all ready-to-go! The actual release date of this version is TBD, depending on how long all of this takes. But we'll let you know when it's ready.

We're also planning to set up a Xsolla storefront, for anyone who would like to take advantage of discounted download keys on each platform. So keep an eye out for that!

A Cog In The Machine
Our games-for-science project, Neureka, also got a new game mode in August! Ok, it's actually just an updated version of a game from the older version of the app... it's called Cog Quest!

Having this game converted into the newer app means that the two now have feature parity, and will allow us to finally phase out the old version of the app entirely. I think we're all looking forward to that moment, as it will reduce overall support needs for the team.

Study participants in the old app will be able to continue their assessments until completed. And new research studies will be directed toward the new app. Hopefully this all leads to a new and exciting understanding of brain health!

Bow-Leave-It
Unfortunately there wasn't much time for Laura Bow this month, so we weren't able to make any significant progress there. But we're very much looking forward to getting back into it as soon as Tile Tales: Pirate is ready to launch.

We did, however explore the idea of getting the game onto Nintendo Switch 2, since we have everything we need for that. So once we're back into that project, we'll give it a try and see how it does! That wasn't originally a platform we had planned for, but we think it might actually play quite nicely on it.

For The Readers
The Dryad Stone novel didn't get much love in August either, except for a minor editing pass on a couple of chapters. However, we're hoping to see some new pages over the coming months!

Posted: **Sat Sep 05, 2026 12:53 am**

Hmm ... I can't find either Neureka or Cog Quest anywhere, not even on Ninezymes's website. Any idea what's going on?

Huzzah for Tile Tales: Pirate!

I'm sure BBP can tell you more, as I'm sure she's been playing it!

I wonder if Ninezyme has abandoned or withdrawn the Laura Bow project.

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