Week 8 was another busy week for the team, with everyone working on delegated tasks focusing within their own disciplines. Despite this, communication remained to be on point with team members checking in on each other and performing continued (Tuckman, 1965).
As the team were now producing more individualised work for the project, it would now become more important to investigate the legal principles of intellectual property.
This should also be something that any indie games developer should be aware of when co-developing or hiring in contractors, as misunderstandings could mean they are entitled to an equal stake in any potential success.
What is Intellectual Property?
The UK Government defines intellectual property (IP) as: “Something that you create using your mind - for example, a story, an invention, an artistic work or a symbol.“
IP is treated similarly to physical property that is belongs to an individual or groups of individuals – which means it can be sold, transferred, or stolen. Intellectual property rights allow it’s owner(s) to make money from it, but the value can vary dramatically, so it’s important to be assess its value, which can be a difficult task as its worth can change for a variety of reasons.
Making sure you have the right type of IP protection is also important as it can stop people stealing or copying:
· the names of your products or brands.
· your inventions.
· the design or look of your products.
· things you write, make, or produce. There are different types of IP protection including; Copyright, patents, designs and trade marks – some of these will come into effect automatically, others will need to be applied for.
An individual counts as owning intellectual property if they:
· created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design)
· bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner
· have a brand that could be a trade mark, for example, a well-known product name
Copyright protection
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, copyright protection would apply to the different members of the Wild Branch, as we have individually created original literary, artistic work, including illustration and photography and potentially original non-literary written work, such as software.
Upon investigating IP protection it is clear that further work will need to be completed within the group to create an inventory of IP assets, as we are working on a joint venture and could potentially seek funding to complete the project. An IP valuation would also be needed, as well as further research into WIPO – the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Additional pixel art and animations
During the team’s weekly meeting, it was decided to leave out some of the previously considered ideas and focus on making sure the gameplay loop worked as needed.
As part of this, some changes to the in-game graphics were needed, including an animated drumming Tribal Elder asset, larger scale pixel illustrations of drums, rock, and log for the new speech bubble graphic. A new crouching and picking up animation for the demo's playable was also needed.
The original Tribal Elder amination was used as the basis for the new animation, a he was already sitting and I could add the drums between his crossed legs without too much trouble. I then made a quick image search for prehistoric drums, so that I had a reference to work from - this image would be used later as reference for the larger scale drum illustration.
Image 1: The ancient drum (Timetoast.com)
As the drum was reasonably similar to a Djembe drum, I also searched for video footage of people playing them as reference for the animation.
Image 2: Tribal Elder drumming animation - Will Ward 2021
I again used another original sprite as the basis for the picking up animation - in this case it was the caveman's idle animation. This was an obvious choice, as this action would generally happen from a standing position. To make sure the animation remained realistic I asked my son to perform the action and I made sketches of what I considered the key frames.
Image 3: Caveman picking up animation - Will Ward 2021
The fire illustration was designed by taking reference from the team's Miro mood board - which had a variety of campfire images.
Image 4: Large campfire pixel illustration - Will Ward 2021
The original drum illustration, which drew reference from a photo of an ancient drum (Image 1) was deemed to be too obscure and might confuse the player.
Image 5A: Large drum pixel illustration 001 - Will ward 2021
The second iteration of the drum mixed a more recognisable drum style with the original illustration and added musical notes to make it more recognisable.
Image 5B: Large drum pixel illustration 002 - Will ward 2021
Image 6: Large log pixel illustration (Will Ward 2021)
References:
Chapman, A. (2021). Tuckman: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing - BusinessBalls.com. [online] Businessballs.com. Available at: https://www.businessballs.com/team-management/tuckman-forming-storming-norming-performing-model/. [Accessed 20 July 2021].
Frequently Asked Questions: IP Policies for Universities and Research Institutions (2021). Available at: https://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/universities_research/ip_policies/faqs/index.html (Links to an external site.) [Accessed 20 July 2021].
Gov.uk (2019). Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. [online] Legislation.gov.uk. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents. [Accessed 20 July 2021].
Matt Hains (2014). Djembe patterns for beginners - Patterns 1 to 6. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUWsvuvZgh4 [Accessed 22 July 2021].
Intellectual property and your work (2021). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview [Accessed 20 July 2021].
Images:
Image 1: Ancient drum - Timetoast timelines - Available at: https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/history-of-the-snare-drum-4c43e1ee-e79d-4be8-8a8c-e8aab1611ff4 [Accessed 23 July 2021].
Image 2: Tribal Elder drumming - Will Ward 2021
Image 3: Caveman picking up animation- Will Ward 2021
Image 4: Large campfire pixel illustration - Will Ward 2021
Image 5A: Large drum pixel illustration 001 - Will Ward 2021
Image 5B: Large drum pixel illustration 002 - Will ward 2021
Image 6: Large log pixel illustration -Will Ward 2021