[travis travis]

has this ever happened to you?

Three or four years ago I was putting together a portfolio of possible videogame franchise ideas. I had one character, and concept design for a really cool, epic game, some original gameplay mechanics, all sorts of stuff I like a lot... but here's the problem... a few years pass and out comes the Soul Reaver series of games, which by coincidence has a VERY similar motif. Raziel and my main character have the same color scheme, similar hair, are both ghoulish types... similar clothing... actually they are very different in many ways... but the problem is you can obviously pick up on the similarities, and someone is going to get blamed, although I wasn't influenced by the Soul Reaver series at all, and my design is older then it.

Personally, I would despise the lifting of artistic styles, and would want my ideas to stand on their own, but I think what happen is we both went for an epic gothic sort of thing -- and that's what we both got. But what to do then with a really cool idea which DOES stand on its own, but might suffer from being percieved as a clone since the other series is out right now? I don't want to redesign the character, it is set in my mind as strongly as Superman or Spiderman... and the story, the gameplay, it's all far, far different (Well actually, I haven't actually even played the Soul Reavers, but they seem to just be third person action games) anyway I know my ideas are still good cause they are based on strong things, but it just really bothers me the motif overlap might turn people away.

Ouch! This is the price I pay for being too worried about proving myself original I guess

[v1510nAry]

I think the lesson is show your work quickly to other people before they see somehting else like it... Have to do it with my art teacher all the time !! Very annoying

[Blitz]

Yah...yah gata show it off fast hehe.

I had the same thing happen to me kinda. Its a running joke with me and my friends.

One day I desided to creat this very wepon based guy. Meaning he has alot of wepons. His main wepon is this sword that has a long probably 3 handed handle and a blad that spaned the width of the guard. I thouhgt this was a great sword. Not to long after that Square starts relesing shots of Final Fantasy 7. My sword was almost the spitting image of Cluds big ass sword. Except mine didnt have the holes in it.
And by the way if there was a sword that looked like Clouds before that, Ive never seen one. hehe

So maybe game companies have camaras in our room watcheing our every design.

Blitz.

ALSO, is that something game companies would apriciate in a portfolio? meaning, maybe puting in some really worked out designs of games.