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Ricochet games -- dead?

(14 posts) (5 voices)

Started 6 years ago by Dragonlair
Latest reply from Dragonlair

Dragonlair
Member

I know I'm not the only one on this board that has enjoyed the breakout series of Ricochet games that were developed by Reflexive years ago. Some years ago Amazon bought out Reflexive and I know many were upset because they were supposed to be able to keep the game even with new installs and were not -- they had to repurchase them.

I happened to find the games AFTER that buy out when Ricochet Xtreme was free at Amazon.com.

Two of the games have level editors - Lost Worlds Recharged and Infinity.

Infinity is my favorite breakout game. The main reason -- control! It has the right-mouse "recall" feature that gives you a fair amount of control over the "ion sphere". It also has all the game levels developed for it as well as all those developed for Lost Worlds Recharged. At the last notice, there were 4,553 EXTRA level sets.

However, as of a little over a week ago, those extra levels are not accessible. If you have not downloaded them, you can't get them. The connection from within the game fails and you get a timeout message if you try to view the Ricochet forum.

I called Amazon (as the owner) and was told that the "developer" has decided to discontinue support. Which means -- that site has been totally destroyed as far as I can tell.

If anybody can get hold of the site and find more than the 4,553 level sets, please let me know.

I "only" have done about 3510 of the extra level sets and I have over 266,000 rings. In fact, I have only found 4 levels where I have not gotten all the rings for a total of 15 missing rings. I also have over 1.9 Billion points.

I haven't checked the Big Kahuna games, they may be blocked as well!

Posted 6 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

I just checked -- Big Kahuna 2 - Chain Reaction also allowed "added sets" and that site is down, too. It's like Amazon has just dropped the floor from beneath Reflexive games.

I know I had some downloaded, maybe not all of them, but I can't find them now and they're not with the game.

Posted 6 years ago #
Rico
Member

Hi,

I'm a big fan of Ricochet Infinity myself and just found the game again (it even runs on Win10 w/o problems. I created nearly 100 new levels already. But sadly I threw away most of the old levels.

P

Posted 6 years ago #
Whiterabbit-uk
Games Guru

I have a few hundred level sets (graded at A) that I downloaded about 10 years ago that were for the Lost Worlds Recharged game. They are in the form of an executable and do require the Lost Worlds Recharged to be installed before you can recover the levels. Once recovered they can then be copied over to Ricochet Infinity. I have started to recover them slowly but family issues (my father is very ill) have put a hiatus on me finishing the transfers for the time being. Once I've completed them I will upload the level sets (many of which have up to 100 levels) to the cloud and provide a download link here.

If anyone else can do the same, please post links to your downloads here, it will be very much appreciated. The Ricochet series is one of my most favorite arcade games and I was gutted when I discovered the level sets were no longer accessible.

I did have hundreds of the Infinity level sets downloaded, but sadly I lost them to a failed hard drive a couple of years ago (I stupidly didn't back them up) and never got around to reinstalling them. If you have the time Dragonlair I would very much like to get any level sets you have. :)

Posted 6 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

Whterabbit,

I seem to have all but 1 level that was created for either Lost Worlds Recharged or Infinity and the ratings did change from time to time.

My concern is copyright. Amazon owns the copyright of the game and therefore for the levels. Each creator of levels would have copyright of the ones they created but what about the others.

I don't know how to find out if I would be allowed to give copies of what I have. I am quite willing -- if I won't get into any copyright issues doing so.

Does anybody know?

Posted 6 years ago #
ChrisS
Administrator

Each creator of levels would have copyright of the ones they created

I doubt that's true. The creator probably transferred the copyright to Reflexive/Amazon when they posted the level to the server so Amazon likely now owns the copyright to all levels. It might be a good opportunity for GOG.

I don't have the game but I wonder if you could download the levels from the Internet Archive (aka "Wayback Machine"). If you could tell the game to download from "here" maybe it would work.

Posted 6 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

I went through all the documentation that came with the game - either external files or the "credits" within the game. There were two external files (both .htm files). One was the general readme file and the other was a document to help make your own levels. Neither one had any mention of copyright at all that I could find. I even opened them in firefox and did a search for "copy". The help file had lots of references for copy - as in copy/paste but no copyright.

The credits had one note at the very end that listed the copyright of the game itself of 2007 by Reflexive.

There was a note in the readme that it is "as is" that is typical.

Does this say that the level sets created by others aren't copyrighted at all?

Posted 6 years ago #
ChrisS
Administrator

A brief review of results generated by a search on "who owns the copyright for game mods" gives potentially different interpretations.

One interpretation, The IP Implications of Video Game Mods, (from the penultimate paragraph) is "that courts consider user-generated works as derivative content belonging to the copyright owner". In this case, Reflexive built the game, Reflexive also built the game level editor, so Reflexive owns the copyright to your user-created levels.

Another interpretation, Bethesda owns the rights to your Skyrim Creation Kit mods, details the language contained in current user agreements that the author summarizes as "In short, Bethesda reserves the right to use any user-created content or mods in any way it sees fit – including modifying, adapting, and even selling it. By using the Creation Kit you are basically giving away all your rights to the mod and would have no way to claim royalties." As the article makes clear, this type of language is now typical boilerplate. It side-steps the ownership/copyright issue with a self-granted perpetual licensing arraignment.

At a bare minimum, Reflexive/Amazon owns a license for the user-created levels. The question is, would a court determine that the absence of an explicit licensing agreement result in a default to the first interpretation, where the levels are derivative content? Given that, again, Reflexive built the game, Reflexive built the game editor, plus Reflexive also provided the server to disseminate the user-created levels that were accessed through an in-game feature, I think the answer is likely "yes".

Posted 6 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

It's still a mess. I know there is at least one site where they are shared (information is in a thread on this game in BigFishGames - they still sell the game). I have no way to share what I have easily anyway. Unzipped, it's over half a gigabyte!

Posted 6 years ago #
ChrisS
Administrator

You might take a look at the EULA for the game in question. I installed a demo for Ricochet Lost Worlds in a VM and the EULA contains the following about what you can do with what they call "End-User Variations":

4. Distribution and Serving of Variations. So long as you fully comply at all times with this License and clearly identify them as having been created by you, Reflexive grants to you the limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive right to: (i) distribute your User Made Levels or User Conversions by means of providing a copy of the actual Module or User Conversion code to other users (e.g., via ftp, email, disc copies, etc.) (collectively "Distribute"); and (ii) to allow other users to play your User Made Levels.

5. Reflexive's Use of Variations. If you Distribute, or permit others to Distribute, your Variations, you hereby grant back to Reflexive an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute such Variations by any means, and to make such modifications thereto as Reflexive and deem are necessary to package, combine, and otherwise distribute such Variations. (If you do not wish to grant these rights to Reflexive, you must not Distribute your Variations.). Reflexive will make a reasonable effort to provide credit to you in the event it uses or distributes your Variations, but you acknowledge that identifying you and/or other Variation creators may be difficult, and any failure by Reflexive to provide credit to any person shall not be a breach of this License and shall not limit Reflexive's rights to use and distribute any Variation.

If other games have the same EULA, and they likely do, then you freely give/share your user-created levels to others.

Posted 6 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

That goes back to my original statement -- you may share the levels YOU have created. There is nothing in there about sharing levels created by others! I have not created any levels myself (there are so many now and I'm only about 75% through after years) so I am not allowed legally to share the levels I have downloaded.

That's what I said from the start.

Posted 6 years ago #
Lester (Chip)
English Mod

I don't think they would really care about anyone sharing levels. As long as no actual game files are distributed and no one is trying to sell the levels and make money on them there isn't really any reason they would be angry. If anything they should be happy people are still interested in the game. I remember way back when downloading some levels but they have been long gone many computers ago lol.

Posted 6 years ago #
ChrisS
Administrator

so I am not allowed legally to share the levels I have downloaded.

I think that's right. You can't legally give away other peoples' intellectual property and the rights to the levels are jointly owned by the author and Reflexive/Amazon. You could build a website, have the authors submit their levels, and then distribute those levels to all comers but you can't build a website and populate it with the levels you previously downloaded.

You'd think Amazon could assign a summer intern the task of collating all the user-made levels onto a DVD. They could then sell the game for $10 and sell the additional 8 billion levels for another $10 and make enough money to pay the intern and have enough left over for some coffee. Of course, that assumes that they bought Reflexive for a reason other than simply putting them out of business.

Posted 6 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

You'd think Amazon could assign a summer intern the task of collating all the user-made levels onto a DVD. They could then sell the game for $10 and sell the additional 8 billion levels for another $10 and make enough money to pay the intern and have enough left over for some coffee. Of course, that assumes that they bought Reflexive for a reason other than simply putting them out of business.

That would be a good idea. There is one Big Kahuna Reef game that has the same situation -- user levels created and shared. Amazon decided that these games were too old to be supported anymore, even if they still work under Windows 10, and just dropped support. They are still sold elsewhere (I would guess, under contract with Amazon) so they're still making money for them. If it had a list of what sets were available, I would even go for that (if nothing else, as a backup).

The 4500+ level sets is about 70,000 levels or over 350,000 rings (purpose of the game is to collect gold rings - 5 / level).

Posted 6 years ago #

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