Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!bionet!arisia!ebert From: ebert@arisia.Xerox.COM (Robert Ebert) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: Columns and Brickwell VIDEOGAMES Summary: Commercial videogames Message-ID: <12801@arisia.Xerox.COM> Date: 26 Sep 90 20:51:44 GMT References: Reply-To: ebert@arisia.UUCP (Robert Ebert) Organization: Xerox Sunnyvale System Software Unit Lines: 24 Last weekend I spent some time at my local arcade wasting money, and noticed that both Columns and Brickwell were available as stand up video games. I didn't make note of the companies, nor play the games, but they were set up next to the tetris and 3-D tetris (name?) games. The columns game is called Columns II, and it provides color and some added graphics around the playing area and to the blocks, but it looked otherwise like the Mac version. I forget what brickwell is called, but rather than dropping blocks it has the blocks approaching on a conveyor belt. Also adds color and additional graphics, but the basic strategy looks unchanged. Now, I'm not a huge fan of either of these games, nor am I a fan of litigation in general, but it seems like something strange is happening here, when I see almost identical rip-off versions of games appearing like this. I actually don't know which came first, but I suspect (given the about boxes on the Mac versions) that the Mac authors came up with the ideas. (And names.) Anyone have good information on this? Are we going to see a SimCity videogame soon? Or PipeDreams perhaps? Probably not, since those are commercial and hence protected by some corporate entity. Shareware game authors beware! --Bob "Go GlobalView!"