A new year brings a new hope! And at least, it used to bring new books, and songs and stories to the public domain, until the laws got changed here in America. Thanks to a retroactively extended copyright of over 75 years, no works have, since the mid 90's, or are even going to enter into the public domain until 2019!
Bestgeekever thinks that copyright durations have gone from "(promoting) the Progress of Science and useful Arts...for a limited time" to basically hindering creativity and creation for over a century. To create awareness of this, I bring you, the people, the Public Domain Rescue Jam, where I challenge you to create any game you like, starring characters and settings in the public domain. A Don Quixote fighting game? A puzzle attack game with Pinochio and Dracula? A bullet hell game based on Alice in Wonderland? As long as it's not under copyright (and doesn't use someone else's take on the characters. No Disney Princesses here.) do what you like.
If you're not quite sure which property you will adapt it is you're gonna do, here's some of them.
A small list of public domain books
I'm giving you the whole month of January to really bring your best. If you don't agree with my cause, it's at least an interesting challenge, no? Here's the 3 governing criteria, explained.
Overall Quality and Enjoyability
This is the basic element of the videogame. "Is this game fun or anti-fun?" More fun is better
Rareness of the characters
Zombies and Dracula are pretty much staples of the popular culture. More obscure characters is better.
Creativity
Did you take your own spin on the material, or did you place the characters where they always where, doing exactly what they did in the book, looking exactly like they did? More own spin is better.
Pro-Public Domain
If your game has somehow presents some kind of message against excessive copyright durations, you get a cookie.
If this Jam is a success, Bestgeekever promises to do it again next year, maybe with a theme narrowed down. Please do not let the bad faith of large corporate interests continue to plunder our cultural resources. Let's work together to rescue the public domain!