itch.io

Looks like game was removed and can't be downloaded anymore.  Is there any way to get a copy?

Thanks.

There's no game download anymore.

Great; thanks! 

I saw the Unity debacle go down and am not surprised. I was also wondering "how the hell are they going to charge per install since, y'know, there is no record of what I install on my computer when the internet is off?" And the answer was "oh we pretty much only mean mobile; we kinda forgot everything else existed," and... yeah, there was no way to take their answers as anything other than "we are going to look for ways to squeeze money out of a pack of users who got involved with this because it was free."

I'll check back later and hope to see the new version when it's ready!

I got this in a bundle a while ago but missed it in my early round of downloading. The game seems to be gone. Is there now downloadable version? (Demo/draft version, maybe?)

As someone who buys a lot of charity bundles - I am fine with some of the entries being beta versions, or even limited versions or demos for a paid version. There's a ton of games on itch.io; I am never going to browse through them all. Someone putting their demo version in this bundle tells me that they support causes I care about (or at least, they don't object to causes I care about), and gives me a chance to look at them in a context other than "there are 35,000 games with this tag on itch.io."

That said, as an advertising ploy, it seems weak. I would have to really love the demo to consider buying the game because... I just got 500 other games to look at.  The demo is going to have to really stand out for me to remember it the next time I'm looking at standalone games to buy.

...I love seeing the variety of games people are making, even if some of them aren't to my taste. If it's not something that fits my interests, I don't mind that I only got the demo version.

As long as all the content is technically legal for minors, even if they (or their parents) would prefer them not to see it, that's fine. 

In the US, registration is not required for copyright, but it changes the amount that you can win in court over a copyright violation. (This may be a violation of the Berne Convention but the only way to find out would be someone not in the US, pushing for a copyright case in the US, not getting the results they wanted, and then taking it to an international venue.) Without registration, you can only sue for provable damages; for registered works, you can push for more than that. 

For what kind of rights: Copyright in the US is a limited-term economic monopoly. It covers copying, public performance, derivatives (like translations; what else counts as "derivative" is a game for lawyers) and a few ancillary rights. In the US, copyright does not cover "moral rights" that exist in Europe and some other places. Music recordings have their own special (nightmare) section of the law.

Unpublished works are copyrighted - this is relevant for things like "an author's rough draft of a novel"; someone can't grab it and publish without permission. Copyright exists/is granted the moment a thing is put in "fixed form." An unpublished game in your cloud storage is copyrighted; if someone hacks your account and steals it, they can't (legally) publish it without your consent.

There are rules about updates and new editions that would apply to registration of video games. I don't know the details, just that books have been doing expanded/updated editions for ages.

(But also: yeah, this is not a good venue for discussing the philosophy of copyright.)

Copyright law is also how poor people avoid being exploited by mega-corporations. 

It's not easy for an individual artist or self-published writer to sue Disney - but copyright law is what prevents Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros. etc. from just mass-grabbing stories and art and turning them into movies for their own profit. The fact that the law exists keeps them from grabbing everything they can. 

There are occasional cases of "we're pretty sure this was grabbed from someone else's idea," but Sega couldn't grab Flappy Bird and distribute it through their channels because of copyright.

Copyright law has problems and needs a major overhaul but it is better than no protection at all.

They were good thoughts, and will be useful for sorting out other game(s) in the same setting. :)

Other potential "why this hasn't been salvaged" options:

• Anyone can restore an abandoned station; tearing it apart for salvage runs into complex legal issues.
• (Maybe anyone can't just restore it - but the hippies have high-status connections and that part's been dealt with.)
• Travel to & from here is really expensive or troublesome; something-something warp-gate, magnetized-asteroid-field, skirt-the-edge-of-hostile-alien-territory,  etc. Making the trip once or twice isn't a problem, but regular back-and-forth is near impossible. 
• The coordinates for the station are wrong in most of the record-books; people have tried to find it for salvage and failed. (The hippies insist they got the correct coordinates "in a vision.")
• Whatever drove away the original commerce in the area - disease, bad cosmic rays, solar flares, weird alien breeding cycles, etc. - had to die down before salvage could be attempted. It's all long gone, but so is the interest in the area; it's no longer news anyone is paying attention to.

Hope you have fun with it!

I'm thinking of making a related adventure that's the same thing from the hippies' perspective. And since that won't have a one-page limit, I'll be able to go into more detail about the setting.

I know I was hand-wavy about "not worth being salvaged." I figured it's in a very remote area, so nobody wants to restore it, and possibly it's made with obsolete materials/tech so it's not worth taking apart and hauling somewhere that the pieces could be sold. (There might be other reasons, but basically that's all left up to the GM and players. The key thing is "Nobody else really wants this; up to you exactly why that is.")

Thanks!

I wrote this after re-watching the original Star Trek episode with the space hippies. I love the space hippies! ...The starship's crew does not, for the most part, love the space hippies. The captain found them interesting but naive and disruptive.

How the GM/players find them is going to be up to the group. 

Thanks for commenting!

I'm aware it's fuzzy.

I meant, games whose tags would normally make them blocked by the "don't show me adult content" filter, but are viewable in a tag search.  (I'm also aware that games tagged with something like 'sex' does not mean there is actually sexual content; accurate tagging is a whole separate issue.)

If there are games hidden from general search by the adult content setting - those games should not come up in a more specific search or tag search. I'm not concerned with where itch.io draws the lines, but the lines should be the same no matter what kind of search is being done.

Be wary of offers to install software on your machine that claim to do the impossible. If "block all adult content" were something easy to do, we wouldn't have entire industries built on providing filtering services to corporations. 

It's possible someone could build a browser plugin that blocks all adult-labeled content on itch.io. It won't also work on Steam, or drivethrurpg, or youtube, or vimeo, or AO3, or tumblr, or twitter, or bluesky. They all use different methods to label "adult" content. (And they don't all agree on what "adult content" is.)

How are you going to hide "all adult content?" Not all websites label it, and those that do, don't all use the same methods. I'm not sure itch.io's labeling is visible from the outside, other than the tags on the games.

Some jams have a Discord; those are good places to find other people to team up with. 

Joining a jam is very easy - go to the jams page and find one (or more) that fit in your interests and skill set. Some are open to any kinds of games; a lot are more restricted - specific themes, or specific game engines, or tabletop games only, and so on. Some encourage teamwork; some don't allow it. 

Finding a good team for collaboration is likely to take some time as you get to know people, either in the specific game jam community area, or in Discord or similar places.

If you don't want to worry about copyright issues, then yes, use only material you have made. But that's not what's required. People are allowed to use some aspects of other people's copyrighted material legally. How much, and in what way... that gets complicated.

A lot of us want to build in what other people have made - want to show it in a new way, or have a different perspective on it, or use existing characters with different game mechanics. 

I tend to think this is transformative use, not derivative - but I am not a video game developer and not a lawyer; it's not my opinion that matters.

I can say that the most common reaction to a big company deciding something is derivative/infringing, is to demand it get removed; there is almost never any other penalty. (Going to court takes money. Even if they would win the court case - there's no point in suing a small indie developer; they won't get that money back because most indie devs don't have it to give.)

I agree that adult content should be filtered out even when you're searching for specific tags - you should not have to know which terms are "all adult content" to keep them blocked. This is a bug that deliberately shows adult contents to people who have selected the "do not show me adult content" option, including minors. 

Someone (not a minor) should do some research into what tags can bypass the "don't show me adult content" option.  (If you search for ren'py, will you see adult ren'py games? Or is it only if you search the tags that definitely mean explicit sexual content? In which case... wow, that is a STUPID feature.)

If people want to see adult content and are dismayed when their searches for those tags come up blank, the page can have a message that says "You have this setting blocked in your profile options. To see these results, you will need to check the box that says..." 

When I search on Steam, I often get results that say "4 titles have been excluded based on your preferences." (Or 12 titles. Or 37 titles. I have a lot of popular game tags blocked.) If I want to see those results, I can adjust my settings.

Fanworks are a legally gray area because some use of other people's works without permission is allowed. This includes using pieces for reviews and commentary, and transformative uses of the original work. The trouble is figuring out what's "transformative."

"Derivative"  works are a copyright violation (in the US) IF the copyright owner complains. But if they don't care, it's fine, and they can decide what's worth their effort; it's not like trademark where they have to do something about infringing works. They can decide "that fangame is derivative, but I don't mind it; I'm not going to have it removed" and they can still go after other copyright violations.

"Transformative" works, including "parody" (which is a legal term; doesn't mean it has to be funny), are legal uses of someone else's material, even without permission, even if they hate it.

The line between "derivative" and "transformative" is decided in court, for individual cases, and is inconsistent as hell. People write dissertations on this. People get PhDs trying to describe the differences.

But the key part is: Only the rights-owner can complain about copyright infringement. If it's not your IP, it's not your problem if someone else made a game from it.

If you want to make fan games, your best way to make sure you're in the clear, is knowing that the IP holder doesn't mind them. (Actually best is formal written permission, but nobody is expecting that. But knowing that the original rights holder is cool with fan games is pretty close.)

Japan has a much different culture about derivative/transformative uses of copyrighted material, which is why you see a lot of anime/manga zines and doujinshi and fangames.

(IANAL; TINLA)

I emailed support and have not gotten a response.

https://itch.io/my-purchases/bundles only shows the most recent 30 purchases. Is there a way to see all the bundles I've purchased? 

I figured it was likely "forgot to add." (I didn't notice it until I was almost done and then had to scramble to figure out where to put it.)

I love this game. I have made a tiny pocket version of it that I keep in an Altoids tin along with small dice and a mini-abacus to use as Taboo tokens. It's one that I regularly recommend to people interested in solo TTRPGs.

I missed that the copyright notice was on the game page! (I forgot to check.) I think you're good.

The asteroid/ship collision is an interesting combination. It's a bit hard to read at page-size, but easy enough at fit-width. Nice use of color for emphasis. Good text; the map a bit hard to sort out. This is a puzzle-ish adventure - if the players have seen it in advance, they'll have a much easier time, so the GM needs to either make sure they haven't read it, or alter a few details.  I loved how much detail there was about the ship; there's a lot to work with.

I like the symbol keys on the rooms, and how their layout works as a map/diagram. The timer is an interesting mechanic; I can see how that would add pressure to play. I like the mutations feature - that's something that might build into a long-term campaign. ("Yeah, that's Joe; he got extra eyes from the Ikaros; now he sees in shrimp colors.")

There's no CC-BY-SA statement.

Done; no problem!

The artwork is gorgeous, and I appreciate having three versions of it. Nicely compact adventure - lots of worldbuilding built into the single page!

I love the time-travel setting here. There's a lot of detail in very little space. The "intro" part is formatted a bit oddly - the title is zalgo text that's hard to read; it'd be hard to use a printout of this without the context of the game page. And the intro paragraphs are in an odd spot for a beginning - I skipped over that at first; it didn't have a "start here" look to it.

But once I got past that, I enjoyed reading. This'd be a very fun adventure to spring on a group not expecting it; the layout is simple once it's known but I could see it being wonderfully confusing to a group of PCs.

Very frustrating that the text is images, not copy-pastable and not searchable. And while this works as a system-agnostic game, it's designed for INK RPG, and that shows. But - the drawings are cute, and the roll-for-challenges list is very nice. 

Good section layout; narrow text is readable even at fit-to-page. Nice. The map could use larger numbers; they're hard to read without zooming in. This is one of the few with NPCs listed; there's a lot of good detail in only a few words. I like the "countdown" that doesn't have a specific timer - just an increasing threat level for the players to deal with.

Good world­building here; layout's a bit scattered. It's a little hard to tell "actual map" pieces from the background/additional imagery.  (But it does add nicely to the feel of the module.) I like that it works even if the players have seen it - knowing there's a Jaw Beast to deal with won't make that any easier. 

Nice, clear organization, easy to read. Good images – map is clear, extra images work well to set tone. Good adventure, will work even if players have seen the details. (They'll know where the serum likely is, but "in the lab" is not a stretch.)

I love the dog as an antagonist, though. Like that it can be as tough or minor as wanted; this could work as either a gritty space adventure or a comedy romp, if the group wants to push it that direction.

I like the approach of "this is a derelict because of partying" rather than alien attack or tragic disaster.  It's a little thin on details, and the layout plan is a bit odd--the karaoke room and game room are the same size as the bathroom.
There's no CC-BY-SA notice in this.

Love the questions portion. Interesting that you've been hired to recover data & equipment - not save the crew from whatever's made them unable or unwilling to check in.

The artwork is gorgeous, and I appreciate having three versions of it. Nicely compact adventure - lots of worldbuilding built into the single page!

The artwork is gorgeous, and I appreciate having three versions of it. Nicely compact adventure - lots of worldbuilding built into the single page!

Why should the client be paying for a service they're providing to you?
More importantly, how can they stay in business if they cover the costs your business creates for them? 

Half does sound like a lot; you should look into the account fee structure and see if you're missing something, like if there's a minimum per purchase, or some settings that could be changed.

Your other options include raising your prices, as you've mentioned (which is what most businesses do, to cover the costs of licenses and tax fees - they need to make income on top of those, so the prices are raised to cover for them), or selling on a platform like Steam, which allows regional price differences.

I was unable to set a minimum number of players higher than "1" for a tabletop game until I selected a multiplayer option, and all of those are terrible for tabletop games. (Sure, let's go with "local multiplayer." Fine. I'm not going to decide which "server" option translates to "you can play this on Roll20.")

Accessibility options are also weird. Ah, sure, let's call it "high contrast" since it's "black text on white background."

It'd be nice if they had input methods or just listed "Tabletop Game" as an input method of its own.  Other "inputs" for tabletop games:

• Cards
• Dice (probably too much hassle to separate "D6s" from "polyhedral dice")
• Tarot cards
• Graph/hex paper required

You contracted with itch to sell your games in their store. Their store is located in the US. Your sales are subject to US sales laws, including tax laws. 

Paying taxes is not "theft." Paying taxes in a country that's not where you live is not "theft" if you're doing business in that country. You're selling on a US website; you are doing business in the US. It is possible the tax cut would happen regardless of who buys the games, because the sales are going through a US business.

Itch may have a way for you to have your games displayed in their store, but sold by some other processor. (But probably not. Itch wants their cut for hosting the files and making them available via search.)

Itch probably does not have a way to restrict buyers by country (or IP address, or email domain name, or anything else). Part of why not, is that anyone could be using a VPN; there's no way to confirm whether a buyer lives in a particular country. 

There may be an issue with your account, where too much is being withdrawn; you'll need to contact the support team to make sure your settings are correct. But other than that - if you don't want to pay US and European taxes, you will probably need to find a store that isn't operating in the US and Europe.

I didn't know about the metadata settings, went to look at them - they seem pretty useless for TTRPGs. There's no way to even say "this is a print-and-play game; platform & controllers don't apply."

My Bundles page only shows the most recent purchases; it no longer has the links for the Bundle for Racial Justice & Equality - nor several other bundles I've bought. (8 bundles missing, at the moment.) I don't see a "next page" option; it looks like they're just missing/gone.

Is there something in settings I've missed, or did someone just not plan for people buying lots of bundles over several years?