Sorry for the late reply, I'm slowly catching up on posts from the past 2 weeks
Kasumi wrote:Alright, so this seems to be a good place to post a couple questions.
1. Can one person (who enters more than one program of course) win more than one prize? For instance, get the money for both second and third for two different good programs?
Yes
2. I see people planning to enter, or entering clones/psuedo sequels to copyrighted work. Realizing using copyrighted sprites/music and trademark names is not okay, what about obvious clones with none of the above?
My personal opinion is that one cannot copyright and idea. Of course, using trademarked names is not a good idea (you shouldn't name your game "Final Fantasy 14", for example), but we don't have the manpower to verify that you are infringing on somebody else's work. It is your responsibility as a homebrew developer to make sure your stuff is legal. If the judges find out that some work is infringing some copyright, this will obviously have a negative impact on the marks we give to the homebrew, and depending on how big this is, the homebrew might get removed from the competition.
My primary project is original, though of course has a passing resemblance to other games. (As similar as say, Metal Slug and Contra are to each other.)
I ask because, should I actually finish I may start on an entry that will likely be a clone of a popular game.
I wouldn't worry about that. Ideas are not a thing anybody can copyright. As long as you stay away from trademarked names, and copyrighted material, my personal opinion is that this is perfectly fine.