Re: Golden Crayon, a new building game!
Good morning all,
So first things first, I enjoy the concept golden crayon has to offer. An interactive 2d and 3d building engine that's also online that also allows you to play music with people on the same map together.
However, what is flat out inexcusable are the multitudes of stolen assets. If those of you who played scrolling battles your world remember, it started out tiny, less than 12 MB.
Over time, it grew both in popularity and size, because people wanted more options and variety to build with, for which I couldn't blame them.
The reason SBYW's sounds bank is as huge as it is now is because of it's continued contributions by it's players, plus the streamlined addition of sounds also helps.
But let's not focus on that any longer. Let's address the main issue at fault here.
In counting the total amount of assets available in golden crayon, about 10 percent of the assets are actually original (not stolen from any game in this community). Of those, most are music.
See here's the thing. There's 0 excuses for that. There are dozens and dozens of (legitimate) places to get sounds for free. Not only that, but once you start amassing a collection of them, it's easy enough to pick and choose sounds you like for your next release.
Here's the next biggest thing that's on my chest. So guys, do any of you remember the game dangerous drive?
If you don't, you might remember that it later became street chaos early on during it's development lifetime.
I offered to join him in developing the game out of passion for the concept. Tunmi and I would communicate on ideas that could fit the game, and or issues that needed to be addressed, both in and out of his control he needed assistance with.
I myself was extremely passionate about the game and would often work until the sun to meet deadlines.
One of the first things I added into the game was spikes that would target your car with pinpoint accuracy.
I was pretty happy with the system and the added difficulty, and Tunmi enjoyed it as well when he got a chance to play it the next day.
A few days later of testing and fixing a few bugs I noticed my spike code had been significantly tampered with. Knowing fully well I hadn't changed anything there I knew that Tunmi had made drastic changes that almost broke spikes entirely.
Even still to this day, spikes no longer behave like they used to.
I fessed it up to he probably had a better vision than I did and added in the game's next difficulty, cars.
When I sat down to play it after taking the time to ensure the system was as bug-free as possible the next morning, knowing full and well we had a release date coming up I was overjoyed at what the game was becoming literally overnight.
Everyone we spoke with loved the concept, and the added avoidance of other vehicles only made it much more fun.
A short while after that version was released, I added a small addition that would allow you to toggle between center and dynamic panning laws.
After that version was released I took a break to catch up on some (much needed) sleep, and also get some personal things done.
Once I came back some 3 days later to look into adding weaponry, I noticed there had been a pretty major code refactoring; Most of my code I contributed had been either removed or replaced.
Tunmi's only answer to this question was, he didn't feel it was necessary.
I gave it one last shot and added weaponry and he added npcs a few hours later. He also made some minor (though overdo) vehicle physics. I was overjoyed at our combined progress.
That night when I came back to finish up for the next release I noticed that once again my code had been pulled. I went to bed and simply waited to see what the public release would look like.
What very few of you might know is it was the most unplayable version of the game that followed. Not only was sound playback majorly unreliable, but the game as a hole was missing keyboard input at times.
He patched it to playability just before release, though by then I had already had enough, and left the project.
And to come back to this, where Tunmi has stolen sounds from not only big label companies but small, independent creators such as myself after contributing so much to his projects is the complete and ultimate backstabbing I've ever received I didn't see coming.
I honestly didn't want to write this post. I could have used the last 40 minutes to get other things done.
But this entire culmination in events and actions Tunmi has taken is not ok. His willfulness to lift dozens upon dozens of sounds from other games is not ok.
My advice for Tunmi is to start from scratch, from an asset perspective. Take media that is actually yours, or you have purchased/been given permission to use and run with it. In time, as people grow accustomed to your game, contributions will come to you, and you yourself will have time to add assets from legitimate places on the internet, or music you create. Because if there's one thing your really, insanely good at, it's music production.
Until then, those of you who play golden crayon quite happily in it's current state, knowing well of the facts I and others have presented here, are also fueling the problem.
Best,
Omar.
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