Hello everyone!

The question is if it legal to use sprites and sounds from dendy games e.g. Duck Hunt in my mobile application? Would it be approved by Google Play and AppStore?

And if not is it a way to modify these sprites (or draw approximately the same) to make it legal? The point is that even the modified game will look a similar to the original dendy game, but I wouldn't have bought any copyrights, so would my app be banned?

Thanks and sorry for my English :)

http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/03/yep-nintendo-shot-down-duck-hunt-on-the-iphone/

But am I still free to modify the sprites to make it look much alike original?

I'd recommend against cloning a game like that. There is a grey area around any intellectual property as to whether it is so similar to be considered a derived work. You would be at risk of being sued, and whether you're actually infringing or not it can be prohibitively expensive to defend yourself against a large company.

Far better to write your own, unique game that you can be certain doesn't infringe, no?

http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/03/yep-nintendo-shot-down-duck-hunt-on-the-iphone/

But am I still free to modify the sprites to make it look much alike original?

If you modify the original sprites or base your own sprites on them then it is a derived work and you would need to obtain permission.

Okay. What if a make a game in pixel-style with a dog, ducks and 8-bit music and add some gameplay features? Is it good?

Okay. What if a make a game in pixel-style with a dog, ducks and 8-bit music and add some gameplay features? Is it good?

Starting with the goal of making a game as similar to <insert famous game title here> as legally possible is a pretty bad idea unless you are prepared to defend yourself in court (Nintendo can sue you if they think you've gotten too close to their property, if you can't afford to defend yourself it won't even matter if they are right or wrong)

You are really asking how close to a fire you can stand without getting burned but noone here knows how big and hot that fire is and thus the recommendation is simply: Don't play with fire.

Tom Sloper has a post on his very helpful website dealing with this: Sloperama FAQ#61: So You Wanna Clone Somebody's IP :)

Tom Sloper has a post on his very helpful website dealing with this: Sloperama FAQ#61: So You Wanna Clone Somebody's IP

Beat me to it. I was just about to suggest that to the OP.