Move on! Continue your game! We made you famous!

Sadly, some do not understand what goes in my heart and mind as I say I don't know how to continue developing my project Tardigrades. I never wanted to talk or show what you are about to see, but I have no choice.

How developed was Tardigrades the exact moment it was plagiarized on TV?

The project was about 80% done. The main gaming mechanics were 100% developed (i.e. cursors, icons, save/load game, micro-gravity physics, and all the behind the scenes programming and math). Tons of hand-drawn 2D frame-by-frame animations were already done. A couple of seconds of animation take more than 5 hours of creation. The game has more than 400 backgrounds. Each background took on average 9 hours to complete. Some backgrounds are built over 3D models that took me days to complete a single one, specially those with interiors and corridors, spaceships models and bikes...etc.

The project soundtrack is also created originally by me. I compose the music with my guitar and/or piano and then re-write it with an old midi software to give the 80s and early 90s games feeling. All sound effects are recorded in my bedroom.

For example, this room "background" is called RiverFlow, that room took almost 3 days to complete. This is how it looks in the AGS editor.

and this is how it looks in-game after adding various elements and animations, note that all the animations are hand drawn and not auto-generated.

Another example of a 3D modeled background, is room 39, Pan Base Inside, it was 3D modeled then colored "traditionally". This is how it looks in the editor.

And this is its creation process (from a pencil sketch to finished background):

Then comes the sprites, sprites are simply the little graphical elements added over the backgrounds. They can be the characters, objects, doors..etc. To give you an example of the amount of sprites drawn in the game, here are some of the sprites for the main character Carter.

Each character in the project has an 8 direction walk-cycle. Each drawn frame by frame and I drew at least 9 frames per direction for animation smoothness. Creating a single walk cycle direction took more than 12 hours of hard work, specially that the characters have pockets, knee protectors and other clothing materials. Some characters have special animations like picking up stuff, hand gestures, playing music, jumping...etc. I have spent almost one week to make one single character move.

Here are the statistics of the project given by the game editor:

As you can see, I have drawn more than 24000 sprites.

Code wise, I wrote 100s of thousands of lines of code (LOC). By the way, my job for the last 10 years was researching code refactoring. This means the art of designing code using less lines and better design. For example, someone can write a calculator application that takes 1000 lines of code, but when refactored, it can be written with less than 400 lines of code and still have the same functionality. I made sure to use my knowledge of code refactoring while writing the project's code. This is the end part of the main script: (92K LOC)

and this is the code of two of the rooms: (the project has more than 200 rooms)

I have made sure to add the tiniest details even the cursors sets change according to what Carter is wearing:

And I also had multiple languages already implemented in the game:

As any game developer, I keep early builds of the project as well. Here's a screenshot of the folder of build version 19.1 when the project was still called Epoch back in 2014:

If you think all this time spent is too much, then remember that I had to free myself between my job and care-giving. I worked all by myself with 10s of software to produce what you see as a product of my own writing and original ideas. I used to think about the game all the time and what to develop with all the love in the world. It was my little baby growing day by day. And now I can't even think about opening the game editor, I can't draw anything related to it, I can't think of looking at its code. Taking the above screenshots gave me tears as I had to navigate through its files, I remember all the good days when my dad was around. How do you think it would be "okay" to continue developing the project? How is it possible to continue game developing in general knowing that I can get stolen of and no one does anything? You may like the TV show, you may hate it, this has nothing to do with me. I have no opinion regarding it. I watched a TV remake of my game, it was the most awkward feeling, and that's it.

Expanse

A few weeks ago, I filed the briefing for the appeal. I would like to apologize for the late post as I am drenched in work since I finally got my contract renewed for a full-time research and it’s a completely new field of study for me which I have to learn from scratch (Python, Linux and Hybrid Networks!)

It warms my heart the way you all supported me and how the ‘go fund me’ succeeded in a matter of few days. My dearest friend Gary Buechler -Nerdrotic, took time and effort to set up the campaign and with all your help we managed to raise more than $21K in a few days. Beside the financial support, your comments on the FGM page touched me the most. This appeal wouldn’t have happened without you all. And I’m not only talking about the financial part of it. The positivity and support I got from you are always cherished. The message you sent have been received by the defendants and it shocked them to the point of freaking out. I just want to let you all know that I love you from the bottom of my heart.

Gary, whatever I say, won’t be enough to describe what you mean to me. You believed in me since day one. You have dedicated your time to support me in ways beyond comprehension. But it is not a surprise from such an awesome individual like you. I love you man.

Now allow me to explain why and what the appeal is about.

My ideas to space travelling tardigrades were denied originality because tardigrades are real life creatures, and because they survive the vacuum of space. I believe the way I presented the tardigrades creatures in my game was original with all the combination of attributes and abilities I gave those creatures that hadn’t been presented in any previous work. There isn’t one single piece of work that uses giant blue tardigrades to help humans travel the universe instantaneously before my game Tardigrades.

My ideas were also dissected to the basic elements where conducting a comparison would be completely unfair. It’s as if you are breaking down a painting down to the colors components and saying that the color red is not original and not copyrightable, neglecting the painting as a whole image.

I have consulted judge Randall R. Rader (former United States Circuit Judge and former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) about the whole situation and the court’s dismissal. He has shaped United States intellectual property laws for decades in his court.  His opinion had a great impact on me going further with the appeal.

CBS responded to my appeal brief with the same old arguments that I’m trying to copyright a real life existing microscopic creature and redheads…

Still hard for me to say, but I must start another fund me campaign. The first one barely covered the consultation costs and press expenses. I have extended an invitation to Judge Rader join my defense team which would be an honor beyond my dreams. His contribution would be very beneficial and crucial to the case. I’m also going to hire the same press agency for my legal documentation and appellate court arrangements. Please feel free to check the fund me link Here.

Thanks for everything. I need you all by my side to continue getting my rights back.

Thank You

It took me a while to be able to type anything on my keyboard. Every time I try to start a sentence I get too emotional and tears fill my eyes. Gratitude tears. Knowing that there are so many of you willing to support me the way you do is beyond comprehension. After the long years of feeling how hard and unjust this world had become, I feel much more powerful to continue standing against this storm.

I have a request though, if you are an independent creator of any sort, streamer, writer, blogger, scientist, researcher, author, educator, actor, podcaster, editor, journalist, columnist, artist, game developer, composer, entertainer, YouTuber, content creator, wrestler, personal trainer, freelance lawyer, consultant, life couch, or any other creation that you are doing independently, please feel free to join this cause and help fight against the bullies and the oppression of lawless corporations and the stealing of our, your, intellectual properties. Share your work with me, comment here or go to my social channels I will gladly share your work. I am blessed with great friends whom believed in my case and helped me get the word out. If you have been a victim of IP theft or plagiarism please let me know too. Don’t be quiet, you have a voice and you must be heard. Use the hashtag #IndependentCreator as much as possible. You are strong and powerful as an individual. You have been feeding those corrupt corporations for years without credit. Can you imagine how powerful we would be when we stick together?

Independent Creator

I have filed an appeal to the ruling regarding the Tardigrades lawsuit. As an independent creator, I found myself with no rights. If I don't have rights, so does everyone else. I have always wished I could carry the financial side alone, but the numbers are getting ridiculously high and I have exhausted all my resources. I want to expand my defense team with more consultants and technical experts. My dear friend Gary Buechler (Nerdrotic) have helped me set up a Go Fund Me page. It is so hard for me to ask for your donations. I have never done that before and never wanted it to come to this point. All I can say is thanks to all of your support from the beginning of this lawsuit.

Screenshot Saturday

#screenshotsaturday

A Dying Tardigrade

I just returned from visiting dad from the cemetery, I got the news that the judge ruled against me. I would like to thank everyone who supported me. I don't have enough words to describe my gratitude to everyone who believed in me and my case. I cannot thank my lawyers enough for believing in me and fighting for me. I respect the ruling and I expect everyone to do so. I'm not sure what happens to my project now, or my independent-game development career in general.

Dad, I love you

As many of you know, my father, Dr. Osama Abdin has passed 10 days ago on the 27th of April 2019. He passed peacefully in his ward bed at the hospital he was admitted at, on March 31st. My father's suffering with Parkinson's has ended and I believe he is now in a better place enjoying his afterlife with his parents and loved ones in full health.

I have passed from the constant grieving and crying phase a couple of days ago as I kept my mind busy creating art for the game development. I have to stay strong for my mom. My father had spent all his time and money to educate us. He wanted to stay working until his last breath, but aging didn't do him well. Caring for him the last 8 years made me feel that he was my son not my dad, specially the last couple of years he was my little baby. Parkinson's made him lose the ability to eat by himself so I used to feed him. He was a very nice person and his loud laugh will always be remembered. All the people whom attended the funeral were telling me that they would miss his laugh. The funeral was massive, thousands of people came to the cemetery each with a memory of how he treated their illnesses before his retirement.

I would like to ask you all to go to your parents and tell them that you love them. Go hug them. Make their lives easier in every possible way. This is what helped me cope with his passing, that I always told him that I loved him, always hugged him and kissed his forehead. And now he's not physically with me anymore, I can still send him my love through prayers and caring for those he loved. I will always check on his friends and loved ones here.

Dad, I wanted to afford a better treatment for you, I wanted to do many things for you, I wanted to give you the world. I am so sorry I could not do it by myself.

Rest in peace.

An Open Request

I wanted to share a quick update with you all. But as many know, lawsuits and their procedures take time. I have a little request though, if you have any kind of information that you think it may help in anyway with the Tardigrades lawsuit, please feel free to share it with me, you can always email it to me at ajabdin@yahoo.com

Your help is appreciated, and as always, please keep me and my family in your thoughts and prayers as we're going through a very difficult time now.

!protectable

Let me mention some facts. Now please bear with me as what you are about to read is not going to sound logical at all, except to CBS's lawyers Wook Hwang and Jonathan Zavin.

1. First, they argued that they did nothing wrong and that my complaint (the lawsuit) is frivolous (which the court later ruled in my favor for this part)
2. Then they partially admitted access and copying but that they copied the "de minimis" (the allowable amount) and "Scènes à faire" (common scenes in a specific genre or theme).
3. Then they argued (and I can't believe I'm saying this...) that what they copied has no similarities.
4. And finally, they are now saying that they did not copy because we came with our ideas independently.

Now I'm not a law expert or anything but I think even a 5 years old can come up with a better and more logical argument than Wook's. I had to make sure with both my lawyers Allan Chan and John Johnson that I do understand these arguments clearly as they make no sense to me. These arguments are from their actual filed dismissal letters to the court. All they did so far are desperate trials to mislead the court with irrelevant cases while contradicting themselves to a pathetic point. Why would they need to use all these varied and different arguments if they were innocent?

Based on Wook's arguments, my elements are not protectable, so the same goes with theirs. None of their material is protectable (Scènes à faire). None of their Star Trek material is protectable. This means (from their arguments) that anyone can create a work with the same bridge crew and the spore-drive and the giant tardigrade navigator. Does that mean The Orville had protection from the beginning and is not treated as a parody? Because honestly, The Orville did not even get close to any of those specific elements from Star Trek as Star Trek Discovery did to my Tardigrades game.

Sometimes I feel puzzled how Wook's arguments go past CBS' law department, unless their intention is to damage the IP of the Star Trek franchise to win their battle with me. So far, this is what seems to be going on.

Game Developer vs. Game Player

Yesterday -March 5th 2019- I filed the Opposition to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. Simply, I'm arguing why their "motion to dismiss the case" is not valid. Note that when the judge gave us the "discovery" right to get information from CBS about their Steam accounts, they haven't met their deadline and we still did not get anything from them.

On their motion to dismiss, they keep on misguiding the court by stating half-truths, misquoting older cases, and even using poor examples of other tardigrades appearances in media. In fact, the more they try to defend themselves, the clearer the entire picture gets. They have no good arguments.

They are still insisting that I’m trying to own copyrights to the real-life tardigrade creature on Earth. I never claimed I did. They are omitting everything regarding its size, color, and usage in facilitating instantaneous space travel. They are trying hard to say that the tardigrade is public domain and “Scène à faire” –Scenes that necessarily result from the choice of a setting or situation-

meaning that any space-themed production may use them due to their ability to survive in space. My legal complaint was/is never about tardigrades’ ability to surviving in space as they are trying to say. My complaint is simply about the fictional giant blue tardigrades that are used in instantaneous space travel with a blonde male botanist [Carter] whom had encountered interracial homosexual acts with a dark bearded male[Aziz]. 

They claim that I am enforcing my rights on a Caucasian woman with red hair or a blonde white male.  This is patently false, I am asserting rights to my expression of  characters created by me.  They are breaking down character elements to fundamental elements.  I am surprised they did not accuse me of owning rights to a person with 10 fingers or a woman with two eyes and a nose.

The characters appearances and sexual orientations are used for the whole picture comparison along with the other elements. This is the heart of the work being compromised. Any person watching the two works will instantly see the similarities and even think they are the same production.

In a desperate move, they used poor examples from the internet and other media to show that tardigrades are used commonly in literature. None of their examples is even close to what we have in the complaint. For instance, Captain Tardigrade is a tardigrade's head on a human body with two human arms and two legs. [He] speaks English and doesn't travel without a spaceship. Captain Tardigrade is a unique and a copyrightable expression. Actually, when they put my tardigrade, theirs Ripper, and the real life microscopic creature side by side in comparison, they made it even clearer that they copied mine not the real life creature.

So what they're doing is deliberately dissecting the elements of my project to use the basic components for their dismissal request. For instance let's use Darth Vader.  They would say you have no rights to that because it's just a white male, with a helmet and robe.

[This part is removed because it was intended to be satire. It is however available in the court filing.]

They are admitting access and copying,for this one motion, but they say they're copying the "allowable amount" because their tardigrade is shown in a few scenes while the entire show is about 11 hours long. They are saying that their tardigrade doesn't have a major role on the show and the story. I would like to ask these questions to everyone who watched the show: What would season 1 of Star Trek Discovery look like without the tardigrade and its DNA's help to jump instantly from one place to another? How would they jump to another dimension? How did they win the war against the Klingons? And while they were away from our dimension, didn't the Klingons take over big portions of the galaxy because the tardigrade technology wasn't available?

Finally, in another desperate move, they are claiming that I'm collecting bits from here and there to match my game to their show with similarities. It seems like it hit them hard that Carter the blonde botanist who is researching the tardigrade space travel has encountered an interracial homosexual act with black bearded Aziz in the glory hole scene that was posted on my blog [link], twitter[link] and AGS forums[link] before their show aired. Even though I didn't show explicit images, the post is clear: "A newly drilled hole on one of the toilet dividers by Aziz" and you can see Carter's foot tapping as an invitation to the sexual act. Anyone with basic knowledge of the LGBTQ community knows what glory holes are, and at least has basic knowledge of the gestures. How could such a large television network be so out of touch and not inclusive of a community of people that is so underrepresented in television?

If one would believe their legal argument, Star Trek would also have no copyrightable elements.

Happy Birthday Maarten Amkreutz (Amayirot Akago) 1987 - 2018

Today is Maarten's first birthday after his passing on June 11, 2018. I will not speak of him in the past tense because he's still present with us. Maarten Amkreutz goes by the online name Amayirot-Akago, the most fun and lovely human being one can imagine. I have put a video showing some of his photos and screenshots from his game Postman's Quest. Maarten likes Sierra games and they were his first games to play. There's a comment on a YouTube video where he mentions how much he likes St George's Book Store music from Gabriel Knight, so I learned it for him and played it in the background of this video. I hope you like it Maarten, I love you man.

Discovery ordered for Star Trek Discovery

Star Trek Discovery claims for a frivolous lawsuit has no steam.

Yesterday, January 8th, the judge had a pretrial hearing in her courtroom with all lawyers involved. The meeting resulted in very positive outcomes that help find the truth and serve justice. The defendants request to dismiss the case based on it being a "frivolous claim" was not entertained by the judge. The defendants' argument kept going around me trying to own copyrights to the real life tardigrade (I never claimed that).

The judge set the timeline for summary judgment motion which means that the defendants attempt to dismiss the case is limited to actual legal defects instead of generic claims.

The judge also gave us 'discovery' which means that we can request and the defendants are compelled to provide information to support our case.  The discovery order was only one sided which means that the defendants cannot request information from us.

Finally, the judge granted us the third amended complaint as of right.  This means that we no longer need the expressed permission from the defendants to file the third complaint.

Scènes à faire

Yesterday, January 2nd 2019, a joint letter was sent to the judge. The defendants are trying to dismiss the case. First they were defending themselves by saying that I'm trying to own copyrights to the real life microscopic tardigrade. I have never claimed by any mean that I owned the rights to the real life microscopic tardigrade. Now they are saying I cannot copyright "enlarged Tardigrades in space". The creatures in the game are huge Tardigrades, blue lit and being the research subject by a blonde botanist of which later will be used to facilitate instantaneous space travel. I've been posting development updates on my blog, Steam, AGS forums, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube... since May 2014 and I have always engaged with comments and discussions with fans and friends.

The defendants are trying to emphasize on the few elements from their show that were not taken from my work. We dug up an old case which has an interesting line: "No plagiarist can excuse his wrong by showing how much work he did not pirate." Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 81 F.2d 49, 56. The defendants are also trying to say that my original ideas would qualify as Scènes à faire, like when a sci fi story includes a starship, a space captain, an engineer, a science officer and an alien.  However, the expression of these characters as in facial features like pointy ears or ridged forehead are protected, Mattel, Inc. v. Goldberger Doll Mfg. Co., 365 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2004).

So according to the defendants, a blonde botanist doing a research on giant blue tardigrades to be used in space travel should be a common trait in science fiction movies just like "fast draw" scenes and bar fights in western movies.

The distribution of my project before September 2017 is quite excellent too. Before September 2017, my YouTube channel had a total of 3.2M views, the Tardigrades game-in-production thread on the AGS forums had 200K views and 500 comments replies making it the top adventure game-in-production of all time. My blog here had 100K views. Tardigrades was also Greenlit on Steam. For those of you who don't know what Steam is, Steam is the biggest gaming platform on the net. Game developers post demos, alphas, even concepts to the Steam Greenlight website, people start voting by answering this question: "Would you buy this game from Steam?" After getting enough votes, the game gets Greenlit, which means when its development is complete, Steam does some arrangements to host and sell the game on their massive platform. Note that there are several old Star Trek games on Steam even prior to 2014. Funny thing is, they might have even voted for Tardigrades.

Golden Hour

#screenshotsaturday

Amendment

Regarding the Tardigrades vs. Star Trek Discovery case, a Second Amended Complaint has been filed on October 29 2018. I have added more similarities and a couple of companies/subsidiaries to the defendants list. So far things are going smooth and as anticipated. Everything mentioned in the complaint is based on the laws of the United States, specifically 17 United States Code 502-505, 17 U.S.C. 502-505.

The law is clear and straightforward; if you infringe someone's intellectual property you will have to stop the infringement act immediately and; if you profit from the infringed work you'll have to pass the profits to the original creator. I wasn't really aware of the latter. Thankfully, my lawyers know how much effort I have put into the development of Tardigrades and they know all the hard circumstances circling my personal life finding time for game development, so they wanted to make sure I get all my rights to keep my project alive and maintain its originality.

Temple of Carter II

Ancient Emitter

Back in 2014, I posted an update about The Emitter Spaceship. I was mainly focusing on demonstrating the non-linearity aspect of the game by showing the different ways the player can solve the puzzle associated with The Emitter Spaceship. Here's a link to the post from 2014.

I have explained: "Emitters are used for the main communications with Earth. They are used due to the distortion from the massive magnetic field of Jupiter." - Anas-tronaut blog

You can find more information on this post from 2015.

On the first episode of Star Trek Discovery, the Klingon's  Sarcophagus -which is located in a highly radiated busy asteroids field- sent an intense light beam to communicate with other Klingon ships. Michael Burnham explained the light beam as: "It seems to be some sort of signal Emitter." - Star Trek Discovery Ep.1

Here's a YouTube video demonstrating one of the ways the player may use to reset The Emitter resulting in a message sent in the form of an intense beam of light: (no spoilers)

Titan Ethane lake inspection

Tardigrades Case

I wanted to keep you updated regarding the Tardigrades and Star Trek Discovery post from October 18th 2017. First of all, I want to thank everyone who posted videos, articles and even talked about the issue in their social media. The last 10 months were so hard on me and the development of the project. I tried every possible way to have a respectful and reasonable discussion with CBS but they treated me in disrespect and just dangled me around with postponing meetings due to their vacations and being busy. The first conversation turned into the last one. I gave them a lot of time to make things right. Unfortunately, I found myself at a dead end with them, and so I had to enforce my rights by filing a lawsuit to treat me seriously.

Swimming or fishing?

#screenshotsaturday

Contemplating Life

Takeshi's Castle

Forest Path Lights

Looking for Mushrooms

Multi Language Support