I’m not against patents in general but looking at the list of specific insanity-induced hallucinations being patented this whole thing is ridiculous. This is on the level of being able to patent giving your restaurant guests cutlery. How is any designer supposed to keep track of which specific micro events are patented like this.
Yeah well when the copyright courts agreed to Namco’s patent on loading screen minigames it kind of freaked everyone out back then and people patented every dumbshit thing. For a short time Amazon tried to patent the single click purchase
Outside of the very specific cases of Palworld and WB’s notorious Nemesis System, you probably can just ignore the patents and do whatever you want, many of these are filed for self protection rather than to enforce them.
Metroid Zero Mission’s Mother Brain fight is patented, it literally is about shooting the player when they make line of sight with the Brain eye, besides being utterly ridiculous to have something like this patented, you don’t see anyone going to court over this.
I don’t understand how they successfully patented this without challenge. Call of Cthulhu has a sanity system, and it came out in the 80’s.
Tbf, I think Nintendo might have forgotten they even had this one, seeing as they’ve neither used the mechanic nor enforced the patent since filing it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good call. They couldn’t have been enforcing. Amnesia had a sanity meter, and it came out in 2010.
Nintendo patents almost every mechanic they deem noteworthy, even if they amount to a bunch of gimmicky minigames or interactions. The sanity system, as it currently exists, is very rudimentary and overstays its welcome quickly, I’d argue making something substantially better was always on the table, and that alone would’ve bypassed the patent, so long is not literally the same code or instructions I guess.
So Nintendo filed the patent, and paid the maintenance fees over the years. Did they even do anything with it beyond that one game? How much money did they think they gained just by preventing others from implementing a similar mechanic?
There was supposed to be a sequel but a whole bunch of fuckery kept it from happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Darkness#Cancelled_sequel
In 2006, Dyack said “absolutely yes” in response to the question of a possible sequel. He stated that Silicon Knights had intended for Eternal Darkness to be a stand-alone game, but they wanted to make more games set in the same universe involving the Ancients.[54][55] At Microsoft’s Spring 2008 Showcase, Dyack said there was a “strong chance” they would return to the Eternal Darkness brand.[56] In 2011, Silicon Knights said they were refocusing on one of their most requested titles for the next generation of consoles. This, combined with the fact that Nintendo had trademarked the title once again, spawned rumors that an Eternal Darkness game would be a launch title for Nintendo’s Wii U console.[57] However, the project was cancelled due to Silicon Knights’ legal troubles with Epic Games.[58] Any possibility for a sequel from Silicon Knights ended in 2013 when Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy and closed its offices.[59] Nintendo has repeatedly renewed the Eternal Darknesstrademark, stirring rumors of sequels or re-releases.[60][61][62][63]
Followed by Dyack forming another studio, botching three crowdfunding attempts, forming another studio, then shuttering the project.
It really was a mess.
Well we can’t say they didn’t try.
I always wished they would have done more with the IP. Lovecraftian stuff is always fun.
The new game, “Look Outside” uses a sanity system and is also Cosmic Horror.
There’s no “sanity” system in Look Outside. The closest thing is a hidden “stress” stat which, last I checked, is literally just combat problems when it gets low.
That said, Look Outside is a fantastic game, and the Dev is super down to earth and active with his players. Highly recommend.
