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https://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/MaiNurse-SMS
https://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/MaiNurse-GG

Quote

Help Mai get rid of viruses with pills, line up 4 slots of the same
color horizontally or vertically to destroy them and progress through
the levels in this classic puzzle game!

Made with GBDK2020. Game Gear version also available!

More work on my Youtube channel through my homepage : https://lunoka.net/

Playing through the entries so far this is my biggest surprise.

It's absolutely excellent. Just lost 45 minutes to my first go.

Yesterzine wrote

Playing through the entries so far this is my biggest surprise.

It's absolutely excellent. Just lost 45 minutes to my first go.

thank you! Glad you like it :)

Hey, I liked it a lot! And very nice colors too!

Yesterzine wrote

Playing through the entries so far this is my biggest surprise.

It sure is this year's biggest surprise, and a pretty good one. We don't need to spend our afternoons playing that Korean unlicensed clone of Dr. M*r*o anymore! =D

haha, thanks guys, I hope to be able to do more in the next months and exploring the opportunity to make physical releases :).

I'm currently making some ports for GB & PCE, and MD & SNes later.

Can't state enough how awesome I find the pixel-art and usage of colors in the game. You have really great skills and talent !

woaaa, thanks a lot! I'm not really a seasoned pixel artist but having worked as a freelance illustrator after quitting my former developer job for almost 5 years now gave me some tricks :)

Just seconding all the nice comments above, very well done game with fun and addicting gameplay. The art and colors are excellent!

Very beautiful game, very addictive like its inspiration. We feel the sense of detail in its design. Well done !

Really love this game, extremely playable and well put together. Perfect.

I haven't played the original too much, but is the gameplay exactly the same or did you add some variations?

Love the title screen animation.

willbritton wrote

Really love this game, extremely playable and well put together. Perfect.

I haven't played the original too much, but is the gameplay exactly the same or did you add some variations?

Love the title screen animation.

Thank you! I cloned the gameplay from the Nes version with the level selection screen. There is a GBA version also with more content but I haven't played it yet.
Making a physical release could push me to add more content since the rom is about 80KB with 16KB of code, so I have plenty of space for a boost :)

This is great. It’s a hellishly addictive as the original, but surpasses it in the graphics and sound department by a huge margin. Really, really good. I also like how well you made use of the available screen estate between the two versions.

One minor thing that I think could improve the game: Right now one button rotates the pills clockwise and the other button does nothing. Couldn’t you use it to rotate anti-clockwise? That would be kind of intuitive.

thanks a lot! Counter clockwise rotation may be a good idea, I will think about it ( and get rid of the cheat code on button II lol ).

I think being able to rotate both ways is a required mechanic for more advanced gameplay, on harder levels.

I played the game many hours and for me is perfect as is.
No problems playing and works flawlessly, very addictive and great replay value.
I played to level 18, level 19 for me is impossible to defeat and level 18 using the slow speed and a few times using the pause button to take a extra few seconds to find the best way mostly at the start with full of viruses.
Pretty game with great replay value.
M

Superb realization, the pixel art is very successful, I like it a lot.
Just a small gameplay problem I think, the pills only move one square when you hold the direction (right or left). I would have preferred the pill to continue to move when you stay on the steering. But hey, it's just a small detail, nothing serious!!
Great job Lunoka !!

I will never not like a falling blocks game, cute and the gameplay is solid, well done!

Great game and finally defeated all the levels.

Captura de pantalla 2024-04-05 143124.png (51.33 KB)

Level 20 under 8 minutes.png (75.77 KB)

I still can't get into double figures :D

M.Osorio wrote

Great game and finally defeated all the levels.

Haha, good job!

@Lunoka

I am not a lawyer but from the Dr. Mario page at Wikipedia at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Mario

Dr. Mario (its layout and it game mechanics) are patented protected by law and I may also say copyright protected as their US patent ( US5265888A , inventors Masao Yamamoto and others) mentions "instruction booklet"-instruction booklets are protected by copyright.
Maybe Ni****do also made a newer (but different) patent that covered Dr. Mario too as Ni****do are protective of their stuff -a google search shows what I mean. (It is cited by other newer Ni****do patents etc.)

Just mentioning the above facts in case you didn't know.

The pill capsule shapes in your game look very much like the ones in the Dr. Mario patent (given on page 7 the various pill drawings) or the Dr. Mario NES instruction booklet on (on page 5).

The NES manual contents are patented and the NES manual can be found here

https://www.manuals.co.uk/Ni****do/dr-mario-nes/manual?p=8

The color of your pills does not make the graphics different I think that is why patent drawing are made in black and white (or just simply line drawing) with no color. Also you main game graphics (the bottle) looks similar to the main game graphics bottle (while considering it as part of the in game screen) given in the patent (on page 15) or page 13 of the NES manual. Manuals or copyright content of patents are covered by copyright, though the way it is covered depends on the country.

Copyright covers game graphics.

I think that would be considered as copyright infringement from the contents of the patent (but I am not a lawyer and I am not an expert in law) as copyright covers artwork (so someone else cannot make the same or similar artwork).

Hello Lunoka,

The game is very addictive, very well done (design, gfx, sfx, music).

I'm jealous of Kagesan (hi Alex :) ) because he codes, graphs and makes good musics.
Today, I'm adding one more to my list: Lunoka.

Bravo for 'May Nurse'

Eric

ps: I thought there was a pun with 'May' and 'My' because I'd like her to be 'My' nurse irl hehehe.

Z80ASMprogrammer2022 wrote

@Lunoka
Just mentioning the above facts in case you didn't know.

I'm aware of that, thank you for your concern. I asked to a friend graduated in copyright stuff and he thinks it's safe.

I wouldn't have played with Tetris Foundation since they seem to shoot at sight, but big N on the contrary seems to focus only on their characters.

I'm not aware of games killed because of their cloned game mechanics from them ( first game that comes to my mind is Giana Sisters ).

Of course, I could be wrong.

Yeah they usually tend to be very protective about their characters (names and look) and way less about everything else...

Hi Lunoka,

Thanks for your interesting reply.

"I'm not aware of games killed because of their cloned game mechanic"

I don't think it is factually true that an author using cloned mechanics has not been attacked by the original creator (if that is what you mean) because of the following.

Sega sued Fox Entertainment (regarding gameplay mechanics related to the arrow or the look of the arrow, pedestrian avoidance etc.) for infringing on their Crazy Taxi patent or copyright implied by the patent.Sega settled for some amount with Fox successfully (mentioned at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Taxi) .

There may also be potential future changes in patent law or copyright law to consider e.g. international copyright law was changed regarding the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"

That said, I am not an expert in law and I am not a lawyer. So I think it is the sort of thing a judge or similar would know the answer to for sure for some specific game .Different countries have different legal systems for patents or copyrights regarding patents so that is a reason why such an answer is not obvious to me.

As far as I know, pure gameplay mechanics can’t be copyrighted, only designs (characters, levels, scenarios, etc.) can. That’s why any lawsuits usually focus on those.

Even back in the day, when there hadn't been many precedents, Rainbow Arts would probably have gotten away with Great Giana Sisters hadn't they rebuilt SMB's first level 1:1 in their game. Referencing the original this aggressively in the name of their own game probably didn’t exactly help either.

Kagesan wrote

As far as I know, pure gameplay mechanics can’t be copyrighted, only designs (characters, levels, scenarios, etc.) can. That’s why any lawsuits usually focus on those.

Highly simplified, but for all intents and purposes, yes that's true for copyright, although not for patents.

Although Wikipedia isn't necessarily the best legal advisor, this section does a pretty good job I think of summarising the picture.

Cheat sheet:
- Original artwork is covered by copyright, which expires (in the U.S.) usually 70 years after the author's death.
- Same for original audio work
- The title, logo and sometimes taglines, etc. are covered by Trademarks, if registered, which expire but can be renewed.
- Software patents can be registered which cover game mechanics, but they are somewhat controversial and hard to contend. In any case, they expire (in the U.S.) after 20 years, so the patent on Dr. Mario which Z80AP referenced has long since expired. The E.U. tends not to issue things which look like software patents at all, because of aforementioned controversy.
- Whilst game mechanics have been contested under copyright law, it's very rare and not at all a sure thing. On that subject, when a case is settled the terms are usually confidential so you can't really say that either side "won" the case.

The most important thing I think here is that this is a tiny homebrew community working on very old consoles and I think it's fairly unlikely to ever hit the radar of anyone, legitimate or troll, who wanted to take issue.

Even if a copyright / patent holder wanted to take action, it usually takes the initial form of a cease and desist and in that case you can always choose to "desist" if you don't want the headache of arguing the toss. The costs of legalities are usually immense so if a complainant can make it go away by rattling their sabre then more's the better.

Not legal advice, but as a personal opinion this TLDRs to: "I wouldn't lose any sleep over it at all"!

Level 20 defeated in slow speed.
But now I decide to try the medium and high speed of the game.
Here are the results

L20MS.png (82.21 KB)

L20HS.png (86.65 KB)

This is a great game! I've been playing this as well as Dr. Mario and Dr. Hello on various platforms and this is my favorite by far. Excellent graphics and excellent use of color. It does strike me as strange that one of the buttons does nothing. I would likewise recommend that it be used to rotate pills in the opposite direction. That is the only improvement I could ask for.

I did see that someone complained about the pills' incremental movement with each button press as opposed to just continual movement with one button press. DO NOT CHANGE THIS! It is one of the best features of your game, as it gives a far greater level of control. I can do moves in your game that I can not accomplish in Dr. Mario or Dr. Hello due to their sloppy controls.

Without question, the greater level of control in your game makes it far superior to the others. I can actually beat the game on the slowest speed, and I can at least make it to level 19 on medium speed. I can only get to level 16 on Dr. Hello. If your game ever gets a physical release, I'll likely get it. Great work!

Thank you for your kind comments guys ^^ ( and clarifying the legal stuff )

It was a decision to let an incremental move for the horizontal dimension, since it's quite narrow and I wanted to keep control in that dimension. On the opposite, I made the vertical move continual to speed up a little bit the game since it's 16 blocks high and we have room for that. The counter clock is a miss from me, I'll think about it if I update the game or make a release.

Btw, how does the vote system work? First participation here so no clue about how it is and when it starts.

lunoka wrote

Btw, how does the vote system work? First participation here so no clue about how it is and when it starts.

You vote right here on the game's forum page. Voting will soon be available.

mateusbond wrote

lunoka wrote

Btw, how does the vote system work? First participation here so no clue about how it is and when it starts.

You vote right here on the game's forum page. Voting will soon be available.

Rules / The small print

* Entries should be either made for this competition, or substantially different to any earlier release. This means you can’t take something you released before and enter it with minimal or no changes; it also means you shouldn’t release it yourself elsewhere before the deadline.

Mai Nurse is a game with great game play, graphics and sound. But unfortunately this entry seems to be invalid since the competition rules say any entered game can't be publicly released before 27th March 2024. This may matter when deciding a winner and for keeping everything fair. Happy to be corrected if I am wrong.

The game was released on itcho.io. Itch.io states the Game Gear version of this game was released 14 days ago or on 25th/March/2024

https://lunoka.itch.io/mai-nurse/download/eyJpZCI6MjYwMzkxOSwiZXhwaXJlcyI6MTcxMj...

It has the same MD5 hash as the Mai Nurse competition entry ROM file hosted on SMS Power! thus it's the same file. The Game Gear version is basically the same as the Master System version of the game due to the similarities in the hardware.

itchioscreen.png (73.79 KB)

I think we can bend the rules a bit, it’s not breaking the intention of the rule (so people don’t dump stuff into the competition that’s already been released elsewhere). A few days doesn’t matter.

Maxim wrote

I think we can bend the rules a bit, it’s not breaking the intention of the rule (so people don’t dump stuff into the competition that’s already been released elsewhere). A few days doesn’t matter.

All right.

To clarify, versions of the game have been uploaded on my itch.io account in Draft mode in order to prepare my landing page, not visible to public.

I've waited that Maxim posted publically my entry before opening my itch.io page to public, you can see on the file attached that downloads started on 27th, no detail on the time of the day but you have to take my word for that.

stats.jpg (166.6 KB)

This looks and play great, the only thing I would suggest to improve it is to make button 1/START (the left button on the controller) work too, for instance to select menu and also it could be possible to rotate the pills counterclockwise in-game.

A great work, and a great showcase of GBDK-2020 too. Congrats!

Great work and result ! I really love the pixel art style.

Way to go Lunoka !

I am a fan of the original game. I pretty much own every version until the 128-bit era, and I have to say, overall it's a very clean game!

Love the graphics, very cute. The chosen colours are legible in game even on GG.
The musical themes are very friendly to the ears and fit the style of the game. And the gameplay is solid.

Quite frankly, this is all very good stuff!

Now, I have a few suggestions to make:
- On the Game Gear version, pressing Start does not Pause the game. I assume this was a mistake, because the Pause button works fine on the SMS version!
- Could you make Button 1 rotate the pills the other way around that Button 2 does? I pretty much rely on that ability to move pills in better spots in the later levels of the original game. It would be great to have that ability here as well!

Some nitpicking, that could count as a bug report:
- I notice that the falling speed of the pills feels irregular when you press down. I don't have the source code, but I think that the "pill goes down slowly on its own" action happens at the same time as the "pill goes down fast when the down button is pressed" action. This causes the pill to go down twice in very quick succession sometimes.
- In the menu, pressing down is repeated when holding the key down, but not pressing up, left or right. I felt it was quite strange to have it react that way, but nothing game breaking! I assume the "pill falling fast" action might have something to do with it.
- I think enabling key repetition on left and right could be a good thing. But if it was voluntarily disabled in the game, I can understand a design choice. However, if would be nice to have that on the menu so higher levels can be selected quickly?

In any case, I don't want the nitpicking of a relatively seasoned Dr. Plumber player to take away from the fact that this is really well made! Great work overall!

PS: Also that PC-Engine/TG-16 port you showed on your Youtube channel is really cool too :D

I’m not so heavily seasoned but I probably have a few thousand hours in Dr Mario over the years. The missing rotate the other way button really hurts me! But I am very happy to see a great conversion of the game about over-prescribing.

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