Contacted Rick of Planetarypinball.com (who owns the rights to make reproduction parts for WMS games now, and with whom people who want to make their own repro parts can cooperate) about my FreeWPC project. Asked him for permission to re-use existing dmd artwork. I expected to get a no back, but you never know, right ? Getting permission would save me a lot of time..
The answer was as expected, WMS does not allow any of their copyrighted things to be re-used.
I didn't play to use a Bally/WMS logo (I'm that smart) but even 'Cactus Canyon' is a trademarked name, so using that logo (I first planned to draw my own similar looking logo) or even showing that name on the dmd as title for the game is probably a no..
So officially I'm making new rules for some random western themed pinball machine.
Even gamerules are copyrighted so taking over existing rules could be a problem. Hadn't thought about that.
Anyway I didn't plan on copying the rules and change them, having the same feel but still have it different (more difficult / challenging / more strategy / ..). There will always be similarities because I'm bound by existing playfield layout, the lamp inserts and the text on them (shoot jackpot light will always be a shoot jackpot light) and the existing soundcalls (stampede multiball will always be called stampede multiball).
Back to the drawing board.. will re-think some basic rules I have already implemented, see if I can change them even more.
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