

Show HN: I Created the Inverse of Angry Birds - ghempton
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/misunderstood-pigs/id431451004?ls=1&mt=8

======
Cmccann7
This is freaking awesome. Congrats on releasing the project Gordon!

Just played till level nine and even paid for unlocking the rest of the
levels. Some feedback:

1) The game needs music. It's a little quiet after awhile, would be much
better with music. 2) On a lot of the levels you don't need to do anything and
you'll "win" by just pressing play. 3) Totally understand why you have the ads
on in the game but sometimes on the cloud levels it gets in the way of placing
blocks. 4) Sometimes the game gets stuck at the end and doesn't count up all
of the points 5) Counting up the points on level with a ton of items in it
takes forever 6) You should also explain the different birds and which ones
are coming. Noticed some had dynamite strapped to them but didn't expect that
at all. 7) On replay I really wish I had the previous blocks stay where they
were.

Overall an awesome game but wanted to give you some feedback on it after I
played around with it for awhile.

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ghempton
Thanks for all the great feedback. This is a side project that I had been
sitting on at 90% completion for months and finally got it out.

As a side note: I need to remember to not publicize newly launched apps until
they have been indexed by the app store. It might not show up in the app store
search until tomorrow.

~~~
JMiao
did you make the artwork yourself?

~~~
ghempton
Everything was done by yours truly in Fireworks. I wrote a custom extension
that I use to create both the artwork and the levels inside of Fireworks.

~~~
untog
Great to hear someone else using Fireworks. I feel like it gets ignored by
Adobe in favour of Illustrator, but it's really a fantastic tool.

~~~
threepointone
+1, in fact I'm still a fireworks 8 junkie, I still can't find a better
product for web layout and super quick vector/raster work.

------
lancefisher
Cool concept. Next up: multiplayer where one person plays the birds and the
other plays the pigs (Rovio might have to buy your app for that).

You need to explain why the pigs took the eggs. Maybe you do in the game.

~~~
tedsuo
It's not the pigs' fault eggs are delicious. :)

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Luc
Those birds in the third screenshot look pretty much the same as the Angry
Birds to me (I didn't compare them directly, but I don't think that's
necessary anyway). You're also directly advertising this with reference to
Angry Birds (see title of this post).

I'd say you're pretty much flouting basic trademark law here, and the only way
for Rovio to react is to protect their trademark, or lose it. It's all the
more likely if they are working on their own title from the viewpoint of the
pigs - and I'd say the odds are pretty high that they are.

In addition, the idea of this being parody is not something I'd want to defend
in front of a judge...

~~~
nachteilig
The birds are a question of copyright, not trademark. And one doesn't lose
that for failing to defend it.

~~~
starwed
I don't think its that simple. Wikipedia says

> _A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image,
> or a combination of these elements. There is also a range of non-
> conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these
> standard categories, such as those based on color, smell, or sound._

I'd be surprised if Rovio doesn't consider the general appearance of the birds
as a trademark. If you see a game in the app store represented by an angry
bird like image, that's clearly going to create consumer confusion about the
origin of the game.

~~~
philjr
You don't consider things trademarks, it's either a registered trademark or
it's not.

~~~
Luc
That's not true. There's no need for a trademark to be registered or even to
be indicated as being a trademark (typically by using 'TM'), though of course
you do get extra rights if you do. The US Patent Office is a good resource for
info: <http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp>

------
johnnyo
Some feedback:

The UI needs some work. Running on an iPhone 3GS, it felt very laggy, many of
my touches didn't register correctly.

Tap to rotate is an odd concept, and combined with the lagginess above, I was
always moving when I wanted to rotate, or vice versa. Maybe two fingers to
rotate?

Move the advertising. Having it right on top of the playing field caused me to
accidentally click it when trying to move around a block, taking me completely
out of the game.

A better visual distinction between blocks I'm allowed to move, and blocks I'm
not allowed to move would be nice, I spent a few minutes of the first level
trying to move the block that was already there.

Otherwise, I love the concept.

~~~
ghempton
Thanks for the feedback. An iPad 2 was my primary testing device so I surely
didn't give the iPhone version the UI love it needs.

~~~
logic
Just an FYI: it crashes while trying to open it on my iPhone 3G (displays the
splash screen, then exits to springboard.)

Love the idea, though. :)

~~~
beder
@ghempton, if you're still reading these comments, it's likely you're passing
a iOS 4 or 5 message without checking to see if the message is received.

I ran into this recently with a number of simple startup checks, e.g., if the
device is a high-res ([UIScreen scale]) or if it's an iPhone vs. iPad
([UIDevice userInterfaceIdiom]).

------
bradleyland
I hope Rovio sees this, finds it as hilarious as I did, keeps their head about
them, then finds a way to work with you on developing the idea.

~~~
kmfrk
Unless it's freemium, I don't see why they wouldn't find it hilarious.

~~~
mmaunder
Charging or not charging for an infringing work isn't relevant. Personally I
hope they give him a job with a hefty options grant.

~~~
zyb09
There's no infringement here, the pigs look different and there doesn't seem
to be any stolen art or something. So Rovio probably couldn't do anything
anyway.

~~~
bradleyland
"So Rovio probably couldn't do anything anyway."

I've talked about this a few times on HN, but this is a huge pet peeve of
mine. It's armchair litigating. Rovio could absolutely file a case against
this developer. How far it would go would depend largely on the judge in the
case. You can bet that Rovio would, if they decided to, file with a court that
historically rules in favor of their position. This would mean that, at a
minimum, this developer would have to retain counsel and pay the thousands of
dollars it would cost to get the case dismissed (not a slow process). There
would be depositions, discovery, inquiry, and a slew of other bullshit that
comes along with being sued.

You see, this is how the game is played. It's not a matter of who is right or
wrong. It's not even a matter of what the rules say. It's a matter of who has
the bigger bank role to pay for attorneys that are good at playing the game.

I know because I've been in this scenario. Prior to the plaintiff filing suit
against us, everyone said the same things:

"They don't have a case!"

"This is baseless, it will be thrown out!"

"What a stupid premise, they'll get laughed out of court!"

This was not from one or two people, and not from laymen. This was from
virtually every attorney I talked to (6 of them). We're now 3 years in to the
suit and the judge seems content to extend the trial date in to the year 2012.
The courts are in the business of having people in court. Never forget it.

~~~
Maven911
May I ask how much is this costing you or your company in legal fees?

~~~
bradleyland
We make a concerted effort to reduce legal fees by coordinating with our
attorneys to do whatever footwork we can. On bad months, it will cost us
$7k-$10k. On a relatively idle month, $2k.

~~~
Maven911
wow, thats quite a bit, what is the hourly rate they charge

------
ericb
I would refer to this as a "parody" of angry birds.

~~~
RexRollman
I agree but I have seen cases where companies have tried to suppress a parody.
I think we are going to see Rovio is made of.

~~~
ericb
A parody is constitutionally protected free speech. Yes, they can sue
regardless, but I think your leverage is higher in that scenario. I am not a
lawyer. I hope the creator has spoken with one in case.

~~~
scott_s
It depends. If you are parodying _X_ while making a comment about _X_ , that's
probably in the clear. But if you're parodying _X_ while making a comment
about _Y_ , that's problematic. See Penny Arcade's difficulties with parodying
Strawberry Shortcake while commenting on American McGee's take on games.

~~~
TWAndrews
To be fair, PA didn't make any attempt to litigate that. American McGee told
them to take it down, and they did, essentially no questions asked.

~~~
scott_s
They didn't make any attempt to _litigate_ it, because, as I understand it, a
lawyer told them it was not a good idea (<http://www.penny-
arcade.com/2003/04/21>):

 _We are, of course, talking to our lawyer about all this stuff. Readers have
referred us to many sources in an effort to clarify our position legally,
sites like Chilling Effects act as clearing houses for data useful in
situations such as this. Also, interesting cases have been brought to our
attention - for example, Aqua’s song “Barbie Girl” was contested by Mattel,
and Aqua still came out on top (as it were). In darker news, Matt from MacHall
send this interesting bit - check page 3, “Dr. Seuss Enterprises Vs. Penguin
Books.” To my mind, that precedent doesn’t mean anything good for us._

~~~
morsch
I clicked on this, forgot about it and looked at the tab a while later. I only
realized I was looking at old comics after a couple of fairly confusing
minutes, wondering about the odd art style and why on Earth they were back to
playing Phantasy Star Online, but effortlessly integrating the "fact" that
there's a new EverQuest expansion coming out that is similar to the previous
ones. I guess that one is a timeless fact.

------
vidarh
My two year old would probably love that - he sympathises with the pigs and
gets upset whenever he accidentally hits one of them with the birds. Doesn't
seem to care as much about the birds.

~~~
kirubakaran
Perhaps because pigs are mammals and hence more closely related to him than
birds?

------
aresant
Awesome and hilarious concept, brilliant to garner PR since it's such a fun
story.

Great iphone PR resources:

List of the top sites to contact -

[http://www.altiapp.com/2011/09/ultimate-list-of-free-
iphone-...](http://www.altiapp.com/2011/09/ultimate-list-of-free-iphone-app-
review-sites/)

Nice presentation on mobile-app specific PR:

[http://www.slideshare.net/triplepoint/pr-101-for-iphone-
game...](http://www.slideshare.net/triplepoint/pr-101-for-iphone-game-
developers)

Your story has legs - worth maybe hitting TechCrunch and the other big boys as
well - good luck!

------
waldr
Been playing this all morning, I'd love to see the pig protection milked to
the max. A fun plug would be 'how many pigs saved to date' and maybe when a
certain number has been hit then for some PR you could adopt a pig -
<http://worldanimalfoundation.homestead.com/AdoptAPig.html>

Be pretty funny to see a load of blog posts about saving pigs, due to help
from players!

I've possibly had too much coffee this morning..

------
alias1
Depending on how Rovio take this I would love to see some form of collab (bet
it partnered or purchased)

I can see a PvP multiplayer feature, one player in Angry Birds, one player in
Misunderstood Pigs, phone vs phone multiplayer goodness.

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r7000
If Angry Birds is Crush The Castle this is Hold Your Ground:
<http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Hold_Your_Ground.html>. Since Hold Your
Ground has been out for years I am surprised someone hasn't done this before
considering the runaway success of Angry Birds.

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michaelschade
Great idea and execution, love it.

Perhaps you mentioned it in the opening message and I just missed it, but...I
was waiting for objects to appear that were oriented differently, and only by
accident did I realize that I had to tap to rotate (I had first tried by
actually doing a rotation gesture).

I'd add some note about this on the object palette in the bottom, and maybe
even add a rotation gesture to turn it.

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martingordon
Looks pretty cool, downloading now. Why is it free, though? Charge a buck for
it at least.

~~~
reustle
I wonder if he's leaving it free to minimize the number of reasons for Rovio
to go after him.

------
epaga
This is one of those very rare moments where the idea is so funny and good
that you'll probably have quite the success with the idea even if the
implementation isn't the best.

But it seems like you've done a great job with the implementation as well. All
the best!

------
bad_user
Please do an Android version.

~~~
ghempton
Hopefully I will have time to get around to this someday.

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Timothee
I'm growing overly tired of the success of Angry Birds, seeing it on
Hipmunk.com, as a special Roku box, pushed on the Chrome Web Store, etc. so
this is very welcome. Congratulations on the launch!

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anatari
Cool game and concept. Lots of fun. Now some feedback:

1) The touch logic on the blocks is frustrating for me on the iPhone. It takes
me several tries to move a block. It thinks I want to scroll half the time, or
doesn't register the touch with block. Maybe the block touch zone should be
bigger than the block itself.

2.) Putting ads directly in the level seems distasteful to me and ruins the
immersive experience. Would rather have them in-between levels or at start up.

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nazar
The idea sounds great! I don't have an iDevice to test it, but hell with
testing, I believe my fellow HNers, and I want to wish you good luck from
Turkmenistan!

~~~
YuriNiyazov
E-mail me please, I am curious about costs of web development in Turkmenistan.

------
mvkel
Very clever! I'd rename it to something catchier though -- Pity Pigs, Sorry
Pigs... something with no more than three syllables

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pilap82
Funny! If you need funding you can try to pitch it as "Tower defense meets
Angry birds" :)

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SickAnimations
Very good first version. Quick and easy to get into gameplay. About the right
level of difficulty. Thanks :)

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mdaniel
Here is hoping for you to have even half of the marketing juggernaut of that
other pig game :-)

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bau5
I don't have an iOS device to play on it but this looks great! I think this
will attract Angry Birds lovers and haters alike. I imagine you'll have
competitors if this takes off, so it's good that you built a real game and not
a simple novelty app.

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andrewflnr
Fun, but it likes to crash when loading levels. For a while it crashed when
trying to go to the second level, which I fixed by force-restarting the app,
and just now when reloading level 2 after a failed attempt. iPad 1, iOS 5.1.

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jaredsohn
Funny seeing this within days of the iPhone version of Plants vs. Zombies
adding a mode where you control the zombies. (Feature already existed in Flash
version; requires in-game currency to play most of it).

~~~
esrauch
The regular desktop version has a mode where you control the zombies.

------
djjose
Awesome, a new game to play! I used to play 'Cover Orange' which had a similar
inverse Angry Birds gameplay. Did you research that game before working on
this?

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chefsurfing
Great concept, great creativity! Bravo. If you can effectively manage the IP
battle I think you have a smash success on your hands here.

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joshu
Needs a bit of ux work but is pretty brilliant

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iz_mani
Hey ,that was funny and well done . The game lags on iphone. And yes this is a
good concept of parody games.

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instakill
Please open this up on multiple Apple App stores. Not available in the South
African app store.

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yeahyeah12
<http://www.misunderstoodpigs.com>

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pbreit
I'd like to see Angry Bird "right-to-left". Any hacks to make that happen?

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xekul
I can't stop laughing at the name of the app. It's fantastic!

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langsamer
Awesome idea. What did you use for the physics engine?

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krmmalik
i cant seem to access the link on my mobile device. can someone please give me
the name of the game so i can search it in the app store?

~~~
oflannabhra
Misunderstood Pigs

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pknerd
Cool. May I know the tools you used to make it?

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DistortedRhymes
Im downloading it now! Looks awesome! Congrats.

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joshmanders
Looks good, downloaded it to my iPhone. :)

~~~
joshmanders
It's kind of hard to drag the items, I have to zoom all the way in and try and
move the items like 10 times before I get it right. Also make them drop down
like they do when you hit play, because it's way to hard having to try and
line them up when creating structures, due to the dropping of items making
them very unstable.

------
mrkmcknz
Is it US only? Can't find it in UK store

~~~
ghempton
Should be everywhere, maybe there is a delay.

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TheClassic
I'm not seeing this game in the AppStore

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joshmanders
Load the link in your safari on your iPod/iPad/iPhone and it will take you to
it in the store.

~~~
liamkf
Yeah that worked for me. Searching for the exact title in the App Store didn't
return any results.

I guess their search index is not always up to date.

~~~
ghempton
Yeah I should have waited until it was indexed before posting.

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billybob
So you're trying to protect the pigs?

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thebigshane
Yes, they never deserved the birds' misplaced anger to begin with.

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kwamenum86
gosh i hope you don't get sued

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dfuhriman
This is great.

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inspiredworlds
hilarious!

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davidtyleryork
Brilliant!

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GGNH
awesome stuff!

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beatle
did you use cocos2d?

~~~
ghempton
Yup cocos2d, with a pretty thick custom level editor built on top.

~~~
xelfer
is the level editor your own or another product?

~~~
ghempton
I built it myself. It is in the form of a Fireworks extension. I lay out the
levels inside of Fireworks and export both the art and the level as a package.

I will open source it eventually.

~~~
obaid
I am very interested in taking a look at your level builder.. i am even
willing you pay for it :)

Also, are you available for freelance work? contact me at
ob.ahmed[@]gmail[.]com

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sylvinus
genius idea is genius.

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civilian
Android plz?

