Your questions, answered
Some time ago we asked on twitter and on our discord to throw any question you had about the game at us, here are such questions, and the answers to them.
[h2]This looks a lot like a clone of a game I know of... What about that?[/h2]
I assume you are asking this question because this is a clone game. Clone games have historically had no trouble existing, except in cases where a software patent exists, if no such patent exists and the game doesn't include any code it isn't allowed to include there are no legal issues. I have carefully confirmed all of this with a lawyer, so there's nothing to worry about.
Here are some examples of clone games (some commercial) you might be familiar with:
- Clone Hero.
- PPD.
- Rockband.
- Osu!
- All AoS/Dota clones: League of Legends, Smite, Heroes of Newerth, Heroes of the Storm.
- All autochess clones (League of Legends' Team Fight Tactics, Dota Underlords etc...).
- Minecraft
[h2]How many songs are included in the base game?[/h2]
Regarding the song list, there will be five songs by SuganoMusic, two of them are Touhou Eurobeat arrangements and the rest are traditional Eurobeat. This is subject to change.
EDIT June 2020: This has now changed and many more songs will be added, stay tuned for more news.
[h2]Are you legally allowed to use the PlayStation buttons?[/h2]
Project Heartbeat infringes no patents, no copyright and no trademarks. Clone games are generally legal (see StrikeLine, RockBand, Heroes of the Storm, HoN, League of Legends, Candy Crush, commercial uses of StepMania, AutoChess and its clones etc...)
Regarding the DualShock4's buttons:
While the letter X is not copy protected, the specific cross used on the controller, along with the other shapes, are trademarked. Using your own art to represent the buttons, is OK under fair use, specifically nominative fair use. Where the qualifications for nominative fair use are one of the following situations:
[h2]In the multiplayer mode, how many players can you play with at once (size of a lobby)?[/h2]
Technically we could fit 250 people in a single lobby, but for sanity reasons it's set to 5 right now, but it's a simple one line change to increase this limit if the community wants it.
[h2]Are console versions planned?[/h2]
They are being worked on, more info later.
[h2]Is mayonnaise an instrument?[/h2]
If you try hard enough yes.
[h2]This looks a lot like a clone of a game I know of... What about that?[/h2]
I assume you are asking this question because this is a clone game. Clone games have historically had no trouble existing, except in cases where a software patent exists, if no such patent exists and the game doesn't include any code it isn't allowed to include there are no legal issues. I have carefully confirmed all of this with a lawyer, so there's nothing to worry about.
Here are some examples of clone games (some commercial) you might be familiar with:
- Clone Hero.
- PPD.
- Rockband.
- Osu!
- All AoS/Dota clones: League of Legends, Smite, Heroes of Newerth, Heroes of the Storm.
- All autochess clones (League of Legends' Team Fight Tactics, Dota Underlords etc...).
- Minecraft
[h2]How many songs are included in the base game?[/h2]
Regarding the song list, there will be five songs by SuganoMusic, two of them are Touhou Eurobeat arrangements and the rest are traditional Eurobeat. This is subject to change.
EDIT June 2020: This has now changed and many more songs will be added, stay tuned for more news.
[h2]Are you legally allowed to use the PlayStation buttons?[/h2]
Project Heartbeat infringes no patents, no copyright and no trademarks. Clone games are generally legal (see StrikeLine, RockBand, Heroes of the Storm, HoN, League of Legends, Candy Crush, commercial uses of StepMania, AutoChess and its clones etc...)
Regarding the DualShock4's buttons:
While the letter X is not copy protected, the specific cross used on the controller, along with the other shapes, are trademarked. Using your own art to represent the buttons, is OK under fair use, specifically nominative fair use. Where the qualifications for nominative fair use are one of the following situations:
- The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute).
- The user only uses as much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol).
- The user does nothing to suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder. This applies even if the nominative use is commercial, and the same test applies for metatags.
[h2]In the multiplayer mode, how many players can you play with at once (size of a lobby)?[/h2]
Technically we could fit 250 people in a single lobby, but for sanity reasons it's set to 5 right now, but it's a simple one line change to increase this limit if the community wants it.
[h2]Are console versions planned?[/h2]
They are being worked on, more info later.
[h2]Is mayonnaise an instrument?[/h2]
If you try hard enough yes.