![Dottie Flowers](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.timeextension.com/39359a3f91d20/dottie-flowers.900x.jpg)
We recently covered the arrival of a new SNES game, Dottie Flowers, which was developed by Goldlocke.
In a unique twist, the game – a cute and very playable fangame peppered with tributes to the Turrican series – hasn't been made available for download digitally and won't be sold in physical form. Instead, Goldlocke decided to create 100 physical, boxed copies and give them away in a competition.
"I invested around ~600 hours of my spare time over the course of one year into this game, mostly evening hours after my daily real-life chores were done," he explains. "I spent about €2200 to hand-produce a total of 100 physical copies of the game. This might sound ludicrous to you, but the end result was worth every penny to me."
So, why did Goldlocke spend all of this time and money on a game that only 100 people will ever get to play (assuming the ROM doesn't get dumped, of course)? Well, there are a few reasons.
"Given that the game contains various references to copyrighted IP, I consider myself lucky to not having received a C&D or worse so far," says Goldlocke. "Needless to say, I don't feel like pushing my luck, so monetization in any way or form is completely out of the question for me."
He also decided against releasing the ROM online, as he has done with his previous homebrew projects, because "without fail, this resulted in bootleg cartridges originating from China, Brazil and other countries to be sold without my approval or consent."
While he doesn't normally have an issue with this ("the bootlegs even helped enlarge the player base"), Goldlocke was concerned that "bootleg cartridges being sold freely on the market might cause a problem for the rights holder of the referenced works. That's why I refrained from releasing a ROM file of the full game this time and I ask for your understanding."
This left the developer with one option – to produce a small batch of physical copies and simply give them away rather than sell them.
"I love to give away stuff and to make people happy, but my resources are limited," he says. "Considering the high cost of producing a single physical unit, I ended up producing only 100 copies total and giving all but one away for free."
The really unique aspect of this giveaway is that Goldlocke took a very old-school approach: a mail-in contest. "Given the limited quantity of available copies, what way would yield the highest rate of winners that were actually likely to play and enjoy the game?" he muses. "Easy, provide a stripped-down demo ROM and present the mail-in address to the player only after successfully beating its three stages, just like many Satellaview score contests did."
Goldlocke says the response to the Dottie Flowers demo really blew him away. "From the bottom of my heart, I thank everybody who went through the trouble of sending in a postcard! So many warm words, so much love put into little drawings of Dottie, handcrafted origami etc. So many cards from all over the world, from Australia to USA, from Japan to Russia and Uruguay to Switzerland, it really put a smile on my face every time I opened the post box! Again, thank you so much to everybody who participated and my sincere apologies to those who didn't win a copy."
[source goldlocke.itch.io]
Comments 25
I feel like he would have been better served not using copyrighted material then.I know that fan works/spiritual sequels are handled in various ways but obviously he was concerned about licensing so I would have avoided that all together by just making an original game.
The logic seems....questionable.
it might take longer, but making 100 copies and not releasing the rom is actually more of a reason to make knock offs, not something that will trouble anyone determined enough. Those cartridges also aren't going to stay free once people decide to cash in. Someone is going to dump it for preservation anyway, the duplicators will just grab that.
It's not generosity, it's madness. I'm not sure what's worse, the idea to do it for free as a physical item or the explanation for why.
@LowDefAl Well, that depends if any of the winners know how or want to dump the files. Remeber, only 100 people are winning, so many of them probably wont have the technical knowledge to dump a rom.
Though I can't wait to see the chaos that occurs once a copy is put on eBay.
Why did he handmake and give out a bunch of games for free? Because he's got a huge disposable income, and seems like an alright guy.
@Kirbyo
I wouldn't doubt the savvy of the types of people playing a homebrew demo of such a game.
There's a good likelihood that they played the game on a SNES or Analogue Super NT using a flash cart, rather than a software emulator on PC or similar. These sorts of users tend to know of methods of dumping games, and might already dump their own collections as opposed to downloading them illegally.
@Ryu_Niiyama Have you, yourself, made a game before or ever tried to make one? What you have said there, is usually not so easy to say, if you have. Few hobbyists have both programming skill and all the various artistic skills (visual, audio, etc.) to create their entire own intellectual properties.
Even the professionals have sometimes been caught, not completely using their own IP.
While I understand his reasoning for wanting to keep physical cartridges limited to 100 authentic copies, and thusly decided against releasing the ROM online, I would argue that by distributing the game at all, you are opening those flood gates yourself regardless. If one of those 100 people doesn't dump and upload the game somewhere, then they'll sell it for an extortionate price to someone who will.
I mean yeah I can see why they wouldn't want to sell the cartridge, but why not just upload it online if its up from free? Then its just the average piece of homebrew. Hopefully someone could dump the game then after winning it
Some men just want to make something beautiful and share it with no profit motive. Good for him.
Our time in this world is short and limited. It is stuff like this that we leave behind and what we will be remembered for. As such I consider the reward for his work is far more valuable than money.
The thing is once one of those 99 cartridges eventually get dump online, repros of those will spread all over the internet like the plague. His game will be preserve whether he likes it or not. Once it's dump online, it stays online for as long as the internet still exist.
"This left the developer with one option..."
No, he had several options, one of which would have been to use his own ideas/characters instead of stealing someone's IP. There are plenty of ways to reference a popular character without straight up using that character. Just ask Sega about revisions to the Revenge of Shinobi.
Another would be to release the game to the world, just like thousands of other indie projects and deal with the fact that people are going to pirate everything, full stop.
He also could have legally secured the rights to use the characters. It's called licensing.
"...without my approval or consent." The irony that he didn't get the consent of the copyright holders to begin with and wants people to respect his IP.
Now he gets the satisfaction of watching his game sell for $1000 on eBay.
"Look everyone, I made a SNES game but you can't play it!"
I believe I'm using the UK phrase correctly when I say, bollocks to that.
I did not realise there was or notice any copyrighted material in the demo version. But, hey, it's his project, so he can do as he wishes. As long as it gets some dump in the future, I'm sure everyone else who wants to play it will find a way.
idgaf what this numbskull's intentions are you do NOT make your game intentionally hard to buy unless you want people to NOT talk about it. The same thing was done with Craprium and Demon throttle and nobody ever talks about those either. Way to actively crap on accessibility and preservation, it's not like the retro gaming scene already has enough of a @#!% problem with that already .
@PinballBuzzbro What baffles me especially is that he had a spot in the recent indie showcase video, so why even advertise your game to people like this if you're only gonna make it available via this outdated darius alpha garbage. Feel bad for all the people that made this dude fanart knowing they won't even get to experience the freakin' project they got invested in
Couldn't agree more with most comments here, this is absolutely ridiculous and really hope someone will put an end to this madness by dumping one of these copies and sharing the game on the internet for free as it should've been from the start... either that or, if it had to be sold commercially, the developer should've got the consent from the copyright holders or just refrained from using such material in the first place!
the negative feelings this project is generating here are fascinating! 🍿
Remember when DaVinci painted just ONE mona lisa? 😂 what a butthole.
@-wc- a painting anyone can look at even if not in person and japanese super famicom cartridges you could only get by mailing in to someone (something that was not mentioned much if at all while the game was previously shown off) and hoping you get chosen to receive one that will likely never be uploaded for the wider public to experience are insanely different things, this is not the own you think it is bro
@PinballBuzzbro
"Leonardo da Vinci's iconic Mona Lisa, the world's most famous, recognizable, and copied artwork, has a storied history. Painted between 1503 and 1519, it was owned by French royalty for centuries. Liberated by Revolutionary forces, the painting briefly adorned Napoleon's bedroom, then was installed in the Louvre."
PS - love your avatar 👍 i thought i was the only one who remembered that show 😊
@-wc- You're DaVinci analogy makes no sense and you conveniently ignored all of Pinballbuzzbro's points. Don't know why you're being so combative while offering nothing to the conversation.
@Hexapus
sorry you didnt like my joke, but that doesnt mean it doesnt make sense. it does 👍
�� im not sure how combative ive been, really. i wasnt even picking on him to begin with, and his argument about the mona lisa being available to view by anyone is historically false, as ive demonstrated.
it must be my tone. im trying to be light with it, if ive come off overly combative, i apologize. ✌️
@-wc- In order for your DaVinci analogy to work, he would have had to come up with the rough idea for the painting, unprompted. Announce his project to the village/city/region. Show the people his work in progress. Give them rough copies and promise that all will have the opportunity to buy a copy for their wall. Then, after all this time and effort, show everyone his painting and announce to the hopeful buyers that they actually can't have it.
"Sorry, it turns out I copied some of the painting from another painter so I can only give out this one copy to one person on the down-low. The rest of you can ***** off."
But as you are probably aware the Mona Lisa was commissioned. It was always going into a private collection. It was not made with the intent of distribution and enjoyment.
"Made by Leonardo da Vinci, the most famous painter of his time, around 1503, the painting was commissioned by a rich Italian merchant, Francesco del Giocondo"
In the dev's own words on Reddit - [EDIT: I can't confirm that it is the dev "Goldlocke" making the Reddit posts but all announcements on r/SNES are from the one account. If I'm wrong then I apologize to Goldlocke.]
"Dottie Flowers - the full version is a very nice homebrew Run and Gun. Also it's the first new SNES game released in 2024, again by the master of SNES homebrew games, Goldlocke. A very limited physical release made by himself was and will be distributed. Great new addition to the SNES library."
Sounds a lot like he was going to distribute his self proclaimed master piece to the general public doesn't it? The retro game fans that are clamoring for new SNES games among all the new MD games.
"Great new addition to the SNES library" that you can't play.
Bollocks.
@Hexapus
ive edited my comments to remove the unnecessary snark, as i do see your point and i am sensitive to such things. i don't want to make anyone feel bad, honestly.
i appreciate your thoughtful response, and you have added context that i didnt comprehend before (about the game, I did know the bit about the Mona Lisa as you had reckoned.) you've given me something to think about. 👍 I was unaware of the promises made on Reddit and wherever else prior to this conversation. so, that's my bad. ✌️
@-wc- I didn't mean to come off hostile either. On the surface it looks like this guy is being altruistic with his creation but I suspect he was hoping it would be a brilliant marketing strategy. Artificial scarcity. It is pretty creative from a marketing stand point, I'll give him that. Maybe I'm too cynical. It seems like a more polite version of the Paprium situation to me.
Thanks for being civil. I apologize if I sounded angry, this story/release really got under my skin for some reason.
Tap here to load 25 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...