Ok, This Game Actually Copied Hollow Knight (again...)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ค. 2024
- Ok, this game actually copied Lotus Knight.
Deviator on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/26...
Edited by: RandomVsTheWorld, @PyeFive
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▶ CHAPTERS
0:00 Discussion
6:56 Gameplay
15:57 Pantheon of God Gamers
#deviator #hollowknight #plagiarism - เกม
To clarify, there are no ripped Hollow Knight assets in Deviator. When I said "copying" or "stealing", I meant in the same way one would copy or steal someone's answers on a test, someone's comedy routine, or stealing someone's ideas. Plagiarism can and often does refer to stealing ideas. In academia, plagiarism usually doesn't take the form of photocopying someone's paper and publishing it as one's own -- it usually means copying someone's ideas and/or taking their words and rewriting them. That's what happened here. The Hunter was plagiarized not by taking the asset from Hollow Knight, but by stealing the ideas behind its design and redrawing it. The Black Egg Temple was plagiarized not by taking the room files from Hollow Knight, but by stealing every aspect of the area's design and recreating it. And just to be thorough, here's the similarities between the Black Egg Temple in Hollow Knight and in Deviator:
- Monochromatic color palette using only the color blue (with the exception of the green doors)
- Solid black floor and background without any "textured" ground or walls
- Oval tiles which light up within a radius around the character
- Large background symbols which light up within a radius around the character
- Floating circular particles which fade in and out
- Cracked egg objects in the background...
A comparison between the two was shown in the video. I do regret not digging into it more, but it's all there and if anyone suspects I'm being disingenuous for views -- if they care so much about proof -- pause the video for a few seconds and look. It's not that hard. I've been told Deviator isn't plagiarizing because the assets are not ripped (aka not copy pasted from the game files without modification). Again, it's true the assets are not ripped. When I said "1 for 1 copying", I was joking about how the game testers might have reacted to the gameplay based upon what the Deviator team told me. In retrospect I shouldn't have made that comment, but I thought it was pretty clear it was a joke. Anyway, in the video, I showed Deviator's assets, including highlights of the entire demo. Nothing is ripped. I'm kind of baffled by how people use this video as evidence that they didn't rip assets, while also claiming that I'm arguing they ripped assets. If I wanted to make the argument (in bad faith) that they were ripping the assets, why am I showing the entirety of the demo and multiple comparisons which unambiguously prove they never ripped any assets? Well, it's because I wasn't trying to make that argument. I argued that they plagiarized, stole, and copied, which does not strictly mean photocopying, ripping assets, etc. Numerous people have called me clueless about plagiarism. On the contrary, I have a degree in education and experience dealing with plagiarism in real classrooms. Honestly, the people clueless about plagiarism are the people who assume it only means "taking without modification."
I want to make it very clear that I don't want the developers to be on the receiving end of any hate. I've read a lot of nasty comments about them and it's extremely upsetting. But frankly, that hate was also already happening, and was probably worse before I made the video. Go read the awful responses to the IGN Deviator video. Which is a video I've probably rendered redundant in the algorithm. I've always been strongly opposed to criticizing developers for taking inspiration from Hollow Knight. I have had numerous arguments with people bashing the Crowsworn developers and will probably continue to have more in the future. But Deviator crosses the line. I'm not changing my stance on that and I'm not censoring the truth just because a few misguided jerks might post nasty comments at them, because that's frankly going to happen either way. It's just a very unfortunate trend for developers to cheat themselves out of what they're truly capable of by plagiarizing. Furthermore, the message of this video isn't "they're plagiarizing, get them!" -- I'm explicitly giving people reasons to wait and see and give the devs a chance, and I'm recognizing the talent of the devs, something people were, in my opinion, failing to do before. Prior to this, all anyone knew was that these devs were unapologetically plagiarizing and would continue doing so in the future. Now, people are actually informed about the situation, and apparently that's a terrible thing.
Most importantly, how is this not a publicity stunt in the first place? The devs told me they knew their game was too similar to Hollow Knight, according to their testers and the responses to their gameplay videos... then sent a demo to me, the Hollow Knight guy who has a 1M+ viewed video about Hollow Knight plagiarism. I don't know of any other Hollow Knight creator who was sent an early access copy of their demo. I covered it because I feel like it's a waste of their talent to do this kind of thing, but I'm pretty sure they got exactly what they wanted. I felt like that kind of went without saying too, but here we are. After I released the video, the team sent me a thank you message, and they've become one of the top wishlisted metroidvanias on Steam. It doesn't seem like they've been victimized to me, except maybe in the overactive imaginations of some commenters.
Jesus
Bro wrote an equalilent of 20 game reviews
bro wrote an actuall essey
I ain't reading allat
Holy-
Team Cherry can't keep copying games like Deviator and get away with it. My disappointment in them is immeasurable.
...and your day is ruined?
Mine too they have to get caught someday
im so sad they would do this
truly a horrible crime
How could they
Still not over the audacity of them going "yeah we're a small team so we have to reuse things :(" You Are Bigger Than Team Cherry.
Maybe they’re all 5 years old and 2 feet tall, they need five people to stack on top of each other to reach the keyboard, and only one person can dev at a time
@@placeholderdoe bro ats 3 kids to use the computer use a laptop
Let's not forget that what Team Cherry did is absolutely INSANE, that's partly why they're praised for it. A team of 3 talented people is a really small team, as is a team of 5 average people. Okay it's way too similar, but they're putting effort into it to take their own path at least. The artwork is original!
True, but it's not like Team Cherry is an easy standard to follow.
Not defending them, just pointing out that Team Cherry's a big outlier.
Yeah, they probably don't actually care about hollow knight enough to actually know how many people are on team cherry, I don't like taking assets and not only not crediting team cherry but trying to downplay the theft is genuinely worse
An amazing quote I’ve heard. “Instead of trying to be completely original, try to draw your inspiration from so many different sources that none of them become identifiable”
I mean everything has been told once so yeah it's true
That's literally how you learn art, and build a style, yeah. And is what they've done.
@@miamesa8652 Well, the problem here is that one of the specific inspiration sources is not just a little bit identifiable, but so extremely clearly prominent in the game to the point where the it’s basically straight up copying hollow knight
Isn't it what AI generated art does?
They LITERALLY said "its too much work" to make their own assets. That's kinda embarrassing. :/
And the sad thing is, if this was a Hollow Knight MOD rather than its own game, it would be seen as impressive.
I'm really confused. What asset did they steal? I can't spot a single sprite in the video that was stolen??
@@NorthernRealmJackal Dude... Its literally Greenpath. :/
@@lasercraft32 Yeah, except it's literally NOT literally Greenpath. I'm not defending them, it's extremely unoriginal and derivative, but they also appear to have made everything from scratch, which is why I'm so confused about their comment about "its too much work".
@@NorthernRealmJackal my guy thats.. literally the art used for greenpath, it isnt just greenpath itself, its reusing that art for stuff like the walls for greenpath.
@@ananimationfolder7449I'm looking at screenshots side to side, and it's clearly not the same assets. A few of the bushes may have been stolen and recoloured, but I don't think so, since everything else is original graphics. Dunno what else to tell you.
I feel like fireb0rn accidentally made it sound like there was literal asset theft going on, and this comment section misunderstood and jumped on it.
The devs were nice to name it Deviator, makes joke writing easy enough
734 likes and no comments, lemme fix that
copyiator?
Plaigerator?
Lol
Deriviator
I think the reason that Deviator hasn't released yet is because the main character's face is still loading.
💀💀
You sir won the internet today, ROFL😂👌!
I actually really like the main character's design. But the loading face is stupid.
💀
Trueeeeeee!
I think that jellyfish thing at 9:45 has a different art style that makes it look put of place in the world. Like, it has thin lines and delicate shading that is completely out of place in the hollow knight art style. Even the colors seem to make it feel out of place in the environment. But it is very pretty. If they redid the art in a style that matched that better, it may make it look more unique.
ikr, it feels almost studio ghibliish compared to the dark cartoonish rest of the game
I would play that its so pretty
Same withe creature at 15:00 , it feels out of place
And it looks like it's ripped from Studio Gibli 🤣
ehhh... i can see where your going with this but for me personally this looks like the same thing just not transparent with an orange mess in the middle
There’s a lot to unpack here, but here is all the similarities I’ve found
Starts out with egg cracking in animated cutscene,
Beginning area similar to black egg temple,
Walls in beginning area look similar to seals of binding,
Starts with mysterious poem on a black screen,
Same ability introduction UI,
Same glowy pickup orb thing,
Balderdash cosplaying as mushrooms,
GREENPATH,
Mosscreeps,
Mosscreeps &tiktiks love child Jerry,
Squit looking thing,
Same slow-mo/poof damage effect,
Low health effect similar to fury of the fallen,
Soul totems. Just soul totems,
Charms from Wish (work the same too),
Charm notch system,
Charm UI,
Health UI looks like it was traced,
Sou- I mean consciousness,
Same upgrade/ability gain animation,
Similar text box,
Blue geo,
Blue geo rocks,
Moss/grass literally identical,
“We have the Hunter at home.” The Hunter at home: 15:18
Walking grass particle,
Boss staggering animation,
Enemies don’t respawn after killing them,
Very similar environment layering technique used,
Not even gonna start on the art style
I’m probably gonna add more to this if(when) I find more. It’s a shame, because the parry and special end,y attack mechanics have a lot of potential.
Coulda just said "everything but the main character" and saved yourself some time.
Nah, I like the in depth writeup.
So everything, except for one thing?
The downward slash animation of the little bug at 14:11 is identical to that of Soul Warrior, except that it makes no sense here, since the enemy is much smaller that our character.
@@MC-zr7hl aight
What sucks is that the game truly looks fun to play, but the greenpath setting is just so jarring. The game would be so much better with an original art style that actually compliments the main character
Honestly, if it weren't for the artstyle and charm system, I think it has great potential. The changes they made are pretty great, and I'm okay with dev's building off hollow knights base combat. I mean, everyone has built off darksoul's combat over the years, and plenty of those games are wonderful. If they give the game it's own identity and work on localization, it could be very fun.
The only thing that really matters is how good the final product is. No one in your market audience cares about any step between starting and shipping. Look at palworld. No one cares. If the game is good, gets eyes on it, it will be successful and people will play it. Plagiarism drama is negligible at the end of the day.
@@saycap this is massively different from palworld, palworld gave the pokemon fanbase what they're longing for, this is not giving what us players want in a metroidvania game its straight boring
Definitely a tron or computerized/futuristic setting would have worked better
@@saycap bruh palword isn’t basically a 1:1 copy of anything. We don’t care about the “plagiarism” in palworld because it’s hardly present.
what's unfortunate is that the game does look gorgeous - and it does take a lot of skill to even recreate good looking assets - but when it crosses the line and just becomes straight up plagiarism :/
Yeah i was thinking the exact same thing they could have definitely made something cool and unique but sadly some games ideas will never reach their potential because of the shitty devs behind it
Yeah, if you can spend all that effort in copying something then you can just make your own. Like, the artists still have to spend the same amount of time creating those unarguably very pretty assets. It's the designers that were lazy with coming up with unique environments.
They could've been making some insane tier fanart. People would've paid em big bucks to draw their ocs in the hk style.
I’m not sure how much was recreated, it seems to just reuse the exact same assets. Probably more of a mod
@@VTWS it was definitely recreated, just with very, very heavy "inspiration"
This feels like the biggest problem with plagiarism, that it's this uninspired copy of someone else's work, that has things that feel out of place, because their focus was to use things they liked from other stuff without thinking about why and how they work.
I was going to write a comment listing all the similarities but I'm just a 5 person team and it would take too much work.
Now I need a mod where whenever the Knight uses Wraiths/Shriek, a really loud track of someone yodeling plays every time
Now no one can yodel!
The Country of Swizerland wants to know your Locations (:
that's the best mod ever
That would be one of the Hollow knight mods
Yodeling Wraiths
-The starting cutscene looks like The Hollow Knight shattering its shell at the start
- Starting area is like Black Egg Temple
-Shield kinda uses Baldur's Shell mechanic
-The animation of getting the attack is similar to the animation when you get a spell and its upgrade
-Blood Vial are technically soul vessels
-The speech at the three statues is kinda similar to the speech of the Dreamers at Greenpath, and the statues also look like the monument at Resting Grounds
-Next area is very similar to Greenpath
-Some creatures drop currency like geo in Hollow Knight
-Player character can grab ledges like Hornet in the Silksong trailer and demo gameplay
-There is a Goam-like creature in the next room
-Enemies behave like Shrumal Warriors and Moss Creeps
-There is also an enemy that behaves like a Squit
-Player character has obtained a spell-like ability
-There are charms in this game
-The getting hit animation is similar to Hollow Knight, there is even the sound effect
-Gotten Shade Cloak
-UI behaves the same as in Hollow Knight when in 1 mask? What even is the health called?
-You have Sharp Shadow
-The Hunter Jr makes an appearance
This comment was originally written for another video about Deviator, but I saw Fire's upload and decided to comment here as well. So, if Fireb0rn mentions some of the stuff I have written down below, that's probably why.
Hello everyone, I'm a Chinese person who decided to do some research after hearing about this game.
Before I get started, I just want to say that it wasn't a pleasant experience to see all the racist stuff here. I suppose it is fair to say that there are a lot of Chinese rip-offs out there, but calling all Chinese people thieves reared by the chi-com would be going too far. And please don't reply to me with a mindless social credit comment. Please don't do that if all someone is doing is trying to clear up harmful stereotypes.
Anyways:
I went to the Chinese equivalent of TH-cam, Bilibili. The general consensus of the people there seems to be that Deviator copied a lot from Hollow Knight, but it is still more than just a thoughtless cash-grabbing clone.
I found some devlogs by the creators of this game, which I found rather interesting. According to them, a major change this game will have is that its combat system will emphasize parries. Personally, I don't think this is enough to make it a "original" game, but I suppose to some people this is enough.
Another thing I noticed from the devlogs is that this game's art and concept is actually not completely mindless. The devs showed some concept art and animations in the devlogs, and I'm honestly impressed by some of the things there. The setting and lore are also not that awful.
The devs have also addressed the similarities in art style between this game and Hollow Knight in one of the devlogs. This would be quite an odd action if they were merely money-hungry IP thieves.
Anyways, my personal conclusion would be that this game is a passion project, but the devs are not very original and are just bad at development. Still, I must give the devs some credit: developing a game you want to develop, even a bad one, takes time and energy. What I've seen on Bilibili has convinced me that Deviator isn't entirely a cash-grab. The devs clearly has tried to put thought into this, unlike, say, the developers of Lotus Knight or Gleamlight.
If you want to do some research for yourself, just search up "偏差者" on Bilibili, which is Chinese for "Deviator". That's all. Thanks for reading :D
"We're only a 5 people team we can't make unique stuff!"
Team cherry with 3 people making all unique art:
I knew that they were tiny but I WAY underestimated, just 3 people? They are damn good at their jobs.
@kempolar9768 I think it was just 2 people for most of hollow knight's development not including Christopher Larkin the music guy. They made every single thing themselves and they had to work on a lot of characters that some supporters would design like the warrior dreams, Tiso, and a few others on top of everything else. Don't forget the four free DLCs in an underpriced game! Team Cherry is amazing
team cherry blatantly copied hungry knight how dare they 😪
And one of the best games in gaming
Didn't one guy basically made the whole game, the other one the artwork and the third guy the music?
We've been waiting so long for Hollow Knight 2 that some people have tried to straight up make Hollow Knight, too
hollow knight 2: X
hollow knight too: ‼‼‼‼⁉⁉💯💯💯💯💯💯✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔💲💲
🗣 BARS‼️
Alright, you fking win on this one
Absolute banger comment
Where do I get this new hk texture pack? Looks great.
I really hope the devs realize the issues here and make some changes because there are actually some pretty cool mechanics (even if not 100% original), also yeah no grass% means 0 stars
I also noticed that the momentum gain charm is even in the same slot in the inventory as soul catcher and several room layouts are quite familiar
Looking at the mobs in the game vs the protagonist… something seems off. I think it’s the lineart thickness. The protagonist’s lineart is thinner than the mobs’, which makes it seem like the protagonist was just copy-pasted in. In Hollow Knight, every character’s lineart had the same thickness, from the Radiance to a Tiktik. That consistency enhanced the simplistic style’s charm, methinks.
Good eye. I didn't notice that until you mentioned it but now I cant unsee it
The main character doesn't seem to belong in the world at all. They're a little robot fella, it feels like they should be exploring the ruins of ancient technology or something. Not caverns full of bugs and plants.
@@ngwoo tbf, that could be intentional, I think there's other stuff that looks even more out of place than it should, like the creature that makes platforms move, the weird bone snake thing, or the save point.
@@ngwoomore accurately the world doesn’t belong around the character since the character is the most original part of the game (not including animations)
@@repli2991 I don't think it's intensional. The same happens when you quickly copy from different sites for school paper and it has every paragraph in different face.
This game looks like mashup of three material sources mixed together where hollow knight is the obvious one.
It's such a shame, because a lot of stuff looked really fun and had some nice twists and unique ideas. They really just had to go that little bit further and not be lazy and stay away from the plagarism and it would have been a great game. They've really shot themselves in the foot with that one decision of wanting to do 70% of the work instead of 100.
There is also a weird juxtaposition between their original stuff and what they copied, obviously it's only noticable if you've played Hollow Knight, but there are just certain components that don't quite fit together in artstyle
And then there is that elevator pig which just doesn't fit in at all and feels like it was made by someone entirely different lmao
yeah it definitely looks like a conflict of interest. I feel like at least one dev actually wants to make a good original game but is getting pushed to the side for the lazier ones
It LOOKS really fun. No past tense.
If you really looked at it you would see that it's not exactly the same.
@@Tasorius Some parts? Parts that are actually their own concepts and ideas? Yes. Other parts are blatant art theft, not just "inspiration" (some have been explicitly pointed out in the video). How can you say that when you see that city of tears part with the elevator that looked very unpolished, since it's an alpha, but because it's so barebones it's blatant how "heavily inspired" it has been by Hollow Knight.
The past tense is because the game stopped being fun when they did that. Not just from an ethical perspective, but if a game doesn't have its own identity, but just feels eerily familiar then it isn't fun from a player experience for me either.
@@ashoka7273 The annoying part to me were the hidden rolling bastards that came out of nowhere. I just started the demo by the way, and some part did feel a bit too much like Hollow Knight...
@ashoka7273 time stamp for elevator pig? I couldn't see that. Difficult to find the unique stuff amongst all the plagiarism 😢
I'm going to be working on my own metroidvania, that will follow the hollow knight style, once I've developed a beta, I would love for you to do something like you've done with this game, definitely critique it, ALOT, it will probably take a few years as I'm a solo developer still going through school, but ill update you when its ready :)
From Gami Studio’s website (creator of the game):
GAMI, a cutting-edge Web3 gaming studio, delivering the future of gaming by merging NFT interoperability across games and chains
What could possibly go wrong?
From what I could tell, that seems to be a different group by the same name.
@@just_some_dude_my_guyi hope so, otherwise it would be blatant greed at it's purest
Gotta love how many people said Crowsworn was a rip-off despite these existing and you not hearing a peep out of them.
Because crowsworn is actually a promising looking game
@@surtursaga6789 crowsworn is gonna be top tier
crowsworn looks incredibly good tho
and a bit hypocritical considering the fact one of the og developers of Hollow Knight is currently working with the team creating Crowsworn.
Maybe cuz crowsworm kinda has team cherrys support
7:06 -- black egg temple floor glow and cracked eggs
7:26 -- areas lighting up like black egg temple
7:34 -- baldur's shell charm
8:04 -- vengeful spirit animation
8:18 -- breakable walls like kings pass
8:42 -- soul
9:06 -- king's pass
9:10 - dreamers
9:40 -- Walmart version of hollow knight poems
9:58 -- notice the blue glow/fog type thing clipping? that'll happen when you copy paste asests
10:07 -- cornifer
10:15 -- literally copy pasted greenpath platforms
10:18 -- fungal wastes takes over green path
10:19 -- mosscreeps
10:33 -- mosskin
10:37 -- partharas geo?
10:40 -- lifeblood textures on geo rocks
10:45 -- tiktiks
11:15 -- great slash but blue
10:37 -- comes in like the spider lady
11:47 -- vengefly
11:52 -- baldurs but mushroom... why not?
12:35 -- squits....
12:46 -- hornet attack with aimbot
13:09 -- charm selector but no opaque background
13:27 -- little enemies can downward dash now
14:02 -- shade dash before the normal one?
14:06 -- dash attack
14:03 -- the hunter's kids...
14:56 -- seems like bretta on the right side.. only saw her for a few frames tho
15:17 -- teenage version of the hunter
15:56 -- actually bretta? idk
edit: 21/02/24 12:52am
hey fire i think you forgot about the internet thumbs up. 😭 lmao i come back to this every day just to see i've won
I wonder who will get the internet thumbs up…
Its not a hollow knight copy but "blood vials" healing and also getting health from parries is literally bloodborne
@@Oddf0xits one mechanic from another game, that is inspiration
cornifier is iffy, since he didn't do anything yet
This game definitely has issues with originality but the vast majority of points here are stupid comparisons that could be made with so many other games well before hollow knight existed.
I mean I have to push back on hollow knight being the most influential metroidvania seeing as we refer to the game genre as… well.. “Metroid””(castle)vania”s
Excuse me, but the politically correct term is "Knightlike" now.
I think that they could really do well if they leaned more into a neo futuristic city type style/mapping given the main character’s design. Possibly even make it so the characters goal is to “deviate” from what the “big boss man” usually tells everyone to do and ends up freeing the city or something? Just a small 2 second brain storm but if they do go in that direction I think they could do an AMAZING job with it.
lower beings, these words are for you together
💀
The first two minutes: THANK YOU
Homage is great, inspiration is great, stealing is not.
If I play a metroidvania and one side room looks like the Queen's Garden with a nail and mask leaning against a wall that's fine. Heck, give your map seller big glasses and name them Cornelius for all I care. But if an entire region looks like someone just turned up the saturation slider in Photoshop that's when things start to break down, and it just got worse from there.
Yeah if you have a nail in the ground in a separate room that's fine
Hell I may do it myself and I'll appreciate it
I am solo-developing a game that takes inspiration partially from Hollow Knight (and also a lot from Super Paper Mario), and I will say, I am going for my own art style and it's absolutely destroying any chance of the game getting done within the next decade. Which I'm fine with since I'm not planning on making any money off the game, and I like making it with my style.
But I can understand why SOME attributes you would copy, if you're trying to actually be conscious of how much time you're pouring in to the project. A lot of the traits of HK's style are the way they are for a reason. Hollow Knight was developed in record time, partially because of their style being fairly efficient.
As a great example: Having the foreground be all black. I decided to stick with vivid colors for the foreground to match my style better, and it makes things a nightmare, because now you have to have parallaxing foreground sprites that need to somehow simultaneously blend together but not go far into where the player is moving, and you need to drastically increase the amount of sprites you need for a given room, now that you're using all that space that would be black with textures.
Instead of that, I could've just had the foreground be black, and I could then reuse a lot more of my assets from room to room.
Of course, that doesn't justify being this close. This is too close. I'm just saying I can see how a time-conscious dev would take notes from HK.
Deadass saw the not-the-hunter in the thumbnail and was like ":O new Silksong news" it looks like it would fir effortlessly in the Mosst grotto
Guys this is actually silksong. Team cherry just renamed themselves to GOMI and when this game comes out its going to reveal to everyone that it was silksong all along trust me guys my dad works at team cherry trust me please
I'm the dad, I can confirm
@@spoongrman its true. I'm confirm, can dad.
@@Dravianpn02 indubitably.
My favorite part is the laugh of sheer disbelief @ 8:03 when the animation for collecting magic is the same "hover with particles being absorbed" as Hollow Knight (i.e. when you get a spell/absorb a dreamer). Fire realized exactly what was happening as soon as that came up.
I do think there's some cool ideas in here! The shield/parry system is really cool, and I'm a big fan of the smoothness (though that may just be the Hollow Knight slash animation speaking)
Is Aestik a copy? I saw the game and it looks basically the same but it has some cool mechanics in it. It has a demo on steam, could you check it out? I'd love to have your take on it
i checked it's demo out, it is pretty different from hollow knight. of course there will be similarities, but instead of just reusing things from the game they went on their own path.
I will say that the first area kind of reminds you of black egg temple, sure, but it's not all THAT similar. And the other clips you showed during that first half of the video had some pretty different looking areas. There was a moment of "white palace" in there, but most of those castles and whatnot were pretty different. 6:01 to 6:20 shows like 5-6 reasonably different looking areas to anything Hollow Knight has (ok, there's the clear "deepnest spike pit" things)
You mentioned the "pillars from king's pass"... but that's just some rocks. You could say that Hollow Knight's rocks look like any number of other older 2d game's rocks.
The most egregious similarity certainly does seem like greenpath. Sure it's "just a forest", but it's the exact same take to forest as Hollow Knight did. I feel like they just didn't know how to make a forest area so they stole it. The rest they had an idea of what to go with and actually created something.
That being said add in the copied animations, gameplay, and UI... that's definitely too much, even if you can overlook a stolen greenpath.
Also, as you said, they're making excuses for the greenpath steal. They could just forgo a forest and make it very different. And try to make the UI/animations a bit more different.
I wonder how much work it would take them to redo the art, or if they will try to just cash in asap
If they just change the colour of the grass to like blue or red, it would be pretty cool and less recognizable as a derivative.
But that doesn’t really solve the problem.
More time than they've already put into this crap
Hi Pogo
It sounded like they weren’t going to copy hallow knight for future developed areas.
Honestly, they have unique ideas. They just messed up their execution. It came out too derivative and they need to have something to say and not just following a trend.
This game honestly has some cool original mechanics, i particulary like the awareness attacks. There's potential here. If they changed the art and enviroments it could be its own masterpiece. The character feels very out of place in the underground hollow knight enviroment. I feel like a more sci fi-ish setting would fit way better than the nature theme (with the loading screen face and all) and give the game a unique feel. The devs are definetly skilled enough to create a good game. Now it's their choice if they want the best for this project and choose to create something memorable or if they'll just be known for making a forgettable knockoff at the end.
I could totally see this being set in a cyberpunk style setting with lots of neon lights, pinks and purples, and enemies being more mechanical than organic. But i'm sure asking the artist to remake literally every background and enemy visually would be too much work. Saying they reused elements from HK to save time is fine when talking UI or some of the mechanics. But the entire world setting is wild for them to just copy.
I don’t think the game feels that much like hollow knight, they obviously were inspired by the art style and implemented it into their own games design. It still feels like it’s own game in my opinion including the art work that they have done even though it feels reminiscent of some Hollow Knight zones. It definitely could use a more unique plot and I think it could really shine in its art design with a few good cinematic moments. Anyways don’t be so surprised that when a team is looking to create a new metrovaynia that they “study” the best one ever made to do it. In fact I would suggest this to any team to learn from an expert so they don’t completely fail it’s just the smart and natural thing to do. I wouldn’t give them such a hard of time for implementing some of dad’s moves, plus it’s still not finished and could end up being more original down the line.
Yeah, you copy to learn, but you don't publish your copy. In fact, you don't just copy when you learn, you deconstruct it to understand the thought process behind decisions. It's clear these devs just mindlessly copied without understanding what makes hollow knight good. There's just a complete lack of creative integrity here.
I kind of like the combat system. Specifically the awareness attacks. It looks sick when you pull it off. Having both a parry and a dodge is nice, too. The game honestly look like it's build to allow combos into multiple enemies.
thats my youtuber right there, doing his best to prevent people from unpromptingly harassing people to probably not much avail, but hes still trying it nonetheless. good on you, man
black egg temple,egg in the abyss,health bar, soul meter, the pic of learning great slash, "blood vessels", basically the dreamers, Green path, tiny mossy, Rolling mushrooms, squits, charms(rune), dash slash,Mothwing cloak, Place you get howling wraith, Yes i did that just for a internet thumbs up
hey you can have my thumbs up too 👍
You forgot to mention legally distinct Hunter
the text box art looks very similar as well
@@santaisrealdon’t forget the text box position
@@scorchik11how do you steal text box positions? theres only like 5 places they could go
Can anyone help me? I swear I have seen a title screen / steam logo for a game that looks exactly like Deviator's (the character on the left with a spirit like thing on the right). Was it hollow knight? If so please give a link bc I can not for the life of me find it. I also couldn't find one for Ori WotW or TBF. I'm going crazy not being able to find this.
Was it Skul, by any chance?
Nvm, it isn't. I get what you're saying though. I need to scratch that itch. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue!
Does anyone know if there's any games that take inspiration from the metroid series in vibe and inspiration from hollow knight in gameplay? Or maybe any hollow knight mods?
I am looking forward to Crowsworn if that count, but that game is not out yet.
It like hollow knight in term of art style and it a metroidvania, but the game also mix it up with the devil may cry-like combat and that it take place more in the gothic area.
Honestly, If you can make a game with the same mechanics as Hollow Knight, it could ve been fine, they're generic enough (double jump, dash, wall jump, etc.) to make something similar but still unique. But damn, stealing art, plot and designs is ridiculous. How come you can't have an ounce of creativity or originality to make something unique? HOW?????
And the absolute b*lls to ask for cash money. Insane.
bro really censored balls but not damn
bro censored balls 💀
I mean, the abilities are not just similar/generic. They are done exact same way. If You jump as Mario, as Ori and as Knight, You feel different. If they move around, their movements is also different. But Deviator has the exact same style of movement/abilities. Though it's kinda sad that with that much talent and ideas, they chosen to copy Hollow Knight, because parry/dash/shielding is definitely amazing thing. I hope the devs will chose the right path and will make the game inspiration, not a copy. Because they do have potential and talent. The game could become another hit.
the stupid thing is a game like this doesn't even need to have lore AND they do have unique mechanics in this game that are not directly ripped off from HK so they had everything to make a similar but good game lol.
I don’t even think the art is that bad like obviously most of its custom made but just in the same art style which in my opinion is fine and so do team cherry (look at crow sworn)
My main problem is how it’s just hollow knight retextured, I think it’s ironic that the only original part of the game is actually the sprites/art😂
The hardest thing for me is like they could have done their own thing using hollow knight as inspiration. but like the mushroom enemy that rolls on the ground is just like the ones in fungal. just faster. seems like a hollow knight BUT... concept. I just hope this is a first draft and everyone calling it out will have them reconsider. because the whole parry and dashing through something and the two different kids of attacks seems neat. just do more of that. and the text seems stilted like it was translated poorly from one language to another. even their messages seemed like that. I want to have faith they are doing their best but it just seems like a cash grab.
I agree 100%, the new features they included looked amazing, and the dialogue just felt like a transaction rather than any real person talking.
The translation I can accept, good translation is expensive. That's not really the problem.
Since they're taking so much from HK, I assume they're going for a darker or more serious story... so, while the translation is going to take me out of it, I imagine it'll be unintentionally comedic.
Like those "Google translated game" videos, but it's the genuine final result.
The mechanics actually look really nice, the way you stay in the air while attacking in it, the way the charge attackd look, but the art is just..
random question: what's the name of the dramatic music used at the start of the video?
Hornet OST from Hollow Knight
"Can you destroy the grass?"
*fails to slash the grass*
"This is a bad game."
LOL
grass% is over
I get it tbh. First thing I do in open worlds is check if I can cut the grass.
I think this game took inspiration from Team Cherry's bigger game called "Hungry Knight" and a random game called "Hollow Knight" was being talked about on the forums for a bit
The thing I like about this game is the character itself, I made a texture pack with it for hk, now I have no reason to play deviator
I think the vials are something also from dead cells where there are upgrades which you can get with cells you can get weapons upgrades but the vials upgrades are for more heals like this game it has vial upgrades similar to dead cells which grant hp but for this one these vials heal 1 hp but for the ones in dead cells they can heal 50-75% hp. ( disclaimer I am not a advertiser)
Why would they have to steal from TC? Are there not thousands of free assets on the internet they could use and/or modify instead?
I think everyone is grossly misunderstanding the claims in the video. It's not like they literally stole assets (you can compare with screenshots from Greenpath side-by-side) - they appear to have made everything from scratch. It's just extremely derivative ...like Palworld, but much worse.
I'm not sure fireb0rn even understands this, because at 2:55 he misquotes the developers. What he's reading, and what is written on screen is not the same thing.
Gami: Well yanno we only have 5 people and its unsustainable, blah blah blah
Us: TEAM CHERRY BUILT THIS IN A CAVE!! WITH SCRAPS!!
(Iron Man 1 Reference)
Everyone knows it's an iron man 1 reference my dude.
Also this seems to be more of a Deisgn Copy rather than an artistic copy.
I will probably play Deviator honestly these assets seem different enough, I want content and SilkSong isn't out yet
great vid , and whats the game called at 1:42 ive seen it some nay times and yet i donnot what its called
Late reply, but it's called "Haiku the robot"
if fire ever curses... you know that shit's about to go down
"Mind to think
Voice to cry suffering
You are not the Vessel
You are not the Hollow Knight."
8:40 literally when play testing the down slash mechanic just make it so enemies can block, hit or move when you down slash so it's not 100% effective all the time.
its not that deep trying another game artstyle, but the problem with deviator is that they dont really make anything new with it. They gotta upgrade the designs and atleast change the style a bit. Its not bad stealing it but your game just wont be recognized as unique. They also gotta put more un-parriable attacks so the combat will be more frenetic so it doesn´t revolve around the parry.
Silk song tomorrow?
of course 🤡
One of these days
absolutely, in the next 24 hours
announced tomorrow but I don’t expect a release
Silksong at home: Deviator
"Hollow Knight is the most influential metroidvania ever made"
Metroid and Castlevania exist my guy 💀
In the modern area hk is debatably the most influential, since konami won't do shit with castlevania
@@bagredecartola1289 Within the indie realm, yeah, i can agree that HK is the most influential metroidvania.
And yes, Konami kinda sucks 👍
Yeah I would put Super Metroid as still the number 1, considering that’s, uh, one of the two primary foundations of the genre
I saw a comment on another video that Metroid wasn't a meteoidvania.
I mean metroid will always be the best of the genre to me but that's cause I'm a massive fan of the series. Which is a shame cause I've long since stopped buying nintendo products.
im very off and on when it comes to game development but when i tried to make a game for the first time one of the first things i did was make the jumping exactly like hollow knights jumping (not the extra abilities just the idea that if you let go of the jump button you instantly started to fall) it was very fun
Can you do a video on Aestik? Theres been a bunch of people saying its a clone or it copied stuff. I think it'd be cool to see your opinion.
it's kinda really funny, how basic enemies, who got tiny hitboxes, get the soul warrior attacks 1 for 1, like the dash, jump and downwards attack
Wait a minute is it just me or are the grass particles the same. Idk why that is the one thing that stood out to me
Grass is forever. Grass *is* life.
We shall praise the Grass.
Don't get me wrong but if it wasn't look like Hollow Knight, no one would have talked about their game
indies who don't have the funding struggle to get our attentions,..
1:14 no that would be Super Metroid smh
Lol super metroid is not a metroidvenia.
It's one of the father's to the genre tho
oh no it completely is a metroidvania, it has every single element of the genre and thus, by definition, is part of the genre.@@Ringoroadagain6
@@Ringoroadagain6Super Metroid isn't a Metroidvania? What's next Castlevania Sotn isn't a Metroidvania?
@@Ringoroadagain6 bruh yes it is lmao its literally in the name. There is nothing castlevania added to the genre metroid wasn't already doing so it doesn't make any sense to try and claim the first metroidvania isn't one
I thought this was going to be about Never Grave, the new game from the Palworld devs, but this is even more shameless. Given the look of the protagonist and some of the things they interact with (like at 0:40), they could go for a more sci-fi neon look with glowing Tron lines and runes and such to make it a little more distinct, but they don't even bother with that.
Yeah.
"Similarities" off the top of my head:
- crouching animation when the character bends down to pick up an item, indicated by a shining light on the ground
- animation when obtaining skills (character floats in the air with particles flying around)
- icon when obtaining skills (slash, dash, vengeful spirit)
- hidden room/hallway animation (black at first, background fades when you enter hidden room)
- rocks containing currency + currency addition appearance/animation
- slash animation
- wall breaking animation (and health of the walls)
- elevators from City of Tears (both the lever to bring the elevator to your floor and the lever to trigger vertical movement)
- critter moving around the platform are just like crawlids in appearance and movement
- flies are like squits in movement
- charm system/UI
- soul/healing/mask system
There's probably a lot more to be found. It would probably be easier to point out the differences.
It sucks because games who are just using the format with original ideas are called copies in the same breath as games like this. They basically hide in the obscurity.
The counter also reminds me a lot of Samus’s melee attack in Metroid Dread. She can parry and oneshot several enemies or boss attacks, and gets extra pickups for doing so. So yes, it helps the player recover from mistakes.
I’m so glad you put Haiku the Robot as a game that’s does a good job with inspiration. It helps with the wait so much and it’s what I’m putting on my snowboard. It’s the first time I got into pixel are and it’s really fun. If any hasn’t played and is waiting for Silksong I highly recommend. Especially the hard mode it has.
There is also some stuff I really like:
The glowing design at the start kinda takes on its own form, where its not similar to black egg temple. I honestly dig the character design and his sword animations though! Those are better than in HK (more variance, feel more dynamic, while HKs are really simplistic, which I also like dont get me wrong). I think what feels deja vu like is the silhouette of the character, which is really similar also in the animations.
I think it comes off as more dynamic because the character is taller and you can see the difference between the cape and their body's position way more easily, that and the fact that the colors make them more contrasted. I feel like they made the animations smoother and didn't know that it also makes it lose significant impact.
0:53 what's the game on bottom left?
Even the typography layout and graphics on the promotional poster is so reminiscent of hollow knight imo
Man, I love the themes and mechanics of this game.
I would definitely love to see some work with the 'Momentum' thing. Imagine if you can accumulate/spend momentum to drastically alter your movement speed, swinging speed and damage. Besides the special abilities of course.
Also, the 'gaining height from forwards slashing', if paired with a decent movement ability, can result in some incredible boss-battles. Imagine a high-speed flying enemy, and you spend the entire fight air-comboing them as you both dash across the entire arena.
So Ori and the Will of the Wisps? I didn't even realize that there was no ground until the fight was over.
Similarities I caught:
1. Dash
2. Skill gathering animation
3. 1 hp animation
4. Patches of collectible currency
5. Charms
6. Hidden breakable walls
7. Only being able to equip charms at a safe space
8. Placement of text and picture on skill gathering screen
9. Beginning section that teaches actions
10. Charm selection screen
11. GUI and placement when gathering currency
12. Enemies mostly being smaller and with different weapon from the player
13. Structure of floating platforms
14. Healing by using equivalent of soul which can only be gathered through combat
15. Spells similar to those in HK
16. Graphics
17. NPCs that don’t help the player
18. Beginning of game lore given by a mysterious figure
19. Gate trapping the player into a boss arena
20. The boss’s grating similarity to the hunter
There might have been more but these are my observations.
Not all of this is stuff you can consider copied. Like hidden breakable walls? Dash? Spells? Harmful NPCs? A tutorial? Really? That’s class metroidvania stuff. But other stuff yeah
I mean I'm legally blind, have a 65 IQ AND post on reddit (worst offense) and even I know almost everything in that game is stolen...
Some of their things looks really unique and fun! The healing system seems different enough, it takes much longer to fill up one of those small circles and it heals multiple health instead of one, plus the aimed attack where you can use momentum is different enough from Vengeful Spirit to be fun. And the fact that having more momentum causes in increase in attack swings means that by healing you lose some of that extra power and you need to balance the two, kinda like the special attacks but it adds another layer so that you have to be super conscious of your momentum. The actual character designs (even some of the enemies from the trailer) look super cute! The grammar needs a lot of work but I’d be interested in their stories. There was one part in the video at 6:25 where they had platforms as thin moving lines that you could fall through if you moved; that looked so fun!! I liked how the dash through was situational and it offered more of a peri attack system. Some of their backgrounds from the trailer also look unique and cool! I just wish that hadn’t so blatantly copied Hollow Knight. This would be a game I’d genuinely be interested in if they changed the artwork.
What is that bottom left game at 0:50? 😁
I couldn't help myself but music from trailer somehow reminded me Dead Cells Title music 🤔
11:45 they could have leaned into the Rayman Origins Jibberish Jungle look if they wanted to be different from Hollow knight.
Cuz that skeleton looking fella with the eye looks like one of the underwater creatures from it plush one of the prickly eyed vines & flowers
exactly what i was thinking also the ones in the later levels of rayman that are like coming out of the sky they behave exactly like that lol
They should talk to Team Cherry about licensing as a spin off. Oblivion made an awesome fallout game (understandable since they were mostly the original fallout team from Interplay) so maybe team Cherry would license their art for a%
The parry animation and mechanic is VERY similar to ninesols, i get having a shared mechanic but i cant tell if the animation is traced
Why call it momentum if it's literally just EXP mixed with Soul (kind of like Mana in Pseudoregalia actually)
If I were to name a resource "momentum" in a video game, the gauge would actually spin as it accumulates, and the faster it goes, the stronger and faster *you* get (not actual speed, but better frame data and more uses for your movement upgrades)
I’m guessing it’s just bad translation
Translation moment.
Hol'up, that sounds sick, did you steal that from a video game? If so, which one?
@@-Nightingale its an amalgamation of Pizza Tower's Combo mechanic, Kirby Return To Dreamland Deluxe Magolor Epilogue's combo UI, the Minecraft gold tools usage in Smash Bros Steve, and Anthem from Gunvolt.
Also Sonic Momentum by Mr. Bane Studios
Also to the two people that say it's a translation error, shut the fuck up, that's not how translation errors work, its clearly *supposed* to be named momentum because it gives you after-images, I just don't know why they *would* name it that if they couldn't be creative enough to justify it
Y'all are the same kind of idiots that perpetuated "I am error" being a translation error when "my name is Bagu, show this to the river person" is right there
I love the character design of the main character so much, i wish they were in a more original game 😢
I mean you cannot copyright an artstyle, but there is something called the sqint test, where you put the images side by side and squint your eyes to try and differanciet them, they would currently be in legal trouble for sure.
It needs some minor changes to become more original, if you can copy that well, it won t be a skill issue.
Ok, so similarities I notice are… the health mechanic seems really similar, although not much to variate there, but similar nonetheless. The green path setting, enemies, etc, obviously similar as you covered in the video.
The weapon seems to be exactly like the nail but sometimes blue, and the elevators function exactly the same.
I’ll edit later with more additions.
Particles in the air to add ambience isn’t easy to make your own but the way they implemented it didn’t even *try* to make it different.
Floating platforms, glowing thing leading the way, path revealing itself as you walk along it, I could never *dream* of there being anything similar.
Player sprite when absorbing energy is almost exactly the same as in hollow knight. Wow.
Oh, and the ability received screen is the same too, apparently.
Ah, the three dream- oh nvm he said it in the video.
Soul. That’s it. Soul. The UI barely even looks different. Now that I think of it, the health is the same shape as the masks, just upside down.
Geo rocks.
Pogo??? But without downslash??
Vengeful spirit, but a bit dif.
Charms.
Damage screen is just like in hollow knight
Dash isn’t even slightly different.
This could be so good!!
There are actually interesting ideas such as parrying. I think there's still things to be adjusted but I want this game to find its own style and lean more into that instead of trying to be more like hollow knight.
parrying is in hollowknight.......
@pizzaziuminfinionite134 yes but it feels more distinctive in this game (at least to me). I haven't played myself but the impression I get is that there's a unique button for it (and blocking) which would make it distinct. I am not absolving it at all, honestly it's sad seeing potentially fresh ideas yet having people decide to steal instead of create for themselves
@@alpal4245 ya it would of been nice if hollowknight had an actual button for parrying
@@pizzaziuminfinionite134 lol I always forget the game has parrying because I can't think of a single situation I would actually want to use it outside of sly
SIMILARITIES:
main character born from a black egg
starting point looks hella similar to the black egg temple
pop up menu for receiving items is very similar to hk
shield is a lot like baldur shell
particles for the first enemies look like void particles and they remind me of void siblings (look like u but black)
the statue of those three ppl look like the dreamers, and the text kinda reminds me of when you beat hornet. basically saying will you do something
greenpath lmao (green first area)
fungal wastes lmao (green first area)
momentum is soul (doesnt rlly count cause most metroidvanias have something like that iirc)
the health and momentum bar is very reminiscent of hollow knight, looks copied
geo rocks (doesnt rlly count (same as momentum))
That character at 10:54 is basically a tiktik but green
11:34 character has a similar purpose to a goam or garpede
mushroom enemies (self explanatory)
12:33 hunter spikes
energy dart is like a spell (vs) although it might not count because it is different but it does the same thing
runes (charms)
first rune increases momentum like soul catcher does in hk (soul catcher is also sometimes the first charm people pick up)
rune notches (apprenticeship takes up two notches and so does soul catcher in hk)
taking dmg effect is similar to hk
dash is obtained in grassy area (hornet greenpath)
14:51 the skull spikes look like hk mounds
15:18 hunter enemy
and thats it
comment any more that i missed!
10:55 like Halo 3 when a famous Japanese gamedeveloper shooted the grass in the first lvl and it moved. Then he noded. After that test he knew the game was good.
I feel like if they do change the artwork, this would be fun game. The art is really cool, and I think if the artist took a break from all the hollow knight assets, they could come back with their own style that would work. The attack mechanics have there similarities, but honestly as soon as I saw the shield and parry stuff I was kinda amazed because that is really cool.
2:33 I do feel its important to note the difference between them plagiarizing and "reusing [Team Cherrys] work". That second wording implies that they took assets directly from hollow knight, which it doesnt seem to me at least to be the case, it seems to me simply like they've indeed studied Hollow Knights art style and designs and replicated them without any thought about those choices in art direction that Team Cherry made. This is still dishonest and disingenuous if it's the case. The matter of plagiarism is up to interpretation and while I'd say it sure quacks like a duck, still, its not reusing work from hollow knight.
Maybe this is a semantical point, but i feel if you're going to call them out, it's good to get your wording correct, especially since you have a large following.
Thank you! It looks like at least half of the comment section didn't grasp this.
It's not a "semantical point." Literal asset theft is a pretty serious accusation, so you'd think someone would chose their words more carefully when implying it.
Okay, so in order to get the thumbs-uppy from Fire, I need to list as many things as possible. *Inahles*
- The three dots on the text for NPCs comes in a lot of different dialogue in HK
- Several of the animations (like absorbing, great slash, dash, heck even the walking)
- The sprites (enemies, sawblades, floor patterns, backround/foreground objects, etc...)
- The weapon of choice is never given a name, and, man, it'd be so much eaiser if they'd call it something, like, idk, some lore appropriate name, because it looks so similar to the nail.
- Oh god the art. It's so beautiful. It just looks exactly like Greenpath with more sunlight.
- The UI, while fairly generic, just kinda looks like the masks and soul meter with health potions on the side.
- The water also looks similar to the few instances we see in HK.
- The damage animation, I-frames, and knockback
- Do I need to say it? Okay fine. The boss looks like the Hunter.
Dear god that is a wall of text.
I could have sworn there's also another game that is *heavily* inspired by hollow knight that i've seen in youtube shorts a few times. Don't remember the name but it doesn't appear to be any of the ones mentioned in the video. I agree with all your points, although i'll just play devil's advocate on one thing, it's that i do think what they did counts as studying. The process is extremely difficult and it builds up a lot of skills for them to reproduce it even remotely decently. That in itself is impressive, it's really not as simple as copy pasting a bunch of artwork. And it's quite normal to reproduce things to study them in art and entertainement fields. Digital artists trace, composers remake chord progressions/melodies/chors, reuse samples, try to remake sound design, writers reuse concepts or write their own version of a piece of fiction, etc... But i'll say it should have never been released to the public, nor should it ever be sold. It's perfectly valid to do it for practice but you should generally keep it to yourself and especially not try to market it like it's yours.
i think parry with dash is just shade cloak, when enemy charge at you, you just shade cloak trough this enemy and hit it from behind, that's not something new, but the idea and animation is made pretty well
"RIP Fandom" we can only hope
They are not stealing? They made everything from scratch I don't see the problem here
Feel like they made the kind of exercice where you recreate some pre-existing work as some sort of tech demo, but thought that it could be original enough to be a commercial product.
I mean, hell...since today marks 5 years to the day of the announcement of Silksong and we still don't have it...I'd play this.