It’s been nearly 95 years since Walt Disney’s 1982 sound cartoon “Steamboat Willie” (Steamboat Willie) came out. When the copyright of artistic creation expired, Steam appeared a retro style, suspected Mickey Mouse’s early cartoon style shooting The game “Mouse” aroused enthusiastic attention from netizens.
“Mouse” first appeared on TikTok’s Polish developer @cylinderek in April this year, attracting hundreds of thousands of clicks and curious netizens. While wondering whether this is another AI creation or composite picture, the developer released it again. Videos with a more visible UI interface.
The most curious thing in the game is that under the first-person perspective, the gloves of the protagonist who controls the gun shooting are very similar to the familiar “Mickey Mouse”.
@cylinderek Replying to @Kelvin ♬ bee. – Groovy Dominoes52
Soon, “Mouse” appeared on the Steam platform store page in May this year, developed by the Polish Fumi Games team, and its screen was consistent with the previous TikTok outflow image.
In the game trailer, the protagonist can shoot the enemy with a revolver, a drum submachine gun and a sniper rifle, and the headshot even has a cartoon effect of decapitation. In addition to shooting, the game seems to have operating mechanisms to purchase equipment and unlock locks elements of the puzzle.
Similar to “Cuphead”, “Mouse” makes full use of 3D animation rendering filters to create an old Disney cartoon style, combined with popular shooting games, it becomes a very eye-catching game.
Of course, because the painting style of “Mouse” is too similar to “Steamboat Power” that came out in 1928, the protagonist’s gloves are also reminiscent of Mickey Mouse, because this is the moment when Mickey Mouse first appeared, and the copyright of this work is expected to Expires in 2023, making this retro Mickey Mouse image (not limited to other Mickey Mouse) into the public domain.
In other words, the appearance of “Mouse” at this point in time seems to be expected by the development team. However, even if the copyright expires, it does not mean that there are no restrictions on use. According to the Guardian interview with Daniel Mayeda, deputy director of the “Documentary Law Center” of the UCLA School of Law, he said that copyright expiration should still pay attention to the attention from Disney’s legal counsel.
“You can start with the original Mickey Mouse character, create your own Mickey Mouse story, or a story about that character. But if you do it in a way that reminds other people of Disney — that’s hard to avoid, because they’re in the role. Investing for so many years—then in theory, Disney could still sue you for trademark infringement.”
However, it is still a long time before the completion of “Mouse”. After all, the background in the promotional video is still modeled without materials. Players still need to wait to play this game, or they can add it to the wish list first.