In law, nothing is absolute. You can only weigh the possibility that you will be sued. Copyright laws are fuzzy first of all, and second of all it costs a LOT of money to sue somebody.
Chances are, you won't be sued for this, if that's what you're worried about. But if what you're worried about is pissing someone off, then you'll have to ask yourself how much of this other person's work you've borrowed, and how obvious it is that you've borrowed it.
I've only heard of a few cases where people have been sued over a game. Actually scratch that. I've only heard of a few cases where people have been THREATENED with being sued. And even fewer where there was an actual settlement out of court. And I can only think of one actual case where it was simply the result of gameplay being similar. And that was between two big companies, so there was an incentive to go to court. That was a Simpsons game that copied Crazy Taxi exactly, not very long after Crazy Taxi came out.
One other recent case I can recall though, which didn't just involve gameplay, was someone copied Geometry Wars on XBOX live exactly, gameplay, graphics, and everything...
Yet even doing that, all they got was a demand that that take down the game... which they did.
If you're not copying a big company's game so closely that it is a virtual clone, then you're probably in the clear. And even then at worst you'll be lucky to get a take down notice. Of course, in law, nothing is certain.
Chances are, you won't be sued for this, if that's what you're worried about. But if what you're worried about is pissing someone off, then you'll have to ask yourself how much of this other person's work you've borrowed, and how obvious it is that you've borrowed it.
I've only heard of a few cases where people have been sued over a game. Actually scratch that. I've only heard of a few cases where people have been THREATENED with being sued. And even fewer where there was an actual settlement out of court. And I can only think of one actual case where it was simply the result of gameplay being similar. And that was between two big companies, so there was an incentive to go to court. That was a Simpsons game that copied Crazy Taxi exactly, not very long after Crazy Taxi came out.
One other recent case I can recall though, which didn't just involve gameplay, was someone copied Geometry Wars on XBOX live exactly, gameplay, graphics, and everything...
Yet even doing that, all they got was a demand that that take down the game... which they did.
If you're not copying a big company's game so closely that it is a virtual clone, then you're probably in the clear. And even then at worst you'll be lucky to get a take down notice. Of course, in law, nothing is certain.