First, it is extremely unlikely that the puzzles from which you want to borrow are themselves subject to copyright, considering the exceptional difficulty involved in creating a truly original puzzle.? That you're borrowing the puzzle ideas and generating modifications further dilutes them.
Second, use of copyright matter as research materials and for education has a special place in the heart of copyright law, and on that basis alone you have virtually nothing to worry about.
Bear in mind that you can identify the authors of the various puzzles and e-mail them to describe your intentions, mentioning that the original expressions of their puzzles won't be used, but that you want to ask permission anyway.
If yu are trying to develop games yu are supposed to be able to think for yourself and not need to steal other peoples ideas. If you are incapable of doing that and creating your own puzzles you should not even think about developing. And you would be liable for copyright infringement if you do use them. At fines up to $150,00.00 US PER copy. Prison if you can not pay.
Well, maybe not. If it is someone's idea that you are claiming is yours then it's copyrighting. Do you even know how programming works?
I'm planning to develop a game as part of my thesis. It's an educational strategy RPG game. The story and art style is my original work.
I was just wondering... what if I took puzzle ideas from various games? Almost the same structure but with different design and function. Puzzles... I mean, the player tries to connect blocks to produce an action. Here's a link of google images just to give you an idea of the puzzle I'm talking about: http://tinyurl.com/need23l
This game I'm developing is for research purposes only. I'm not going to upload it in any website. It's a stand-alone game but will get web updates.
The game will only be deployed within a local institute in a span of 3-4 months. No further development will occur afterwards. Definitely, no profit will be earned.
