A couple days ago, I made a post addressing Pixelberry/Series Entertainment's "It Lives Within." At the time, I wasn't aware of the story, I only knew that the name was the same. Since then, I saw many people accusing it of plagiarizing our game. I decided to look into it more, and after having watched all the episodes on YouTube, the claims of plagiarism unfortunately seem to be valid. As such, I'd like to further address this situation, and provide a list of stolen ideas and art with screenshot proofs and explanations.
A few years ago, I had a video call with one of the original writers for the It Lives Series. He no longer works for Pixelberry, and did not work with them at the time of the video call. Though I knew nothing about their original plans for the game before starting this project (including that they also intended to name the game "It Lives Within"), he told me their plans on that call. It was going to be a survivor-type cave crawl story with giant bug-inspired and creepy crawler monster enemies, where you play as a new character who is attacked by these creatures while camping and separated from their friends. From my understanding, Connor and his crew would be sort of like Sam and Dean from SPN, acting as these experienced "hunters" who help protect them.
That is not what the story of what Choices "It Lives Within" was. At all.
This means that the AI """writers""" at Series Entertainment/PB were not creating this story based on the original writers’ plans. They made their story idea later - after ILW was completed in its entirety. Therefore, it's reasonable to follow that unlike the title, these similarities are not coincidence. Though even then, the title It Lives Within had to do with the cave setting and going literally into the earth, while the AI version has nothing to do with caves. So the reasoning for the title is not the same as the reasoning for their original title.
With all this in mind, let’s go over the similarities between our game and the Choices It Lives Within AI show. I am going to be putting it beneath a read more, in case there are people who are interested in playing ILW and don’t want to get it spoiled.
Major things they stole:
Their villain, Silas, is Matthias. Literally, that's it. He's Matthias.
Silas is an immortal man who's been alive for almost 200 years and was a member of the Westchester cult, where he knew Cora. Matthias is an immortal man who's been alive 200+ years and was a member of the Westchester cult, where he knew Cora. Silas wants to sacrifice redfield Noah due to his connection to the Power as part of a complicated ritual he's put together in order to... I'm not quite sure what, exactly, as the story was a bit hard to follow. Matthias wants to sacrifice Rowan, due to their connection to the Power, as part of a complicated ritual he's put together in order to gain more power and freedom and heal the corrupted Power. Silas thinks he’s all manipulative and the main crew states that "He’s getting us to do his work for him!” Matthias thinks he's all manipulative, and gloats about being a "puppet master" and getting people to do his work for him.
And then there's his appearance. That's literally the same hairstyle - even has the part on the same side and the same curly swoops. He's the same age. Same race. Literally, just like Connor in their story is a recognizable AI-version of his in-game sprite, that's what Silas looks like to Matthias. All he's missing is the beard.
The gang's base of operations is Cora’s cabin
This one is interesting. It's such a tiny detail, and I'd grown so used to the cabin being their safe place that when Connor was like "We need to get back to the cabin" it literally took me a moment to realize - wait. They had nothing to do with that cabin in the original series. Using that as a home base was literally our idea, an It Lives Within original.
The main enemies are mind controlled townspeople working for Silas
Instead of following the precedent of the previous games and having the enemies be Power-twisted animal monsters, they decided to make their enemies humans that are mind-controlled into zombie-like beings with that attack the gang in hordes. This is a rip-off of It Lives Within's horrors, which are power-corrupted townsfolk that Matthias takes advantage of to oppose the main crew. And on top of that, they copied the carnival scene where Harper drives through a horde of horrors, including a scene where Devon drives through a horde of mind-controlled/zombified townsfolk.
Noah and Devon's relationship
Their relationship in this '"TV show" has suspicious similarities to their friendship/romance routes in ILW. They made Devon be redfield Noah's anchor to reality, and even had Devon use memories to help ground Noah, which we showed in the cabin scene where Devon and Noah play baseball together. And I know there were Noah x Devon shippers outside of me before ILW released, but it was never PB's plan to canonize them. So the fact that they are seemingly changing course to canonize them after they grew so popular in the fan version feels a bit too coincidental.
Scraping fan art for their AI animation frames
But what's even more egregious is that they have even stooped to scraping from fan artists, who have nowhere near the same following or exposure as our project does. Seriously, what are the odds that the MC they choose to use matches this artist's MC's race, gender, hair, and outfit exactly, that they used Noah's old outfit, that they are literally positioned on the same sides of the image? It's blatant plagiarism, and it's despicable. @errajay I'm so sorry they did this.
These are the biggest similarities, but considering that it was only like 15 minutes of content, that means that a high percentage of the story was stolen. Sure, the exact details of "Silas's" plan are different (he's like a horcrux for the "entity" aka power and he was split into 43 parts and Noah's one of his parts and he needs to kill him to get it back and be free or something) it's the same concept: immortal man who's trapped making a complicated ritual requiring sacrifice while manipulating people to get everything into place.
If you want to see for yourselves, please find it on YouTube. Do not support them with clicks or traffic on their app. Thank you! Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering, no AI was used in the drafting of this post 💖
This trend (I hope it’s still relevant) is so neat visually I knew I wanted to do something with it. I also saw someone else post theirs as a gif so I figured out how to do that too
Handwriting the entire note to block it out was definitely a choice I am glad that I made. :,)
Being a student at Westchester High must've been crazy, and I'm thinking particularly in terms of the low nerve ending. Imagine how within the span of, what, a week, your graduating class could be down eight dead seniors (and potentially one fugitive also).
And imagine being the person who skipped the homecoming dance and woke up the next morning to learn that a stampede of wild animals crashed the dance, some lady showed up and promptly dropped dead on the dance floor, several of your peers got permanently mangled by the animals, and then seven of your classmates who by several eyewitness accounts made it out of the chaos relatively unscathed (save for one who looked like he might just be down a leg) turned up dead from improbable causes (someone choked on spiders??) in a ritual circle in the woods. And then there is an additional corpse because turns out that that guy on the football team who's been in a coma all semester woke up just to go die in some fuck-ass cave.
Like I know that graduation ceremony was grim, man.
having wicks symbolise jesus, comparing himself to jesus in that big speech, implying that his father was god and that he was preparing to fall and rise again, having him be the one that was leading the flock, etc, and then actually have him 'rise' from the dead on the third day and 'die' again after having been betrayed by someone close to him - already fantastic, i was totally on board
having the plot twist be that samson, the one that was probably the most separated from wicks' church, the one who was said to truly love and care for others the most, the one willing to sacrifice for those he loved, the CARPENTER (who uses nails on good friday to essentially make his own coffin), actually ends up as the one rising from the dead on the third day to be killed by someone close to him - also fantastic
Creating It Lives Within was an incredible honor, and we're so proud of what we made. That said, because we released the game as we were writing it, we never had the chance to edit it as a single, cohesive work. And looking back, there were a lot of things I wished I could fix.
It Lives Within: The Obsidian Cut is my chance to do so. In addition to cleaning up pacing issues and strengthening weaker arcs, it also includes:
New art
New audio tracks and sound effects
Robust character customization
All-new scenes
Hundreds of new personality-based dialogue variants
A new MC hobbies/interests mechanic
Post-ending bonus episodes
Open code to let people edit their sprites and help others learn from our code, if interested
And more!
Keep reading under the cut for more details 🔥
Note: It Lives Within: The Obsidian Cut is a separate app from the original game. The original will remain available on our itch.io page, alongside Obsidian, under the name "It Lives Within: Legacy Edition."
CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION
NEW BODY TYPES
It was always our ultimate vision to include more body types. Now with our improved skills, we are happy to announce FOUR new body types!
Feminine Slim and Masculine Solid
Masculine Slender and Masculine Full
UN-GENDERLOCKED HAIRSTYLES
As the eagle-eyed may have noticed in the above screen shot, we also now have resized ALL hairstyles for ALL genders, for Devon, Harper, and Rowan alike. You can also now pick Harper's clothes!
BETTER ACCESSORY CUSTOMIZATION
Glasses, piercings, and earrings are separated so you can now mix and match as you please (example in the video below).
NEW HIJAB OPTIONS
New hijab options, plus you can now pick ANY hairstyle with the hijab, not just hairstyles that could be layered under the hijab without peeking out.
IMPROVED USER EXPERIENCE
This video will showcase:
Revamped settings UI (you can now delete saves in game!)
Item descriptions and page tabs
Easier to navigate closet
Improved accessories selection
Background panning
Improved game animations
Auto-hiding settings buttons for a less cluttered screen
GAMEPLAY ADDITIONS
PERSONALITY SYSTEM REVAMP
I have meticulously gone through the game and adjusted countless dialogues and sprite reactions to help the three personalities (genuine/sarcastic/aggressive) feel more consistent. No more weirdly upbeat grumps or overly sarcastic sweethearts. You'll feel your MC's personality at all times - not just during menus.
INTERESTS SYSTEM
The Obsidian Cut gives Rowan the option to pick two hobbies or interests: a primary and secondary trait.
These interests will occasionally influence automatic dialogue, give Rowan unique dialogue options, and alter how certain scenes play out.
NEW SCENES
Let's just say what's the point of releasing a new edition if there aren't some new scenes? Have some teaser screencaps, and know there's more where that came from!
NEW OUTFITS AND SPRITES
Lincoln has new, meticulously hand drawn tattoos. Noah's new outfit was also drawn from scratch. While his outfit will be consistent throughout the game, Lincoln's is an alt that is worn on occasion. Other sprites and outfits may have been edited, but these two were the biggest jobs.
In addition to that, we also have some completely new creature sprites, and the final game product will showcase a some updated CGs as well!
BONUS EPISODES
And last but not least, you'll get to play some additional episodes following the end of the game:
The Beach Episode: Lincoln invites all your friends to Seaside, Oregon, for a group vacation. Mixed and blood routes.
The Shadow Episode: Amalia's graduating, and her friends are there to support her. Shadow route.
Because of the massive number of variants possible upon reaching the end, there will not be an additional episode for any of the other endings.
OPEN CODE
In addition to all these new features, we will be leaving the code open. As such, it will allow players to customize in-game sprites, so have fun editing and putting your character directly into the game! We also hope that the open code will be educational for anyone interested in making visual novels or Choices fan projects.
IN CONCLUSION:
It Lives Within: The Obsidian Cut is an edited alternate version of ILW that will be released in the next few months, started because I wanted to edit the game. It includes new art, scenes, game mechanics, and a streamlined user experience. That said, certain lines of dialogue were changed and other scenes were cut during the edited process. If you find yourself missing things that were in the original but are not in Obsidian, feel free to stick with It Lives Within: Legacy Edition.
Excited to share my work with you! Thanks for your support, and happy Halloween!! 🎃👻
Hello, everyone! Sorry for the last minute getting this set up. But I'm finally ready to post our It Lives book club info 💕 👻
Reading Schedule:
We will start Saturday, September 6
We'll be reading four chapters a week.
It Lives Beneath will follow the same format and begin on October 4.
It Lives Within will also follow the same format and begin on November 1.
Essentially: We'll read ILITW in September, ILB in October, ILW in November.
How it works:
Each Saturday, I'll post a few discussion questions and polls for each chapter. Feel free to vote, reblog, and otherwise interact with the questions!
I will be making a book club channel in the It Lives Within discord for people to chat and discuss in a more relaxed, unstructured environment. Feel free to join and chat with us!
You can also make your own discussion posts and tag them #it lives book club . I'll go through the tags weekly and reblog anything I see in the tag.
In addition to the book club, I'll attempt to stream the week's chapters on Friday through Saturday. We will see how it goes. I'm a little nervous to read everything out loud! But I will make a separate post regarding streaming 😊
Look forward to enjoying spooky season alongside you all!
I redownloaded Choices after years while waiting for the Romance Club update and what the hellyyyyyy what are all these trashy erotica ass books and weird character sprites, why do they wanna give Endless Summer THE BEST COMPLETE STORY a sequel and what the actual fuck to you mean CROWN AND THE FLAME REBIRTH with anime visuals bro 😭😭😭
I'm so glad I don't play this shit anymore, like this app once had Courtesan of Rome and Open Heart dawg what is thiiiiis 💔
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