No… I mean, it is your choices on top of it. You made some changes, some perhaps necessary (like touch controls) and others perhaps not (like Santa). The point is, I didn’t specifically approve or “sign off” on any of those changes. The touch controls aren’t by me, for example, nor did I ever test them to make sure they were “good enough for my standards” before you released them. In the Star Wars universe, you can imagine that some things were approved by George Lucas, and other things were not. The newest movies, in particular, were not, as far as I can tell.
By the way, perhaps “not specifically approved by original author Jason Rohrer” sounds better to you. I was trying to keep it short, and keep the word count down. But that is what I actually mean. Not that I specifically disapprove, but that I didn’t look at each of these changes and specifically approve them. The word SPECIFICALLY is a new addition here for you to consider.
Now, all that said, you could imagine a VERY direct port of my PC game, where absolutely no changes were made. Where the menu screen was black with white Futura font. Where all the in-game fonts were hand-drawn by me. Where there was no translation. Where there were no zoom settings. Where nudity was on by default and could not be disabled. (I’m not sure what the controls would be—that’s the impossible part… maybe where you had to plug a mouse into your phone).
Anyway, you could imagine such a direct port, where it would become unnecessary to mention that it was “not approved” by me, because it would be so identical to the version that I made, that my approval of the design choices would be implicit.
You would still need to make sure that people knew that I wasn’t involved, and that I didn’t make it. But there would be no chance of people thinking “Jason picked these fonts and this new UI and this Santa” if nothing was changed from the version that I made. In that case, Jason DID pick all this stuff. We just ported his choices.
And here’s an example of that, for Passage. I didn’t port it to Javascript or post it there. But it is such a direct port, that nothing special needs to be said about it:
http://passage.toolness.org/
I’m not necessarily saying that I hate Santa. It’s kinda funny. But it’s clearly something that I would never put in my own game! And it’s weird to have people thinking that I did make that choice.
In Star Wars, Ep 9 that comes out next year, if they suddenly have Yoda’s ghost doing a tap dance routine, people would know that George Lucas didn’t approve that.
Anyway you currently have two challenges. Clearly making sure that everyone understands:
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That I wasn’t involved with making this version, that it’s not official, by which it means that I’m not taking a cut, and that I didn’t specifically direct this version to be made. Most people know what “official” vs. “unofficial” means in this context, so I think that’s the best word to use, and it is the word you have been using so far, just perhaps not prominently enough.
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That I didn’t specifically approve of whatever changes you made to the original work. Changes big and small. Changes necessary and optional.
