Several months ago, hugely successful casual games creator King (of Candy Crush Saga fame) initiated a lawsuit against the much smaller indie developer Stoic Studio over its Viking-inspired strategy title The Banner Saga. Despite being polar opposite experiences - one a simple lolly-themed puzzle game; the other a hardcore Nordic strategy title - King thought the use of the word "saga" in Stoic's game may confuse its existing consumers. Luckily, after a stack of negative press and plenty of community backlash, the legal proceedings were dropped and Stoic has been able to move ahead with the iOS port of what's already considered a PC indie classic. In fact, it's one of my favourite PC releases of 2014 and I expect its unique and fun gameplay will transcend well to iOS when it releases shortly.

Sadly, Stoic isn't the only indie to have a large legal hurdle to leap in 2014.

I've been quite excited by the impending release of Chroma Squad from South American developer Behold Studios, which uses the zany, iconic and distinctly Japanese Sentai theme. But the countdown to release has hit a snag. Behold was recently approached by Saban Entertainment - the company behind the Power Rangers (arguably the most iconic Sentai-inspired IP in the West) - and were told that if a share of the profits didn't come its way, the indie studio would face a legal battle on the grounds of intellectual property infringement.

My initial instinct is to revert to the overly negative and all too familiar story of a giant company stomping on a smaller one - see Banner Saga - but you can't argue that the Chroma Squad screens do look awfully Power Rangery. The details of the negotiations between the two companies are under wraps, but as long as Behold get to release the game it, and the game's Kickstarter supporters, want to see made, without losing too much profit share, then I'll be happy.

Chroma Squad is due out on PC soon, with iOS later in the year.

Writer:
Max Joseph 

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