Skunny games

theberserkone · Post by **theberserkone** » June 13th, 2007, 7:55 pm

I was just wondering what the status of the Skunny games is since the copysoft no longer sells the games, or at least the email links no longer work, also the domain http://www.copysoft.com is currently for sale. So if in fact copysoft no longer sells the registered versions are they freeware now or what is going on?

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » June 13th, 2007, 10:28 pm

Good question. The copyright to a work continues to belong to the owner until it expires, or the owner releases the work to the public domain. So, even if Copysoft ceases to exist, whoever owned Copysoft still owns the copyright.

Copysoft's website still works for me, and there's a notice at the bottom of the screen that says "Copysoft is a division of American Computer Technologies", so they probably own the rights to the Skunny games now. I wasn't aware that the email was no longer working. I'll see what I can find out about it.

theberserkone · Post by **theberserkone** » June 15th, 2007, 11:43 pm

Hello, i was just wondering if you have heard anything form Copysoft/ACT yet? I emailed ACT about a week ago and have yet to hear anything from them, and at this point im no longer expecting a reply, anyways i thought i'd post and see if there is news.

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » June 16th, 2007, 1:22 am

The sales email address is invalid. That's pretty strange. I have no news at all.

theberserkone · Post by **theberserkone** » June 21st, 2007, 4:09 pm

Seems a guy on another board accidentally discovered copysofts dirty little secret..if you go to http://www.copysoft.com/ftp/pub/Skunny/ and download the copysoft.zip file....You have just downloaded the full versions of all the Skunny games....I wonder if Copysoft did that on purpose so that the most intrepid of explorers would find the 'Holy Grail' as it were? Either way off to join Skunny in the Wild West....I hope I haven't done anything illegal by posting the above...but since copysoft no longer seems to be selling the games i figured it would be alright...

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » June 21st, 2007, 10:20 pm

I've gone into the FTP folders from other publishers and sometimes found shareware copies of games that could no longer be downloaded from their website (Apogee, Soleau), but never a full version. It never even occurred to me to check. I suppose if you're dumb enough to leave something valuable in a public FTP folder...

Technically downloading the file without paying for it is stealing, even if they aren't providing a legal way to procure the games. If you look at the website, and the lack of an ordering page, these guys clearly aren't trying any more. If I can't get a response by email, I'll call that phone number from their website tomorrow. I really laughed when I saw that folder. That was dumb with a capital D.

theberserkone · Post by **theberserkone** » June 22nd, 2007, 11:22 pm

Taken together with the fact that the copysoft domain is for sale...i'd say copysoft has given up altogether

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » June 23rd, 2007, 12:43 am

Now their bandwidth has been used up. I guess that will stop people from stealing the full version of their games. Come on, a bandwidth limit? That's amateur. They should be running the site off of ACT's web server... unless they're too small time to have their own server. ACT is still up, so it looks like Copysoft's website was using third party hosting.

Anyway, this doesn't bode well. Lots of authors (Pop Software, for one) buy some hosting and put their old games back on the web to see if they can make a few more sales, then turn their backs on it when the sales start to dwindle (Pop Software, for one). Even if a lot of people have been downloading, they shouldn't be out of bandwidth. My webhost offers 1.2 TB of bandwidth per month for $4.99. If they don't care enough to pay $4.99 per month, they're probably not coming back.

theberserkone · Post by **theberserkone** » June 23rd, 2007, 3:13 pm

Copysoft has been on life support for a long time now...maybe now that its off the juice it'll be aloud to peacefully go 'belly up' if it hasn't already. But like i said they've given up altogether and lets face facts it wasn't as if there games were selling like hotcakes anyways, as of late the only people who wanted the registered versions were those few nostalgic folks like me. And in the great scheme of things Skunny will be remembered as the second greatest cartooon(ish) charachter to come out of Belgium....TinTin has him beat by a country mile! Perhaps if Skunny had been released by ID software or Apogee things would have been different for him...oh well...ce la vie!

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » June 23rd, 2007, 4:34 pm

In the gaming industry, your reputation is often only as good as your last game. The first Skunny game I played was Desert Raid, which is absolute crap. Plus, Skunny was such a nauseatingly "cutesy" character, I couldn't take him seriously as a hero (Conker's Bad Fur Day was a decade away). I wrote off the whole series after that. I didn't play any of the games again until I reviewed them for the site.

That's too bad, because Back to the Forest is pretty good. Save Our Pizzas is a pretty decent platformer, and Wild West is more of the same. Skunny Kart is also one of the better go kart games. Really, Lost in Space is the only other Skunny game that I don't care for. I should have given Skunny a chance. I'm sure I'm not alone in having written off the series just for the fact that the hero was anthropomorphic squirrel, or after playing Desert Raid.

theberserkone · Post by **theberserkone** » June 23rd, 2007, 7:24 pm

Don't get me wrong i enjoyed Skunny immensely, the first one i played was the shareware 'Save our Pizzas' and i enjoyed it, it was a little short (the registered version fixed that) but still good. A few more levels needed save points but other than that it was good. My brother and I loved playing Skunny Kart it was the greatest back in its day. Back To The Forest and Wild West were both good, though forest could have done without that annoying sliding, and wild west would have been more pleasant if you could have carried more than 1 crate at a time. It was such a pain having to backtrack great distances and over tough course obstacles to collect a crate then repeat again for the inevitable 3rd crate. Lost in Space and Desert Raid were alright but still were nowhere near copysofts best efforts...interestingly enough the website showed that the registered versions of both had 10 levels but in reality both registered versions had only 6...i much prefer Desert Raid to Lost in Space....but thats not saying much

Roioros · Post by **Roioros** » July 29th, 2007, 1:30 pm

Hello, i was looking for the registered versions of the skunny games (made by copysoft), but the page and the ftp posted here are dead (Bandwidth Limit Exceeded). Can someone upload the registered versions, or the copysoft.zip file that was in the ftp please? Thanks a lot in advance

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » July 29th, 2007, 2:26 pm

I'm afraid I can't post the file for legal reasons, and I won't allow it to be linked to in the forum. It was one thing when it was a link to Copysoft's own website, but I won't support piracy. Sorry.

Roioros · Post by **Roioros** » July 29th, 2007, 2:45 pm

Ah, sorry, I thought that copysoft no longer sells the skunny games

DOSGuy · Post by **DOSGuy** » July 29th, 2007, 8:39 pm

It doesn't look like they do, but it's still illegal to distribute them without permission.

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