I’m not a game developer but if I were to make a game, the only ideas that come to mind seem to be “I’m gonna remake my favorite game but change these things I didn’t like about it!” but I heard that’s a bad idea usually.
I’m wondering how much change, and to which aspects (gameplay, mechanics, theme, etc), do you think is needed to make a game inspired by something instead of a rip-off?
But game mechanic differences can be pretty minor or they can be major reworks. It’s really hard to think of major changes to game mechanics that don’t break the fun in an already established formula
If you can’t figure out how to take something change it without breaking the fun then you’re most likely doing a rip-off.
You have to do something transformative for it to not be a rip-off. Just add an example, if you take Hollow Knight gameplay and then make a game with art style heavily inspired by Hollow Knight art and your story is about some other bugs, then that’s pretty much just Hollow knight and as such would be a rip off. But if you took Hollow Knight gameplay and made it about robots in a space derelict that could be transformative enough to be its own thing.
Right, therefore the looks and theme should be massively different (like sci-fi when the original was medieval, etc.).