Dear Future Gamer,

One day I walked into my local games store and noticed how there were endless supplies of crap games, (especially for the PC). I didn't know what I was going to buy, but I thought I'd just have a look around. I didn't really want to buy another console game, I wanted something different. What a mistake. There was nothing, apart from an endless supply of Age of Empires update packs and fake PC virtual pets.

I went home rather annoyed, and sat down at my PC. I started fiddling around with my Half-Life engine, and discovered that I could tweak it to my spec. I had a quite a bit of programming experience (not that I needed it), and in the end I came up with something that Nintendo should have come up with years ago - Pikachu Hunter!

Basically, it's the Half-Life engine with that annoying little yellow git incorporated, and it keeps everyone who plays it occupied for days. It turns out that I'm not the only person who finds Pikachu annoying. I'm still working on it, I'm going to add an element of skill to the game. Of course, I can't market the game because of copyright protection, is there any way I can get around it?

John Warwick

FG: You're right. You will run into copyright problems using Pikachu in any commercial venture without permission from the copyright owners. The best and safest thing to do is simply enjoy the levels you've created yourself and make sure nobody else gets hold of 'em.