somewhatlurker

Yes, this kind of project can be somewhat grey. First off, I would agree that by excluding audio and visual assets, the game as a whole has not been infringed....

Also, "clean room" reverse engineering is a specific methodology used to ensure no copyright material can make it into a product: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design It's achieved by having one group of engineers...

I'm not really sure what to call mine -- it's somewhere between decompilation and reimplementation. Things that aren't critical to the gameplay are generally being replaced with compatible alternatives (timers,...