This is another question about guidelines. In the previous post I’ve asked about recreating famous plots. What if instead of recreating plots I just use plot elements?
Take The Hound of the Baskervilles scenario… say I create a crime mystery world, the investigation itself is an original work and has nothing to do with The Hound… however investigation does feature a brunch where one of the servants is caught sending the signals to someone outside the house with a candle, it does turns out that the signals aren’t meant for the actual villain of the story but for an escaped convict who happens to be servants relative. In the end, while the story itself is original the plot element from The Hound was clearly used (naturally a number of details are changed and all the storylets text is original)
Every creator is affected by a lot of sources. If you aren’t affected by culture your works will be meaningless, because they won’t have anything to engage us.
I suggest you change details and make it your own, however - not because you have to due to copyright, but because your story will become stronger with it.
Also, don’t forget there’s people who haven’t read the Hound, so please have some twists on your own, so we can’t expect the ending of the Hound after playing your game or vice versa.
Preferably it should be to the degree where the player might recognise some elements just like when adding an extraordinary implication to your short story, and not so the player will feel they’ve experienced this before.