Indie developer after cloning another game: “Happens every day, buddy”

Here’s a strange story. A video game developer was contacted by another developer and the two exchanged tips and advice. Then, a year later, one of the two developers turned around and cloned the other’s game and when asked, replied that this sort of thing “happens every day, buddy.”

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As reported by PC Gamer on 5th JuneIndie game developer Kindanice claims that he was recently contacted by another developer, Terry Brash, who he had already spoken to in 2023 and given him some advice. This time, Brash was excited to show him his new game, Wildcard

. The thing is, the game seems to be an almost identical clone of kindanice Terrible decks—now available on itch.io. By the way, this is not my or kindanice’s opinion. In DMs that supposedly contain PC GamerBrash introduced Wildcard, that already has a Steam page, to kindanice as a “clone” of Terrible decks.

As you might expect, kindanice was confused and shocked by this whole situation. He reportedly asked Brash if the developer thought it was cool to just take graphics and concepts from one game and use them in his own. Brash replied that the game uses new, redrawn graphics and original code. Brash then apparently asked kindanice if he wanted an “inspiration” credit.

“Bro… there’s ‘inspiration’ and then there’s the blatant copying of an entire game,” kindanice replied loudly PC gamers.

Kindanice and Brash then discussed copyright laws and Wildcard violated one before Kindanice told Brash that it was not good to copy someone else’s game, no matter what the laws said. He told Brash that his friends found the situation odd too.

“I’m confused, what’s weird here?” Brash replied in DMs. “I liked the game so I made a clone with extra stuff. Happens every day, buddy.”

My city I reached out to Brash but didn’t receive a response before publication.

Kindanice asked Brash, Wildcard from Steam, but Brash refused. When kindanice warned that this move could damage Brash’s reputation among developers, he didn’t seem to care, replying, “The decision has been made. I accept my fate.” That was the last time they chatted directly, according to PC gamers.

On June 3, kindanice posted publicly about the strange and frustrating situation, claiming that Brash had “copied” Terrible decks and released a clone on Steam without his permission. He wasn’t sure what to do next, but he’s considering a copyright lawsuit against Brash as he prepares for the release Terrible decks on Steam. However, he would prefer if Brash would simply remove the game from Steam himself. That seems unlikely.

On Brash’s Twitter account, the developer posted tweets apparently references and jokes about the whole situation. He also claimed that Wildcard will be free when it comes to Steam.