Indie dev baffled after acquaintance clones his game, puts it on Steam, and acts like it's no big deal: 'Happens every day homie'

GamesCard GameIndie dev baffled after acquaintance clones his game, puts it on Steam, and acts like it’s no big deal: ‘Happens every day homie’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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A side-by-side comparison of Dire Decks by kindanice (left) and Wildcard by Terry Brash (right).

When he started chatting with Terry Brash, indie game developerkindanicethought he was just swapping tips with a fellow dev. He didn’t know that his new acquaintance was going to take his whole game, too.

Kindanice related this story to PC Gamer over DMs this week, and shared screenshots of his conversations with Brash, who did not respond to a request for comment.

The two developers first chatted a little over a year ago: kindanice was a fan of Brash’s game Gunrun, and Brash was a fan of kindanice’s game Dire Decks, a deckbuilding shooter combo publishedon itch.io. The developers swapped some coding knowledge and Brash invited kindanice to his game dev Discord server.

A year passed, and then this week, Brash sent kindanice a Discord DM to share some cool news: He’d cloned Dire Decks in a new engine, added some new features, renamed it Wildcard, and put it on Steam under his own name.

This isn’t one of those gray area situations where one game derives its basic design from another, but brings its own look and spirit to the table (the dozens of Vampire Survivor-alikes come to mind). The games are visually almost identical, and Brash himself called Wildcard a “rewrite” and “clone” of Dire Decks when he introduced it to kindanice.

Kindanice was taken aback: flattered, perhaps, but confused. He asked Brash if he really thought it was OK to take the art and concept of Dire Decks and put it on Steam under his own name without permission. Now Brash seemed taken aback: He pointed out that the code was original and that he’d redrawn the artwork, and asked if kindanice wanted an “inspiration” credit.

“Bro… there’s ‘inspiration’ and then there’s blatantly copying an entire game,” kindanice replied.

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A side-by-side comparison of Dire Decks by kindanice (left) and Wildcard by Terry Brash (right).

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

Kindanice asked Brash to remove Wildcard from Steam, and Brash refused. Kindanice then suggested that Brash’s reputation would be harmed when the public found out what he’d done, but Brash didn’t budge.

“The decision’s been made,” said Brash. “I accept my fate.”

That was the last direct communication between the two developers. On June 3, kindaniceposted publiclyabout the situation on X.

“@terrybrash copied my game ‘dire decks’ and is releasing it on steam under a different name without my permission,” said the developer. “I have tried to get him to take the game down but he is unwilling to do so. not sure what to do in this situation…”

(Image credit: kindanice)

@kindanicegames: hi everyone. @terrybrash copied my game “dire decks” and is releasing it on steam under a different name without my permission. i have tried to get him to take the game down but he is unwilling to do so. not sure what to do in this situation…

Kindanice is currently working on his own expanded Steam version of Dire Decks. He’s considered making a copyright claim against Wildcard, but says he’d still prefer it if Brash would remove the game from Steam voluntarily. You can find the current version of Dire Decks and kindanice’s other games on hisitch.io page.

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