LogInThere's a fine line between taking inspiration and stealing someone else's ideas.
In the past few days, the indie game development industry has encountered its second controversy this summer over one developer copying too much from another creator's game, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
The new altercation was kicked off back in late June, when indie developer known as hacktic announced Flora Corner, a diorama-making idle game where players tend to houseplants and decorate a 3D room. Revealed to little fanfare, the title eventually caught the attention of none other than Kenney "KenneyNL" Vleugels, a renowned asset creator and game developer, who pointed out several uncanny similarities between Flora Corner and his own work-in-progress diorama-creation sandbox, MakeRoom, which make the former appear like a blatant copy of the latter.
Emphasizing that he has no qualms about Flora Corner's gameplay mechanics, which do indeed appear in a multitude of other similar games, KenneyNL expressed dissatisfaction with the nearly identical UI, effects, sounds, toolbar, and animations featured in hacktic's project. "It is absolutely disheartening to see my game get copied to such a degree. Please don't just copy my game, it rips the fun out of being creative," commented the developer.
Following KenneyNL's Twitter post about the issue, along with a Community Note and numerous negative comments, hacktic chose not to double down as Terry Brash did in a similar situation, instead issuing a public apology and claiming that they've "stepped over the line with taking inspiration".
In their statement, hacktic clarified that there was no intention to rip off MakeRoom, and the similarities were mostly accidental, stemming from using KenneyNL's project as a source of inspiration. Moving forward, the developer plans to change Flora Corner's art direction and visual design and modify the copied elements to ensure the game can "stand on its own merit".
With KenneyNL accepting the apology, this dispute seems to have a happy ending for a change, and very soon, we'll have two new and entirely different diorama-builders, each offering a unique experience that will keep you playing for hours on end.
Don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.