That is gonna get complicated actual quick, so I would like everybody to lock in for the sentence you’re about to learn: the devs behind Needle In A Haystack, which is a clone of the unique viral haystack sport, Needle In A Haystack Simulator, have accused the builders of one other clone of the unique haystack sport, titled A Recreation About Needle In A Haystack, of copying their code, because the copy of the copy incorporates precisely the identical error messages as their sport “phrase for phrase.”
Even simply typing that gave me a headache, so let’s rewind a bit. This isn’t the primary time we’ve covered copies of Studio Bitdot’s viral haystack game, Needle In A Haystack Simulator. After a number of clips of Studio Bitdot’s incremental sorting sim went viral throughout social media in August, Steam customers seen that a number of equally titled video games, with creative titles akin to A Needle In a Haystack and Story of The Needle In a Haystack, had abruptly appeared on the platform in a single day.
As of writing, I depend a minimum of fourteen clones of Studio Bitdot’s unique sport on Steam. One such sport is studio NoGlyph’s Needle In A Haystack, which was launched on Steam on September 29. To be clear, NoGlyph’s sport doesn’t seem like in any means vibe-coded, and, for what it’s value, additionally doesn’t function any AI disclaimers on its Steam retailer web page.
i made a sport the place you actually need to discover a needle in a haystack
the catch is there are 5,000,000 items of hay and just one needle pic.twitter.com/q2TehY53iJ
— Nas (@NasNakarus) August 22, 2026
Yesterday, on October 17, NoGlyph accused one other Needle In A Haystack Simulator clone on Steam of ripping off their code: Little Subject Studios’ A Recreation About Needle In A Haystack, which was launched on October 16.
“After we appeared by [A Game About Needle In A Haystack’s] information, we discovered 13 of our lessons inside it with the very same names,” reads NoGlyph’s post on Steam. “Greater than half of the features in that half match ours precisely. A few of our personal error messages are nonetheless in there phrase for phrase, together with one which factors to a shader from our challenge that doesn’t exist of their sport.”
Whereas NoGlyph’s put up on Steam doesn’t outright accuse Little Subject Studios’ clone of being vibe-coded slop, a comment from the staff’s lead dev, Jahvin, on NoGlyph’s Discord confirms precisely what number of items of its code had been copied. Jahvin states that Little Subject Studios’ sport incorporates 39 “same-named strategies” which might be “byte-for-byte similar.”
What Jahvin describes is a classic telltale sign of Claude-assisted decompilation: taking a closed-source sport and utilizing AI to make its supply code readable, then copy-pasting that code into your personal sport (or, extra seemingly, asking Claude to do it for you).
That is genuinely so fucked up. Ya’ll do not even know the can of worms that is been opened not too long ago with decompiling and sport crossover.
All the pieces is open sourced. All the pieces may be stolen in a day. We’re completely not prepared and it is gonna be BAD.
I can inform you this may most… https://t.co/Dlk7g3VPPA
— Delrith (@CtrlAltDelrith) October 17, 2026
Whereas Steam customers appear unsympathetic, with some referring to it as “karma” for NoGlyph’s try at using off the coattails of Studio Bitdot’s unique Needle In A Haystack Simulator sport, the potential vibe-coding ingredient to the story does converse to a bigger concern within the indie sport scene.
As GameSpark coated in a current article, a Roblox creator cloned the upcoming indie sport Escape the Partitions inside 24 hours of its dev displaying it off to the general public. The Roblox creator in query achieved this by merely utilizing a single video of Escape the Partitions on X, after which, in accordance with GameSpark, fairly overtly bragged about how mentioned feat was achieved: “Claude did all the pieces for me; I simply sat in my chair and watched.”
Likewise, the devs behind Drunken Goddess Reflux, Alliance Arts, announced that they had cancelled plans to release its upcoming demo on Steam. Why? As a result of Alliance Arts had been involved that “works imitating or replicating this sport’s presentation and gameplay could possibly be rapidly produced utilizing AI” if Drunken Goddess Reflux’s demo was launched forward of the total sport.
Sadly, it looks as if that is the brand new regular for indie video games. Unlike big AAA publishers, indie devs should not have the funding required to legally problem each single vibe-coded ripoff of their sport that seems on-line, so anticipate to see fewer demos, fewer early entry titles, and, if Escape the Partitions’ instance is something to go by, fewer trailers for indie video games within the quick future.