Wildcard developer Terry Brash accused of plagiarism by Dire Decks dev kindanice

Over the past day, Terry Brash, developer of Steam Next Fest demo Wildcard, has been embroiled in an ongoing possibility that he allegedly stole the game Dire Decks from indie dev kindanice Games.

Allegedly, Terry Brash was a big fan of Dire Decks, which can be found as a free browser-based game on the kindanice itch.io, and wanted to develop his own version of it, Wildcard. But, he did it without any permission, blessing, or prior conversations about it with kindanice.

I chatted with Dire Decks developer kindanice to get his side of the story.

I sat down and chatted with the sole person at kindanice, who wished to remain anonymous. He handles all art, coding, and sound for the games put out on the kindanice itch.io. He’s also based in Toronto.

I asked kindanice to describe his game, Dire Decks, to me. He explained that Dire Decks “is a cross between roguelike deck builders and bullet heaven games.”

If you’re unfamiliar with “bullet heaven” games, they’re way more cozy and automated than your usual “bullet hell” game, such as the recent Cozy Space Survivors.

He went on about what makes it unique. “It’s real-time, enemies are constantly inching closer to you and you need to choose and aim cards quickly and skillfully to defeat them.”

I reached out to Terry Brash, the accused, to get a comment and have not yet heard back as of publishing this article. But, according to the official Steam page for Wildcard, it can be described, simply, as an “action roguelike deckbuilder.”

Here is two images to show just how “unique” each game is. Yes, that’s definitely two completely different games made by two completely different people. The first image is the original by kindanice, whereas the second is the self-proclaimed “clone”.

Image: Dire Decks / kindanice

Image: Wildcard / Terry Brash

Here is another side-by-side comparison of gameplay. I’ll let you make your own assumptions.

Image: Dire Decks / kindanice

Image: Wildcard / Terry Brash

Looking at both games side-by-side, it’s easy to make some pretty heavy comparisons, including the colors, font, wording, and design of the assets.

But, what led to this? Speaking with kindanice, I have obtained full screenshots of the previous interactions between him and Terry as proof. Out of respect to the dev, I will keep the pictures private but describe them.

Back in August 2023, kindanice reached out to Terry Brash via direct message on X (previously Twitter). He had seen Brash’s game, GUNRUN, another roguelike bullet hell/heaven-style game, and wanted to ask about a technique the developer had to make enemies not overlap each other. Brash opted to explain how he did it.

The next interaction shared with me is from April 2024, where Terry Brash invited kindanice to his game dev Discord server.

From there, the conversation took place this week and moved to a private message on Discord. The tone had changed to confusion at that point.

Terry Brash, out of the blue, sent a direct message to kindanice to tell him that he had developed a “clone of Dire Decks” and had already put out a Steam store page for it. He had taken it upon himself to clone the game and make it in Rust, using his own engine. He added leaderboards, replays, and “a bunch more cards, items, and enemies.”

From there, kindanice was flattered, yet confused about the situation, just trying to learn more.

The next several parts are kindanice asking why he hadn’t been contacted prior to then to collaborate and explaining that this is beyond just “inspiration”. Brash, claiming nothing was stolen and everything was “redrawn”, offered to put a credits screen in to include kindanice as “inspiration”.

At first, kindanice questioned the intent but eventually was open to the idea of being part of that team and collaborating to offer more for the game. If he could help shape the game, maybe it’d make it better. Brash was quick to agree but said he didn’t plan to add or change much at this point to it.

But, not long after, kindanice had spoken to other developers who told him that this was blatant plagiarism and to request a takedown.

Terry assumed that kindanice was in the USA when copyright protection laws were mentioned, claiming that he had “looked this up before” and felt that they didn’t apply to him. Since the game demo is free, it appears that he believes himself to be in the clear.

Terry Brash, allegedly, described Wildcard as a “clone” of Dire Decks.

The conversation went sour pretty quickly. Terry, seemingly believing that he was not in the wrong for creating a “clone”, just said, “Happens every day homie.” (sic)

From there, kindanice gave Brash the ultimatum to remove the game from Steam or he was going to go public with this allegation.

After several back-and-forths about taking it down and Brash believing himself to still be in the right, he ended the conversation with “The decision’s been made. I accept my fate.”He, then, ended with a salute emoji.

As of writing, no resolution has been made. Terry Brash’s Steam page for Wildcard is still up, with a free demo meant to ride the Steam Next Fest wave.

On the other hand, Dire Decks is, and always has been, free, ever since launching on the kindanice itch.io storefront early last year.

He told me that the entire situation has inspired him to expand on his original game and bring it to Steam. He added that he’s just waiting to be approved by Steam to be able to go through with it. “I think I can do a better job with it being the original developer.”

While clones happen constantly among indie developers, this alleged plagiarism seems pretty blatant, based on the conversations I read between the two developers. If the situation changes, or if Terry Brash responds to our comment request, we’ll update this article.