Devs Of Needle In A Haystack Clone Angry It's Been Cloned By AI - Kotaku
AI Claude Indie Games Needle In A Haystack Simulator Steam Vibe coding This is gonna get confusing real fast, so I need everyone to lock in for the sentence you’re about to read: the devs behind Needle In A Haystack, which is a clone of the original viral haystack game, Needle In A Haystack Simulator, have accused the developers of another clone of the original haystack game, titled A Game About Needle In A Haystack, of copying their code, as the copy of the copy contains exactly the same error messages as their game “word for word.” Even just typing that gave me a headache, so let’s rewind a bit. This isn’t the first time we’ve covered copies of Studio Bitdot’s viral haystack game, Needle In A Haystack Simulator. One such game is studio NoGlyph’s Needle In A Haystack, which was released on Steam on September 29.
AI Claude Indie Games Needle In A Haystack Simulator Steam Vibe coding
This is gonna get confusing real fast, so I need everyone to lock in for the sentence you’re about to read: the devs behind Needle In A Haystack, which is a clone of the original viral haystack game, Needle In A Haystack Simulator, have accused the developers of another clone of the original haystack game, titled A Game About Needle In A Haystack, of copying their code, as the copy of the copy contains exactly the same error messages as their game “word for word.”
Even just typing that gave me a headache, so let’s rewind a bit. This isn’t the first time we’ve covered copies of Studio Bitdot’s viral haystack game, Needle In A Haystack Simulator. After several clips of Studio Bitdot’s incremental sorting sim went viral across social media in August, Steam users noticed that several similarly titled games, with inventive titles such as A Needle In a Haystack and Story of The Needle In a Haystack, had suddenly appeared on the platform overnight.
As of writing, I count at least fourteen clones of Studio Bitdot’s original game on Steam. One such game is studio NoGlyph’s Needle In A Haystack, which was released on Steam on September 29. To be clear, NoGlyph’s game doesn’t appear to be in any way vibe-coded, and, for what it’s worth, also doesn’t feature any AI disclaimers on its Steam store page.
i made a game where you literally have to find a needle in a haystack
the catch is there are 5,000,000 pieces of hay and only 1 needle pic.twitter.com/q2TehY53iJ
— Nas (@NasNakarus) August 22, 2026
Yesterday, on October 17, NoGlyph accused another Needle In A Haystack Simulator clone on Steam of ripping off their code: Little Field Studios’ A Game About Needle In A Haystack, which was released on October 16.
“When we looked through [A Game About Needle In A Haystack’s] files, we found 13 of our classes inside it with the exact same names,” reads NoGlyph’s post on Steam. “More than half of the functions in that part match ours exactly. Some of our own error messages are still in there word for word, including one that points to a shader from our project that doesn’t exist in their game.”
While NoGlyph’s post on Steam doesn’t outright accuse Little Field Studios’ clone of being vibe-coded slop, a comment from the team’s lead dev, Jahvin, on NoGlyph’s Discord confirms exactly how many pieces of its code were copied. Jahvin states that Little Field Studios’ game contains 39 “same-named methods” that are “byte-for-byte identical.”
What Jahvin describes is a classic telltale sign of Claude-assisted decompilation: taking a closed-source game and using AI to make its source code readable, then copy-pasting that code into your own game (or, more likely, asking Claude to do it for you).
This is genuinely so fucked up. Ya'll don't even know the can of worms that's been opened recently with decompiling and game crossover.
Everything is open sourced. Everything can be stolen in a day. We're absolutely not ready and it's gonna be BAD.
I can tell you this will most… https://t.co/Dlk7g3VPPA
— Delrith (@CtrlAltDelrith) October 17, 2026
While Steam users seem unsympathetic, with some referring to it as “karma” for NoGlyph’s attempt at riding off the coattails of Studio Bitdot’s original Needle In A Haystack Simulator game, the potential vibe-coding element to the story does speak to a larger issue in the indie game scene.
As GameSpark covered in a recent article, a Roblox creator cloned the upcoming indie game Escape the Walls within 24 hours of its dev showing it off to the public. The Roblox creator in question achieved this by simply using a single video of Escape the Walls on X, and then, according to GameSpark, quite brazenly bragged about how said feat was achieved: “Claude did everything for me; I just 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? Because Alliance Arts were concerned that “works imitating or replicating this game’s presentation and gameplay could be quickly produced using AI” if Drunken Goddess Reflux’s demo was released ahead of the full game.
Sadly, it seems like this is the new normal for indie games. Unlike big AAA publishers, indie devs do not have the funding required to legally challenge every single vibe-coded ripoff of their game that appears online, so expect to see fewer demos, fewer early access titles, and, if Escape the Walls’ example is anything to go by, fewer trailers for indie games in the immediate future.
Don’t miss the latest reviews, news and tips. Sign up for our free newsletter.
A union representing gaming and anime voice actors has issued guidance on the issue after many high-profile voice actors spoke out against generative AI
Moonlighter dev Digital Sun has cancelled plans for a public playtest of its next game, for fears of Claude clones
Mr. Wonderful inversely appeared uninterested in the foam orb, not seeing how it could distinguish itself among other, more popular balls
An integral step towards mods, ports and patches, the popular decomp.dev decided the platform has been rendered obsolete by 'drive-by contributions'
Penguin Colony tears down colonial overtones of H.P. Lovecraft's works by removing the player from any anthropological sensibilities, exhuming the genre instead of excusing it
The speculated price tags on the next generation of consoles already have fans sweating as the AI-driven crunch shows no end in sight