Unpacking is the Latest Victim of Mobile Game Copycat

gamerant.com:

In recent years, the indie game scene has slowly been blossoming as more people are noticing niche titles, and more development teams have seen the fruits of their hard work pay off through promotion and production. Yet, as the indie scene continues to grow, situations that come out of bad faith are still on the rise. One ongoing situation involves popular indie games being created as knock-offs on the app store, and the most recent victim has been organization-puzzle game Unpacking.

Unpacking is a game about moving into new homes and where exactly players want their belongings to go that was made by Australian developer Witch Beam Games, which launched in November 2021. Despite how the game had only recently come out, it's been critically acclaimed as a game that starts out simple, but gradually tells a story about how life keeps moving forward. With how the game has received such positive attention such as being a finalist and winner of many awards, there's naturally been some negative attention, as well.

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Fans have come forward to Witch Beam Games about how there was a top-rated game on the App Store as well as Google Play called Unpacking Master that matched the level design of the game extremely closely, using assets of a rather similar art style. The development team has since spoken out about the copycat, making it clear that this game wasn't produced by it.

While it might be normal for a small game company to put out a notice of a fake game trying to replicate its hard work, the Aussie developer has also remained transparent on the fact that it lacks the funds to pursue legal action against the duplicate apps. Fans have rallied in support of the moving game