The creator of a viral indie game where players must literally find a needle in a haystack is tired of his project getting cloned. So, he made a new game mode, where players must find the real game in a pile of fakes.

Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, it’s getting easier and easier for players to 'reverse-engineer' video games and even outright copy projects that haven’t been released yet.

It’s been a hellish situation for developers in the industry, particularly for small studios without the funds for legal backing or, even worse, single creators who made their games all by themselves.

NasNakarus is the driving mind behind Needle in a Haystack Simulator, which is exactly what it sounds like. Such a simple concept is easy to copy, and there are currently oodles of similar titles clogging online marketplaces. But he’s not taking it personally; instead, he’s poking fun at the ordeal with some well-timed commentary and a new ‘mode’ for his game.

NasNakarus posted about the mode on October 27, along with a quick demo of what it would look like. In this joke mode, called ‘Find the Original Game,’ players would sift through a pile of game cases with the wording ‘Needle in a Haystack Clone,’ with the ‘Clone’ being in a bright red box. And while players noted that this version of the haystack would be far easier to sort through, it’s less about the mode itself (which may or may not be actually coming to the game), but more about the fact that the developer felt a need to comment on the swath of clones by going to such lengths, at all.

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