Crown Me Again dev says AI-made King Dies Rich looks similar

The developer of Crown Me Again has said on Reddit that a game made with generative AI, Outlane's King Dies Rich, looks like his own announced title. The developer, whose studio is The Code Otter, wrote that he was confused and saddened by the similarity, according to Automaton Media.

King Dies Rich is a huxline incremental game in which the player stays on a throne and auto-attacks at the cursor position. It has seven equipment types, builds and permanent upgrades. The developer said he suspected AI may have been instructed to produce a similar game with more depth.

SteamDB records show King Dies Rich was registered on Steam on October 3 and officially announced on October 22, with release planned for November 13. The game's store page states that its animations and sound effects were made with generative AI, while the graphic assets were handmade.

Outlane released its first game on October 2, and a free-to-play version of King Dies Rich for Android and browsers appeared on October 12. The game contains many systems that Crown Me Again does not, including gem synthesis, throne socket buffs, a shop, a blacksmith, a permanent upgrade tree, four stages, an endless difficulty, a bestiary and weekly siege battles.

Background

Crown Me Again was announced at the end of September along with the opening of its Steam store page, with release planned for Q1 2027. By the time of the Reddit post, the developer had spent more than 10 months on the project and had gathered 2,000 wishlists through marketing since the end of September. Nodebuster is cited as an influence on the game.