BODY: On October 14, the small studio Pandorio Games posted a short clip to X showing an incremental game called Escape the Walls: you punch a wall with your bare fists, widen the hole, clear the rubble, and work your way out. Simple, satisfying, and instantly viral — 2.2 million views within a day, roughly 4.5 million by October 16. The developer thanked everyone and promised a Steam page soon.
One reply read like a prophecy: "Seven hours until someone makes this idea on Roblox and earns 20 times your revenue." It took a little longer than seven hours. By October 15, the replies had filled with links — "someone already made a copy," "it's on Roblox already." One user posted video of their own version with a cheerful note: "University made it take longer than planned, but it's up ^_^"
The backlash was swift, with commenters calling the clone makers shameless. The clone makers pushed back just as fast: calling it theft is an exaggeration, they argued, and punching a wall is a generic idea anyway. Both reportedly built their versions using Claude, with one saying the AI "did everything — I just sat in my chair and watched."
This is now a pattern rather than an incident. In August, a game about finding one needle in five million haystacks pulled some 49 million views and was promptly mirrored on Roblox. Earlier this month, Game*Spark reported overseas indies being effectively ransomed — pay up or we ship the AI clone first. Escape the Walls still has no Steam page, and a chunk of its audience has already played something else.
The insider take
The Japanese reaction has centered less on Roblox than on a quieter cost: the progress post. Japan's indie and dōjin scene runs on X — twice-weekly GIFs of a mechanic coming together are how solo developers build a following with no marketing budget and no publisher. That channel is now a liability. tomo-mana, developer of Project Solaris, publicly suspended regular progress updates this month, and "don't show it until it ships" is hardening into received wisdom in Japanese dev circles. For a scene whose visibility was built almost entirely on sharing work in public, that's a painful trade.
Originally reported by はてなブックマーク (Japanese).