From a quick glance, The Candy Monster and Cut the Rope appear to be the same game. Both feature round, green monsters in search of sugary snacks. Both monsters have large black and white eyes and similarly shaped teeth. And the aim of both games is guide the monster along a rope-filled course in order to eat a swirly piece of red and cream colored candy. Both games have cardboard box backgrounds and are self-described physics-based puzzle games.
Cut the Rope and The Candy Monster show many similarities.
There is a difference, however. Chillingo’s Cut the Rope has been available since 2010 and spans multiple platforms. The Candy Monster premiered in 2012. Curatus Technocorp, the team behind The Candy Monster, did not respond to requests for comment.
Chillingo isn’t the first company to be subject to cheap imitations. Such photocopying spans all types of verticals, and while it is simpler to tell if a book copies text from another book or if a company uses another’s logo, the relative newness of the mobile industry makes the water a bit murkier.
As a developer it is essential to understand how to recognize when one of your apps is being copied and what you can do (if anything) to rectify the situation.
Why would someone copy an app?
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If a physics-based app becomes a top-seller, chances are that other developers will want to piggyback on that trend for their own gain.
Take HalfBrick studio’s popular game, Fruit Ninja, where users try to slice as many pieces of fruit as possible within a given time limit. In March, Adv Webbing released Vegetable Samurai for iOS. In lieu of fruits, the user slashes vegetables, but the game has a similar look and
