Two indie studios have scrapped public tests of their games in the same week out of fear that AI tools could decompile the test build and turn it into a clone released before the original. Digital Sun, the studio behind Moonlighter, dropped the public Steam playtest of ReVamp, and Alliance Arts did the same with the Drunken Goddess Reflux demo.

What each studio announced

According to VGC and Game Developer, Digital Sun (Valencia, Spain) had planned a public playtest of ReVamp, its "Tower Defensevania," to gather feedback and metrics. In a statement on Steam and Bluesky, the studio swapped that plan for a smaller test limited to its Discord server, starting October 29, and says it hopes to open a public test around January. Its reasoning: it said it was concerned by recent news of games being reverse-engineered, cloned and published before the original is even out, and with launch still months away, a large public build "felt like too big a risk."

KeenGamer reports a similar case: publisher Alliance Arts cancelled the public demo of Drunken Goddess Reflux, planned for October 19. According to the site, the Steam notice says works imitating the game's presentation and gameplay could be produced quickly with AI. The game has over 500,000 wishlists, and applications for a closed playtest run until October 22. The site also cites worries about not being able to control the sharing of gameplay videos.

Why AI is part of the conversation

Game Developer says indie developers report on forums such as Reddit that demos, trailers and images of unreleased games are being fed to AI models to rebuild their core mechanics. The outlet notes that game mechanics have limited copyright protection and that models such as Claude and ChatGPT are already being used to decompile older games and make mods. Fast clones are nothing new (Ridiculous Fishing and Threes! were copied on mobile years ago), but AI could lower the cost sharply.

The context also appears on Portal GTA 6: last week, decomp.dev announced it is shutting down, saying AI broke the community side of decompilation, and VGC itself links the two stories.

What is still unknown

  • None of the sources confirms that a clone of ReVamp or Drunken Goddess Reflux exists: the concern is preventive.
  • Reports of AI being used to clone games come from developers on forums and have not been independently verified.
  • There is no official response from Valve or other stores about new rules for test builds.

For players, the practical consequence is fewer open tests and more invitations and lotteries, like Digital Sun's Discord test and the Drunken Goddess Reflux closed playtest. ReVamp is still expected in March 2027, according to the press.