Over 19,000 new games were released on Steam last year, almost an unimaginable amount. So it doesn’t really come as a surprise that a few of all the new releases would share some similarities and even possibly the same name. But there’s Piece by Piece and Piece by Piece, two games from indie devs that share the same name and released within a few days of each other.
It all came to light in a one-off Reddit post where someone pointed out the uncanny situation (via Polygon). You see Piece by Piece from developer Neon Polygons is a puzzle platformer with 100 levels to get through which was released on March 13, and Piece by Piece from Gamkat is a cosy repair shop sim which released on March 11. It’s quite the coincidence.
Some fans thought that this close likeness could end badly for one of the devs, but after reaching out to one another, both sides realised that there was actually nothing to worry about.
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“One of the devs on the other Piece by Piece here, No More Robots & Gamkat have been absolute class to work with,” a developer from Neon Polygons explained. “As a small indie team you might imagine how we felt when we first saw No More Robots’ Piece by Piece. They’ve handled this coincidence with nothing but grace and we’re honored to share the same name/launch week as them. Cheers guys.”
I feel this is going to mislead a lot of people. from r/Steam
“The actual situation, is that both ourselves and the dev team behind the other Piece by Piece somehow managed to announce the same week of release for both our games,” a developer from Gamkat revealed. “Had a good laugh about it together, and then put both games into a Steam bundle together. Not exactly sure how anyone is being ‘mislead’, but on our side, we’re all happy and having fun with it.”
In the end both games launched without a hitch and even teamed up in a Piece by Piece double bundle in which you can buy both games at a discounted price. “It’s crazy to think that if you act like human beings about a situation, it somehow ends up great??” Gamekat’s dev says. “Who would have guessed.”