{"id":37531,"date":"2025-08-01T06:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T06:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/37531\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T06:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T06:27:11","slug":"developer-of-new-e60-mega-drive-genesis-game-accused-of-using-stolen-artwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/37531\/","title":{"rendered":"Developer Of New \u20ac60 Mega Drive \/ Genesis Game Accused Of Using Stolen Artwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Death<\/a> Image: Kai Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Update [Thu 31st Jul 2025, 5:15pm]:<\/p>\n

Since this article went live earlier today, Krokodyl and other BlueSky users (including IkariDC) have identified more examples of traced artwork in another one of Kai Magazine Software’s games<\/a>: the Sega Mega Drive \/ Genesis action title Metal Dragon.<\/p>\n

This is one of the two games from the company that is currently being sold on an Evercade cart, alongside the video game Life on Mars.<\/p>\n

According to these fresh claims, Metal Dragon features material traced from the 1989 Sega title Tough Turf, as well as a background that is a copy of a piece created for Cardboard Sword’s The Siege and The Sandfox This is an indie game that was released this year for PC earlier this year, but has been sharing development updates for nearly a decade online<\/a>. We’ve reached out to both Evercade and Cardboard Sword for comment, and will update this article once we hear back.<\/p>\n

More stolen assets by Kay Magazine for their game Metal Dragon:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-31T15:07:06.448Z<\/a><\/p>\n

In the intro, the buildings are from a phone wallpaper and the background from an indie game called “The Siege and the Sandfox”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-31T15:08:22.144Z<\/a><\/p>\n

The artwork is literally the banner for the Twitter account of the devs. A version of this artwork was shared as early as 2016:
\nforums.unrealengine.com\/t\/the-siege-…<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-31T15:14:06.104Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Original Story: Kai Magazine Software, the developer of homebrew games like Metal Dragon, Life on Mars, and The Secret of the Four Winds, has been accused of using stolen artwork on its upcoming Western-themed shooting gallery Death & Lead (alternatively titled Dead & Lead).<\/p>\n

The retro developer and fan translator Krokodyl is the person behind the new allegations, having publicly accused the company on BlueSky<\/a> of using “assets traced over existing sprites… and AI-generated backgrounds” for the \u20ac60 game.<\/p>\n

Responding to a video from the YouTuber Retro Gamer Boy<\/a>, Krokodyl outlined an instance where Kai Magazine Software appears to have used AI-generated artwork to create a cutscene background, before listing a number of other occasions where the developer seems to have traced over other pixel artist’s work without their consent.<\/p>\n

This is why you cannot trust YouTubers and publishers in the retrogaming space. This 2025 megadrive game presented as “better than most snes game” has assets traced over existing sprites (Wild Guns and Shinobi III) and AI-generated backgrounds. Garbage game, garbage company, garbage shill youtuber.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-27T16:37:51.065Z<\/a><\/p>\n

I think I found where they lifted the locomotive from:
\nwww.artstation.com\/artwork\/X12rmn
\nIt’s not easy to tell because theirs is lower res but the shapes in the smoke are very similar as well as the details on the engine.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-27T17:22:14.010Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Some examples Krokodyl highlighted, for instance, include Kai Magazine Software lifting animations from classic video games like Shinobi III<\/a> (1993) and Wild Guns<\/a> (1994), and perhaps more egregiously copying the work of a Vietnamese pixel artist named Dwayne Tran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We tried to reached out to Kai Magazine Software on three separate occasions for a comment to see if they had any response to these allegations, but have yet to hear back.<\/p>\n

Reaching out to Tran, one of the artists whose work was allegedly copied, he told us, “This is shocking! I never knew that my artwork was stolen and used for commercial purposes. I can confirm 2 things: The locomotive was indeed a tracing of my original artwork here<\/a> and I’ve never heard of Kai Magazine Software until now and have not received any contact from them [for permission]. I think some actions more or less should be taken for this act”<\/p>\n

According to Krokodyl, this unfortunately doesn’t seem to be an isolated instance either, with the developer later going on to name several more instances present in Kai Magazine Software’s video game Life on Earth, where the studio appears to have, yet again, traced over other people’s animations and assets without their permission.<\/p>\n

This includes tracing over assets from games like Parasite In City (2012) and Blade of Vengeance (1993), material from the anime Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and artwork from Reddit<\/a> and pixel art websites like PixelJoint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The walk animation of the main character<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-30T12:22:33.908Z<\/a><\/p>\n

The walk animation of an enemy<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-30T12:22:53.610Z<\/a><\/p>\n

The “crazy eyes” from the intro is taken from the anime Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-30T12:24:38.211Z<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the spaceship is traced over an existing artwork (www.reddit.com\/r\/PixelArt\/c…)<\/p>\n

\u2014 Krokodyl (@krokodyl.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-07-30T12:36:16.884Z<\/a><\/p>\n

“I can confirm that we never heard about that nor gave any right [for] anyone to do that,” a developer on Planet Centauri told us via Facebook, before later telling Krokodyl, “Thanks for bringing this up. Not sure what we can do on our side but I’ll see with my colleague.”<\/p>\n

As Krokodyl notes, if this was a free fangame, none of this would arguably matter all that much, with most people willing to look the other way for much of the older examples as long as no money was being made, and appropriate credit was given.<\/p>\n

But, considering this is a premium product costing the same as most full-priced Switch games and the developer has also had other games (Metal Dragon\/Life On Mars<\/a>) published on an Evercade cart, it isn’t exactly the greatest look to be borrowing so liberally from other sources without their permission, especially when there is a potential profit to be made.<\/p>\n

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\"Jack<\/p>\n

Hailing from Manchester, Jack has a particular fondness for point-and-click adventure games. In the past, he\u2019s written about lost games from studios like Sony Manchester, Genepool Software, and DMA Design, and has made a habit of debunking video game rumours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Kai Magazine Update [Thu 31st Jul 2025, 5:15pm]: Since this article went live earlier today, Krokodyl and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,21963,21962,50,86,1178,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-37531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-homebrews","tag-mega-drive","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-time-extension","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}