Devolver Digital has made an interesting claim today, accusing Fabulous, the developers of Fabulous - Daily Motivation, of ripping off the work of GRIS in one of their trailers.
Devolver made this claim on Twitter, showcasing scenes of GRIS and Fabulous next to each other. Both games showcase a woman wearing a cloak that seems to flow around them while standing in a giant human hand. Another scene showcases the woman levitating, falling down, then standing back up using very similar animations. Finally, the tweet ends showing both women falling down a pit using similar animations. While calling Fabulous' take on the scenes a direct copy wouldn't be entirely accurate, they certainly use almost the exact same art style, symbolism, and extremely similar animations.
Gamasutra reached out to Fabulous to ask about the accucation, and CEO Sami Ben said that the Fabulous trailer that had the artwork was made by a team of freelancers. Furthermore, while the company is investigating how this happened, they insist that the similarities were not intentional. His statement is as follows:
Fabulous has a mission to help people lead healthier lives, and we started this 5 years ago. From the very beginning, and as we are gamers ourselves, we were inspired by games like Journey, Monument Valley, and books like the Little Prince or The Alchemist, to create our universe. We have a team of 2 artists and freelancers, and that video was created a few months ago. We're still investigating this as all of this has been sudden, but any wrongdoing from our side is not intentional. It might be that one of our artists or freelancers got inspired by a game that they liked.
GRIS is currently available on PC, Nintendo Switch, and iOS devices. Fabulous - Daily Motivation is currently available on iOS devices.
