The developer of Needle in a Haystack Simulator, Nas Nakarus, has introduced a humorous mode called Find the Original Game, which challenges players to locate the original game among numerous copies. This mode is the developer's response to the emergence of a large number of similar projects.
In a publication dated October 27, the developer shared a brief demonstration of the mode on X. According to him, the game had been copied so frequently that the team decided to make a separate gameplay mode out of it. It is not yet known if this mode will be included in the final version.
To recap, Needle in a Haystack Simulator offers players the task of finding a single needle among five million individual straws. In August, a video demonstrating the game garnered over 50 million views on X, after which similar projects began appearing on Steam and Roblox.
As reported by Kotaku, in September no less than eight games with a similar concept were discovered on Steam. By mid-October, the number grew to at least 14. Some were released even before the original game launched. For example, Needle in a Haystack by NoGlyph went on sale on September 29.
The situation escalated to the point where on October 17, NoGlyph accused the creators of another imitator, A Game About Needle in a Haystack, of stealing the program code. The studio claimed that identical classes, functions, and error messages were found in the game. The developers lodged a complaint with Valve.
Amid the rise of numerous copies, Nas Nakarus even had to add an ORIGINAL label on the game's capsule in Steam so that users could distinguish it from imitators.
It is noteworthy that the original Needle in a Haystack Simulator is published by Polden Publishing. Its release is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026. This week, playtests are set to begin, with over 23,000 people having applied to participate.