itch.io

you should not upload your game version by version. it is discouraged and you might lose privileges

https://itch.io/docs/creators/quality-guidelines#do-not-re-create-your-page-with...

that is what a scammer would say, is it not.

in my opinion, the best thing you can do, to look trustworthy, is to link back to itch from your patreon.

i saw malware here, that did not get flagged at all on virustotal. the counter of malware detections says little. it is annoying that so many game engines do get flagged.

i have seen malware that did not trigger anything on virus total. some game engines unfortunately do trigger rather often. renpy, godot, even rpg maker and many others. it is very bad, because malware can easily be hidden in such games, if people get used to ignore warnings.

since itch does not verify developers, i think it is best to try verify an unknown developer yourself. like finding crosslinked social media.

you link to patreon, but the patreon does not link back... ;-)

the most recent one of course.

wholesome game ;-)

itch has no public reviews. only that 5 star counter. you should not screenshot users and make public what they told in private. it is unprofessional. also you should not call your users idiots, as you did in your devlog.

if you suspect terms of service violation, you should report it. otherwise, as far as i know anyone can review anything and just like "unfair" 1 star reviews are not removed, "unfair" 5 star reviews are not removed either.

if this is review "bombing" (3 reviews over 5 days at the time you called those users idiots in your devlog is hardly a bombing), you can relish in the fuzzy warm feeling that the bombs actually help your game. a game with 10 reviews and a 4.9 looks not as good as game with 20 reviews and 4.0.

and as soon as there is any topic in a game that is even slightly controversial, like ai, a too good 5 star counter actually looks fishy. at least that is my opinion about the matter.

search for the game name on itch. and then please report the scam version.

 itch was contacted almost a week ago. they sit on those reports or they ignore them or they do not believe them. maybe they listen to you. or others reporting the fake.

to tell the truth i did not even know the original was on itch too. but games hosted on dlsite do not appear here on itch as a free full game, just like that. when itch did not remove it from index after several work days, i wondered why the impostor did not use the correct spelling...

so i hope this is not some plot twist, and there are two impostors, since you do not link to dlsite, but the fake project does. ;-)

in case this thread does not get removed, as a caution to all reading this:

you cannot trust scanners. least of all the ones itch is using. no positive scanning result proves nothing.

please use some sort of sandbox mode to execute games from untrusted sources. being hosted on itch is not a trusted source. not even when the game links to socials of the original developer. those other socials need to link back and also need to be genuine.

so to anwer your question about proof, it is by deduction.

there are two curse of dare projects. one uses a misspelled username. one uses a repacked file. one is paid. one is free.

so there are a few possibilities what this could be.

simple piracy. but why impersonate.

scamming for donation money. retrieving the money takes time and is risky.

distributing malware.

the original developer released the game twice with different accounts.

something else.

what would you pick?

why would you install a game from an obvious impostor account in the first place. in case you mistook the link i posted for the link you are on, look again.

but i shall edit the posting to clarify.

itch is not acting against https://delusriaa.itch.io/curseofdares and having that malware impostor crap still indexed even. i suggest you tell itch in no uncertain terms what you think of their service. and maybe leave a report on that game as well. maybe their automated system will take it down if enough reports come in, since they are amateurish enough to not work on weekend, when their users are hacked the most. and yes that crapp was reported several days ago, when there was no weekend.

shame on you, itch, shame on you!

(NOTE this here is the original. the link above is the impostor. just look here https://itch.io/search?q=Curse+of+Dares it STILL shows two of them)

your page is quarantined. it might help if you link from your patreon to itch, and appeal to support with proof that you at least control the patreon, to clear things up. patreon apparantly has better user verification than itch...

unfortunately a patreon link is not proof that a game is genuine, they often do fake this exactly because of concerns like your's. on rare occasion the scammers even reply in comment.

and since the game is quarantined, some people thought the same and reported it. very good. not for this game, but that people are reporting suspicous things.