Wow, I never expected to become the centre of one of these game dev controversies - I want to set the record straight about some of the misconceptions I'm seeing in this thread.
Firstly, no it isn't coincidential that there's a visual similarity between my game and his. Yes, I was inspired by certain aspects of Kenney's game in designing the visual identity for mine. At the time I didn't believe this stepped over the line of becoming plagarism - after all this is an industry where games are always iterating on previous ideas and that's by and large seen as being a good thing. Especially in this particular genre - where there's only so much you can do visually in the first place - at the time I didn't see it as problematic whatsoever that the games look visually similar. However I've spoken with Kenney directly and come to an agreement with him. It's also not good for the long term success of my game to be seen as plagarising and I would like it to stand on its own merit rather than under his shadow. That's why I've decided to make some changes to create some distance between the two games.
I don't hold any ill will towards Kenney and as far as I'm concerned we're on good terms - yes I do wish we could have resolved the matter privately instead of using the force of 100k Twitter followers against me - which he presumably know would result in the inevitible twitter shitstorm - but I also understand that emotions were running high and I can understand the perspective that he assumed I was acting in bad faith. It's not an ideal situation but it is what it is and as far as I'm concerned this is the best outcome for everyone.
I mean he's an amazing guy, but I also don't think anyone would blame him if he held out some assets for his own personal projects. Also as much as it sucks, games are only as good as their actual execution. That's why soulless asset flips fail, they don't actually have a soul to them and tend to be badly designed. He definitely has that over them and can make a consistent theme unlike them.