{"id":137314,"date":"2026-05-25T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-201595"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:30:00","slug":"random-dont-be-fooled-by-google-play-stores-tomodachi-life-clones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/05\/25\/random-dont-be-fooled-by-google-play-stores-tomodachi-life-clones\/","title":{"rendered":"Random: Don&#8217;t Be Fooled By Google Play Store&#8217;s Tomodachi Life Clones"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/56f15e7adf108\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/56f15e7adf108\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture\" data-uuid=\"56f15e7adf108\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/56f15e7adf108\/tomodachi-life-living-the-dream.large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/56f15e7adf108\/tomodachi-life-living-the-dream.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" alt=\"Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: Nintendo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/tomodachi_life_living_the_dream\">Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream<\/a> sales have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2026\/05\/tomodachi-life-living-the-dream-sales-are-off-to-a-flying-start\">got off to a strong start<\/a> in its first month on the market, so it was only a matter of time before knock-offs started cropping up.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re used to seeing all manner of clones on the eShop and other digital storefronts, with their ripped assets usually hidden behind a thinly-veiled key art tweak and title change; what we don&#8217;t often come across is something as shameless as the <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/search?q=tomodachi%20life&amp;c=apps&amp;utm_source=emea_Med\">Google Play Store<\/a>&#8216;s current offerings.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, a brief search for &#8216;Tomodachi Life&#8217; on the Android store brings up not one, but two titles that look eerily similar to the real deal \u2014 like, identical key art and tongue-trippingly close titles. &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.fs.merge.the.meme.game&amp;utm_source=emea_Med\">Tomodachi Life Living Dream<\/a>&#8216; and &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.um.steal.brainrot.game&amp;utm_source=emea_Med\">Tomodochi: Live the Dream Life<\/a>&#8216; (yep, that&#8217;s the real spelling of both) are the prime offenders here, both boasting banner art and screens that appear to be ripped directly from the eShop.<\/p>\n<p>Just take a brief glance at the following screenshot, and you&#8217;ll surely see how some might be fooled:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"picture\" data-uuid=\"0280e91e36451\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Tomodachi Life Google Play\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0280e91e36451\/tomodachi-life-google-play.large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0280e91e36451\/tomodachi-life-google-play.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"2001\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Tomodachi Life Google Play\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Aside from a host of games with naff AI-generated artwork, ZStronics \u2014 the &#8216;developer&#8217; behind one of the above apps \u2014 also has the likes of &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.um.obby.runner.parkour.game&amp;utm_source=emea_Med\">Batman Legacy of the Dark<\/a>&#8216; and &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.um.hellmart.simulator.game&amp;utm_source=emea_Med\">Subnautica 2 Mobile<\/a>&#8216; listings in its back catalogue, each with similarly misleading cover art. Heck, the &#8216;Live the Dream Life&#8217; description is even taken word-for-word from various <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendo.com\/us\/whatsnew\/tomodachi-life-living-the-dream-is-here\/?srsltid=AfmBOorwDLbsrLkyvLHq2HPOtDpdVXIUHEXeEgwzjTy3g4hHwfKiMUvK\">Nintendo news posts<\/a> published in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most hilariously of all, both apps are rated PEGI 12 for &#8216;Horror&#8217; and &#8216;In-game purchases&#8217;, in contrast to the <em>real<\/em> Tomodachi Life, which was awarded a PEGI 3, on account of neither of those being present.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the apps have amassed over 150,000 downloads combined so far, and we can see how people might fall into the trap \u2014 particularly a younger audience. We can&#8217;t imagine the clones will be around for too long, but as a reminder, you&#8217;ll only find the <em>real<\/em> Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream on Switch for the time being.<\/p>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/nintendo-switch\/related-articles:201210,201200,200944 @ 1779726603 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n<p><em>What do you make of these obvious rip-offs? Let us know in the comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: Nintendo Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream sales have got off to a strong start in its first month on the market, so it was only a matter of time before knock-offs started cropping up. We&#8217;re used to seeing all manner of clones on the eShop and other digital storefronts, with their ripped assets usually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}