Don't do anything questionable or it will follow you forever. Best example is Terraria, I love the game, but when the creator called it quits on it everyone immediately questioned his motive because he had a Super Mario World clone that was popular and stopped production on it. He claimed Nintendo had sent him a cease and desist order, but from everything I found, Nintendo claims they never sent any such thing. So be honest and upfront about as much as you can.

Do you mean Flappy Bird? Terraria isn't a Super Mario World clone. Flappy Bird uses graphics similar-to/inspired-by Super Mario World (but other than the visuals, gameplay-wise isn't even remotely related).

Doesn't seem to follow him too much if people don't remember what game it was or who made it, despite it only being last year.

In terms of finding friends or potential mates, I would think that its simply an exercise of finding out "Do they only like me because of X" and not "Do they like me, X considered." And this is always the case, its just that X is usually something much more mundane, like your complete collection of My Little Pony figures. That and the fact that certain Xs might attract a certain kind of dishonesty. That said, once you've become X, its as much a part of you as anything else, that you might be rich and represent financial security (or have an epic MLP collection), probably can't form the basis of your life decisions.

Keep your successes close to your chest to start, but there's no use hiding broad strokes. That becomes a bit disingenuous too.

Do you mean Flappy Bird? Terraria isn't a Super Mario World clone. Flappy Bird uses graphics similar-to/inspired-by Super Mario World (but other than the visuals, gameplay-wise isn't even remotely related).

Doesn't seem to follow him too much if people don't remember what game it was or who made it, despite it only being last year.

He's referring to Super Mario Bros. X which, while I haven't played it, is a bit more suggestive. :)

I'd never heard of it pre-Terraria, but apparently it was pretty popular in some circles.

Yeah, the creator of Terraria made Super Mario Bros X and then closed it without notice. I believe a day or two later he posted a thing claiming Nintendo lawyers sent him a cease and desist order or face legal action. Of course several companies went to Nintendo to verify his claim and the last I knew Nintendo still says they never sent any order. Because of all that coming out, when he announced he was going to stop working on Terraria, many became skeptical about his motives.

I played SMBX (basically a Super Mario World clone where you could make your own SMW maps and exchange them with other SMBX users) and Terraria (actually playing it now on my Kindle trying to get the diving helmet) and love both, but just wanted to use his story as an example of being careful with what you say and do as it can have consequences on future projects.

Interesting, I don't recall hearing of it.