I think a hug is a panacea for everything, so here is one in either case 🤗
Darren, the developer of dawn folk and previously Lueur, said that Lost Lands did indeed inspire him to make those games. At first I thought it was a blatant ripoff, so I asked around my friends and other fellow developers. The majority said that this would fall under the category of “heavily inspired by”. I still believe it is the latter, but I dusted it under the “you are just being paranoid” carpet. I will try Dawnfolk to see which one is true, but for now… yeah, I don’t know man.
Onto your other question - I am indeed working on the successor for Lost Settlers called Lost Lands which relies on the same philosophy of making a minimalistic, exploration and discovery based city builder (just in 3D). Hopefully it will be as good as the first one ^^
ps: thank you for posting, makes me feel less alone in my camp :D