I didn't realize you rewrote the game from scratch, obviously, and that was a pretty rude assumption on my part; sorry about that. I can definitely understand the chain of events, and I'm not trying to throw shade at picking up someone else's game concept, it's just... well, no matter how much you add, the beginning is too similar to PK to divorce it from the original. Perhaps calling it a "branch off/continuation" or something would be more apt? Less accurate, but it would solve the framing issue.
Knowing that this is effectively an alpha work-in-progress, it should be low-priority to remake the things that already work, but varying up the beginning, even if just in superficial ways, would probably help to shake the comparisons. The problem people seem to have at first blush is that it seems like it's not just a copy, but a knock-off; having a stronger unique "identity" (for lack of a better word) for your game would give it stronger legs to stand on.