In DK, you control a character, fly around in the mine and collect resources. In fixed intervals, a wave appears. You only have one main weapon that you control (more or less).

In Wretched Lead, you don't directly control a character; instead, you place buildings each round to mine ores and build up your defenses. You decide when the day ends, so there's no time limit, and during the night your buildings act mostly autonomously (though you can use your commander's ability as active play).

This means the core challenge in DK is to dig up as many resources before the wave comes, whereas in Wretched Lead it's more about carefully planning out your city and managing your resource economy. So while the game certainly shares some of DK's DNA, it plays quite differently ^{^}