Nice piece AppUnwrapper. But I am still confused, found this review on AppAdvice where it got 4.5/5 and the editor wrote some good things where she find deeper meaning behind the story and the gameplay. And she seems to enjoy playing the game. And then Killscreen also liked the game in their recent preview. I don't know what to believe. Maybe I will sacrifice my 3 dollars to check it out.
It's also worth mentioning the developer apparently did some pretty significant embargo bullying on this game, which has turned me off of it entirely.
I can't really speak about the AppAdvice review. I was amazed they used the buggy level for a gif, without showing the completed level. The rest of it -- it's possible she really did find the game stimulating even though I didn't. I can't really speak on her particular feelings towards the game. In fact, the gameplay video I made was never meant to be so negative. I intended to just show some gameplay and let people decide for themselves, just in case I was too harsh with my review. It turned out that video said more about the game than my review did (which I wrote first, after playing through the game once). As for Killscreen, they don't talk about gameplay (http://killscreendaily.com/articles/note-about-our-reviews-policy/), and apparently that "preview" is a good example of that. It talks about the story, but nothing really about the game itself. Unless I missed the 1-3 words about it? I read it twice and can't find anything about the puzzles themselves. I should also point out that there are currently 5 blocks, not 7. The last 2 are part of the last two chapters that say "coming soon." And finally, as Eli mentioned above, there was some very bizarre embargo nonsense going on here that made me feel the need to let people see what the game actually plays like before they buy it. I don't want to stop anyone from doing so. I just personally can't recommend the game.
Alright, I'll bite. What are we talking about? Do you have any details or a link to something with details? I googled it, but I couldn't find anything.
I am more confused now. TechRadar included them in Best Mobile Games of 2015 and looks like the guy has played the game as well. Check it out: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/50-best-iphone-games-fantastic-free-and-paid-games-1234036 I have bought the game. Will play for for hours and come back with what I think about it. Fingers crossed!
Well I'm seeing good reviews everywhere and I bought it. I seem to enjoy it and it's certainly different than what I normally see on the store. And despite few glitches here and there, I am liking it so far. Sorry AppUnwrapper, but it seems like you personally don't like the game and just want to bash it. Even Alysia from Pocketgamer seems to enjoy it and don't forget 148Apps gave it 3.5/5. It's just you on the internet who doesn't like the game and can't play it properly.
AppUnwrapper didn't "just want to bash it" they wrote an extensive review that took a lot of effort and clearly explained why they didn't like the game. Of course you can disagree, but I'm not sure why you would need to read so many reviews and keep your fingers crossed when you played it in the beta and said it was "amazing"?
It's easy to feel differently about something without being rude, you should try it. It's perfectly ok for someone to not enjoy something that you do.
Schned, I'm kind of confused - I get why you had to do some beta testing, but why did you have to buy your own game?
Hmm, that's interesting. You would think the dev would get the game for free. I swear. Apple with all their rules and regulations.
Shady dev is shady. Thanks for that great detective work, Shaun. I now have zero guilt for my negative review. And thanks to those of you who stuck up for me, even before this info came to light. It's a shame such a sweet story was used for such a nefarious purpose. Edit: And I also now have no problem talking about that whole embargo mess. What happened is that after I emailed the developer about a bug, he tried to tell me the review was embargoed until the 30th, a day after the game would already be available to purchase worldwide. I told him I wouldn't agree to that, and he just wouldn't let it go. That just made me feel that I needed to warn people about it, instead of just tossing it aside as a mediocre game and not reviewing it at all. I mean, I don't review every game I try and I much rather play/review something I'm at least *partially* enjoying. But he seemed to be trying to pull one over people by releasing a trailer that showed almost nothing about the gameplay and then trying to shut up reviewers until after he got some purchases from unsuspecting customers. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, that maybe he just was misled by someone about how to market a game. But what Shaun found just makes this out to be worse than I ever imagined.
AppUnwrapper, I've seen a few times now where you (and other reviewers I respect) have copped flak just for doing what you do. I feel sorry for you guys each time it happens because things always get personal and nasty. I had to restrain myself from commenting in this thread numerous times recently because nobody wants to read an angry tirade and I don't want to be angry when I come to my favourite site. I'm glad you feel no guilt now because you did nothing wrong at all. It was also sweet when Shaun made his post and everything became clear. I guess all I'm trying to say is I hope you don't let this stop you doing what you do, because you're good at it and probably have more followers than you think. You and others in the industry are in a fairly thankless profession so I for one would like to say thank you.
It's time to come out and talk about what's happening. In short - we f**ked it up! It looks like we've disappointed a lot of people during the last week and it's our fault. Being young nerds, we had no idea how to handle such stuff and due to the nervousness of releasing our first game as a full time indie, we over-panicked and took wrong decisions in the process. ROTO was published by a foreign publisher, so we didn't have to deal with this kind of stuff with that game. Stay, Mum is more like our baby, the game that convinced us to drop out of our colleges/offices to work on it and because of the reviews we've been getting on other websites and personally through emails and tweets, we developed the feeling that AppUnwrapper hates the game and wants to bash it, which was obviously not the case. As for the embargo, stuff like that is what was suggested to us by other devs who are already in the industry for a long time. Guess we have to find new friends now. We certainly didn't want to hold back the review because we didn't think the game behaved such badly. We were convinced that it was okay after our beta tests and feedback. We are no good developers, by any means, but our aim is to reach there. The last week has taught us so much about the industry and has given us motivation to make sure our next game makes you forget about our mistakes. We have learned how not to ignore the negative reviews and learn from it. We have learned how to have better beta testing. We have learned a lot of stuff, be it the hard way, which will surely help us in the coming future. We would like to personally apologize to the community and especially AppUnwrapper for our amateur behaviour. We are nothing without you guys and we assure you this is not what we planned to do with the release. May we ask you to not hate us already? We are still very young and have a long way to go, and we certainly can't walk the path alone. We have a lot of interesting stuff planned for the upcoming months and now, we are going to give it more time to make sure it doesn't disappoint like Stay, Mum. As for Stay, Mum, we are working on an update which tweaks the physics behaviour and fixes the glitches in few levels. If you are still interested and want to try out the game just for the sake of all the drama, PM us and we'll be happy to give you a promo code. That's the least we can do.
It's one thing to get caught and maintain a negative attitude about it but it's another to admit your faults and come out about it. If anything, hats off to the devs for publicly coming out about their mistakes. It takes guts to do this and they did. The real test is to see if they've learned from these mistakes and strive positively moving forward.
At no point in the post does the dev outright admit that he was posting as a shill. The worst he admits to is the embargo bullying.
