Hi everyone! I'm from Piston Games developer company. Last friday one of our employee start the thread "Puzzle games under censure?" After few pages with discussion, thread was deleted and user was banned for shilling. The thread about our recent game The Screetch was closed without any reason. I agreed, this was not so fair to hide that he is from our team, but we think that starting so debatable topic from developer account will be not right. Technically Harry isn't shill, because he really care about this problem, and he just work together with us. Anyway, I'm sorry for this incident, but let's back to the topic if it was deleted, maybe we find some unwanted information? Now I write this without any possibility to be blame for shilling. I'm from Piston Games company and we specialize on producing puzzle games. Our recent game was covered by many sites, include TUAW, AppAdvice and so on. We try to find way to be reviewed by TouchArcade and some other leading iPhone gaming sites without success. So we start analyze situation, read last months archives and find that there is no info about great puzzle games, just because it's puzzle or match3. Forget about The Screetch. There are a lot of gems: Flipstones by PressOK, Diabolika by Derek Yu, Droplitz Delight, Bad Apples this list can be continued. And now look at main page of TA: there are no any puzzlers instead of games with big title (Castlevania) or big publisher (Hellsing Fire). Castlevania Puzzle just using the name of great action-rpg, but Puzzle clone Columns mechanics. Look at all-time top sales games: tetris, bejeweled, lumines. They all are puzzles and match3. As developer and as reader, I would like to be sure that TA team is high-professional journalists. And real pro not repeat after pr-companies, he search for great games and make them covered. After this incident, TouchArcade make one post about Puzzle Cosmos but this is looks more like for hushing up a scandal. So why TA ignoring puzzle genre, write about everything not so interesting, fun and addictive, but non-puzzle? So I would like to discuss: why puzzle genre under censure?
Its against the rules. If you are incapable of reading/understanding these simple rules then no one can help you here Rules : http://forums.toucharcade.com/announcement.php?f=2
As explained in the previous thread, there is no censorship going on here. They review every game which they find worth reviewing no matter the genre. Your's didnt cut it. End of story.
It's not about our game. I show a list of great puzzlers that was not covered just because of puzzle genre. And a lot of people agreed in deleted thread — some of them are banned too. So I would like to discuss the situation — really cool puzzle games underrate. On the other hand there are a lot of not so cool games, that was covered just because they already comes from famous publisher or they just not puzzlers.
Wow. All the ones who got banned were shills. Want me to post all their IP addresses along with yours here I'm now starting to regret why I opted for a tempban for you instead of perma ban. My bad for thinking you should get another chance in case you didnt know the rules (slight chance but still gave the benefit of the doubt.)
One more time it's not about banning and acting against the rules. It's about TA policy about puzzle games.
What the heck is brainsolid talking about? This is TA's place and there are TA's rules. Brainsolids logic or general rules don't apply here. And if he has breached the rules, he has to deal with the consequences. And: I never found a forum which is so OPEN to my favourite puzzle and match-3 games. Look at other forums worldwide... talking about Eliminate, N.O.V.A., Archetype all day long. Heck.. this is so boring. On TA, I am always finding more than enough information about good puzzle games - meanwhile, we have some very big threads about puzzles. Here's an example: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=33144 Every good puzzle, regardless if there's a big company behind or a small / indie developer is presented here, there are many impressions, recommendations and discussions about puzzle games. The first page alone has more content about good puzzles than I am able to play. Google "puzzle" on TA'S Google page and you'll find dozens of threads more. What you are doing now is just a lame excuse to justify your behaviour. brainsolid, you breached the rules. Live with it. P.S.: Gotta remind myself to avoid buying games from a shady, shilling developer. edit: on TA's front page is an index about frontpage featured games. Look at it: Action (440) Adventure (155) Arcade (11) Augmented Reality (3) Bear Driving Simulator (2) Board (27) Card (21) Castle Defense (2) Demo (3) Drawing (15) Fighting (42) First Person Shooter (53) Massive Multiplayer (MMO) (17) Maze (70) Music / Rhythm (48) Pinball (14) Platform (164) Puzzle (404) Quiz (5) Racing (177) Retro (198) Role-Playing (154) Shooter (354) Simulation (138) Sports (143) Strategy (139) Time Management (19) Tower Defense (53) Virtual Pet (9) Wi-Fi Multiplayer (12) Word (17) So... do you notice something?
I'm talking not about TA forums, but about TA frontpage and reviewing policy. Look at Puzzle category. Where is Flipstones, Diabolika, Droplitz Delight, Bad Apples, Booty blocks reviews? These games are best examples of puzzle genre, but they wan't be covered at all.
Brainsolid, as I think the other thread said, there are just SO MANY puzzle games that to be reviewed you can't just be good... You have to be the best. Your game just isn't there yet. End of story.
Alex, are you really sure, that you read what I said? It's not about our game, I show you a list of gems in puzzle genre. They all have original mechanics, you can't find anything similar in AppStore. They all looks eye-candy. It's high quality games, that was missed just because they are puzzlers.
Heck... o.k., I post the list again and this time I mark the three MOST featured genres: Action (440) (1st place) Adventure (155) Arcade (11) Augmented Reality (3) Bear Driving Simulator (2) Board (27) Card (21) Castle Defense (2) Demo (3) Drawing (15) Fighting (42) First Person Shooter (53) Massive Multiplayer (MMO) (17) Maze (70) Music / Rhythm (48) Pinball (14) Platform (164) Puzzle (404) (2nd place) Quiz (5) Racing (177) Retro (198) Role-Playing (154) Shooter (354) (3rd place) Simulation (138) Sports (143) Strategy (139) Time Management (19) Tower Defense (53) Virtual Pet (9) Wi-Fi Multiplayer (12) Word (17) Do you understand now? Puzzle genre has more features than even the shooter genre has. And it is impossible to feature ALL puzzles. There is a bunch of them released every single day at the AppStore. I guess you're just a little pissed, that's all. Stop spreading wrong assumptions, what you're saying here is simply ridiculous.
Vovin, maybe it's because there are such posts under puzzle like this, this and this one? It's actions, shooters, adventures, but not puzzlers. Anyway this isn't answer why games that I listed wasn't covered. Ok, AppStore have many puzzles, but these are unique and really cool.
@Vovin: Dont you know the Match 3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 are the ONLY possible type of games which can be considered as puzzlers. Unless your game is a clone of that genre, its not a Puzzler. Lets call up arn right now so he can rectify this dumb mistake
Max Vector may be an exception - but Prisoner 84 and this Whizzley platformer have a lot of puzzle content, as well as Babylon Twins (a puzzle platformer) or even Amateur Surgeon, Alice's Adventures and Entombed. These are no true puzzle games, these are hybrids - born from a few different genres - but I would count them to the puzzle genre without hesitation.
Even Max Vector showed up in that list only coz the article covered another game Amor, which happens to be a puzzler. But I guess Brainsolid's brain inst solid enough to understand such simple facts maybe
Diabolika is over a year old (TA Thread only has 10 posts) TA only has a few reviewers. None liked it enough at the time to review it. Droplitz Delight only has 1 review in the store. http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/08/review-droplitz-delight-puzzle-dialed-kids/ "Though the style of the game is geared for kids, the gameplay itself may be too challenging." http://www.gamezebo.com/iphone-games/droplitz-delight/review "May not be different enough from original." iTunes Ratings 3 star Flipstones 3 star Bad Apples 3 star Booty Blocks 3 star The Screetch Do you know of any recent 4 star puzzlers with 100+ iTunes ratings that were skipped by TA?
