Rule 6.4 - Mac apps being too similar to their iOS versions

All 5 of our adventure games failed their reviews on the Mac App Store last night for violating rule 6.4, stating that they seem like unmodified ports of the iOS versions.

This is both true and false, we’ve changed enough to make the games work on single touch and full screen etc ( and the camera feature in the games has been a bit of a headache for this ) however we haven’t changed the gameplay or interface as we feel that point and click games work perfectly well as they are via both touchscreen and mice.

To the few people who have managed to get their Corona games ported to the Mac App Store, did you have this issue or did yours get allowed through without change?

This isn’t an answer to your question, but I couldn’t resist commenting. What a bogus reason for rejecting an app! iOS and OS X are completely different platforms and it is hubris to assume that all OS X users are also iOS users. What’s wrong with porting a game as-is to OS X so long as it’s not dependent on touch controls? That’s like saying the IBM version of Maniac Mansion was “too close” to the C64 version (if you’ll forgive my old-man example). Similarity between versions is the whole point when porting to a different platform! Have you appealed yet? This seems like a reviewer sticking too close to the letter of the law and ignoring its intent. Please let us know how you resolve this situation - I’m very curious.

i think you’ve ( hopefully ) hit the nail right on the head there. All 5 apps went into review at the same time, and all 5 failed at the same time, which leads me to believe that it was the same reviewer that failed all 5 of them.

We’ve appealed so will hopefully hear back soon.

To echo Jason, this would be SUPER weak if it was an across-the-board ruling. I also think that your appeal will go your way. I heard that Fire Maple Games has put a bunch of their games through the review process (with one passing, I believe?) and I highly doubt they flipped their gameplay on it’s head, as this reviewer seems to think necessary.

Keep fighting the good fight, Graham. Keep us updated! Below is an artists representation of what it would look like if this happened to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SruXEtYj4_8

I’ve had to submit Omniblaster 3 times. The first rejection was due to device detection and it came up as an Android device and errored out due to the plugin failing. Once I fixed it and resubmitted it it, I resubmitted the wrong version (same bug), which got rejected again, but there were two other rejections included:  I used OSX in the name of the app and they said it was too low quality and looked like a port of an iOS game.

I resubmitted with the right version with the bug fixed, changed the name in iTunes Connect and waited. I got a note a little while ago that it’s processing for the app store, so whoever reviewed it this time passed it.

Rob

Yea I’m thinking it was just a reviewer being a little too strict. I didn’t want to mention any other games in the appeal form in case they realised they let them through wrongly and pulled them.

Hopefully if we resubmit all of them then we may be able to get through under a different reviewer. Fingers crossed :slight_smile:

The appeal went through successfully and they have said that Episode 1 is not in fact in violation of that rule. In the appeal form I listed our 4 other games and said that we would like them looked at but not sure if it’ll work that way or if I’ll have to appeal each one individually.

I decided to just try mu luck and resubmitted all 5 games, hopefully they’ll get into review quicker this time round.

That’s good news! Let us know when they’re live in the App Store - I might like to give them a try again on the “big screen.” :slight_smile:

Will do! They were Waiting for Review for over a week, not sure if they’ll be that long again though.

We’re also going to be releasing on itch.io, justadventure.com, and adventuregamers.com. Sadly we’re not able to release on GOG but are considering Steam, not sure how that will go though.

That’s awesome news! Congrats!

Thanks!

Hi Graham, thanks for posting this thread - definitely helps in preparation of a few of my games for OS X.  Looking forward to seeing your games in the OS X App Store :wink:

So are we! We’re still waiting for the games to back into review, I’ll make sure to keep this thread updated with anything that happens.

Very happy to say that all 5 games went into review last night and as of this morning are all approved and pending developer release :slight_smile:

We just need to sort out installers for the Windows versions then we will be good to go.

This isn’t an answer to your question, but I couldn’t resist commenting. What a bogus reason for rejecting an app! iOS and OS X are completely different platforms and it is hubris to assume that all OS X users are also iOS users. What’s wrong with porting a game as-is to OS X so long as it’s not dependent on touch controls? That’s like saying the IBM version of Maniac Mansion was “too close” to the C64 version (if you’ll forgive my old-man example). Similarity between versions is the whole point when porting to a different platform! Have you appealed yet? This seems like a reviewer sticking too close to the letter of the law and ignoring its intent. Please let us know how you resolve this situation - I’m very curious.

i think you’ve ( hopefully ) hit the nail right on the head there. All 5 apps went into review at the same time, and all 5 failed at the same time, which leads me to believe that it was the same reviewer that failed all 5 of them.

We’ve appealed so will hopefully hear back soon.

To echo Jason, this would be SUPER weak if it was an across-the-board ruling. I also think that your appeal will go your way. I heard that Fire Maple Games has put a bunch of their games through the review process (with one passing, I believe?) and I highly doubt they flipped their gameplay on it’s head, as this reviewer seems to think necessary.

Keep fighting the good fight, Graham. Keep us updated! Below is an artists representation of what it would look like if this happened to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SruXEtYj4_8

I’ve had to submit Omniblaster 3 times. The first rejection was due to device detection and it came up as an Android device and errored out due to the plugin failing. Once I fixed it and resubmitted it it, I resubmitted the wrong version (same bug), which got rejected again, but there were two other rejections included:  I used OSX in the name of the app and they said it was too low quality and looked like a port of an iOS game.

I resubmitted with the right version with the bug fixed, changed the name in iTunes Connect and waited. I got a note a little while ago that it’s processing for the app store, so whoever reviewed it this time passed it.

Rob

Yea I’m thinking it was just a reviewer being a little too strict. I didn’t want to mention any other games in the appeal form in case they realised they let them through wrongly and pulled them.

Hopefully if we resubmit all of them then we may be able to get through under a different reviewer. Fingers crossed :slight_smile:

The appeal went through successfully and they have said that Episode 1 is not in fact in violation of that rule. In the appeal form I listed our 4 other games and said that we would like them looked at but not sure if it’ll work that way or if I’ll have to appeal each one individually.

I decided to just try mu luck and resubmitted all 5 games, hopefully they’ll get into review quicker this time round.