2019-01-30 20:37:25

Dear Friends

We have some good and some bad news about the launch of GoldGun Episode 1 which was schedule for 31st January 2019.

The good news are that Android players will be able to enjoy the adventures of Soren according to plans.

The bad news are that Apple players will have to wait. Our game has not passed their quality control, regarding "Design". They demand from us to add a Back button.

We answered them like this: "It's unfortunate this was not identified in the previous built as then it could have been remediated in this version. Our app does have a return to the main menu (or back button) feature on the game screen, even if you do not see it. It's a gesture of tapping the screen with two fingers simultaneously twice. The How To Play section on the main game menu explains this.

The primary audience for this app is blind and visually impaired people and our internal testing has shown these gestures are more familiar for blind people to use. This is because the gestures are similar to those used on a screen reader. Adding a button on the screen will have a negative impact to the overall user experience for the apps' primary audience for two reasons:

1. A button will be likely be accidentally pressed interrupting game play and frustrating the player
2. A button would require screen reader support in game, which would drown out the in game audio as every time they tap or interact it would prompt a reaction for the screen reader.

I'd ask you reconsider the rejection of this app as the suggested change would be detrimental to the core audience, and as the feature is implemented in a non visual way."

Despite our explanation, the built was rejected.

We will work to solve this problem tomorrow 9:00 am sharp, and add the button they so much wish. We apologize for the delay to all the players who wanted to test the game asap.

mytruesound.com - we hear the difference

2019-01-30 20:41:35

Well, on the bright side... I am not affected by this change. But good luck with iOS.

"You know nothing of death... allow me to teach you!" Dreadlich Tamsin
Download the latest version of my Bokura no Daibouken 3 guide here.

2019-01-30 21:22:09

Once again Apple screws the pooch. And no, after the Facetime shenanigans I'm not giving them anymore free passes on anything. And a back button is going to seriously interfere with the game which makes me wonder if the rejection team even playtested the damn thing blindfolded or not, or are just looking for a reason to reject the blasted thing. *sigh*

2019-01-30 21:41:18

Well, that makes absolutely zero sense.  I’ve played lots of audio games that don’t have a back button, so what’s this all about?

2019-01-30 21:49:05

dalen lewin wrote:

Well, that makes absolutely zero sense.  I’ve played lots of audio games that don’t have a back button, so what’s this all about?

Do you ask from us?
Before they asked better visuals. We explained them that most of our players didn't actually care about those, and they said "do it". So we did. And now is this. We explained them that this will affect playability and functionality. And they said "do it". So we will do.

We know the game is not perfect, sure, and that we will improve on the next episodes. But their demands (or at least the demands of the person in charge of our review) don't make any sense.

We are sorry. But we will get it there soon. We won't stop here.

However, that brings us a very valuable lesson for future games.

mytruesound.com - we hear the difference

2019-01-30 22:23:26

I don’t really care about the back button, as long as it won’t ruin the game. But, good luck on resolving this problem

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2019-01-30 23:01:56

Lol I don't know what to do but to scratch my head at whoever at apple is testing this thing. Pretty sure the inquisitor series and a blind legend don't have back buttons. Although, to be fair, us on android have had back buttons forever, but its to the right of the home button, so as long as we play above home then we're fine.

2019-01-30 23:41:53

Here's the thing though, Android is not a problem at all. Google Play is letting the app straight on through.

2019-01-31 00:23:54

Yup, I won't be afected by this, but I wish you good luck.
And, I've played a blind legend on an iphone and it didn't have any back buttons, at least not something I could see.
I am looking forward to your projects.
And Kenshira, now buttons can be hidden because they are on screen, so, we can play all over the place, at least these with a newer phone than my a5 2016 with phisical, off screen buttons.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2019-01-31 00:29:25

Hi, Feer don't have a back button, you need to press with two fingers and tap leave to exit the game to the main menu. So... What?

I am a gamer from the begining of my life, and that will not change :p

2019-01-31 00:55:01

Welcome to the wonderful world of IOS development.

Much less active on this forum than in the past.

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2019-01-31 03:45:14

jack wrote:

Once again Apple screws the pooch. And no, after the Facetime shenanigans I'm not giving them anymore free passes on anything. And a back button is going to seriously interfere with the game which makes me wonder if the rejection team even playtested the damn thing blindfolded or not, or are just looking for a reason to reject the blasted thing. *sigh*

I have been wanting to switch to android for a while, but I just did not want to deal with learning a knew phone. Now, I think my opinion has changed. Also, I just found out that you can use NVdA remote on an android, so that sways my opinion even more.

2019-01-31 03:45:50

Yeah welcome to the world of annoying iOS app store rejection

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2019-01-31 04:38:22

@MichaelJ

To sway you even closer, Android strangely enough, has a wonderful  "ISO To USB" application, which you can find here , though ignore the bad reviews and try it out for yourself before coming to a conclusion.
NB. Successful burnning of an Ubuntu 18.04 ISO was done today using said app.

Back to the matter at hand here...

A "back?" button... A "back!" button, which I also wrote on Twitter today. Eep I do say, eep!

2019-01-31 05:21:21

Once again Apple screws the pooch. And no, after the Facetime shenanigans I'm not giving them anymore free passes on anything. And a back button is going to seriously interfere with the game which makes me wonder if the rejection team even playtested the damn thing blindfolded or not, or are just looking for a reason to reject the blasted thing. *sigh*What makes me even more mad is this is a quality game we were talking about that got rejected, yet Apple was willing to bend over backwards for you know who when they threw a fit over some new app store guidelines. So where do they draw the line if there even is one? Is it because those games had interfaces anyway? Do those games have graphics (probably.) But then they take a quality game like Gold Gun and reject it just because of the sissy back button or lack thereof? In-friggin-credible.
To that end I do wish you the best of luck getting it into the store, the Apple rejection crew really are a right royal pain to deal with.

2019-01-31 05:28:25

Right then, so am I to understand that this project is being delayed over a measly back button, when a certain company whined over restrictions being placed on the amount of apps it could distribute, and won on quite flimsy evidence? Seems pretty unfair to me...

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-01-31 06:53:30

It may be possible to have a button that only appears when voiceover is disabled. might be worth looking in to.

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2019-01-31 06:59:45

Now that you mention that, I do remember that actually being possible. I think Amazon might've exploited that in an app of there's, having a button only show up if voiceover was off. That's a good call, because the game can be played with voiceover enabled due, but we're talking game vs shopping application with two very different codebases here so I"m not sure how exactly one would tackle this. See, this is why a physical or software back button always wins the day. People are aware of where it is even though it's always there, so they generally don't hit those areas anyway. I'm talking the android bottom button bar (back, home, recent apps).

2019-01-31 08:56:40

Indeed thats what I was getting at earlier. Btw, is the scribble to go back jesture voice over specific? I can't remember.

2019-01-31 09:28:37

It's a voiceover gesture, but other apps have adopted the concept when building touch interfaces.

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2019-01-31 11:00:09 (edited by defender 2019-01-31 14:14:42)

Edit
So after talking to some people off forum I discovered that the visual component guideline is allot less strict than I thought. Originally... Initially I was advocating for a post to be made on apple vis and a feedback link attached so we could maybe get apple to drop the requirement for audio games, but I guess all they are asking for is a properly sized image and some text saying what the game is to be shown.
I still don't get why it needs to be a thing for audio games, especially when sighted people tend to get a kick out of the hole black screen instructions in your ears thing, but it's not that big of a deal either when you can just replace that with a neat static background image.
Though since this is voice over navigated and not self voicing with very basic controls like some previous games have been, I feel like it should definitely have some large text navigation as well, for partially sighted users who don't use voice.
It sucks that this is going to slow down the launch, but this probably should have been considered allot sooner unless it's not mentioned anywhere.
Plus I'm sure the rule exists for a reason, probably some assholes finding a loophole that caused problems at some point, therefore ruining it for everyone else.

2019-01-31 13:38:17

I would actually like to know the sections of the human interface guidelines that were violated. As frustrating as it is for people to read, I agree with fair enforcement of these guidelines. This is a tough learning experience for the team, but this may help other developers better understand what needs to be done in future to avoid appstore rejections.

Much less active on this forum than in the past.

Check out my live streams: http://lerven.me
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2019-01-31 15:46:10

Sorry to hear about the Ios delay, apple can be a pain about accessibility.

I'll look forward to trying the game when its through all the hurdles and available.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-31 23:20:40

Hi and thanks for the support. It has been an strange day, but we updated today the new version with the back button on, and it will come sooner or later there.

On the mean time, here is the link for the Play Store
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … nd.GoldGun

disclaimer: we noticed in Play Store that search words "Gold Gun" (like separated in two words) don't produce the right result. "GoldGun" all together does. We will try to change it, so both search options lead to the right destination.

thanks again for all support.

mytruesound.com - we hear the difference

2019-01-31 23:30:55

now will wait for the iOS version to come out. if it comes out very soon, I'm going to try it out.

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!