Update: Unpacking Master has also now been removed from the Google Play store, which means it’s no longer available there or on iOS, great news for Witch Beam and well done everyone who went in there and filed a complaint!
Indie developer Witch Beam’s Open the package is one of the unexpected hits of 2021, and at the same time a relaxing meditative puzzle game, a creative and fun tactile play space and a deep contemplation of the impossible passage of time. prevent. We gave it a great 9 out of 10 in our glow reviewsay it “cleverly applying existing game design ideas from completely different genres.”
However, now, Witch Beam has taken to social media through the game Official Twitter account to warn fans about an “advertising puzzle” by Unpacking that has skyrocketed the charts on both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. To the untrained eye, the split – cheekily named “Unlocked Master” – looks quite similar to Witch Beam’s game in the screenshot provided by the developer, though without the stylized pixels of the original.
Witch Beam went on to say that they have obviously seen a lot of imitators, but this is especially bad because it has gained a lot of traction and is heavily advertised on both TikTok and Instagram. It then goes on to highlight similarities with side-by-side comparisons of the art from each game:
It’s obviously a very painful situation for the indie team, as they themselves say;
“It’s dismaying for a small team like us to see content that we spent years planning, refining, and crafting hastily reproduced in an app with opportunistic ads. 3 months after debut.”
Thankfully, as of this morning, and without a doubt, thanks to the complaints from fans of the game who warned Witch Beam of the situation in the first place, Unpacking Master has been removed from the Store Apple’s iOS app, where it has been placed at #1 in the free games rankings. However, the clone game is still at the top of the Google Play free games chart at 3rd place with over a million downloads as of now.
Let’s hope that this software is obtained from Google Play as quickly as possible. In fact, maybe we should all go in there and warn the store that it’s a blatant copy.
What do you think of these free clone games and how fast they appear on mobile stores? What to do so they don’t hurt and blatantly profit from indie developers like this? Let us know in the comments section.
