A developing situation with Jason

#1

I have been able to put less time than usual in the forum these last couple of days. I’m sorry for that.

There is a situation that I need to devote most of my attention to, at least for a while. Sadly, Jason Rohrer has become very angry with us and is making some demands we have to handle.

His anger was triggered by mistakes with the marketing in China, which he felt confused people and could make them believe that the game originated with us and not him, or alternatively, that people could get the impression that the mobile game was made by him. We of course apologised and corrected the problems he pointed out as soon as possible, but he is now making more demands, some of which could impact the mobile game negatively, and we are scrambling to see what we can do to make it right by him without sustaining too much damage.

While China may have been the trigger, I guess it’s really the number of mobile downloads which has brought the temperature to the boiling point. A PC game and a mobile game sharing the same origin but done by different teams, leads to some people not knowing exactly what the difference is, and since the mobile game is gaining popularity the confusion has become a deal breaker for Jason (or that’s how I understand it).

After some emails where I tried to suggest solutions, Jason took the conversation public in his forum, so that’s where I have responded since. It may not be interesting to you, but I think you are entitled to know about it in case you are. It’s quite a lot, and it’s easy to jump to conclusions if you don’t read through it all. So if you do decide to have a look, please make it a good long one, and reserve your judgement until you have seen it all.

Here is the link to the topic: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=5479

Thanks.

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#2

Good to know. Lets see what we can do to help. I personally have bought this game 4 times already.

2 times the PC vertion and 2 times the mobile vertion.

Me and my wife, we both play this game in both consoles. We are both veterans…

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#3

I was just about to post about this because.

A: Your absence from the forum has been disasterous. See the suicide thread.

B: I’ve been following this issue on the thread at the PC forum.

It appears to me, DualDecade has been less than forthcoming with the public about the origins of the game. That roll out in China and the PR work? It didn’t cover the initial wording that you’d eventually agreed to with Jason. How could that be overlooked?

“that people could get the impression that the mobile game was made by him.” That’s exactly the impression I had when I bought this game. In fact, I gleefully went to the PC forum to sign up only to find I needed the code sent with the PC game to make a profile there. I thought my first encounter with an angry Smithy in game was a well known grumpy guy on that forum. It was some time before I realized that this wasn’t an official port.

Even today your website and this forum make no reference to DualDecade NOT being the creator of this game, that’s it’s been ported to mobile and adapted from the original creator’s open source code. Is that a mistake as well?

“…but he is now making more demands, some of which could impact the mobile game negatively” You’ve said that here and on the PC forum but the rationalization being made as to WHY it might be a negative impact doesn’t wash in my view.

It’s a game. It’s a beautiful, amazing, one of a kind game. I went looking for the real deal and thought I had found it. I’ve expressed disappointment about different changes that have been made which doesn’t follow, as you’ve said, the “gold standard”. If I had been looking for a port by Jason to mobile and couldn’t find it, saw THIS version with the wording Jason wants you to use to differentiate DualDecade’s port from his “official” version, would I have NOT bought the game? Nope. I wanted to play it. I don’t drag my PC with me when I travel. I take my iPad with me. For sure I’d have bought it.

You’re rolling it out to markets where very few, if any, people know about Jason. I don’t see any negative impacts in using the wording he is demanding. People will want to play. They’ll buy it. If push comes to shove you could offer the rest of the world what you offered to the Chinese market, limited free play for a test run. He’s put what, four or five years into the creation of this game? Everything in it is hand drawn by him. You guys got to take that body of work, throw a couple of months at it with a small team and boom! Success!

TLDR: I don’t think his demands are out of line nor do I think it will be damaging to your success.

1 Like
#4

I have read Json’s post.

I do not know the detailed relationship between Json and DualDecade.

The mobile application of DualDecade is based on the Jason specification, it is not an application authorized by Json. Json is angry that this was not publicized to all mobile app users.

Perhaps Json is tired of being inquired at not being his job.

I think that Json is the original author and DualDecade needs to strongly appeal to the reality that it is a secondary creator with the mobile application.

From here another story

And the behavior of mobile apps not written on wiki and onetech at https: //onehouronelife.com/ is not a Jason ignored, it is a bug in DualDecade, is not it?

Even if it is a design bug, if it is public on the public domain, there is only DualDecade to fix.

Christoffer said, the wiki and onetech of https://onehouronelife.com/ are managed by fans.

私はJsonの投稿を読みました。

私は、JsonとDualDecadeの詳しい関係性を知りません。

DualDecadeのモバイルアプリは、Jason仕様に準拠しているだけで、Json公認のアプリケーションではない事。これをモバイルアプリのユーザ全員に周知出来されていなかった事をJsonは怒っているのですね。

おそらく、Jsonは彼の仕事ではない事で問い合わせを受けるのをうんざりしているのでしょう。

Jsonは原作者でDualDecadeは二次創作者という現実を、モバイルアプリで強くアピールする必要があると思います。

ここからは別の話

そして、https://onehouronelife.com/ のwikiやonetechに書かれていないモバイルアプリの挙動は、Jsonが無視した訳ではなく、DualDecadeのバグだったということですね。

仮に設計バグだとしても、パブリックドメインで公開されているものであれば、修正はDualDecadeがするしかありませんね。

Christoffer曰く https://onehouronelife.com/ のwikiやonetechは、ファンによって管理されているとのこと。

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#5

The forum has been in shambles for the past few days.

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#6

The wiki and onetech are not run by either Jason or is, but by fans. There is a Japanese wiki by other fans, that covers mobile.
Onetech was created by @ryanb We have been talking about collaborating to make multi language supported, as well as a version for mobile, but we haven’t gotten far yet.

1 Like
#7

i see jasons point. the game doesnt feel like the original and has other things in it, which are not in the original. so people should know its not the original.

i have two examples for that.

the games monkey island 1 and 2 by ron gilbert were genius. but then the 3rd part was not made by him and i didnt buy it for that reason. the art work was completly different and it wasnt the same experience at all.

the 2nd example

planet of the apes are about 5 movies from the 60s and 70s. there was a remake of the movie in 2014 or something. it was called planet of the apes. but the movie had absolutly nothing to do with the original. the bigger meaning behind the movie was completly lost.

so maybe christoffer you should make the game different from the original so people will know its not the original.

3 Likes
#8

off topic

The wiki and onetech are not run by either Jason or is, but by fans.

Really ? Then, I do not know what is right.
I can not issue a bug report.

I found “This website is an open wiki. Please note that articles and information found within this wiki have not necessarily been reviewed by members of the One Hour One Life development or publishing team or by Wikia, Inc.” in wiki.

I did not think that official information management of one hour one life is not solid.

There is a Japanese wiki by other fans, that covers mobile.

I know it, but that is not a specification. It just summarized the behavior.

We have been talking about collaborating to make multi language supported, as well as a version for mobile, but we haven’t gotten far yet.

Oh. I am expecting you.

#9

Clearly this is misunderstanding. As a player, I’m well aware that this is based from Jason and this is unofficial. You as developer already done what he want (putting the “unofficial title” in startup). It may not too clear as he said, and you maybe not realize with that mistakes. But it’s not an Issue before until trouble happens it becomes an issues.

I like this game so much big thanks to Jason, of course, the creator, and thanks to mobile devs. Although this mobil version is unofficial, i will never take out credit from Jason. All credit belongs to him.

6 Likes
#10

Ouch! I’m glad he’s ok now (or better at least).

This is what the description on AppStore and Google says:
"#1 RPG in 17 countries so far for iPhone, and in 9 countries for iPad!

This is the unofficial expanded version of Jason Rohrer’s desktop game “One Hour One Life”, adapted for iOS. We have added additional play modes as well as changes to make it play better on touchscreens. We are independent developers and the mobile game world resides on our servers."

There is also a splash screen in the game showing a similar message every time you start the app fresh.

The message is the same on AppStore in China, but in Chinese. Since last October, no-one has bought the game without seeing this description first (I can’t promise they read it though). Before that, there was another shorter message and a credit screen to Jason, which appeared when you first launched the game.

What happened in China was that the local publisher wrote a shorter description on TapTap, which omitted this message (even though we sent the full description in Chinese) and also made a video featuring our our team. We didn’t pay enough attention and for that I have apologised to Jason both privately and publicly. We have also inserted the message again, both in the description and video on TapTap.

I hope that answers your question? No-one is making excuses, just explaining and apologising, and fixing the mistakes as best we can.

3 Likes
#11

This whole situation is confusing. Didn’t Jason talk about the mobile private servers idea at one point? Wasn’t that a problem? People want the mobile servers shut down until a “final solution” is found.

#12

I had read everything on the forum. Im starting to get a headache of so much reading. I have change my review of the game in the app store. This is what I write there, Im doing it to at least do a little help:

Time matters.

One hour is a life, one life is an hour.
Great dreams you have, little time you got.
Time is an illusion, an illusion is made with time.
Just remember this: You only have one hour, one life.

This unofficial version of the game make my free time so enjoyable. While I’m in the road, or at my launch break, I can enjoy the joy of playing a really good mobile adaptation of my favorite PC game (One Hour One Life by Jason Rohrer). While im outside my home, I enjoy long hours of mobile game play; and when I finally get home, I jump into the grate community of One Hour One Life.

While the original (Pc version) is way superior in the user interface (mouse and key board). The Unofficial mobile version, give me the joy of playing anywhere.

Thank to the developers for providing me this fun experience of playing anywhere…

I personally have bought this game 4 times already.

2 times the original version, on the PC.
And 2 times this unofficial IOS version.

I really recommend everyone to just don’t try this unofficial mobile version. I recommend everyone to try the original as well.

Thank to the IOS developers. Thank to Jason Rohrer for creating this game in the first place…

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#14

Please don’t pick one post out of context and put it here @WumboJumbo. I meant it when I said that people should read the whole thing before they form their opinion.

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#15

To everyone aware… We the Betta testers knew that this was an unofficial version of the game. We all knew that Jason didn’t want to do anything about it. We knew that the developers where contacting him on everything that they where doing. We also asked several times about it… At the beginning everything was cool…
The popularity of the mobile adaptation was the spark that turn on the fire…
They had offered Jason a cut in several times. He didn’t acepted. Now we all have to suffer from it…

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#16

Yeah, sorry about that. I’m not in a good mood right now.

#17

“If we make everything look according to your specification, then you will have become one of the designers of our app.”

100 percent this. It’s one way or the other.

I’m not against transparency or saying there shouldn’t be negotiations in lieu of Jason’s demands. This is being done simply as a courtesy towards him, to credit him for his creation, the work he has done and also to avoid further escalation of this situation. To me, this seems like a slippery slope. However, I don’t think Jason’s requests are unreasonable but maybe it’s too little too late. Hopefully Jason will be satisfied with the steps being taken to remedy this issue.

4 Likes
#18

Suffer from what exactly? I think I know what you’re implying but I don’t want to second guess you.

People have been issuing bug reports on the mobile version to Jason on Github. People have been emailing him with issues they have with the mobile version. Apparently it isn’t clear enough to the buyers of the game.

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#19

Thanks. You answer most of my questions but omit one. Why does your website and this forum not make clear that this is an unofficial version and credit Jason as the creator?

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#20

Someone also sent a complaint to him about the peace lily, which is exlusive to the mobile version.

#21

Like in a sticky note, you mean? I guess that’s possible. I don’t think anyone here has missed the info though, it’s everywhere on the forum threads. You don’t come here unless you have the app first, and by then you have seen it already.

On our web site it says “One Hour One Life for Mobile is based on the desktop game created by Jason Rohrer, but is separate from it and will run in a separate world,
according to our agreement with him.” I think that is pretty clear.
http://dualdecade.com