A couple days ago, a independent game called Hot Mess was rejected for the second time during Apple’s review process.
In Hot Mess, players step into the shoes of a firefighting robot who goes haywire, and mistakes the burning passion of romance as the flame that burns down houses. He thinks couples kissing is dangerous, and therefore tries to hose them down to avoid fires.
The reason for this rejection was because there were 8-bit animated people kissing, and these said people were naked. So, after the first rejection, Atlanta-based indie game developer Secret Library fixed the problem (sort of) by putting underwear on the happy couples.
Sadly, Apple rejected Hot Mess once again due to this rule stated by Apple:
“App Store rule 16.1, states that apps must not feature “highly objectionable” or “crude” content, which of course is at the discretion of Apple. Despite adding the underwear, Apple still ruled that the game contained crude content.”
After the second rejection, Secret Library tweeted:
Rejected again! “Specifically, we noticed your app displays a barely dressed couple kissing.” Well, HOT MESS might be more like WARM MESS.
— Secret Library (@Secret_Library) November 5, 2013
Then, early this moring, around 4:00 a.m., Hot Mess was released.
Whoa, HOT MESS just got changed from “rejected” to “approved” without us resubmitting… thanks @britishgaming @andychalk @owengood?!?
— Secret Library (@Secret_Library) November 7, 2013
I’m not sure why Apple suddenly decided to release it–some say because of publicity, which could very well be true.
Anyway, I went ahead and bought myself a copy last night and I fell in love with the premise. The controls could use some tweaking, though. The people are hard to notice during gameplay, making Apple’s rant a little excessive. All that I know is that if you want to play Hot Mess, pick it up today because it could very easily be pulled.
