Missing Removed Features
3
By matte042232
I’d like to start, as many others have, by saying that I used to really enjoy this game. It’s satisfying, I enjoyed the metrics, and the challenges felt appropriately difficult without being impossible. Ads, in my opinion, were not too frequent. It was a calming way to end the day, and truly was one of my favorite and most used apps.
My one criticism, that seems to unfortunately be a pattern, is that the developers continue to remove valued features in favor of keeping things “fresh,” and it really cuts into enjoyment of the app. While I understand the desire to appeal to new audiences, alienating the one you have is, to me, not the way to go.
I played this game every night to go to sleep, up until they recently removed the ability to change the color scheme of the app. It seems like such a small detail, but I was using the wood option, which was made up of calming/neutral tones. Now, the only option is blue on white, which frankly strains my eyes a bit, feels sterile, and takes away from the experience. This option used to be toggle-able, which I thought was ideal. I understand that others probably do prefer the white/blue option, but the key is having the choice, which is already rare in the App Store. I reached out to the devs because I really did want to keep playing and was hopeful I was missing the button to switch it back, but was disappointed to find out that wasn’t the case. The reason they removed it was cited as not enough people using it, as “we were spending a lot of resources on something that wasn't making our product better for everyone.” Weirdly, that stung a little. How could you make something better for everyone by removing options? We’re too diverse a species for that to ever work, They ended with what was essentially, sorry, better luck next time, which is fine, but I won’t continue playing.
The developers seem so focused on “innovation” that they’re losing sight of something that was already good. Scrolling through reviews, this appears to have happened many times.
This issue is bigger than this one game or developer, and I know that, but it’s
exhausting to see this pattern continue again and again, no matter where you go. The desire to constantly find ways to be “better,” to “improve,” to make yourself comparable instead of reliable, and to push that demanding sense of competition onto your user-base is ultimately isolating and soulless. If you truly wish to make the most users possible happy, feel free to add new features, but please don’t mandate them. It seems you aren’t adding features based on what your actual users want, but what other games are doing, and that will, in my opinion, always eventually fall short Newer/bigger/shinier isn’t always better, especially when what you had was good (and it was!) and true accessibility has a foundation in choice.
This is long, but I miss this game, and this change and response was so strangely disappointing. I liked the quiet space it held, and I wish I could get it back. I anticipate a variation on the response most folks get if you do find time to respond, which is totally understandable- I’m sure you’re busy, and responding to each review takes time and effort many of us don’t have spare to expend.
In short, this game was solid, but I feel as if it’s losing sight of what made it so good- consistency, calm, and balanced progression with options for gameplay. Thank you for all you do, but please consider maintaining options in the future.
