The Because We May Sale sees developers actually increasing and decreasing their prices. Michael Brough's Vertex Dispenser is raised to $15.01 (Bough says the .01 "is meant to poke fun at all the prices that end in .99") and SOS's Super Office Stress went from a 1-6$ dice roll pricing scheme to being $99.99 for the duration of the sale.

So far, three games in the other section, two in the Android section, 19 in the iOS section, and POP: Experimental Methodology in the direct section were discounted to free.

Hopefully, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will get the memo so I can also include the console category if this sale happens again.

Ustwo's game, Papa Quash, used a similar design as the indie darling Johann Sebastian Joust, but traded that game's PlayStation Move controllers for iOS devices. Audiences quickly noted the similarities and called the studio out for allegedly stealing Die Gute Fabrik's design.

According to mobile app blog The Appside, Ustwo has since spoken to Die Gute Fabrik's Douglas Wilson, and has agreed to remove the app altogether.

"We are pulling the app ASAP," Ustwo's Steve Bittan said.

When the controversy over Papa Quash emerged earlier this week, Bittan told Gamasutra that the game's design was largely the work of Sam Pepper, a former Big Brother UK contestant who commissioned the game from Ustwo.

Bittan said that Pepper had contacted Die Gute Fabrik for permission to make the game. Pepper allegedly told Ustwo he got the go-ahead, and the studio then began work on the game.

The Johann Sebastian Joust creators, however, denied giving such permission, noting on Twitter, "Just to be clear, we have never and would never approve, give permission, or encourage anyone to clone of any of our games."

Douglas Wilson of Die Gute Fabrik later contacted Gamasutra, saying, "Sam Pepper did email me back in January. However, I never gave him "permission" to develop Papa Quash."

"In his emails, he told me about his general plans to make a motion control game, which he indicated was different from J.S. Joust. He never provided a well-formulated game/design, and as such, there simply was nothing to "approve." I did tell him that, as long as he was making a different game, I didn't foresee any issues. I also encouraged him to explore the landscape of motion control game design in general."

"Further, I never requested Ustwo to pull the game. I spoke with Steve Bittan from Ustwo last night, and I made it clear that the determination was theirs (and potentially Sam Pepper's) to make as to whether the game is "different" enough (separate from legal obligations regarding copyrights, trademarks, patents, and other intellectual property rights). I don't harbor any animosity towards Ustwo or Sam Pepper."

Wilson has also made a blog post on the Die Gute Fabrik website regarding the cloning allegations, and where development is up to with J.S. Joust.

As of this writing, Papa Quash is not available on the U.S. App Store.

[This article originally appeared on Gamasutra, written by Tom Curtis and Mike Rose.]

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute collective Arcane Kids shared on reddit a rather slick trailer of Jet Set Radio "esque" Zineth, showing a character skating with a robot and rewinding his mistakes. The large, colorful world; the fast, furious traversing; and the grinding particle effects (at 0:30, for instance) really caught my eye.

I was even more impressed upon finding out seven students worked on this for just a half-semester in class: Jacob Knipfing, Russell Honor, Thomas Astle, Sylvia Forrest, Thomas Lanciani, Evan Gonzalez, and Dan Spaulding. Russell Honor spoke briefly with me about Zineth's concepts, those seen and unseen in the trailer.

And so the game's name is born, tells Honor. "Get it, Zineth... one of our group members had a father who raised him on puns; his sense of humor never evolved."

Honor also expounds on the cellphone's uses in Zineth. "What you can't see all that well in the gameplay video is that you also have a cellphone which is a hub for communication from non-playable characters (NPCs). It also has a playable version of the cellphone game, which is a mindless arena shooter, and there is also a twitter client that auto generates some of the dumbest tweets ever."

In terms of AI or opposition, the NPCs don't seem destined for complexity. "The NPCs just stand around staring at their phones, and if you happen to knock one over, they just send you a text message asking you why you would do such a horrible thing," Honor describes. "For example you will have 10 zines at one point and you will need to give them to ten people, you go from person to person for a while, they serve as a sort of marker at points of interest, so that by the time you are done you have a fairly good understanding of the environment and how you can leverage/abuse the games mechanics. Ultimately we just want people to have fun skating around with no goals but to go as fast and high as they can."

The team is still tweaking Zineth, but they hope to make it available for free soon.