Slashdot Mirror
Sugar-Coated Drug-Dealing Game Approved For iPhone
Pocket Gamer writes "Of course, Apple wouldn't allow such a salacious games as Dope Wars on the hallowed corridors of the App Store. What Catamount's done is sugarcoat its game (quite literally) and turned it into Prohibition 3: Candy Wars — a reskinned version of the exact same game."
I used to love playing this game on my Handspring/Palm clone. Why didn't I think about this? The stupid hype it's going to get will guarantee it'll be on the top ten for at least a few days....
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
out getting more 'shrooms.
I think that inhaling any of the ingredients in the screenshot from TFA would be bad for you. Especially whole candy.
Kidding aside, I don't think Apple had much choice. All it takes is five or ten idiots who can't see through their guise, and all of a sudden people are e-mailing them about keeping kid-safe apps off of the App Store.
In conclusion, blame the shallow, gullible masses.
Cocaine is known for making its users go on and on about the same thing, thinking they're being terribly clever when they're really just boring everyone else rigid. It is therefore well-loved by Slashdot AC trolls.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
I played the hell out of that game on my TI-86 back in the day.
I remember playing this in real life during high school... (Disclaimer: I attended HS in the mid-80s in So. Cali.)
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
I get hit with ads for it from time to time and I think it just jumped to the top of the App store.
So if we're going to worry about a drug dealer simulator game making it onto the iPhone can we worry more about the one that allows you to put hits out on your friends and uses real social networks (cheapening them in the process as well)...
"Lemonade" was an economic simulation of selling drugged (sugar) water to people.
It came on cassette tape.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Are you sure that is what the white powder is?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yeah, they didn't literally sugarcoat it. The submitter felt it necessary to hint that they are using wordplay, for those who might not otherwise catch it.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Indeed seems like you've had plenty of it today as it is
Anyone else think of Chocolate Underground when they read this review?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
So is figuratively the new old literally?
"His head literally exploded."
"I bet, he must have been really mad."
"No, his head exploded. You can pack a surprising amount of C4 in someone's mouth."
"Why'd you say literally then? You meant his head figuratively exploded."
"There's never enough C4..."
There is a lot of discussion lately about what they do and don't let on the platform... http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090120-apple-and-app-store-censorship-where-to-draw-the-line.html
They're not exactly trying to hide id. I just checked on my ipod touch and in the Info it says "based on Drugwars/DopeWars".
"What Catamount's done is sugarcoat its game (quite literally) and turned it into Prohibition 3: Candy Wars â" a badly-reskinned version of the exact same game."
Fixed that for you. Seriously, the screenshot in the article is hideous.
egypt urnash minimal art.
How DARE Apple quash the creative freedom these developers were exhibiting by ripping off and repackaging an old freeware game!
"No you just winged him, now he's a Unitarian."
the article says
but from the screenshot (same link) it seems these are just slang for drugs.
what would be sweet of course is if all these weren't common slang terms, but only become so because of the iPhone game!
Cocaine's a hellova drug /Rick James-BITCH!
Incorrect.
To literally sugarcoat means to coat with sugar.
The alternative, to figuratively sugarcoat (i.e. the figure of speech) is to make appear more pleasant or acceptable.
Linux on the desktop?
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
A wonderful Best of Craigslist rant about the meaning of "literal": http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/van/144733448.html
To literally sugarcoat means to coat with sugar
I hate it when people say "literally" for things that are actually far from literal, but in this case, the submitter deserves some leeway. Not only did they figuratively sugarcoat it by making a drug-dealing game a candy-dealing game, but they transformed drugs into candy. Which you could do by literally sugar coating drugs and making them sweet.
It's still not literally sugarcoating, because there were no actual drugs and no actual candy, but it was quite clever wordplay, so I would say the usage is valid for the purpose of the joke.
let me be the first to say: "mmm... sugar-coated drugs".
Do the article author and the slashdot editor not actually get it? The problem wasn't the game play, it was the theme involved. "Sugar coating" it exactly solves the problem. So why does anyone think they've reached some massive cleverness by sneaking their drug game through the censors?
It's like that idiot lady that snuck "gun powder" (components) through airport security showing how terrible they are. (I'm not claiming any magic profiling ability in the TSA here.) But if you don't blow up an airplane they didn't fail. If they can determine that you aren't a threat, you being on a plane with a stick of dynamite rammed up your backside isn't an issue.
This is one place where "ironically" could've been used correctly.
Yes, they did also do the figurative meaning: they changed their game from being about selling drugs to being about selling something else in order to figuratively "sugarcoat" the subject.
But they did so by skinning the game with sugary graphics, which seems pretty "literally" sugar coating to me, in that rather than merely figuratively sugarcoating their game with some arbitrarily less offensive graphics, the new graphics are, literally, images of sugar. That's not the figure of speech "sugarcoat", but the literal "a coating of sugar".
To quote the grandparent poster, "just because you're not actually pouring sugar over your fuckign iPhone doesn't make this use of sugarcoat (giving your gtame a candy theme) less literal". Perhaps you're going to argue next that a painting of a haystack doesn't "literally" depict haystacks, but only depicts them "figuratively", because it's not actually made out of hay?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Copyright infringement, sue those MFKRS
VP
I remember playing this game on my apple ][e when it was called Taipan.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Well, I think the use of "literally" is redundant at best, and probably ruins the joke (subtlety and all that).
They did pretty much literally coat their in-game drugs with in-game sugar, so it's in-game literal in this case :)
I can do that without cocaine, you insensitive clod!
Nonaggression works!
Incorrect.
To literally sugarcoat means to coat with sugar.
The alternative, to figuratively sugarcoat (i.e. the figure of speech) is to make appear more pleasant or acceptable.
Not really, there are 2 definitions of literally: actually, and figuratively.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally
Just another auto-antonym.
Hey guys, if you want to play a real version of this game, I've created a web-app here: http://iphonedopewars.com/ It's a web app because I knew that APPL would never approve a native app, but hopefully it should be fun just the same.
unfortunately government is a necessary evil
Reminds me of the reskinned arcade video game "Tapper." They took out the Budweiser logos, renamed it "Root Beer Tapper," and made it into a fun game I wouldn't have any problem letting my elementary school-age children play. In fact, I might dig up my copy of MAME and let 'em play it!
bcause i'm waiting for a iphone version, I'm sure they won't mind that on the app store! -------- see apps b4 you buy - http://www.iphoneappdemo.com/