why is it so hard to forget (game save data)

@two

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Thanks for playing, everyone. I'll see you around.

@two10/25/2023, 3:46 AM

why is it so hard to forget (game save data)

so i wanted to talk about ads in mobile games and bring up Kubrix as an interesting example, so i thought, i'd better replay Kubrix real quick - it's been years - just to make sure i'm remembering it correctly.

I download the game onto my phone (which has never had it installed before) and... my save data is there. Oh, right, it has iCloud support. There's no option in the game to reset progress, but that's fine, I'll just turn off iCloud for this app in the settings and then redownload it. It's one of those apps that just has a switch for iCloud instead of being in the other menu that lets you actually delete the iCloud data, but deleting the app should delete local data, so that shouldn't matter. Unfortunately it does: reinstalling the app re-enables that switch! And it seems to download data with the app, so enabling aeroplane mode when starting it for the first time (which you have to do to get the switch to appear in the settings) isn't a valid workaround.

So except for drastic measures like making a new apple ID, or playing the game in an Android emulator, or updating to iOS 16 because maybe this is a problem they fixed, there doesn't seem to be any way for me to play this game again.* Which is a shame. It's nice to have cloud syncing so it's hard to lose things and your files can follow you around, but sometimes you just want to be able to forget.

Now, if you played Kubrix a little bit you might wonder why it actually matters for this game in particular. It's a fairly typical mobile puzzle game with levels: surely I can just go back to the first one and replay them from there? I mean, yeah, I could do that. But it just wouldn't be the same, and if you keep playing you might see what I mean. It is funny though, I can't find any online coverage of this game that mentions or even hints at what it is that I'm currently trying to myself hint at without spoiling; I think a lot of people just miss it entirely. But I will stop talking about it now because this is becoming the Outer Wilds/Inscryption thing. If you do play it: don't be afraid to use a hint.

* though if you have a workaround which you're sure works, I'd like to hear about it.

#mobile games #rambles #kubrix #ios

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in reply to @two's post:

catastrophically yearning transfem-like lanky kong @lankyfromnowonbutprobablynot10/25/2023, 3:56 AM

Ooh, I don't think I ever actually played this one. Mostly enjoyed Yankai's Peak some time ago. Maybe I should check out Kubrix, I think I planned to play it at some point.

gull *Plus!*@gull10/25/2023, 4:32 AM

every game should have a way to wipe your save data in its entirety built in, especially if they have big things you cannot experience a second time i think

also i don't know if my bones are ready to handle a second game i Cannot Easily Talk About

@two10/25/2023, 7:59 AM

They really should; even on computers where you can actually access the files I've still had trouble tracking down where the saves are sometimes. (Though I think there's a potential for purposely making it very hard to clear as a thematic thing, usually it just feels like an oversight).

if you wanted to play it, Kubrix is luckily not quite as involved as Void Stranger, Inscryption, etc. i defintely understand not wanting to take on more spoilers :)

@darryl @darryl10/25/2023, 5:13 AM

I haven’t played Kubrix so this doesn’t count as “workaround you’re sure works”, but: Settings — the big Apple ID thing at the top — iCloud — Manage Account Storage — Kubrix, presumably — Delete from iCloud ? (You might need to delete the app from your phone first so that there’s also no local storage…)

@two10/25/2023, 7:11 AM

Unfortunately Kubrix, along with some other apps that also sync with iCloud, isn't in the "Manage Storage" menu for some reason. I'd guess it's because it uses a small enough amount of data that it doesn't count towards the storage quota?

@darryl @darryl10/25/2023, 12:21 PM

Oh yeah I’ve installed and played Kubrix now and that’s weird…it shows up in the list of “apps using iCloud” and can be toggled off there, but it doesn’t show up as using any storage, even though I have other apps with as little as “0.1 KB” in that list. Now I’m really perplexed….

@two10/25/2023, 2:02 PM

Welcome to the esteemed club of being unable to delete Kubrix save data! From what I can tell reading the iCloud developer docs (do not recommend attempting this), as an app developer using iCloud you can choose from storing "documents", something that seems super complicated called "CloudKit", or a list of at most 1024 key-value pairs that can store up to 1MB. That last option seems to be the easiest to use. My hunch is that this is what Kubrix and some other games use exclusively for their saves, and (though I can't find anything to back this up right now) Apple lets you have that 1MB as a free service instead of counting it as part of your iCloud storage. This would explain why some apps show up in storage despite only using tiny amounts of data (their developers decided to use the more complicated but useful storage options), but even if this was true I don't think it'd help with actually clearing the data.

@darryl @darryl10/25/2023, 3:04 PM

Oh, good find — based on that I’m finding supporting evidence that there is no way for the user to delete this data, and it’s not “supposed to” be used for user-visible things (the best suggested usage I saw was for tracking in-app purchases).

SnepShark @SnepShark10/25/2023, 5:14 AM

This is extremely cool, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed this without hints.

Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't seen more games make creative use of ads like this, the only other example immediately coming to mind for me is a puzzle from "Hidden My Game By Mom!"

@darryl @darryl10/29/2023, 3:36 PM

ok I’ve been playing Kubrix for a few days now and I have no idea what the gimmick is and I can’t find reference to it online, I’m spiraling around the drain of madness here, someone post a link to a spoiler or send me an ask with the answer or let me know “oh it only kicks in after a hundred levels, keep playing” or something, please

SnepShark @SnepShark10/29/2023, 6:02 PM

Here you go! I wrote up a hint guide a few days ago, and added a walkthrough just now. I’ll update it in a bit with a link to a recording of the ending as well

https://cohost.org/SnepShark/post/3304059-over-300-000-people

Out of the >300K who have played it, fewer than 65 have beaten it (judging by the Gamecenter leaderboards), so I’m not surprised there isn’t much coverage of it online

@darryl @darryl10/29/2023, 6:44 PM

Exactly one sentence in that post is what I needed to discover a whole set of mechanics that I probably wouldn’t have ever come across on my own. Thanks!