Gin Rummy Plus – More of a downside

If there’s one thing I particularly despise it’s when a software developer releases a half-finished product to market, with a bunch of features disabled, so you can earn some money and get some market share while doing the job it’s supposed to. . be doing – that is, FINISH THE GAME.

Sadly, that’s the case with Gin Rummy Plus from Peak Games.

For starters, the game in Gin Rummy Plus is pretty good and looks fantastic. Card games cost ten cents a dozen, so the only thing that really separates them are the graphics and the extras.

Peak Games has done a good job on the graphics side. The look is great, the animations are fluid, and the user interface is very intuitive and takes seconds to learn.

Unfortunately, that’s it with this one. Even after connecting with Facebook, the “leaders” and “friends” buttons don’t work, giving you a nice little “coming soon” balloon.

This is disappointing, especially the friends option. One of the selling points of games like this (e.g. Words With Friends What’s the Phrase ?, Says With Buddies / Yahtzee With Friends) is the ability to play against people you know. As of now, this option doesn’t exist … In fact, I’d rather they hadn’t even put the button there to show users and upcoming features, rather than leave the game as is.

As it is, it is a good game. As I said, the graphics are very pretty, the animations are fluid, and the matchmaking with strangers seems adequate. The turn timer is a bit annoying, as there is not much time left for the player to think through the strategy without losing the entire turn if he does not discard in time. A turn timer is needed in a multiplayer game, of course, to keep things moving, and in three lost turns in a row the player loses the game, so they won’t get stuck when playing unresponsive opponents. A few more seconds would be fine, that’s all.

Another shortcoming (although one that many developers choose to ignore, not that it’s an excuse) is the lack of a game vs. CPU option. It never ceases to amaze me how many game developers refuse to put this feature in their games, when it seems like it would be pretty easy to do (or maybe not, I’m a gamer, not a programmer … but then I’m giving the perspective of a player here, not that of a developer).

Am I picky? Maybe I am. However, like I said, one of my things that annoys me is unfinished games. Game developers must learn to finish their games before releasing them or get used to some negative reviews. At least from me.