Inkblot Obra-Dinn-like adventure game The Collage Atlas originally released as an iOS exclusive in 2020, but when its Apple Arcade contract expired last year, the striking pen and ink game became unplayable. To keep it alive, its creator releasedThe architect of this post-modern duotone walking simulator, John Evelyn, began by creating renders of each game world object in Unity and then painstakingly drawing out each texture by hand.
That approach to permanence hasn't carried over to the world of games publishing, however. The Collage Atlas began as an iOS exclusive before the end of its run on Apple Arcade—a subscription-based game library—saw it become unavailable to play, even for those who previously could.
"This is the sad thing about the way our kind of creative mediums are going: works don’t have any kind of permanence—they can just vanish," he said.and you'll probably see one or more games you've played, want to play, or even own in some capacity being shuffled off into a black hole. Thankfully, devs like Evelyn are making the effort to keep their games available.