An indie game called Piece by Piece hit Steam on March 11. An entirely unrelated indie game called Piece by Piece also hit Steam on March 13. This could've been disastrous for everyone involved, but the people behind each respective game have made the best of it with a wholesome bundle that's warming hearts and helping both games succeed.
Let's start with the Piece by Piece billed as a "literal puzzle platformer." This game cuts up each stage into a bunch of jigsaw pieces which you can rearrange as you explore the level. It's a neat concept, but you can imagine the anxiety for Neon Polygons – which self-published the game – when one dev realized they weren't the only game with that name on the release list.
"We announced our release date at practically the same time for two days apart….with the same name," Neon Polygons dev Chase_P says in a Reddit comment (via Polygon). That other Piece by Piece, by developer Gamkat, is similarly wholesome, as a cozy game about running a l'il repair shop as an adorable fox, but it had a big advantage on Steam: support from a notable publisher in the form of No More Robots.
"I saw they were getting published by No More Robots (from what I knew about them, a very solid publisher) and figured we had nothing to lose in asking," Chase_P continues. The team at Neon Polygons had apparently "been warned about the potential risks in reaching out," but they went forward with it anyway.
The proposal? A Piece by Piece Double Bundle on Steam featuring both games at a discount. "Mike Rose @ No More Robots had zero hesitation," Chase_P explains. "'This sounds like fun,' was his response and man am I glad we did this. It’s been such a positive week and I’m grateful for people/companies with values like the teams at Gamkat & No More Robots."
"It’s crazy to think that if you act like human beings about a situation, it somehow ends up great??" Rose says in a Reddit comment of his own. "Who would have guessed."
Neon Polygons' Piece by Piece, as Chase_P explains, "was self-funded from my 9-5's salary and self-published. We work full time jobs or are full time students." So consider this the happy ending to the story: "I made back what I put into the game in the first 24 hours."
Responding to a comment saying that one players' had some "faith in humanity" restored as a result of this wholesome collab, Chase_P says "believe me, it restored some faith for me too."
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