Steam's approval process dinged this indie game remake for being a remake of the game it's remaking: 'Seems identical to the game you put out 11 years ago'

InFlux Redux is an upcoming, beautified remake of a 2013 ball-rolling puzzle game from indie dev Joe Wintergreen, who's had a hand in games like Weird West, Adios, and The Forgotten City. For Influx's improved rebirth, Wintergreen rebuilt the game's engine to implement improved physics alongside the graphical upgrades. Unfortunately, despite the substantial overhaul, he apparently caught Steam on a bad day when he submitted Influx Redux for build review.

For a game to appear on Steam, it has to pass a review process for both its store page and product build. Essentially, Steam has to verify that each game's store listing will provide a "detailed and coherent" description of the product and that the software matches that description. It's not surprising if a game fails its first build review; maybe there was an unexpected startup issue on Valve's end, or it turned out that Steam achievements hadn't been properly implemented. When Wintergreen saw that InFlux Redux failed its first review, however, he found some unexpected editorializing.

Last week, Wintergreen tweeted that Steam had dinged InFlux Redux during its build review, saying it "seems identical to the game you put out 11 years ago. Explain why this should be its own product." Looking at the remake's pretty obvious improvements, the note's a little bizarre—in another context, it'd read like the kind of low-effort dunk you'd see during a review bombing. "Like damn," Wintergreen said, "I was expecting a steam review not a steam review."

It's a particularly wild issue for Steam to have noted, because my library's full of all sorts of remakes and remasters that I'd have a harder time differentiating from their originals. Hell, if I didn't know I was glancing between the thumbnails for Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition, I'd believe I was just looking at before and after screenshots for a mod that cranked up the moody nordic fog.

Wintergreen's best guess is that the remake's store description shared enough text with the original that it might've tripped a flag—Steam dropped the complaint as soon as he replied to it. "It's completely normal and expected to get your first build review knocked back," Wintergreen said in a follow-up tweet. "This was just a weird/funny note to get. No biggie!"

I'm a sucker for orbs and airy atmospheric soundtracks, so InFlux Redux got an easy slot on my wishlist. And it looks like I won't have long to wait: Last night, Wintergreen tweeted that InFlux Redux has been approved for Steam release.