Indie game dev "goofs too close to the sun" and gets their game temporarily barred by Nintendo for joking about teaching kids to gamble

gamesradar.com:

Sunshine Shuffle is a "narrative poker adventure" in which you discover the story of a bank robbery over a game of cards, and everyone involved is a cute little animal. It was supposed to launch on PC and Nintendo Switch last week, but it got delayed after its developer "goofed to close to the sun."

In a TikTok last week, developer Xalavier Nelson told fans that he wasn't sure if Sunshine Shuffle would make its Switch release date. By way of explanation, he told viewers that he'd had to tell Nintendo three times "whether or not our new game enables child gambling."

SUNSHINE SHUFFLE IS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT TOMORROW ON SWITCH AND PCKEYWORD BEING “SUPPOSED TO”APPARENTLY, MY SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN ABOUT THE GAME NOT TEACHING CHILDREN TO GAMBLE HAS UHCONVINCED NINTENDO THAT THE GAME IS ABOUT CHILD GAMBLING pic.twitter.com/B8YY2zo0x0May 23, 2023

"The store page is being blocked, because the game we made about adorable animal criminals who robbed a bank for complicated reasons telling you their life stories over a game of cards sure does seem like it is enticing children to - without their parents' permission - spend real world money in order to gamble."

For the record, that is not the case. Nelson has explained elsewhere that there are absolutely no microtransactions or any other form of outward monetisation anywhere in the game. However, the version of that story he's been painting over the last few weeks isn't that simple - Nelson's "goof" is that he's been offering a knowing wink to camera every time he posts a video about his game that 'definitely doesn't teach children to gamble'. And when the game got caught in a documentation snafu, that goof came back to bite him.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ shortly after the game's