Apple Pie

Apple Pie is a contemporary match-three puzzle game set in a restaurant where you manage the eatery while your aunt vacation in Europe with her cat. Players swap items to create lines of three or more identical objects, clearing tan tiles within a time limit, and use earned money to upgrade the restaurant’s decor and menu toward a five-star rating, aided by bonus items like knives, blenders, and toasters.

Apple Pie: A Tale of Two Games – Confectionery Confusion and the Burdens of Creation

Introduction: Slice of Life, Slice of History

To speak of “Apple Pie” in the landscape of video games is to immediatelyinvoke a profound and unsettling dissonance. The title suggests homeliness, comfort, a simple pleasure—yet the historical record reveals two starkly divergent digital experiences sharing this nomenclature, separated by two decades and a chasm of intent. The first is a 2008 casual puzzle game, a forgettable footnote in the match-three boomlet that followed Bejeweled. The second is a deeply personal, emotionally raw, and ultimately unfinished 2020 yuri dating sim born from seven years of solitary struggle. This review will dissect both, treating them not as competitors but as complementary case studies. My thesis is this: the 2008 Apple Pie is a conceptually sound but executionally flawed genre exercise, emblematic of the low-budget “shovelware” that flooded casual portals. Conversely, Meiri’s Apple Pie transcends its genre trappings to become a critical artifact of indie development anthropology—a game whose true narrative is not the one within its code, but the devastatingly human story of its creation, meticulously documented by its sole developer. Together, they form a bizarre diptych on the very meaning of “game” and “legacy.”

Development History & Context: From Shovelware to Solitude

The 2008 Casual Paradigm: T1 Games’ Foray into Fluff
Released on July 20, 2008, for Windows, Apple Pie (Moby ID: 52266) emerged from the studio T1 Games, a name that leaves no significant footprint beyond this title and a few other obscure puzzle games. Its context is the late-2000s casual gaming explosion. Platforms like Big Fish Games (listed as publisher on Metacritic, though MobyGames credits T1 Games itself) and Pogo thrived on inexpensive, easily digestible match-three titles. The technological constraints were minimal—a simple 2D, fixed-screen, mouse-driven interface was the baseline. The vision appears derivative: take the proven Bejeweled/Puzzle Quest formula, apply a thin restaurant-management skin, and distribute it via shareware. There is no record of ambition beyond a functional product. It existed to fill a catalog slot, a nameless cog in the “downloadable games” section of a million portals.

The 2020 Indie Struggle: Meiri’s Seven-Year Nightmare
In complete contrast, Meiri’s Apple Pie was developed in RPG Maker VX Ace between approximately 2013 and 2020. Its context is the rise of accessible, personal game-making tools and the concurrent growth of niche communities on platforms like itch.io. The vision was immense: a “girls’ love” (yuri) dating sim with gifting, hangout mechanics, multiple routes (one main, six for each love interest), and minigames ranging from hide-and-seek to mystery-solving. As Meiri’s searingly honest postmortem reveals, the project was undertaken by a “shy, depressed young girl” seeking creative catharsis. The technological constraint was not hardware, but skill and resources—solo development in a complex RPG system without formal training. The “gaming landscape” for her was a lonely one; she帖 in forums for help but felt isolated, unable to share her project with her real-life Brazilian community due to fear and political climate. The constraint became psychological: depression, anxiety, and the crushing weight of a scope that ballooned beyond a single person’s capacity. The game’s eventual status as “Canceled” after 7 years is not a commercial failure but a necessary act of self-preservation. “I had to let the game end,” she writes. “I would not be happy to be, 5 years from now on, still working on Apple Pie.”

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: Whimsy vs. Trauma

2008: A Flimsy Culinary Premise
The narrative of T1 Games’ Apple Pie is a throwaway excuse. The “plot,” as delivered in the official description, is: Your aunt’s cat, Marcello, is in need of a vacation. Why a cat would need a vacation is a good question but your current problem is that your aunt is taking the cat to Europe and leaving you in charge of her restaurant. It’s a non-sequitur meant to justify the match-three mechanic. The protagonist is a silent, generic stand-in. The theme is “restaurant management,” but it’s a surface-level aesthetic. The only other narrative element is the collection of “torn postcards” from matches, mended by “Pappy” (a likely mis-translation for “puppy,” as noted in the GameZebo review). There is no character arc, no dialogue of consequence, just a flimsy scaffolding for gameplay. The world is a static, contemporary eatery with no soul.

2020: Lucia’s World and the Weight of Unfinished Stories
Meiri’s Apple Pie is the antithesis of disposable. The narrative centers on Lucia, a protagonist with a defined personality (“funny,” per a player review), who arrives in a new town. The core themes are friendship, romance, and self-discovery, specifically within the framework of yuri (girls’ love) relationships. The five (or six, counting Sophia) potential love interests—Amanda, Rose, Erika, Elissa, Iris, Sophia—each have “secrets behind their pasts” and are meant to have deeply personal, mystery-solving routes. The “side stories told by NPC interactions” suggest a living, breathing town. Crucially, the postmortem reveals the meta-narrative: this world is a direct projection of Meiri’s own desires, fears, and identity as a bisexual woman in a hostile environment. The game’s cancellation means these rich, intended stories—the hide-and-seek route, the mystery-solving adventure—remain permanently locked. The “another world when going to sleep” tease in the itch.io description hints at a fantastical layer left unexplored. The game’s true narrative is one of potential and loss, a ghost of a story that was too big for its vessel.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: Formulaic Function vs. Ambitious Chaos

2008: Competent but Cumbersome Core Loop
Apple Pie (2008) adheres strictly to the match-three formula: swap two adjacent items (dishes, food, drinks) to form a line of three or more identical items. The objective is to clear all “tan tiles” beneath them before time expires, with a $500 fine for failure. The bonus items are its only point of original design, themed around restaurant objects:
* Knife: Removes a single item/tile.
* Blender: Shuffles the board.
* Toaster: Clears a row/column.
* Menu: Shows possible matches for 30 seconds.
* Hourglass: Stops the clock for 30 seconds.
* Pepper Shaker: Randomly removes tiles.
* Changer: Transforms one item.
* Champagne: Doubles score for 30 seconds.
The post-level upgrade system is fundamentally flawed. Earnings are spent on restaurant decor/menu upgrades to reach “five-star level,” but as the GameZebo review bluntly states, “upgrading doesn’t affect the game except to eat up your money.” It’s a pointless sink. The mini-games are broken: the postcard puzzle has “no frames to give a hint,” making it a chore, and the menu-sorting minigame is logically obscure, with a “red and green thermometer” that provides no clear feedback. The imbalance is glaring: trophies for “1500 points per stage” can be earned before half the bonuses appear. The UI/UX is amateurish: “ugly dialogue font,” missing instructions on advanced mechanics like breaking locks, and even the gridlines disappearing in some levels, making “clear” commands impossible to interpret. It’s a game that understands the basic rules of its genre but consistently fails in its implementation and presentation.

2020: The Unfinished Symphony of Systems
Meiri’s Apple Pie was designed as a social simulation/RPG hybrid. The core loops would have involved:
1. Exploration & Interaction: Walking around a town, talking to NPCs (the six heroines and supporting cast).
2. Relationship Building: A “gifting” and “hanging out” system to increase affection.
3. Route-Specific Gameplay: Each of the six routes was to have a unique minigame—one a “complex game of hide and seek,” another a “mystery solving adventure.” This is where the ambition and technical limitations clashed.
4. Role-Playing Elements: The “roleplaying elements” tag on itch.io and the mention of a “world when going to sleep” suggest possible combat or exploration segments, perhaps echoing classic JRPGs.
5. Progression & Choices: Dialogue choices and time management would have directed the story paths.
The tragedy is that this elaborate architecture exists only in design documents, scripts, and partial implementation. The released “canceled” version is a fragmented demo at best. Players can interact with the heroines, give gifts, and see the start of routes, but the promised minigames and deeper mysteries are absent or rudimentary. The systems are thus a scaffold of what could have been, making gameplay feel inherently incomplete. Its value lies not in polished mechanics but in the raw, unpolished glimpse it offers into a vast, unrealized design.

World-Building, Art & Sound: Aesthetic Dissonance and Asset Limitations

2008: A Clash of Styles and Static Spaces
The visual presentation of T1’s Apple Pie is a point of specific critique. The game backgrounds and restaurant scenes employ a “lovely impressionist painting style.” However, the story and characters use a “different and livelier style,” creating a jarring aesthetic disconnect. The GameZebo reviewer argues the game “would be sweeter than apple pie if the scenes had adopted the character style art instead.” This suggests either a lack of cohesive artistic direction or the use of mismatched stock assets. The overall effect is “below par graphics” and an “ugly dialogue font.” The soundtrack received a faintly positive note from the reviewer’s son, who “moved his head with the beat,” implying a peppy, inoffensive casual score. The world is a series of static, flip-screen images with little atmosphere. The “contemporary setting” is generic American diner chic, with no discernible character.

2020: Charming Pixel Art Born of Necessity
Meiri’s Apple Pie, by contrast, benefits from the distinctive, cohesive pixel art style of RPG Maker VX Ace, heavily reliant on community-made assets. The portraits, credited to Allusion, are singled out by Meiri as “a source of inspiration” and by players as a strength (“I fell in love with all of your characters”). The character sprites and tilesets, while using free RTP (Run-Time Package) and third-party assets, are arranged with a “cute,” “slice of life” aesthetic that perfectly suits the yuri dating sim genre. The world is a small town, a school, cozy interiors—all rendered in a consistent, appealing 16-bit-inspired style. The limitation is also its charm: the visual language is instantly recognizable to the RPG Maker community. The sound design, while not detailed in sources, would have relied on the engine’s default sounds and likely free music from the RPG Maker community or other royalty-free sources, creating a functional if unremarkable aural backdrop. The atmosphere is one of gentle, personal storytelling.

Reception & Legacy: Obscurity and a Cult of Devotion

2008: A闪 Forgotten Artifact
The reception for T1 Games’ Apple Pie was negligible and negative. Its Metacritic/User Score pages show no critic or user reviews (at the time of data scraping). The only critic review comes from GameZebo, which awarded it a 2 out of 5 (40%). The review is a litany of flaws: amateur production values, grammar errors (“peaces,” “pappy”), unclear tutorials, broken minigames, and a pointless upgrade system. The only faint praise is for the original-themed bonus items and the fact that it kept the reviewer and his son engaged enough to finish it. Commercially, as shareware, it vanished without a trace. Its legacy is nonexistent. It influenced no one. It is not cited in discussions of puzzle game history. It is merely a data point in the vast ocean of disposable casual games from the Big Fish era, its only modern relevance being as a cautionary tale about poor UI/UX design and feature implementation in a crowded genre. The “See Also” links on MobyGames connecting it to other “Pie” games (like Custard Pie Fight) are a historical accident of naming, not influence.

2020: A Cult Classic of Emotional Resonance
Meiri’s Apple Pie has a radically different reception. It has 6 ratings averaging 4.2 out of 5 stars on itch.io. The comments are overwhelmingly supportive and empathetic. Players who engage with it understand its canceled status upfront (the page reads “Sweet, sour. A canceled dating sim.”). They praise the characters (“Lucia actually has a personality”), the charm, and the heartfelt story. Its legacy is not as a finished game, but as a profoundly impactful development story. The postmortem is the game’s primary text, cited and shared as a vital document on the psychological toll of solo game development, scope creep, and creating queer art in an unwelcoming space. It has influenced a small but dedicated community of developers, particularly those in the RPG Maker/yuri niche, serving as a stark reminder to manage scope and prioritize mental health. Its “influence” is human, not mechanical: it fosters empathy and caution. It is preserved not for its gameplay, but for its historical and anthropological value as a raw artifact of the indie dev experience in the 2010s.

Conclusion: Two Pies, One Bitter Aftertaste

To definitively place these two games in history: T1 Games’ 2008 Apple Pie is a minor, failed artifact of the casual puzzle boom. It represents the low-effort, asset-flip periphery of a popular genre, noteworthy only for its specific shortcomings in tutorial design, reward structure, and aesthetic cohesion. It is a lesson in how a solid core mechanic can be undermined by every surrounding system. It will be forgotten.

Meiri’s 2020 Apple Pie is a major, poignant artifact of indie game development culture. It is not celebrated for its gameplay—the released version is an incomplete shell. It is revered for its transparent, devastatingly honest postmortem. That document elevates it from a canceled game to a critical resource. It encapsulates the dreams, isolation, mental health struggles, and ultimate surrender of a solo developer. Its “place in video game history” is as a counter-narrative to triumphant indie success stories. It reminds us that behind every game is a human, and that “finishing” is not always the most important or healthy goal. Its legacy is the conversation it sparks about burnout, queer representation in games, and the community support needed to sustain creative passion projects.

In the end, both games share a name but little else. One is a bland, store-bought pastry—edible, forgettable. The other is a hand-made pie that burned in the oven, the recipe and the tears of its baker forever preserved as a warning and a testament. That is the bizarre, bifurcated legacy of Apple Pie.