Like zombies, it seems that as soon as one Temple Run clone is taken off the App Store, another appears in its place.
And in some ways, Temple Guns is a more blatant clone than last month's Temple Jump.
Obviously, the title is only two letters different, and once again, the game's App Store icon is clearly designed to confuse.
On the positive side, at least this time, people can see screenshots of the game, and hence more easily work out it's not the Temple game they're probably after.
As with Temple Jump, the other key giveaway is that Temple Guns costs 99c, rather than being free-to-play like Temple Run.
That said, its position peaking at #7 of the US paid gaming iPhone chart, #53 in the overall top grossing chart (it's released in the Entertainment category), suggests plenty of people have fallen for it.
Temple Guns (left) Temple Run (right)
Still, Temple Run remains at #2 in the top grossing iPhone chart, behind DragonVale
Clone 'em all
Two other interesting fake releases on the App Store at the moment are Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon - Pocket Edition - both priced at 99c.
Both are clearly designed to make money by confusing a mass market audience which doesn't understand Nintendo's policy on putting its games on mobile devices.
At that said, it's something Apple's app approval teams is obviously having problems with. You'd think a basic title word filter would alert them that these two releases should be looked into.
Pokemon Yellow - its description suggests it's the full game - is at #3 on the US iPhone gaming chart and #12 on the all category top grossing chart (it's released in the Entertainment category).
Publisher Home of Anime's other apps are titled Digimon+ and YuGiOh+, which are 99c news apps.
Pokemon - Pocket Edition shows screenshots from a Pokemon game, but its description is honest, listing as "This app has one mode of Gameplay; gallery.
"This is only a gallery of the pokemon series. Please read and understand what you are about to buy. Thank You for your time."
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Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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