Penance - confessional in your pocket

Good afternoon all.

I am the developer of a recently released free app called Penance. While not the first anonymous confession app, Penance is certainly the most advanced. The fundamental manner in which Penance differs from other confession apps is that it is structured to create a self-sustaining community rather than be a simple whiteboard for posting confessions (that can at best be rated by those who view them).

With Penance, a user will download the app and create Sinner and Saint accounts, credited with five 'horns' and five 'halos' respectively. A horn allows a Sinner account to make a confession, which is randomly sent out to a dozen Saint accounts who can send back a penance at the cost of a halo. If the Sinner accepts the penance as fair and manageable the Saint is rewarded with TWO halos. The highest ranked Saints are rewarded with titles and may issue edicts to all the Faithful underneath them.

To keep the confessions and penances flowing all users are gifted a horn and halo every Sabbath, though there is the option of using IAP to gain them faster. Keeping horns and halos a limited currency does, however, serve to minimise confession and penance spamming - a problem that led to the developer of another confession app to remove it from iTunes.

Link to app in iTunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/penance/id405492979?mt=8

I hope you find Penance of interest and would be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the app.

 

oh, but it is designed as a game primarily!

In fact, when submitting it to iTunes, 'Games' was put as the primary category, with 'Entertainment' the secondary. I do take on board, however, that in the initial description I made not have made clear enough the gamey nature of the app.

 

A truly exceptional independent article written about Penance, by a doctoral candidate in religious studies at the University of North Carolina can be found here. It has caused quite an influx of users, I expect of a largely religious rather than secular persuation.

 

Unfortunately, not everyone is happy about Penance