[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
Ancient Demon Shadow is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unity asset store assets, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.[/quote]
Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware.
In this case, the Chinese asset flipper went on a shopping/piracy spree on Fab and cludged as many assets as possible onto Epic's Unreal Third Person game BP to make some kind of "brawler". I had more fun spotting all the stolen and plagiarized assets than actually playing this garbage.
The character is the [url=https://www.fab.com/listings/9117b04f-b64e-4ebf-b219-69ce7ada5113]Gladiator Warrior[/url] character, plagiarized from Farjul Falakh, backdrops are stolen and unchanged from various asset packs like Med_art's "Ancient_Pack", Pharaoh's Legacy Egypt Pack and so on. The monsters you'll fight are stolen from asset packs like Profactors Monster Packs etc. Nothing here is the creation of the "developer". He's just trying to get YOUR money for other people's Unreal assets.
It has no value or merit as a real game.
Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
The game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality which fits with the idea they weren't developed by the game creator... they look like they're "just reasonable enough" to go on sale as part of an asset pack. The issue of asset flipping aside, ultimately the quality of these assets is low and low quality always makes for a less than optimal gaming experience.
The game assets, such as they are, are much higher than the general quality of the game and it seems apparent the developer has just plagiarised/kitbashed them. Stock assets are just there to be used as placeholders while the developer creates their own assets for their games, but what happens far more often is lazy/unethical developers just throw a bunch of other peoples assets into a blender and put their own name on the horrible Frankenstein's Monster that results. Like this mess.
The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH.
The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
Despite not being listed as Early Access, this game comes across as unpolished/incomplete and probably should be in Early Access. Worth taking into account if you're considering putting your money into this.
This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name.
Now on to pricing and value. Should you buy this asset flip? Is this really better than any of the 140,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not!
Ancient Demon Shadow has the pathetically optimistic price of around $7 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
For comparison, the $7 asking price for this game could get you games like "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter", "Kingdom Come Deliverance" or "Final Fantasy XIV Online". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
Ethics aside, there's enough defects and quality problems with this game that it's not worth recommending to gamers, but the unethical nature of the developer/their associates makes it completely impossible. Because this is just a fake game/cash grab scam, and due to the sheer unethical nature of the developer, you should avoid this completely. Don't reward this morally bankrupt, unethical behaviour from WJLE.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
The developer seems to have taken it personally and resorts to direct attacks against this reviewer, after getting caught plagiarizing the work of others. A guilty conscience, to be sure, but the developer doesn't seem to realize how harmful asset flipping like this is to the gaming industry... it makes amateur developers look bad when they're dropped in the same bucket as morally bankrupt plagiarist... and that's what this is. This failed Chinese developer got caught trying to scam gamers into paying him money for someone else's game assets... that's incredibly unethical.
The developer comments that this informative review "felt" hurtful, but developers must understand that game reviews are not written for them, they are not the audience for the review (and probably shouldn't read them at all if they are uncomfortable with accepting the truth about their failure).
Reviews are written to inform gamers about products and provide advice on whether a game is worth money, time, or both. Such developers often do not consider that, just like the reviews, games they make should be made for gamers, and not just to make the developer feel good about themselves. Regardless, game reviews are not written for the developer, and thus should not be taken personally if it turns out some (or most) people don't like their product. This review is not the cause of that failure, this review is more of an autopsy after the fact.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this asset flip to anyone.
