"Below the Surface:Uncovering the Truth in the Sewers" is a fairly basic Unreal asset flipped adventure game, one of many hundreds, if not thousands of these glutting Steam. The "developer" paid for/pirated some Unreal assets, namely a basic apartment and a couple of other objects, arranged them haphazardly in a first person adventure game template, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.
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.
We know for sure that this is an asset flip from the sheer number of times the Chinese "developer" of this shovelware has launched this game onto Steam, with the only difference being the asset pack that's been combined with the template. The template itself is a very basic first person adventure/scavenger hunt. There's a picture of a head in the top right corner, and you wander around collecting a bunch of asset flipped objects which increase the score until you're done. There's also a tally menu that shows how many of the objects you've found, with a bunch of "?"'s for the missing ones.
Of course, the developer didn't bother with any proper English translation (although there's sometimes English elements, it's mostly Google Translate reject stuff). You'd think the objective of an asset flipper would be to sell as much of the asset to the broadest audience you can, but then again, we shouldn't assume asset flippers are geniuses at anything. If they were, they wouldn't be asset flippers.
I'm not making it up when I say this has been asset flipped by this developer [i]a lot[/i]. Here's a list of the asset flips of this asset from this asset flipper that I've found so far:
[list]
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2990560]Abnormal1999:Hyperspace[/url] with outer space, church and a diner asset pack
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2925090]Abnormal1999:SU - Unlocking the 4th Dimension[/url] with a selection of interior building assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/3146640]Abnormal1999:The Compass and the Sand[/url] with some surreal/fantasy assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2403050]Below the Surface:Assassin's Prison[/url] with some generic basement assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2391420]Below the Surface:Uncovering the Truth in the Sewers[/url] with a sewer asset pack
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373960]Borderline Homocide[/url] with a bunch of rural/farm assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1579800]Hundreds of Mysteries:Wendy's Home2[/url] with an apartment building interior asset pack
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1549440]MeiQi 2019[/url] with apartment building and other urban assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165440]MeiQi 2020[/url] with some generic urban assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2164570]MeiQi 2021[/url] with rural China assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1589490]MeiQi 2022[/url] with a variety of island/interior building assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2180430]MeiQi 2023[/url] with desert and rocket launch assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654130]MeiQi Mystery: Yuer Hutong[/url] with a bunch of Chinese themed asset packs
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2334650]MeiQi:Phoenix and the Chamber of Secrets[/url] with eastern temple assets (and JK Rowling gonna sue!)
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1976450]MeiQi:Story[/url] with a selection of forest and industrial asset packs
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2283690]The Adventures of LinShanHai[/url] with a decrepit house asset
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2322540]The Adventures of LinShanHai - Chapter2:Bus Bombing[/url] which is basically a ripped off bus asset
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2356220]The Adventures of LinShanHai - Chapter3:The Headless Woman[/url] with some basement/industrial assets
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2389880]The Adventures of LinShanHai - Chapter4:Vanishing Masterpiece[/url] with an art gallery asset
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2424820]The Adventures of LinShanHai - Chapter5:Three Trees[/url], the laziest flip, with a basic forest asset
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2285140]The Moment of Memory[/url] with a luxury house asset
[*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2433480]The Mystery of Cargo Ship 1769[/url] with cargo ship assets
[/list]
These are all reskins and rehashes of the [b][i]same game![/i][/b]
Worse, many of these asset flips are in Early Access... is the developer working on them all at the same time? Not likely. They're abusing Early Access.
The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 3 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, 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 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
So, should you buy this asset flip? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?
"Below the Surface:Uncovering the Truth in the Sewers" is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. This is also competing with over 11,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product.
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]
