BETWEEN is not a game. Games contain meaningful gamelike interaction and game loops, which are absent in this "art experience".
Instead of being a game, BETWEEN is a software application that presents a poorly made art exhibition.
This Chinese "experimental art installation" is a simple 3D environment where you type the names of dead people to get more snippets of badly written "I'm an artist and this is deep and also this is a computer game apparently" text, that's it. No reason to want to do any of this. Of course, this art exhibition seeks to solve depression caused by loss and mourning, you know, because Chinese non-developer "artists" are all experts in this field.
We get this non-game shovelware on Steam whenever your usual Starbucks barista/McDonalds frycook art school dropout finally gets a restraining order from the local art galleries so turns to Steam Direct to try get their art published somewhere so they can finally dream of moving out of their parents basement.
It's true that games can be art... art is where the pinnacles of craftsmanship and quality meet vision and narrative to create an experience far greater than the sum of the parts. This isn't a game at all, and the craftsmanship and narrative are terrible. This isn't making art better, it's just making gaming worse.
For those unfamiliar with what actually makes something a game, a "game loop" describes the interaction and feedback a gamer has when playing a game. Tetris, for example, has a game loop where a random block appears, the gamer interacts with the block to position it, and then the game decides if that finishes a row or not, increases the players score if any rows were completed, then gives the gamer another block to position. Counter-Strike has a game loop where a player seeks another player, tests their skill against that player by shooting them or being shot, the computer rewards the player if they win, and then if the player survives, they repeat that loop. There's no loop here, no true interactive feedback. It simply is not a game, it cannot be "played".
This has misleadingly been launched in the "Games" section of Steam instead of the "Software" section. This is a common mistake for developers who are new to Steam, or don't understand the difference between games and software which isn't a game. It seems this software published incorrectly as a game is simply lack of experience/knowledge of the correct process.
Here's a link for the process to publish non-game software on Steam:
[url=https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithPublishing?issueid=925]Steam Developer Help With Software Publishing[/url]
It's unfortunate this process was not known about/followed, resulting in a non-game "art experience" being published in the wrong place.
Publishing things which aren't games on Steam in the Games section as games is misleading to gamers and somewhat harmful, because it pollutes the Steam marketplace and takes away visibility and market exposure for genuine game developers who do the right thing and make games for gamers.
There are no gameplay loops in this rejected art school dropout exhibition, no "gameplay", no meaningful game like interaction. As such, this has no merit as a video game for gamers, and so I cannot recommend this non-game as a game to gamers.
[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 thumps their chest about almost but not quite getting a participation trophy for this failed garbage... and since the developer now chooses to shine a spotlight on their inadequacy and failure while polluting Steam with non-game garbage, let's point out that SteamDB shows the peak user count for this non-game software is one (1) person. Just one. When I ran it up to see if it was a game and discover it isn't, I equalled the peak user count for the software globally. Just myself. That's the ultimate, perfect definition of complete failure. There's twelve [b]million[/b] gamers on Steam and [b]none[/b] of them were even remotely interested in this garbage non-game software.
The developer admits they didn't hire a team of talented staff to produce the software and tried to do the whole thing on their own, instead. This is a lot like boarding an airplane, and halfway through the flight, having the pilot come out and serve peanuts. It's going to end in disaster. It requires a team of competent people to do a complex job properly, and that's not what has happened here... another explanation for the poor quality and ultimate failure of this garbage software, which is not a game.
The developer makes the highly spurious claim that they studied game development for four years, but apparently in none of that time did they actually learn what a game is or what a game loop is. I have helpfully provided that in my review so gamers can understand more clearly why this fails to meet the basic definition of a game.
It's evident from the developers appalling response that at no point in time did they ever consider what would be good for you, the most important people, the gamers. When developers are so incredibly arrogant they don't even think for one minute about what gamers care about, this non-game garbage, rejected by all, is the inevitable result.
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 game to anyone.
