[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
Bladepink 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 asset flipper took a basic Unity blueprint for a top down brawler and reskinned with some basic cartoony/retro 2D sprites... he's ripped off this template multiple times now. This is just a fake game to hold fake reviews and a bloated pricetag so it can be sold in random "premium" buindles. It's a scam. It has no value or merit as a real game.
It's worth noting this guy has almost a dozen fake/shell accounts he uses to try hide his identity and further scam and mislead gamers into buying these fake products with fake reviews. Here's some:
[list]
[*] BHPG
[*] Daniel Li
[*] Fady Games
[*] Hardi
[*] Infinity Code
[*] Johan
[*] Joi Max
[*] Lieb
[*] LocalJamStudio
[*] Louie Inc
[*] Nikita Morti
[*] TNT Studio
[/list]
And we're sure he'll keep adding more shell accounts to continue to run these fake game scams. And of course he's an asset flipper.
Nikita Morti have a known history of trying to scam people into paying them money for someone else's work, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. One example of Nikita Morti doing this is [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313990]Robots - Invaders[/url], which is really the "[url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/fps-microgame-156017]FPS Microgame[/url]" asset, written by the actual developers, Unity Technologies.
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 features simple, cartoony 2D graphics, of the type you normally expect to see in low effort mobile apps. 3D graphics programming does require a degree of skill and competence and unfortunately not all developers have the budget or talent to deliver this, despite 3D graphics cards hitting the mainstream in the 1990's. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing.
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.
Bladepink didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is "kill 50 enemies", for killing 50 asset flipped enemies, trivial to get, but less than 23 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, even the people who own this game weren't interested in it.
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 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 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 110,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
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.
So, should you buy this asset flip? Is this better than any of the 110,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not!
Bladepink is relatively cheap at $30 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. Remember that if you buy a game from an unethical developer, you're putting your money at risk.
[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]
