[quote][b]Warning: Paygated Achievements[/b]
The developer of this product has deliberately and unethically locked achievements behind paid DLC. You will not be able to gain those achievements without buying DLC for this product.[/quote]
"Bounce ASMR" is not a game. Games contain meaningful gamelike interaction and game loops, which are absent in this software.
Instead of being a game, "Bounce ASMR" is a software application that displays a simple screen saver (that doesn't cover your whole screen). This is a for-profit venture, by the way. Disgusting what people will shovel onto Steam just to try scam gamers out of a few bucks for, isn't it?
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 software application 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 software, no "gameplay", no meaningful game like interaction. It's a software application and as such has no merits as a video game for gamers. Because of this, I cannot recommend this non-game software as a game to gamers.
It's important to note that, despite this being such a low quality product, there's a number of positive reviews that all appeared immediately after the game launched, from suspiciously inactive Steam accounts that have reviewed almost no other games apart from this. Take the review score of this game with a grain of salt.
Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB shows this peaked at [b]only 5 concurrent users[/b]... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
It's not even free... the "developer" is trying to scam gamers out of $5 by locking achievements behind paid DLC. This is extremely unethical, but the developer is already pushing non-game junkware at Steam, so there's no limit to how low they'll go to scam gamers.
