[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
Cake Space Shooter is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unreal Marketplace 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.
Candy games studios have shown a repeat pattern of unethically dumping other people's work onto Steam as a cheap, nasty cash grab, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. Here's some examples so you can see for yourself:
[list]
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1776540]Lawnmower Game: Pinball[/url]" = [url=https://github.com/freezy/pinball-construction-kit]Pinball Construction Kit[/url] developed by Epic Games
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/723830]Cyborg Invasion Shooter[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/third-person-shooter-kit]Third Person Shooter Kit[/url] developed by Epic Games
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/3046850]Candy Golf[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/mini-golf-template]Mini Golf Template[/url] developed by GoFlood
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2975920]Candy Puzzle[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/platformer-3-chocolate]Platformer 3 - Chocolate[/url] developed by ithappy
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1639090]Survival Isolation[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/easy-survival-rpg]Easy Survival RPG[/url] developed by Easy Systems
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/989340]Aliens Dont Exist[/url]" = [url=https://craftpix.net/freebies/2d-game-alien-character-free-sprite/]Alien Character - Free Sprite[/url] developed by Craftpix
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/768060]The Warrior Of Treasures[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/dynamic-combat-system]Dynamic Combat System[/url] developed by Grzegorz Szewczyk
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2985190]Candy Renovation[/url]" = [url=https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/renovation-simulator]Renovation Simulator[/url] developed by Manudog
[/list]
In this case, Tero Lunkka took a couple of stolen sprites, some stolen wallpapers and a basic Unreal blueprint for a 2D side scrolling shoot 'em up and slapped one of his fake accounts (Cake Games) on it so he can pretend it's his. This is actually one of Tero's worst asset flips to date, the quality is comically bad, he didn't even bother stealing desktop wallpaper that tesselates properly for the scrolling background. So you get hard rectangular edges of the starfield scrolling under you. The fact Tero thought it would be okay to publish this on Steam at all shows just how lazy he's become about his asset flip scams. But as always, reviews are not about the developer, no matter how shady, dishonest and scammy they are, they're about the product. Let's go into why you shouldn't buy this asset flip.
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.
A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.
To make matters worse, while lazy, low quality pixel "art" has been used, making the game look bad, many elements of the game aren't done with pixelcrap... which accomplishes a couple of things. First, it shows the developers perhaps could have done better and they knew it, so that's a major screwup.
Secondly, it destroys any hopes the developer had of creating a "retro aesthetic" as their excuse for the lazy pixelart compromise... It looks completely inauthentic from a retro gaming perspective. Visually, this is a hamfisted mess, a dogs breakfast of bad visuals, and this kind of laziness and poor quality should never be foisted on gamers.
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 mismatched game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality, it's a wonder why they couldn't be bothered "borrowing" higher quality assets for this asset flip. This is a lot like going on a shoplifting spree but only stealing the cut price store brand goods. Regardless, the poor quality assets alone should be enough to deter gamers from bothering with this.
Bewilderingly, the game doesn't include proper audio controls, so you can't turn off the annoying sound/background music, you'll need to alt+tab out and stop it using the Windows sound mixer. This is obviously not okay and it's unclear why the developers chose not to include this basic feature.
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 all-time peak player number was only 2 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 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!
Cake Space Shooter 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. 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]
