Crystal Call is one of literally thousands of student projects infesting Steam. It's from Southern Methodist University in USA. While student projects tend to be better quality than most "amateur" made games, we must still question what value such projects have for gamers. As with all student projects, this isn't really a fully fleshed out game, it's just the result of an academic exercise, and as such it has much more limited value as a game than a professionally developed game would have.
Educational institutions should not be using Steam as a dumping ground for homework assignments (especially if the students didn't even pass the course). Sure, it helps their marketing and helps the students feel good about themselves, but this is another case of a business putting themselves before the needs of gamers.
Crystal Call is a first-person speedrunner, with a story set in fractured ruins within mysterious caves. You run, dash, blast, and slide through 16 challenging levels. The game works, it looks okay, it's well polished. Sometimes, I know it's rare, there's just no reason not to recommend a game. The students really knocked it out of the park with this one... this is better than some paid speedrunners like SEUM.
The graphics in this game are really quite good, which at least makes the game look more appealing. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. Here, you get a reasonably even match, enough to give this a pass.
On the matter of pricing and value for gamers, most "free" games on Steam aren't really free. There's often nasty mobile app cash shops, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of shady pricing schemes that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game.
Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable, or something you might want to spend your time on.
Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at just a dozen or so concurrent players, and now there's basically nobody playing it. Even though it's free. This is a dismal public reception, but it's easy to see why gamers rejected it.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?
Yes, believe it or not. While this is far from a perfect game, the deficiencies and drawbacks can be overlooked due to the zero up front price and the value you get out of it. It's greater than the sum of its parts, and worth downloading if you're a fan of this kind of gaming experience.
