Cursed Gem is a free to play 2D retro pixel platformer/speedrunner built with the very medicore Godot Engine. Despite this handicap, the developer spent a lot of time polishing the game, so it comes across with professional quality, with the exception of the graphics and visuals. Gameplay consists of precision platforming, and moving as quickly as possible to beat the clock and hit the end of each level. Update: The game is broken and doesn't run properly on the latest Windows 11 builds.
They chose to use obsolete 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. Resolution and controls are locked. These flaws push this game far below minimum acceptable standards for PC.
The game is completely free. Nothing speaks more to a developers belief in themselves and their product than making their game available for everyone without remuneration. This is certainly a gesture that shows dedication to the gaming industry. It's a shame in this case that the implementation is below the minimum standards a dedicated PC game should offer to enthusiasts. There's no "maybe" option in Steam, unfortunately, but I hope to see more work from this developer, perhaps as part of a professional game development company that can make full use of their talents without needing to make budget/quality compromises.
Edit:
The developer for this game started a Reddit thread on the Godot subreddit, accusing me of lying, and engaged members of the community to perform review manipulation against the very strict rules for Steam against this behavior. Redditors used scripts and hard effort systematically marking hundreds of my reviews as "unhelpful" a result of the actions of this developer. Jokes on them, reviews only count to a market score if gameplay is over 4 hours, and it didn't take me more than 10 minutes to determine this was retro pixel shovelware slapped together with Godot. And Steam removed visibility of "unhelpful" scores years ago. Way to go, Reddit hippies, you sure achieved nothing there.
For any of the Reddit stalkers who happen to read this review, no, I don't seek out to write negative reviews, I just review as many games as possible with full honesty. I'm not trying to [i]enforce[/i] Sturgeon's Law, it's just that it turns out 90% of everything really is crap, and that includes games on Steam (so far as I've seen, anyway).
To follow on a couple of points in the developers Reddit hate thread in the Godot subreddit:
* Yes, retro pixel "art" is obsolete, it became obsolete when better graphics solutions became available. Much like biplanes are obsolete today. You may like the way biplanes look, but it doesn't change the fact they're essentially obsolete. Or you could go write AMD and NVidia and tell them to stop making 3D graphics cards... the industry moved on. Being retrograde doesn't help gaming get better.
* Because retro pixel art is obsolete, that means I shouldn't like classic art like the Mona Lisa... that's rubbish. Art is art, games are games, these things are different. Painting still remains a primary and acceptable way to publish art. Unsurprisingly, the Mona Lisa is not a cave painting, and now we can start to see why pixel "art" isn't really okay anymore. In fact, the people arguing that pixel "art" is fine should also be arguing that the Mona Lisa shouldn't have used fancy newer tech like oil paints, it should have been ochre rocks chewed up in the mouth and spat onto a cave wall. Progress is bad, right? Wrong. People who demand pixel "art" and other retrograde rubbish is acceptable are hypocrites.
* On that same point, where I review a game from 1995 running at 640x480, I obviously don't blame the developer for "choosing" to make the resolution low when that's all they had available to them... of course this does mean the game is heavily dated and that is a very good reason for gamers to avoid a game over contemporary alternatives that make full use of the gaming technology available to them. But the developers back then didn't make their games look bad on purpose. Retro pixel "games" do look bad, on purpose, because the developers aren't capable of any better. This is not a compromise that PC gamers should be putting up with.
* It doesn't take 4 hours to determine a game has problems like locked resolution/controls, pixel "art" instead of proper graphics etc. Playing the game for longer would not unlock a hidden menu option to turn this into a 3D rendered game, now, would it? No, it wouldn't. We shouldn't need to drink the whole carton of sour milk before deciding whether it's sour or not... these defects are immediately obvious.
* I decided to re-install the game to make sure my review is an accurate assessment of the game, and I discovered that the game now fails to launch, either crashing during the intro or doing a CTD on launch without so much as popping up a window. The game hasn't apparently been kept up to date with the latest Windows versions and so on, regardless, the key points of my review remain, it's a timer based platformer. If you can get it to work. Another reason not to bother with this game, unfortunately.
* I don't "hate" Godot, it's just that it's objectively a bad game engine. If I ever find one single Godot engine game that's not retro pixel shovelware/has professional production values etc then by all means I'll gladly revise my opinion from "All" Godot games to "Almost all". The fact is, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and you can't make a fantasic game from a crappy game engine. I have the same opinion of other poor quality engines like RPG Maker, GameMaker Studio, Pixel Game Maker MV, and Raycasting Game Maker. If unsure why some game engines are good and others bad, ask why Microsoft, Activision, EA etc are using engines like Frostbite, Unreal etc and not using Godot. Be honest about this.
* My review is objectively factual and this is supported by the developers own statistics and SteamDB. The game failed to find any significant player base despite being completely free, the game only ever had 9 concurrent players at launch (single digits, out of over 120,000,000 Steam users) and never recovered from that, with only 1-2 people playing each week at most... this is an objective failure to appeal to gamers. Furthermore, even the small handful of players who did play the game didn't play it much... less than 50% of the players bothered to go as far as getting the achievement for the second level. So don't take my word for it, look at the objective facts and numbers... gamers did not like Cursed Gem. The reasons? I feel my review explains accurately why the game failed to appeal to gamers.
* Negative reviews are not punishments for developers, they are guides for gamers. If you don't agree with my review, or you think any of the merited problems I point out with a game aren't important, then you should play the game, because it's exactly the game you should want to play... right? Negative reviews are the most honest, they aren't participation trophies, and they provide the most value to gamers because they inform decisions better.
So, despite the developers Reddit harassment campaign against me personally, the facts of my review remain unchanged, and I thank the numerous members of the community who've awarded my review for the informative content and service to gamers I've provided.
