Dusty

"Dusty" is one of literally thousands of student projects infesting Steam. It's from U-tad in Madrid, Spain. 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. This is a third person platformer with an archaeology theme, but Indiana Jones, this isn't. There's a bit of puzzle solving, but it's a short experience (student project, not a game made for gamers), and the game lacks any control, display or graphics customisations, dropping this below minimum standards for any PC game. Which is a shame because the graphics look quite good, and if U-tad bothered to teach the students about optimisation, the game might be playable beyond a stuttering slideshow. 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. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here. Insultingly, the developer insists that you should play this with a console peasant children's toy gamepad instead of KB+M. Developers should try to be aware which platform they're designing games for. It's the responsibility of the developer to ensure the game runs well on the platform they're selling it on, with the primary peripherals that PC gamers use. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. It would be unethical for students to try charge money for their homework assignments, so you don't have to pay any money for this. But you'd still have to spend your time downloading this, and "time is money", as they say. So much for the matter of pricing. Most "free" games on Steam aren't really free. There's usually some kind of monetisation, from nasty mobile app cash shops, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, to 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. In terms of public reception, this failed. There's over 130 million unique gamers visiting Steam every month. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 14 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. 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? This is a "maybe" experience... if you have a lot of free time on your hands and nothing else to do, why not? But for the purposes of a review, this isn't something I can say everyone must try. It's not quite there. Valve doesn't give us a "maybe" option in reviews, but if they did, that's what I'd choose for this.