[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. There's no viably populated servers/active player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
"Fire in the Dark" is one of literally thousands of creatively bankrupt asset flips infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere.[/quote]
Now obviously this was just a lazy asset flip, low poly assets dumped on a basic top down shooter template, and to take avoiding doing any actual game development further, they stopped there and just made it "PvP" so much like they wouldn't have to create any game assets of their own, they wouldn't have to do level design, AI, enemy design, plot, narrative, etc. PvP is content, right? What a joke.
But anyway what really annoys me here is another amateur developer not knowing basic terminology... this is a 3D game. Therefore, it is NOT "Isometric", which is a technique to display multiple facets in a 2D technical plan such that the 2D plan shows multiple faces of the represented object, and this technique does not use perspective projection in the same way 3D games DO. The clue is in the name.. "Iso" meaning "Same" and "metric" meaning measure... a 2D isometric view has all dimensions exactly the same, they do not project off into the distance or any of that.
Seriously, Valve should have basic tests for developers to keep this garbage off Steam... the developers here already failed the basics. If you don't know the difference between 3D rendering and 2D rendering, time to never enter the gaming industry... but what should we expect? This game is just a ripoff of other people's assets, for profit.
So, "Fire in the Dark" is partially or completely made up of stock assets, "borrowed" from asset stores and free asset websites. Little, if anything in this game is the creation of the "developer".
While there's no up front price for this asset flip, the other problem with asset flips is that when developers aren't capable of doing their job and creating high quality assets, it's also true they can't do any of the rest of the job of a game developer either. That's definitely true for "Fire in the Dark", and this kind of asset flipping never results in games that have quality or value for PC gamers.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers.
There's no initial download price, but the developer was charging $2 USD for this, in a direct attempt to get YOUR money for someone else's game assets. Never okay.
Price barriers, especially on low quality products, can be a direct cause of failure. It seems like a nice gesture for the game to have no up-front cost anymore, but it also tells us that the game wasn't good enough to succeed as a paid product. This is also a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who showed enough questionable judgement to pay money for this... nobody got refunded.
In terms of public reception, this failed. There's over 130 million unique gamers visiting Steam every month. SteamDB showed the game peaked at [b]only 3 concurrent players[/b]... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
Since free games don't contribute to your game collector badge and other profile stuff, is this a worthwhile addition to your Steam library?
This is a hard pass. There's no immediate financial commitment, but there are thousands of more compelling games on the platform that will give you a lot more enjoyment for your time.
