"云城异闻录" is a low key asset flip, a bunch of other people's assets assembled badly to make a basic game. Typically this kind of thing is done by amateur developers without sufficient budget, talent and/or staff to do the job of game development professionally. It's then quickly rushed into Steam Direct. And, unsurprisingly, this never results in a product with any quality, interest, or value for gamers.
This is a very routine, unfinished and unpolished Unreal kitbash where the developer slapped together some Unreal assets badly onto the basic first person adventure game blueprint and made a basic "horror" game with the intention of getting your money for someone else's Unreal assets.
So, the game might look better than you'd expect from an amateur project, but this is because it's partially or completely made up of stock assets, "borrowed" from asset stores and free asset websites. Very little in this game is truly the creation of the "developer", it's just a bunch of rearranged assets.
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, we quickly find they can't do any of the rest of the job of a game developer either. That's definitely true for "云城异闻录".
There's no English translation for the game, but that's okay. The language of bad games is universal.
Despite not being in Early Access, it's obvious this is an incomplete product. Developers have an obligation to deliver complete, not partially done products to gamers, that shouldn't be controversial. Whatever the excuses may be, it does no service to gamers for incomplete products polluting Steam like this. It makes it harder for gamers to find complete games, and it makes it harder for ethical developers who do the right thing to find their audience.
Let's talk about pricing and the actual value this has for gamers.
There's no initial download price, but the developer was charging $2 USD for this.
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.
Even as a free game, this couldn't find an audience. With a peak of [b]only 12 players[/b], it's clear the Steam community took one look and walked away. They literally couldn't pay people to spend time playing this.
Given that this free game won't increase your game collector count, is it worth your time to add it to your library?
I can't recommend this, it's not worth downloading even if it's "free". Games don't exist in a vacuum... Steam gamers have literally thousands of better choices.
One final note, there's so many games on Steam, it would be impossible for anyone to play all of them in one lifetime (although I am trying). As gamers, our time is important and we have the luxury of choosing between so many games... but so many of them are so badly made, often unethically through incompetence or greed, so I think it's important for gamers to help each other find the games that deserve our time. If you don't agree with my review here, prove me wrong, download this game and play it for yourself. My reviews are just intended to help gamers make informed choices, and I hope they help you, too.
