驱煞

"驱煞" (Exorcising Evil Spirits) is just another academic exercise dumped onto the Steam store, one of thousands. While student projects tend to be better quality than most "amateur" games, we must still question what value they have for gamers. This isn't a fully fleshed out game. It's the result of an academic exercise and has much more limited value than a professionally developed game. While most of the time when an educational academy dumps garbage on Steam, it's the result of a student project. This, however, is an advertisement! It's a tutorial and you're expected to sign up to learn how to make this exact game. Educational institutions should not be using Steam as a dumping ground for homework assignments. It helps their marketing and makes students feel good, but it puts the business before the needs of gamers. And the game itself is a shameless ripoff of Vampire Survivor (copyright Poncle, 2021). Maybe it's just me, but the first thing students should probably learn is that it's wrong to breach copyright law, steal or plagiarise the work of others. I guess they don't teach that one at this Chinese game dev school. The game assets here look a lot better than the actual game they're assembled on... that doesn't mean this is necessarily an asset flip or a kitbash, because there's no proof. But what matters is that this has all the same terrible quality as asset flips, and at the end of the day that's one of the reasons people don't like asset flips, the quality is bad. That's a problem. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. As an advertisement, this is only free in the same way that adverts on Youtube and banner ads in your browser are. This is a game demo that's been dumped on Steam to advertise another Steam store page in the hopes of getting students to sign up to a game school. Just because advertisements are free, doesn't mean they're worth your time. Businesses should not be abusing Steam to advertise their products or services. Don't scan the QR code, either. What a joke. If any game shows you a QR code, don't go near it.