[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
Just Another Night is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unity asset store assets, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.[/quote]
Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware.
In this case, the asset flipper took a bunch of stock assets and dropped them on Unreal's first person adventure BP game template, making a lazy first person jumpscare kitbash, with a cash grab price tag. It has no value or merit as a real game.
Asset plagiarism is a serious accusation, so here's proof, one of the stolen assets is [url=https://actorcore.reallusion.com/3d-character/pack/senior-people-vol-4?asset=casual-m-0049]Casual M 0049[/url], the old man asset plagiarised from ActorCore's set of stock assets. The developer wants you to think he created those assets [b]and he wants YOUR money for them[/b].
There's a backdrop theme of moving into an apartment and getting jumpscared by a clown asset. That's seriously what the eastern bloc "developer" (asset thief) wants your money for.
The game is very simplistic, small and limited in scope and ambition. This feels more like a tech demo, proof of concept or student homework assignment rather than a fully fledged product designed for PC gamers. As such it doesn't offer any real value as a serious PC game.
Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
The game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality which fits with the idea they weren't developed by the game creator... they look like they're "just reasonable enough" to go on sale as part of an asset pack. The issue of asset flipping aside, ultimately the quality of these assets is low and low quality always makes for a less than optimal gaming experience.
The game assets, such as they are, are much higher than the general quality of the game and it seems apparent the developer has just plagiarised/kitbashed them. Stock assets are just there to be used as placeholders while the developer creates their own assets for their games, but what happens far more often is lazy/unethical developers just throw a bunch of other peoples assets into a blender and put their own name on the horrible Frankenstein's Monster that results. Like this mess.
You can always spot lazy junkware when a developer fails to include basic options like customisable display settings, graphics tweaks, or control remapping. In this case, the developer [i]did not include a settings menu at all.[/i] It's obvious this is a lazy, minimum viable product cash grab. Because of this, the controls can't be customised at all, which will frustrate many players, but more seriously it can render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers, or anyone on an AZERTY or other international keyboard layout. There's no resolution options and no graphics settings of any kind. No way to set a native resolution, no way to tweak the visuals to improve performance or quality so it's tailored to your hardware. Unacceptable on any PC game.
Those technical issues put this game beneath what is expected from a contemporary, professionally developed PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was [b]only 4 players[/b]. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name.
Now on to pricing and value. Should you buy this asset flip? Is this really better than any of the 140,000+ genuinely made games on Steam? Of course not!
Just Another Night has the preposterous price of around $8 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
For comparison, the $8 asking price for this game could get you games like "Ghostrunner", "Metro Exodus" or "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
Ethics aside, the quality problems and defects with this game makes the asking price totally unrealistic. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers here on Steam, especially considering the unethical stuff going on. Because this is just a fake game/cash grab scam, and due to the sheer unethical nature of the developer, you should avoid this completely. Don't reward this morally bankrupt, unethical behaviour from Room13Games.
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]
