"LightGone" is a student project from Neumont College of Computer Science. One of the first things students should be taught in game development is that 3D graphics became mainstream in the mid 1990's with dedicated 3D cards like the Voodoo3 and the ATI Rage. But the students were deliberately mistaught that's it's okay to release obsolete 2D games in the 3D era of gaming... certainly any professional developer seeing a prospective new hire who doesn't even know about 3D gaming probably isn't going to give them a job.
The students were told, on purpose, that PC gamers like pixelcrap adventure game rejects from the 1990's and were instructed to create one. The result, apart from unemployable graduates, is a complete garbage pixelcrap top down adventure game with a few minipuzzles. The idea is that all light in the world has gone out (so everyone and everything died when there wasn't enough light for plant photosynthesis, but these are game development students who don't know about 3D graphics, so I guess their knowledge of basic physics, chemistry and biology would be even worse).
There's a mild horror theme, but I was horrified enough by seeing game dev students taught that pixelcrap is even remotely acceptable in modern gaming.
It might make the students feel good about themselves to get this published on Steam Direct (even if no gamers actually wanted it), but this has no benefit for us PC gamers. We have to question the value of institutions flooding the store with low quality 2D video game homework assignments while gamers wade through this stuff to find professionally made 3D games.
The amateur pixelcrap visual presentation here at best could have been an attempt to use "retro" as a crutch, a weak excuse to avoid admitting the developer wasn't capable of doing the job of a game developer this decade and creating cutting edge, high quality 3D visuals. While a lack of skill or funding is the explanation for this failure, it's no excuse. The end result of this incompetence is a game that looks dramatically inferior to professionally developed games. Terraria and Undertale succeeded [i]despite[/i] looking crap, not [i]because[/i] they look crap.
Let's talk about price and the value this represents for us 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.
There's the other problem, too... as a student project, this wasn't made for gamers. There's no requirement for them to polish and balance the game properly, all they need is something to show the faculty so they can get their grade and move on. Let's once more ask... why is that good for gamers?
It's obviously not delivering a solid product. Yet here it is, on the store page, and here you are, reading my review for a student demo that's going to waste your time. While genuine amateur developers who made real products get ignored because they have to compete with this stuff.
In some ways, this deluge of student projects on Steam is harmful to everyone.
A peak of [b]6 concurrent players[/b] (according to SteamDB) for a "free" game is a disastrous public reception. Out of 130 million potential players here on Steam, almost nobody was interested. Even though this is "free". That level of rejection speaks a lot for the quality of the game.
This student project/tech demo/glorified homework assignment provides no Steam profile benefits, no +1 to your game count, and little value to gamers (because it's just a small, unpolished student project), so I can't recommend this over the thousands of full, professionally made games on Steam.
At the end of the day, my reviews are intended to help gamers find quality and avoid the dregs (with over 140,000 games on Steam... not all of them are masterpieces). If you think my review is wrong, definitely add this to your library, download it and play it... it's surely exactly the kind of game you'll love (but I doubt it will work out that way). Game reviews are for gamers to share their thoughts and help others choose where to spend valuable time. If my review helps you to grab or reject this game, then my job is done.
