Loot Box Simulator 20!8 isn't really a proper game, it's just a lazy 2D browser/Flash-tier "number incrementer" game where the object of the game is to increase the in-game currency by clicking, and sometimes buying things that increase the rate at which your currency/score goes up. It's an incredibly shallow game loop, to the point you might as well just run a program that does "i=i+1; print i" and watch the numbers go up automatically, and just watch it. You'd get the exact same outcome. If this sounds completely mindless, you're not wrong. It's not actually a loot box simulator as it doesn't really have true loot box mechanics, it's just a clicker/incrementer.
Of course this is from the toxic Russian shovelware pusher and Steam polluter, Nikita "Ghost_RUS" who dumps this ClickTeam Fusion asset flips onto Steam as cash grabs. There's no genuine quality or merit as a game for gamers with this trash, it's barely even a game.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
Bewilderingly, the game doesn't include proper audio controls, so you can't turn off the annoying background music, you'll need to alt+tab out and stop the music using the Windows sound mixer. This is obviously not okay and it's unclear why the developers chose not to include this basic feature.
The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.
Some of the defects in the game can be attributed to the choice of using the Clickteam Fusion construction kit - the "No-Code" construction kit that "Anyone can make games with!!". Including, you know, people who aren't game developers. Which is a problem. This is a very poor quality toolset sometimes used by amateur developers as it's free (so they don't have to pay for GameMaker Studio) and doesn't require advanced game development skills, but unfortunately has very limited capabilities (it's arguably worse than GameMaker Studio). Just as you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, you can't make a great video game if you use a terrible engine. So it's inappropriate when amateurs try to use these for profit, without any actual, real game development effort taking place. This doesn't result in products that have any real meaningful value for gamers.
The very poor quality of this game puts it squarely on-par with ancient 1990's Flash/Java games, and given it's 2023 (and this was released not so far back in 2018), gamers and the industry expect and deserve better than this kind of low effort shovelware.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern 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 only 3 players. 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 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
While game reviews must be about the game, as this review has been, it's sometimes important for gamers to be aware when there's problems with the developers. In this case, Nikita "Ghost_RUS", a Russian shovelware scam artist who routinely abuses Steam by polluting the marketplace with shovelware like this game. Nikita "Ghost_RUS" continually sends a message of racism, bigotry, homophobia and hate speech through his games, in direct violation of Valve's guidlines for acceptable game content. You can read more about it in [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Sentinels_of_the_Store/announcements/detail/1663386372399476871]this article by the Sentinels of the Store[/url] curator group.
This is something I feel potential customers should be aware of for two reasons. First, I understand completely that gamers may not want to buy games with such horrible, antihumanitarian messages of hate such as games from Nikita "Ghost_RUS". Secondly, gamers must be aware that if Valve decides to do the right thing and enforce their policy against hate speech and bigotry in games, games such as this will be banned. So, buying games from Nikita "Ghost_RUS" may be putting your money at risk.
Loot Box Simulator 20!8 is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.
[b]Note:[/b] Because this is more of a "joke" game, intended to draw attention from controversy or in the hopes of going viral because it's "so bad it's good" (but it isn't good at all), there's nothing here to offer to serious gamers. As usual, with most awful/joke games, all the comedians come out of the woodwork. The vast majority of the reviews for this game are joke reviews, such as "this game cured my cancer, saved my marriage, changed my life" etc. Because most of the reviews are as insincere as the game itself is, the positive review score for this game should be disregarded.
