LSD: Dream Emulator (Wanderlust) isn't a game, it's an art exhibition that's been dumped on Steam, presumably because the local art galleries took out a restraining order on the "artists" who had no other choice but to pay Valve $100 to dump this on Steam. All you do in this game is walk around what look like asset flipped environments while annoying music plays at you. Even walking sims like Dear Elise, while light on gameplay, are games that express a narrative, which you can only reveal by playing through the sim. This doesn't even have that.
For those unfamiliar with what actually makes something a game, a "game loop" describes the interaction and feedback a gamer has when playing a game. Tetris, for example, has a game loop where a random block appears, the gamer interacts with the block to position it, and then the game decides if that finishes a row or not, increases the players score if any rows were completed, then gives the gamer another block to position. Counter-Strike has a game loop where a player seeks another player, tests their skill against that player by shooting them or being shot, the computer rewards the player if they win, and then if the player survives, they repeat that loop. There's no loop here, no true interactive feedback. It simply is not a game, it cannot be "played".
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
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.
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, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
In an attempt to excuse the low quality of delivery here, the game makes a big point of having a nice soundtrack. If the business plan for a game is to compete with Spotify, which is free and has effectively unlimited music, all of which is better than the music here, it's failed before it even started. Gamers can listen to the Spotify for free. A game cannot be seen as recommendable just because it competes badly with listening to the radio or to MP3s.
LSD: Dream Emulator (Wanderlust) didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for using SAM to "hack" your way to one achievement... which is not how achievements should be done, so it's utterly inappropriate for the developer to publish that achievement. Less than 18 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.
The poor quality of this game is also 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 6 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 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
So, should you buy this non-game?
LSD: Dream Emulator (Wanderlust) has the gamer gouging price of around $5 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 $5 asking price for this game could get you actual, real games like "X-Com 2", "Far Cry 3" or "X-Com: Enemy Unknown". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
The developer breaches Valve guidelines for no reason other to throw an insult at this reviewer. Surely, if there was anything wrong with this review factually, the developer would have jumped on it, but he was unable to. Thus, tacitly confirming the validity of my review by simply calling me a "hater".
And this is of course BS. I love video gaming. I love Steam. I'm an advocate for gamers and for the levels of quality that gamers deserve.
But I certainly have a problem with people who put themselves before gamers. People who do this, like the "developer" of this non-game garbage, are harmful to the gaming industry. They're harmful because they produce nothing of value for gamers.
This kind of non-game garbage, dumped on Steam so the developer can pat his own back and boost his (evidently fragile) ego, is absolutely harmful in a couple of ways.
Why? Because this insincerely made garbage isn't a game, but it's taking up space that should be afforded to sincere, genuine game developers who do the right thing and make real games for gamers. The developer is harming real, genuine indie developers with this non-game trashware. Taking up marketing and visibility space for real games.
It also harms gamers, who have to sort through all this garbage to find those real, genuinely made games.
Developers like this give indie devs a bad name.
The developer insults me by calling me a hater, when he's gone out of his way to cause harm to the industry we love.
Now, I've called this garbage, and you might see that as a negative thing, but I wasn't the one who created this garbage, nor I am I the one who is responsible for it failing to appeal to gamers. And it is garbage. I provided real world data and statistics that prove the case; Peak user count was only 6 users. Achievement rate for the [i]easiest[/i] achievement was just 18 percent. Facts don't lie. Out of 12 million gamers on Steam, only 6. All I'm doing is reporting these facts... and it's made this developer so angry he breached Valve guidelines just to insult me. Wow.
The developer has attacked me with this insult just so he can blame me for his failure. You can see the developers "I'm the main character!!!" attitude, truly deplorable, explains the cause of this low quality non-game product. But it does not excuse it.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this non-game trash to anyone.
