LumberParty is a 2D retro pixel Unity based 4-player competitive "racing" platformer where you must jump from the ground to the top of a large column of platforms (boosted by trees that rush up and down the screen from time to time), and be the first to grab the glowing space banana at the top. Which is easy when you're the only player. There's a few tweaks to alter the flow/difficulty of the game. The game features local or online gameplay.
See, the game failed horribly, having only collected a peak of 10 players for one day at launch, a number that the game never recovered from. Typically the game sees less than one player per week. Why did the game fail? It's great there's a novel premise here, but good ideas must be backed up by solid technical delivery, and here, that's a hard fail. The game was made with obsolete 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. Resolution is also locked, so there's no way for the end user to try improve the visual experience. There's no doubt these aspects of the poor technical implementation drove away players.
Without any single player content (developers must be aware that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content, level design/story/plot to a game) to appeal to players, and with no online scene, the game died.
The game is completely free. Nothing speaks more to a developers belief in themselves and their product than making their game available for everyone without remuneration. This is certainly a gesture that shows dedication to the gaming industry. It's a shame in this case that the implementation is below the minimum standards a dedicated PC game should offer to enthusiasts. There's no "maybe" option in Steam, unfortunately, but I hope to see more work from this developer, perhaps as part of a professional game development company that can make full use of their talents without needing to make budget/quality compromises.
