[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
Mono Playground is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few generic 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 sprites from the internet, dumped them on a basic 2D platformer blueprint/template and tried to pass it all off as if it was his own work. An example of the stolen/plagiarised assets is [url=https://stock.adobe.com/au/images/animated-cat-game-character/231440673]Animated Cat Game Character[/url] that the "developer" ripped off from Adobe and wants us to think is his own work. It has no value or merit as a real 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.
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 mismatched game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality, it's a wonder why they couldn't be bothered "borrowing" higher quality assets for this asset flip. This is a lot like going on a shoplifting spree but only stealing the cut price store brand goods. Regardless, the poor quality assets alone should be enough to deter gamers from bothering with this.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
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.
The game is free, which means this isn't some kind of cash grab or a scam, but the quality is so deplorably low this is just polluting the Steam store, which in itself is harmful. This pollution is taking up visiblity and marketing space from games that were developed by sincere developrs who did the right thing, and it makes it harder for those games to find an audience. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuine games, too. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers, and we can only hope Valve will implement some quality control at some point, instead of relying on reviews like mine to warn gamers away from pollution like this.
