RPG Maker strikes again!
This is yet another low effort pixelcrap RPG Maker asset flip made with a game construction kit designed for children to use. Almost every RPG Maker asset flip is just a bunch of stock RPG Maker assets mixed with cringe-inducing high school anime club dropout fan-fiction. The "developer" here didn't know how to make a JRPG with RPG Maker, which is the only thing it's for, and instead, worse, copy + pasted out a godawful more-book-than-game asset flipped RPG Maker asset flip "adventure game" asset flip that was insincerely bashed together for a game jam (yes, not intended for gamers, not a real game, just a tech demo as the developer tried to win a prize for showing how he can take other people's RPG Maker assets and put his own name on them).
So basically the developer wrote about the absolute most popular topic across just about every RPG Maker asset flip I've ever see... yes, little girls. I don't know why RPG Maker asset flippers are so obsessed with little girls, and I don't want to. This time the little girls mother is creepy and abusive, and so you go on a pointless pixelcrap collection adventure to explore the badly written high school anime club dropout tier fan-fiction.
Like other RPG Maker "games", the game engine is extremely low quality. It displays badly in fullscreen, and has no real graphics settings or HD support. It's not up to the same standard we expect from a modern PC game.
We can make the argument that construction kit toys like RPG Maker are intended for making small games and demos and things to pass around with friends. They shouldn't be used as a substitute or "Ez-mode" to allow unqualified amateurs to LARP that they're real, actual game developers.
Like most RPG Maker shovelware, the game uses low quality 2D "retro" pixelcrap art and has bad gameplay. RPG Maker is garbage and never results in products with any real value as PC games.
This is the product of a game jam, which immediately tells us it isn't a sincere piece of software. Real games take years of professional work, not a single weekend of amateur hacking. You cannot expect a product slapped together in a week or so to have any value, and "My Light In The Dark" shows that these rushed game jam entries are just shovelware impersonating a real game. Badly.
Also, products created in game jams were never intended for gamers. They exist only to stroke the ego of amateur developers who can't get a real job in the industry. When untalented developers put their own vanity before the needs of the player, garbage like "My Light In The Dark" is the result.
Imagine if airports ran a "plane jam" to see who which amateur enthusiast could build an airplane within a weekend with a $100 budget. Would you fly on that plane? No. It takes time and resources to do a job properly.
It's improper for shovelware game jam junk like this to be published through Steam Direct because it's harmful. This half-baked product is taking up space that should be given to genuine developers who actually put in the hard work over years to create complete, fully made games. This makes it harder for gamers like you and me to find real, finished products.
This game is fairly dated at 7 years old... and even back then it looked old and busted compared to contemporary, professionally made 3D games of the same period. It looked bad then, it looks worse now.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers.
There's no initial download price, but the developer was charging $2 USD for this.
Price barriers, especially on low quality products, can be a direct cause of failure. It seems like a nice gesture for the game to have no up-front cost anymore, but it also tells us that the game wasn't good enough to succeed as a paid product. This is also a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who showed enough questionable judgement to pay money for this... nobody got refunded.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? What's the verdict?
Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.
