NatureFly 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.
This VR exclusive "art" is just a few badly slapped together low poly environments (and I mean badly, the "developer" didn't even bother making sure trees were all touching the ground!). All you do is move around them and look at them. No gameplay. Not a game.
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.
The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the mid 2000s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.
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.
This seems to have been made a VR exclusive to prevent any comparison with non-VR 3D games, a comparison that this non-game art garbage would fail very badly at. Developers must learn that while VR is great, if the only thing that makes the game great is the VR, then the game isn't great at all.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
NatureFly didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the art installation, 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 walking through the first environment, trivial to get, but less than 26 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling it. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.
The poor quality of this 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 2 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only 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 real 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.
NatureFly 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.
