[b][quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/quote][/b]PHAT STACKS 2 is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" just filled out a template using GameMaker Studio, with stock art (uncredited) and dumped the mess onto Steam to try scam gamers into buying hot garbage.
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. This game contains nothing but pixel tilesets and sprites ripped off from someone else and is just a Construct 2 game template... there's nothing sincere about this.
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 game features simple, cartoony 2D graphics, of the type you normally expect to see in low effort mobile apps. 3D graphics programming does require a degree of skill and competence and unfortunately not all developers have the budget or talent to deliver this, despite 3D graphics cards hitting the mainstream in the 1990's. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing.
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.
Some of the defects in the game can be attributed to the choice of using the Construct 2/Construct 3 game engine/toolset. This is a very poor quality toolset sometimes used by amateur developers as it doesn't require advanced game development skills, but unfortunately has very limited capabilities (it's worse than GameMaker Studio!). Just as you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, you can't make a great video game if you use a terrible engine.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is 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 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 50,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
PHAT STACKS 2 is $2 USD plus an INSANE $12.50 worth of absolutely empty DLC... I'm not kidding when I call this a scam. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. This is also competing with over 9,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product.
Edit: I've edited my review to more correctlty indicate the construction kit the developer stole the stock assets and other code from. He's still trying to get YOUR money for someone else's work.
