Reveal is more lazy minimal effort shovelware from the asset flippers at SA Industry/ZemunBRE/Mikhail Melnikov. This guy does nothing but use multiple shell accounts to copy premade game templates and game tutorials, fill out a few things/stamp out basic levels using the construction kit templates, slap on an asset flipped set of sprites/assets, and dump them on Steam and into cheap nasty shovelware game bundles as cash grabs. Trying to get paid for someone else's game templates, assets... at best, this is shovelware, at worst, it's a scam/cash grab.
This is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, taking a bunch of Unreal Engine stock assets and organising them into a craptastically bad first person "adventure" puzzle game minimum viable product... it mostly doesn't work. As far as I can tell this was designed to be a Portal ripoff, so I guess Valve is really chuffed about this being on Steam. I wasn't able to progress past the first level because the activation stuff doesn't trigger properly, no testing was done, of course, because SA Industry is really just in it to scam gamers for the work of others. Harsh, but provable, here's the evidence:
SA Industry/Useless Machines have shown a repeat pattern of unethically dumping other people's work onto Steam as a cheap, nasty cash grab, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. Here's some examples so you can see for yourself:
[list]
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1053650]Drive For Your Life[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/zombie-drive-full-game-template-73074]Zombie Drive - Full Game Template[/url] developed by Puppeteer
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/856490]Falling Words[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/2d-typing-game-endless-random-falling-word-text-font-typer-game-107867]2D Typing Game[/url] developed by Steelkrill Studio
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/756260]Kingdom Defense[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/tower-defense-basic-pixel-art-pack-45705]Tower Defense Basic Pixel Art Pack[/url] developed by FreeThePlayerOnGame
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1075790]Fox and Bunny[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/characters/sunny-land-103349]Sunny Land[/url] developed by Ansimuz
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/827920]Bounce[/url]" = [url=https://nullpress.net/free-download-bounce-mobile-game-unity-project-included/]Bounce Mobile Game Unity Project[/url] developed by GhandiGames
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/810570]Face[/url]" = [url=https://github.com/BayatGames/RedRunner]Red Runner[/url] developed by Bayat Games
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/763360]Nice Way[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/white-peas-61645]White Peas[/url] developed by EVGames
[*] "[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/786750]Squares[/url]" = [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/push-the-squares-69780]Push the Squares Pack[/url] developed by Shorka Games
[/list]
The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at around 1440p, there's no support for the state-of-the-art 4K or higher resolutions. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers. There's also some ugly postptocessing going on, the developers just smacked the basic Unreal postprocessing without any bother configuring properly, so it's a blurry mess.
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 4 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 (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
It's also important to note the "developer" here has connections to a number of shady Russian asset flippers and review manipulators who show an organised pattern to scam and defraud gamers with fake reviews and asset flipping the work of others for profit. While reviews are about the games, gamers should be informed when developers act unethically. Whether these connections are the same developer using multiple accounts, or just working closely with other unethical developers, gamers should be warned about the harm to gamers by this developer and their associates. Buying games from unethical developers puts your money at risk.
SA Industry ramped up their unethical behaviour here as they try to force you to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality game this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur than anything else. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me.
Reveal has the scam tier price of around $9 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the unethical nature of the developer. Remember that if you buy a game from an unethical developer, you're putting your money at risk.
[b][quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/quote][/b]Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.
