"S.P.L.I.C.E.D." is just another student project dumped onto the Steam store, one of thousands. It's from Breda University of Applied Sciences. Student projects might look better than amateur shovelware, but they aren't real games. This is just a glorified homework assignment. It lacks the depth and value you get from professionally developed product because it was made for a grade, not for players.
Schools, colleges and universities shouldn't be using Steam to show off student projects. It might be fine for the school's marketing, but it clutters the Steam store with pollution... we have to sort past all these short student tech demos just so we can find real, full games from professional developers. This is a case of a game dev college putting its own interests before the interests of gamers.
The students made a 3D rendered 2D platformer shooter/brawler that puts 99.99% of amateur 2D retro platformers to shame. That doesn't mean it's an okay game, more on that, but visually this shows that there's simply no excuse for garbage pixelcrap and lazy retro 2D low quality shovelware... you can make a platformer without making it look like crap.
The students had a rather imaginative task to create a "Biopunk" eastern themed platformer with fights, action, and boss fights... but of course, being a student project, it's janky, unpolished and full of bugs. It's short, not really what you would call a full game. And of course, the students got their grades and moved on... this is unmaintained and abandoned, the problems with it will never be fixed. That's not good for gamers at all!
The graphics in this game are really quite good, which at least makes the game look more appealing. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here.
Now onto pricing and value.
It would be unethical for students to try charge money for their homework assignments, so you don't have to pay any money for this. But you'd still have to spend your time downloading this, and "time is money", as they say.
There's the other problem, too... as a student project, this wasn't made for gamers. There's no requirement for them to polish and balance the game properly, all they need is something to show the faculty so they can get their grade and move on. Let's once more ask... why is that good for gamers?
It's obviously not delivering a solid product. Yet here it is, on the store page, and here you are, reading my review for a student demo that's going to waste your time. While genuine amateur developers who made real products get ignored because they have to compete with this stuff.
In some ways, this deluge of student projects on Steam is harmful to everyone.
Even as a free game, this couldn't find an audience. With a peak of [b]only 11 players[/b], it's clear the Steam community took one look and walked away. They literally couldn't pay people to spend time playing this.
This "free" game won't count toward your game collection count on your profile. With that in mind, is it something you should still download?
This is a "maybe" experience... if you have a lot of free time on your hands and nothing else to do, why not? But for the purposes of a review, this isn't something I can say everyone must try. It's not quite there. Valve doesn't give us a "maybe" option in reviews, but if they did, that's what I'd choose for this.
One final note, there's so many games on Steam, it would be impossible for anyone to play all of them in one lifetime (although I am trying). As gamers, our time is important and we have the luxury of choosing between so many games... but so many of them are so badly made, often unethically through incompetence or greed, so I think it's important for gamers to help each other find the games that deserve our time. If you don't agree with my review here, prove me wrong, download this game and play it for yourself. My reviews are just intended to help gamers make informed choices, and I hope they help you, too.
