[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. There are no available servers and no player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
Shenaniganza appears to be a multiplayer game offering a rather cartoonish take on hide-and-seek, specifically the "manhunt" variant where hiders can become seekers. Players participate in online matches, attempting to outmaneuver others using various power-ups and map features like portals. The core activity involves hiding or seeking within its stylized environments, leading to chaotic interactions that may involve forming or breaking alliances with other players. At least that's what the developer wants you to believe.
This "hide and seek" PvP arena aggressively deterred players through the exceptionally terrible graphics that still look a bit like they might be asset flipped... well, whoever made the assets for this game, they're terrible. And where bad visuals go, terrible gameplay almost always follows.
So, Shenaniganza is a dead PvP game. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time!
[i]Almost every PvP exclusive game on Steam fails.[/i] Only a tiny proportion of them "go viral". This game failed for many of the same reasons those others fail. The chief of which is the developer thinking that their game will "go viral" without actually creating any reason for it do so.
Competition amongst PvP centric games is extreme, and there's only a finite player base to appeal to. This game failed to reach any kind of critical mass and died as a result. Let's go into some of the reasons this particular game failed to appeal to gamers, despite the zero up front cost.
First and foremost, there's no meaningful single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the game. They lost that bet.
Without a huge community of players or single player content to add a lasting value to the game, the game dies.
Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content to a game.
The developers abandoned this 6 years and 2 months ago. It will never be completed. This unfinished game is just polluting Steam and making it harder for gamers to find genuinely, completely made games.
The graphics here are particularly awful, so bad that it actually stands out as one of the worst looking games on Steam. Quite an accomplishment. It's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. Gaming is a primarily visual medium, and if developers want to succeed, they must understand that it's not an area for compromise.
This is "free" enough, at least you won't be expected to spend any more money after you download this, but just because something is free doesn't mean it's good.
Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 6 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
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?
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.
