Snowflake Master

Snowflake Master is not a game. Games contain meaningful gamelike interaction and game loops, which are absent in this software. This app presents you with a folded bit of paper. Cut bits out and then unfold the paper, to see a "snowflake" pattern. How this could be described as a "game" is beyond me... it's glorified MS-Paint with a mirror tool. MS-Paint is 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". This has misleadingly been launched in the "Games" section of Steam instead of the "Software" section. This is a common mistake for developers who are new to Steam, or don't understand the difference between games and software which isn't a game. It seems this software published incorrectly as a game is simply lack of experience/knowledge of the correct process. Here's a link for the process to publish non-game software on Steam: [url=https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithPublishing?issueid=925]Steam Developer Help With Software Publishing[/url] It's unfortunate this process was not known about/followed, resulting in a software application being published in the wrong place. Publishing things which aren't games on Steam in the Games section as games is misleading to gamers and somewhat harmful, because it pollutes the Steam marketplace and takes away visibility and market exposure for genuine game developers who do the right thing and make games for gamers. There are no gameplay loops in this software, no "gameplay", no meaningful game like interaction. It's a software application and as such has no merits as a video game for gamers. Because of this, I cannot recommend this non-game software as a game to gamers. It's important to note that, despite this being such a low quality product, there's a number of positive reviews that all appeared immediately after the software launched, from suspiciously inactive Steam accounts that have reviewed almost no other games apart from this, all in Russian or broken English. On a purely unrelated note, recent US FTC rulings mean that review manipulation and fake reviews are now federal crimes. Interesting, isn't it? Regardless... take the review score of this game with a grain of salt. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this software as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the software (to date). Until this status changes, this software 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 software.[/quote]