Solo ReflectioN!

***Update to Developer's response*** Regardless of how you twist it, the game is built on the foundation of another game Pong! You have added a coin deposit feature which yes is unique, but if I go and take a game and change one small mechanic of how you earn points - it does not qualify as an original game. There are a multitude of Pong recreations available on itch.io, indiegala, etc. mostly free or for a small fee - not $5USD. I am not reviewing under bias as I did not enjoy the game after the first few minutes, and for the reasons that my review mentions prior. Although when I do inspect your other games - it is very apparent you take older generational games, put a small twist or change one mechanic and apply a high price tag (not content/value worth). This game should be put together with your other games in an arcade style game, not $5 per remake with a twist. The only bias part about my review was the fact you do criticise other projects who either build their game from the ground up or come up with original and creative ideas when clearly your games lack both. At the end of the day, I thank you for your response and I will just stay away from games developed by you to prevent further disappointment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solo Reflection is a poor copy of aspects from Pong! and block breaker games. Art style is amateurish which is most likely the intent by the developer looking and playing some of his other games, but honestly disappointing. All the developers games are ideas taken from original games, and twisted a bit for them to call it original. Unfortunately, the developer enjoys reviewing other's games and calling them "flips" although it is extremely hypocritical when ALL his games are based off other mini-games just recreated, with amateurish art and a high price tag. I do not like being this negative, but with his extremely voiced opinion on many Steam games made by small indie devs, the same standards needs to be applied to his own games. I admit, this game was quite fun for a few minutes, although combined with the extremely small hit-box of the character and the inability to properly redirect the ball with movement makes me honestly rather pick up a polished game breaker game for free, rather than spending $7 AUD on Steam. There is not even Steam achievements attached.

Solo ReflectioN! is a hybrid/ripoff of Pong and Breakout/Arkanoid, and very much a copy+paste of another game from the same developer (Prison Ball: Full Blown), but single player and (thankfully) without the needless prison sex jokes. The game features a few differences from Prison Ball: Full Blown as you need to switch sides to cover both "ends" of the ball arena, which adds a very challenging element to the game. It's also less "noisy" than Prison Ball, and if I was forced at gunpoint to choose between the two, I'd take the bullet. If I survived, I'd take this over Prison Ball. Since this is a copy+paste of another game, my review is going to look pretty similar, too, but then there's only so many ways one can advise gamers about 2D retro pixel bundlefillers. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics. 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. SteamDB shows the game failed to garner any notable interest from gamers, amazingly, the peak concurrent player count is just 1 (ONE) player. Typically there's nobody playing the game on any given month (I was the first person to launch the game on Steam for several weeks). This is supported by the developers own high score system, which shows only 4 players bothered to play long enough to get a high score (or perhaps it's bugged, because I wasn't able to get onto the top score chart at all). The technical deficiencies are the most likely cause of this broad rejection from the 12 million gamers on Steam. Given the shovelware nature of the game the pricing seems somewhat optimistic, with an unrealistic $3 USD price tag for a ripoff of Atari's copyrighted 1976 "Breakout". Given that you can play Breakout and Pong clones for free in a web browser, it's extremely difficult to suggest anyone would want to pay for this one. [quote]Online Stalking and Harrassment[/quote] The developer has started stalking me, delivering personal attacks and is attempting to publicly cyberbully and intimidate me by posting hitpiece videos and articles. Why? Because I wrote an honest and frank assessment about an objectively bad and failed product. It's an objective failure rejected by gamers, confirmed by SteamDB figures for the failed game, and for the other reasons I supplied in my accurate review. Certainly, the hitpieces the stalker/developer here has linked up are false and misleading (for example, I've given positive reviews to 2D indie games in the past, but the "developer" here chooses to lie about that), but cyberbullies don't care about facts, they just want to intimidate and attack those for providing the truths the developer can't emotionally accept. This unhinged, unstable and harmful behavior from the developer is utterly unacceptable, and is a chilling attempt to silence the truth. Now, you can look at the objective facts of my review, and then have a look at how this reviewer is attacking and intimidating reviewers, and suddenly the overwhelming rejection of these crappy GameMaker Studio ripoffs makes perfect sense. I will not be intimidated or silenced by stalkers and bullies.

An excellent brick breaker and pong hybrid, introducing a few new mechanics to make it feel like more than just a clone. The amateur graphics fit the general tone of the game, the controls worked near flawlessly, and great hit detection on objects. For a few bucks, it's worth it!