Lucky me gets to write the first review for Space Maxwell: Arcade. Sigh.
Space Maxwell: Arcade is a very poorly made 2D retro/minimalist top down shooter slapped together with Unity. You're in an arena, enemies spawn, so you shoot them ad infinitum. There's one twist, and only one twist, enemies are either red or blue, and you have a red and blue gun, and must shoot the corresponding enemies with the corresponding gun. This is quite difficult given the pacing of the game, but it's fairly apparent no playtesting took place here.
Given this is the first review for the game I should try to say something nice... this isn't an asset flip, or a cash grab scam... it's a sincerely made game. It's just not very good.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
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 game features extremely lazy, minimalist "art", of the type you normally expect to see in low effort Flash/browser games and mobile apps. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing.
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.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
Space Maxwell: Arcade didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for playing long enough to kill one enemy, and only around 17 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game, less than half the players. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game only ever reached a peak player count of 1 player. That's right, just one. So when I was playing this just to see how bad it is, that was equal to the PEAK of the public reception for the game. That's truly disastrous levels of unpopularity. This is a pitiful enough 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, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is remarkable, but also to be expected. This complete and utter rejection of the game from gamers should be a keen information point for anyone considering buying shovelware like this. Gamers just didn't take this seriously, and for good reason.
Space Maxwell: Arcade is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.
