"Squared Adventure" is a genuinely but poorly made 2D retro pixel platformer, one of literally thousands of these amateur projects polluting Steam. This one, like I said, seems legit (hundreds of 2D retro platformers on Steam are just basic asset flips etc), so there's some gameplay rather than the shallow minimum viable product stuff you normally get.
This features really godawful, lazy pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them.
Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game.
Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable.
Even though this is "free", it 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.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
The developer falsely assumes this is the only account that I played and tested this game on. [b]The developer is WRONG[/b]. But facts are something this developer seems to have a superhuman ability to completely ignore.
The developer inadvertently reveals this is their first time trying to make a game. If I went to a restaurant, got sick from eating bad food, and got told "The chef is new and has never cooked food before", would that make it okay? No, it wouldn't. The developer supplied a very valid reason why this should never have been put up for sale on Steam in the first place.
The developer chooses to attack the review by failing to acknowledge the real reason they used crap pixel "art" instead of doing their job properly and arranging contemporary visuals. We all know if they were capable of doing better, they would. But they didn't... an inadequacy that should not be a problem for gamers to have to put up with. This failure on the part of the developer to do their job properly almost certainly lead to the objective failure of the game.
The developer proudly touts valueless "participation trophies" and ignores, deliberately, the harsh reality. The facts cannot be denied... SteamDB showed only 6 concurrent players of this game, only once. Those players did not play the game long, they quickly discarded it. The lifetime SteamDB charts for the game demonstrate an even more dire picture... the data does not lie. This game is a failure. For obvious reasons, that I point out in my review.
The developer complains that while this review closely addresses serious problems with this product, it resembles other reviews I have written for other products that share the exact same problems and deficiencies. There's over 120,000 games on Steam. Hundreds, in some cases thousands of these games share the same defects which gamers should know about before wasting any time on those products.
However, the "developer" of this failed product arrogantly [b]DEMANDS[/b] that I find completely unique ways to describe [i]the exact same defects[/i]. What a completely ignorant, arrogant demand from a demonstrably failed developer. The developer demonstrates thier appalling attitude here. It's a sheer insult to gamers everywhere.
If I used completely different language to describe the same defects, [i]this product would still suffer from the same defects[/i]. Changing the wording of my review would not make this product better.
The developer whines about achievements, too.. highlighting the fact that, not only is there not actually a 3 minute achievement (is the developer lying, or doesn't know what achievements he put in his game??), the highest gained achievement is only at 5% success rate... only 1 in 20 people even touched this garbage. Thanks to the dev for drawing further attention to his failure.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this game to anyone.
