The Pilgrimage

I have not played many text-based interactive games so I did not know what to expect when I first played The Pilgrimage but this game exceeded my expectations. It looks simple to play on the surface with a few commands that you used to interact with the environment around you but is deceptively difficult, especially when it comes to the puzzles that this game consists of which are very rewarding when you finally work out how to complete them and further progress the game. It is clear that this is a passion project as there is so much intricate detail to each of the scenes and it is described in such a way to keep you hooked even if there are no visuals (the writing alone allows you to imagine the scenes in great detail, even to those with limited imagination). I first started with the books written by the same author who did this game and every single component of the Eddawielm Universe is amazing!! I am looking forward to future works to read and enjoy!!

"The Pilgrimage" is a text adventure from 2023. I'm no advocate for AI Slop, but when AI Slop outperforms your ability to create games, it may be time to reconsider career choices. Anyway, yeah... an old and dead genre, somehow here on Steam. And breaking another fundamental rule of game design... if it can be done in a web browser, it doesn't need to be in your Steam library. Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. This text adventure is particularly mediocre... if you're hoping for Zork or Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you'll be understandably disappointed (although if you came to Steam looking for text adventures I suspect your life is already full of disappointment). It's probably better than most RPG Maker high school fanfictions, the "author" behind this has published a couple of books to middling success, but it's not winning any awards, and when an author isn't finding success as an author and needs to break out into doing text adventures, well... here we are. There's no real subtle way to put this, but gaming is a visual medium and has been for decades. Failing to understand that was a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. If developers want to succeed, they must understand that visuals are not an area for compromise (or skipping altogether). Pricewise, 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 4 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? Nope. This isn't worth downloading. I don't understand why this isn't a web page. Search Engine Optimisation is too hard? Nothing has less visibility than the bottom end of the Steam shovelware section. [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 responds with a garbled word salad that goes a long way to explaining why he wasn't particularly successful as an author. I suppose good writing is more than just eating a thesaurus and then rearranging whatever gets thrown up the next day. But there's some important information in the breach of Valve guidelines that gamers should be aware of, and it's to do with wilful lack of ethics. See, this isn't a complete text adventure, it's just an advertisement for a text adventure that the developer hasn't worked out how to finish yet. I was incorrect in assigning any degree of nobility to the developer here, this is intended ultimately to be a cash grab, an attempt to garner interest in the full product should it ever arise. Not, as I originally and mistakenly assumed (giving the benefit of the doubt where it was ultimately not due), a genuine full game. Here's the process for publishing advertisements and demos on Steam [b]which the developer deliberately chose not to follow:[/b] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/demos While it might seem like an inocuous mistake, publishing demos and advertisements as if they are full games is misleading and in some ways harmful. This advertisement is taking up marketing space and visibility that would be better made available to a developer that's done the right thing and created a full game. Instead, that visibility is given over to a demo/advert that's been published incorrectly and is polluting the marketplace. It makes it harder for gamers to find those genuinely, ethically made, and completely finished products. So, this is harmful and unethical behaviour. While I am sure the developer is smug that he got to advertise his product before it's even finished, ZERO consideration has been made for what's good for gamers, or even for other developers. I cannot recommend adverts to gamers. I cannot recommend incomplete products to gamers. I cannot recommend products from unethical developers who do the wrong thing, on purpose, regardless of the harm it does, just for their own ego. And it's quite clear the developer is definitely "The Main Character"... otherwise he may consider what's good for other people besides himself. The developers final parting shot indicates he not only cannot write, he also can't read. It should be obvious from the wording of my review: I mentioned the writing was only mostly awful, and I didn't like that it's a text adventure. This is not complicated. But game reviews are not here to instruct developers on how to make games properly. They should know this before they start. Once more the Main Character fails to understand that reviews are for gamers, not for his personal instruction. Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review, although it has made things considerably worse as the developers wilful and harmful actions are now evident. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this advertisement to anyone.