[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/b]
They won't get our eggs! is a Digital Homicide style asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated a few Unity asset store assets, dumped them all in a blender, and submitted it to Valve as if they're real game developers.[/quote]
[quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop][b]Warning: AI Slop[/b][/url]
Marketing materials for this product were produced with soulless AI generated content. The developer violated the Valve requirement to warn gamers about any use of AI slop in a direct attempt to use AI slop for profit.[/quote]
Two notable criteria for what makes an asset flip instead of legitimate use of stock assets are whether those assets comprise the majority of the game, and whether the "developer" properly credited the people who created most of the assets in the game. This game fails both of those tests. The "developers" here didn't credit any of the artists and real, actual game developers who created the assets here, so this is plagiarism, as well as cash grab shovelware.
In this case, the asset flipper took a bunch of entirely mismatched game assets and dropped them on a basic 3D "Space Invaders" arcade shooter game blueprint... all you do is shoot at the waves of enemies marching towards you in lines, moving left and right to aim. That's it. It has no value or merit as a real game.
The game is very simplistic, small and limited in scope and ambition. This feels more like a tech demo, proof of concept or student homework assignment rather than a fully fledged product designed for PC gamers. As such it doesn't offer any real value as a serious PC game.
Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
This looks a lot like it was designed for consoles, but released on Steam instead by mistake. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this never made it to the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for.
The game assets are fairly mediocre/low quality, in some places they appear mismatched... Ultimately the quality of these assets, and thus the overall visual quality is lower than average, and low quality always makes for a less than optimal gaming experience. Remember, we're looking for the best of the best of 140,000+ games on Steam.
The game features no proper level design or game/story flow/plot, as they opted to try to use samey repetitive procgen algorithms as a substitute for adding such content to the game, to avoid doing the important job of level/map design. As a result, the game doesn't actually have any content worth mentioning, just endless, boring, repetitive, soulless algorithmically generated sameyness. Developers must learn that procedural generation is not an acceptable substitute for content.
These flaws make this game fall far short of the professional standards we expect from a modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was [b]only 2 players[/b]. This is a remarkably low 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 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
This kind of asset flipping isn't harmless. It makes it harder for gamers to find genuinely made games from ethical developers. It makes it harder for genuine indie developers, who put hard work into trying to make real games, to find an audience for their products. It gives indie developers a bad name.
On to pricing and the question of value. Should you buy this asset flip? Is this one of the best of the 140,000+ products on Steam? Absolutely not.
They won't get our eggs! has the gamer gouging price of around $4 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
Ethics aside, the quality problems and defects with this game makes the asking price totally unrealistic. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers here on Steam, especially considering the unethical stuff going on. Because this is just a fake game/cash grab scam, and due to the sheer unethical nature of the developer, you should avoid this completely. Don't reward this morally bankrupt, unethical behaviour from SpacePine Development.
Finally, I'm here to try help save gamers time and money by filtering out the noise and substandard games... there's up to 50 games launched on Steam Direct every day! They aren't all great... most of them suck. If you don't agree with my assessment of the defects in this game, go ahead and buy it... maybe you'll find the same defects I did, maybe not. Even write your own review. Positive or negative, game reviews are here to help other gamers by informing their decisions on what to buy and play.
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game 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 game.[/quote]
