Wizard Slime is a free to play abandoned Early Access 2D retro pixel top down arena/wave survival shooter that's been slapped together with the godawful GameMaker Studio video game construction kit from Yoyogames. It's a very bare basic top down shooter with a fantasy/dungeon theme that seems to have been copied from a basic Yoyogames GameMaker Studio demo/project/asset pack and seems to use some flipped 2D sprite assets as well.
The game was abandoned less than a year after launching in an incomplete state and there's no plan or sign from the developer that it will ever be completed. The game subtitle is "game de 3 horas" and it does look and feel like this is about 3 hours effort copying+pasting GameMaker Studio template/projects/demo code.
They chose to use obsolete 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. Resolution and controls are locked. These flaws push this game far below minimum acceptable standards for PC.
GameMaker Studio is a very poor quality game construction kit, and unsurprisingly results in products that have little to no value as games, especially when compared to the work of professional developers who create genuine products for gamers. Using a video game construction kit requires little to no talent or skill as a game developer. Very often, GameMaker Studio is used to make shovelware and lazy cash grabs, although in this case the game is completely free.
Because the game is abandoned and looks and feels like just another GameMaker Studio asset flip, I can't recommend it even for free.
[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 response is a disgusting insult to the integrity of all game developers and the gaming industry. Let's begin first by considering this breach of Valve guidelines in the context of the developers utter failure and incompetence. This garbage, almost certainly asset flipped trash failed due to the developers inability to even make a remotely acceptable game. SteamDB does not lie, this attracted a PEAK of only three players, who were so disgusted by what they saw with this useless, amateur dribble they uninstalled it immediately.
One thing the developer wants everyone to know is that they are "The Main Character". You, as a gamer, don't matter. They breach Valve guidelines for developers just to complain about a fully accurate and informative review (with facts their ego doesn't like). It's evident from their attitude that they never created this product with gamers in mind. They did so to stroke their own ego. When developers, especially failed ones who would never be able to get a professional job in the industry, put themselves before gamers, we end up with garbage products like this. That explains how this trash ended up on Steam, but it doesn't excuse it. At least we finally got to meet The Main Character, and nobody else matters.
Now, this egomania from a self centered developer, despite his incompetence and inadequacy, is tied to a series of unethical acts. Let's go through the various crimes the developer has committed, for his own benefit, against the interests of gamers and the gaming industry.
First, the developer lied. The developer make a concrete and dedicated promise to publish this game in January of 2019... 7 years ago. However, the developer breached their commitment, deliberately. And we know the developer has plenty of time on their hands, they have enough time to pore obessively over game reviews, but no time to make good on their promise to PAYING CUSTOMERS.
This leads into the second crime... the developer was charging money for this... he took money off people, then didn't deliver any game. Breach of contract, breach of sales doctrine, stealing money from gamers, not returning any of it and not delivering any actual finished game. If Valve didn't expressly permit this highly unethical behaviour through the Early Access disaster terms and conditions, the developer would be up for civil or even criminal liability in a court of law. That's who this guy is.
And that also ties in to the third suspected crime... my review indicates a likelihood the developer stole someone else's game assets and put his own name on them when conducting this Early Access scam. The developer, full of anger at being presented with an honest and factual review, somehow couldn't even bring himself to lie and claim he made the assets himself... a tacit admission of plagiarism and intend to defraud gamers... a deliberate move to scam gamers, trying to get YOUR money for someone else's game assets.
Disgusting, isn't it?
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. Pixelcrap is always explained by terrible developers as an "artistic" decision... we know for a fact if they could make a game with visuals like Hellblade 2 or Black Myth Wukong, they would! But they didn't, because they are simply not good enough, and they have the gall to describe their incompetence as "art". This is an insult, a pathetic inadequacy that should not be a problem for gamers to have to put up with. Developers like this give genuine amateur devs a bad name.
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 asset flip from a failed, highly unethical scammer, plagiarist and Early Access abuser to anyone.
