Living Pipes

"Living Pipes" is one of literally thousands of student projects infesting Steam. This one is from Ringling in Florida. While student projects tend to be better quality than most "amateur" made games, we must still question what value such projects have for gamers. As with all student projects, this isn't really a fully fleshed out game, it's just the result of an academic exercise, and as such it has much more limited value as a game than a professionally developed game would have. Educational institutions should not be using Steam as a dumping ground for homework assignments (especially if the students didn't even pass the course). Sure, it helps their marketing and helps the students feel good about themselves, but this is another case of a business putting themselves before the needs of gamers. The students barely made a game here at all, this is more like a vertical slice, a 2% preview of what will one day be a game. Even by student demo standards this is short. Admittedly what there is of it just makes student projects even worse, because this is definitely the kind of game people would want to play... if there was more than just a few minutes of it. See the problem? This is just a first person puzzle adventure, although what there is of it is made to a reasonable standard, the lack of content is the problem. You go into a postmodern techno building, fix a couple of things by solving some simple puzzles, and hey, it's over. If this was a fully made game it would have been a direct competitor to (and possibly victor over) Bioshock... but it isn't. The graphics in this game are really quite good, which at least makes the game look more appealing. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. Here, you get a reasonably even match, enough to give this a pass. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. It would be unethical for students to try charge money for their homework assignments, so you don't have to pay any money for this. But you'd still have to spend your time downloading this, and "time is money", as they say. There's the other problem, too... as a student project, this wasn't made for gamers. There's no requirement for them to polish and balance the game properly, all they need is something to show the faculty so they can get their grade and move on. Let's once more ask... why is that good for gamers? It's obviously not delivering a solid product. Yet here it is, on the store page, and here you are, reading my review for a student demo that's going to waste your time. While genuine amateur developers who made real products get ignored because they have to compete with this stuff. In some ways, this deluge of student projects on Steam is harmful to everyone. In terms of public reception, this failed. There's over 130 million unique gamers visiting Steam every month. SteamDB showed the game peaked at [b]only 3 concurrent players[/b]... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Given that this free student project won't count toward your game collection or add any achievements, and because it's not really a full game and more of a homework assignment, it's not a worthwhile download.