[b][quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip]Warning: Asset Flip![/url][/quote][/b]
Monkey Party is an asset flip, what Valve calls a "fake game". The "developer", Taylor, took the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liDKiD6yv8E]Make SUIKA GAME (Watermelon Game) in 10 minutes online tutorial[/url] from the real developers, Sasquatch B Studios, reskinned it, changed the name, and dumped the result onto Steam. This is one of many basic tutorials for making a Suika game and the developers clearly just copy + pasted a tutorial.
They're attempting to scam people into buying this, so they can get your money for someone else's work. Online tutorials are meant to educate people in basic game development skill. The demos in the tutorials are not intended to be lifted completely and sold as if it was a complete product. It's plagiarism, and it's unethical, and gamers who buy this kind of thing are getting scammed.
The products that result from asset flips aren't "real" games. They lack depth and content, because they're just simplistic copies of demos or tutorials. In this case, "Make SUIKA GAME (Watermelon Game) in 10 minutes online tutorial" is just an online Youtube tutorial for making this game, itself a ripoff of a browser/mobile game called Suika, the developer simply copied everything and reskinned it, it doesn't have any merit as a proper, fully fledged PC game.
Asset flips don't involve any professional game development. Sure, sometimes they may change a few cosmetic things, swap out different assets etc, but at heart it's functionally identical to the asset they're ripping off.
Asset flips like this are harmful to the gaming industry and to Steam because they reduce the visibility that sincerely made indie games should have, and make it harder for gamers to find real games from genuine developers. They give genuine indie developers a bad name.
Don't reward this morally bankrupt, unethical behaviour from Taylor.
[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]
[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]
It's extremely unusual for someone to breach Valve's guidelines to insist that despite their game being absolutely identical in terms of core gameplay, despite some extremely minor reskinning, that apparently their game looks nothing like the tutorial they full well copied. You can see all the elements in the Youtube tutorial in this game... in the developers "Anime Girls" DLC you can even see he got the same white guidance lines working, just like the tutorial!
We're expected to believe this is all a co-incidence!
Dishonesty in the face of damning evidence is frankly embarrassing, but as always gamers, you be the judge.
Now that the developer got caught pushing an asset flip onto Steam (as the video I linked clearly demonstrates), they're going to make their valueless game "Free", so they claim, as if that somehow absolves them of the harm that pushing garbage like this onto Steam causes. And of course the developer reveals that they pushed this asset flip onto Steam for no reason other than that they are "the main character".
No consideration about the ethics of asset flipping (and lying about it, again, check out the video and compare the sample game to this asset flip for yourself!), no consideration about what would be good for gamers, and no consideration for the harm this does to indie devs, by giving them a bad name.
Polluting Steam with so many asset flips and other trashware, as "Taylor" here is doing is absolutely harmful, as I explain in my original review... it damages the discoverability for all developers, especially genuine developers who don't just copy someone's Youtube tutorial onto Steam and pretend it was their own work.
But as always, I'm just here to provide the facts. If anyone is even considering playing this game, watch the Youtube video first so you can see what the developer has obviously done (and is obviously lying about). Why is this kind of thing good for gamers? Well, at least we finally found out who the main character is.
Yes, it's true [i]one[/i] of the many video tutorials on making this game was edited after this game was launched, but it's not the only one. We all know what's happened here.
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.
