"SKIRMISH" is a rather pointless ripoff of the first video game, 1962's SpaceWar!... except this is somehow even worse. Like SpaceWar!, gameplay is just top down shooting against nobody, because if you ask your friends to play shovelware like this, you soon won't have any friends. What about online, you say? Well, online gameplay is perhaps beyond the skillset of some amateur developers, so this is a "party game".
And this is where we learn something valuable for indie developers, if you don't understand networking, and also don't want to/don't know how to create single player content, just call your game a "party game". See how easy it is?
The graphics aren't great. That's understandably be turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. Gaming is a primarily visual medium, and if developers want to succeed, they must understand that it's not an area for compromise. You deserve better than compromises.
On the matter of pricing and value for gamers, most "free" games on Steam aren't really free. There's often nasty mobile app cash shops, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of shady pricing schemes that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game.
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, or something you might want to spend your time on.
Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 3 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?
Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.
[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 gigantic word salad, all of which is either outright wrong, delusional, self-incriminating, or just simply ignorant. First a few key points which indicate why this game should never, ever have been launched on Steam, compounded by the developers appalling response:
The developer claims this is their first time trying to make a game. If I went to a restaurant, got sick from eating bad food, and got told "The chef is new and has never cooked food before", would that make it okay? No, it wouldn't. The developer supplied a very valid reason why this should never have been put up for sale on Steam in the first place.
The developer admits they didn't hire a team of talented staff to produce the game and tried to do the whole thing on their own, instead. This is a lot like boarding an airplane, and halfway through the flight, having the pilot come out and serve peanuts. It's going to end in disaster. It requires a team of competent people to do a complex job properly, and that's not what has happened here... another explanation for the poor quality of this game.
Weirdly, the developer uses their breach of Valve guidelines in this pointless response to heavily advertise their other products... you can see their presence on Steam has nothing to do with gamers and everything to do with being a marketing exercise. When developers put themselves before gamers and before the gaming industry, this is the kind of disservice to gamers that we see.
The developer then embarks on a set of points that make things even worse. Firstly they admit they have zero skill at operating Google... I guess there's symmetry, their ability to use a search engine is on par with their ability to make games that aren't complete failures.
1. The developer admits the game is a ripoff of someone else's game, then directly and dishonestly attempts to mislead gamers about the definition of shovelware. The term obviously applies to games that have the same deplorable quality as magazine cover "free" games now that magazines aren't a thing. The developer demands that the only way a term can be used is how it was used in the 1990s. What dishonest, misleading crap.
2. The developer advertises his other garbage, failed projects. Insulting.
3. The developer whines that because he can't do graphics properly, everyone must love him and nobody is permitted to call a spade a spade; If the developer thinks the graphics are ok, then negative reviews cannot be allowed. What a disgusting attitude.
4. The developer admits this had nothing to do with being a game for gamers... it's for HIM to build HIS portfolio. In other words, "ME, ME, ME!!!". Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally met THE MAIN CHARACTER. Nobody else matters, especially gamers. Just this guy.
5. The developer didn't read the whole thing.
6. The developer laughably insists the only reason this dumpster fire wasn't as popular as Mass Effect is because Steam victimized him and didn't market his crap for him. What a complete and utter joke, and a terrible attitude from an objectively failed developer.
7. The developer fails to understand the reason this failed so badly was because not only it has no value as a game, it also has no value for any of the other things that gamers will buy unplayable garbage (trading cards, achievements and other profile frill).
The developer then embarks on a disgusting and insulting spree of advertisements for his other failed crap... once more, this has nothing to do with us, the gamers, it's all about ME ME ME, the Main Character, and how important his ego is. Polluting Steam with crap is fine because it helps this guy feel good about himself. What a disgusting, appalling self-centered attitude. It's deplorable.
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.
