▼ Not recommended
1 hrs
Warning: Asset Flip!
Hidden Castle Top-Down 3D is an asset flip, or what Valve calls a "Fake Game". The "developer" paid for/pirated someone else's example/template/tutorial game, changed the name/reskinned a couple of things, and submitted it to Valve as if it was their own game.
This is one of Hede's extremely lazy asset flips where he just steals someone's low poly asset pack and drops it onto a lame "hidden object" template... basically you just scroll around the single static asset pack scene and click on stuff. It's a joke, seriously. But this is just here for money laundering. Nobody thinks this is worth the $200 Hede is charging for this... it's a scam.
Hede/Top-Down Games have shown a repeat pattern of unethically dumping other people's work onto Steam as a cheap, nasty cash grab, through this account or through closely linked/alt accounts. Here's some examples so you can see for yourself:
- "Bow & Crystal Tower Defense" = Archery Simple Demo - Complete Game Template developed by Easy Game Studio
- "Truck Truck" = Truck Physics Template developed by HitCode
- "Street Football" = Street Football Game developed by noureddine naceur
- "Ero Tennis" = Tennis Mobile - full game developed by Codeer Studio
- "Ero Snooker" = Snooker 3D developed by Hammad Baig
- "Snowboard" = Snowboard Game Starter Pack developed by Denis Lapiner
- "Hidden Build Top-Down 3D" = Polygon Construction Low Poly 3D Art developed by Synty Studios
- "Hidden Farm Top-Down 3D" = Farm Life developed by beffio
- "♞ The Tactics of War ♞" = Polygon Knights Low Poly 3D Art developed by Synty Studios
- "Save and Survive" = Survival Engine developed by Indie Marc
- "Old Retro Shooter" = Hellish Battle 2.5D Retro FPS developed by Tiny Slime Studio
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.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with.
The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just point and click stuff like a browser/Flash game. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any 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 only 2 players, and the worst part is these weren't genuine players, these were the Russian fake review accounts that the developer paid to make the fake reviews. Since the fake reviews are all done, 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 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
It's also important to note the "developer" here has connections to a number of shady Russian asset flippers and review manipulators who show an organised pattern to scam and defraud gamers with fake reviews and asset flipping the work of others for profit. While reviews are about the games, gamers should be informed when developers act unethically. Whether these connections are the same developer using multiple accounts, or just working closely with other unethical developers, gamers should be warned about the harm to gamers by this developer and their associates. Buying games from unethical developers puts your money at risk.
Warning: Review Manipulation!
This game features a number of fake positive reviews from accounts known to be in the business of review manipulation/paid reviews. They're all written in either Russian or broken English, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams. The "Positive" review score on this game should be disregarded due to this blatant, unethical review manipulation. This is done to deceive and scam gamers into paying for a bad product.
So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?
Hidden Castle Top-Down 3D has the completely insane price of $200 USD, which is incredibly suspicious, higher than AAA pricing for an asset flip shovelware scam game. Why would the "developer" put such a high price tag on an asset flip with no true value as a game? There's no direct proof for this, but it's entirely possible this game is priced this way for money laundering or other criminal purposes. Higher prices allow more money to move with fewer transactions. Valve have previously banned developers for running money laundering scams. While there's no direct evidence in this case, it's highly suspicious and gamers should be wary. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic
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