Dreamline 404

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"Dreamline 404" is a garbage experimental e-book (not to be considered a game, so, unworthy of being recommended as a game to gamers) written badly in Chinese. The experimental part is because it takes the form of phone texts, with a godawful 2D retro pixel veneer. Basically think about everything that could be wrong with a "game" and you've got it here. All it needs is some flipped assets and a mobile app cash shop and it would be the perfect worst game on Steam.

This features really godawful pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks much worse than most other games because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded despite the bad graphics, not because of them.

This is "free" enough, at least you won't be expected to spend any more money after you download this, but just because something is free doesn't mean it's good.

Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 12 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?

Nope. This isn't worth downloading. While this didn't cost me any money up front, I still feel ripped off.

A solid short game that explores an interesting idea. The gameplay features stand out more due to the length despite it mostly being reading, but it makes for a novel experience that knows when to end. Great before bed