Ever since Steam has opened up the gates to a lot of smaller developers, there have been some good smaller games that have popped up on Steam. Games like Tallowmere, Games like Kathy Rain, and games like Stardust Galaxy Warriors. But with all the good games that deliver great content to the player, there's a pile of games that not only are bad, but mislead the user into paying for an experience that screenshots and trailers don't depict. And FleetCOMM is a game that currently belongs in the latter category.
Developed by the infamous RogueStar and FleetCOMM Technologies LLC, the game is being hit with negative user reviews, and several of them for good reason. One of the biggest being is that on the Store page, the game does not mention that the first version (version 1.0) only contains the tutorial levels. While it's present in the recent updates blog post, that can drop off the front page, and anyone reading the description of the main game will not be aware that the game is essentially in early access. Slade Villena (aka RogueStar), the programmer behind FleetCOMM, indicated that "there's no way to revert to an "early access" product here. Now to the developers credit, the game is indicated that it'll be permanently on sale for 40% off at the price of $5.99 (it's normally $9.99) until the content is delivered. However, there's a catch there, as it's indicated in the post that's only if they are able to renew the price every week. The first scheduled update is for May 30th, but with the delays of the release of the game up to this point, that date might not exactly be solid.
The reviews haven't been kind to the game either. As user "Eligible Husbando #1" indicates: "(the game) Sounds great in theory, so how does it play? Kind of like a steaming pile of garbage". The game is currently sitting with a mostly negative Steam Review rating at 15 reviews, with all the positive reviews not exactly glowing about the game, and several of them making fun of the game in the process.
Due to the fact that I have a YouTube channel and always try to highlight smaller games, I did attempt to cover FleetCoMM. However, with no resolution options available, and the game not taking the main context when put into full-screen mode (aka it'd always be minimized), I wouldn't have been able to produce decent footage. It didn't help the game did crash once even before that. The game was refunded without any of the game played due to the issues in question. While some say the game is playable, they don't use the word "fun" within the context of describing the game.
Quick Take
Needless to say, if you're only launching with tutorial levels, you're doing it wrong. No seriously, you're doing it wrong. While pressure from twitter may have caused a premature release of the game, once your game is out to buy, you better expect a reasonable product. And FleetCOMM is not that right now.
