Dev Guy is a micro-adventure game about a developer who, after a series of unfortunate events, is led to believe that thievery from fellow developers in his apartment complex (who he will openly scorn) is the only way to make a game by a deadline after the one he was initially developing became lost in a crash. It is over in less than an hour, free, and made by an amateur developer with no qualms about the absurdity of their first published creation. It's got parodies of brony fandom work, otaku work, and self-indulgent 'think-piece' games, all portrayed with varying degrees of cynicism—of which I take none as inherently genuine.

Despite all this, the rudimentary nature of Dev Guy almost feels comforting? Like, it's the type of thing that reminds me of all those XBOX360 Indie Marketplace titles made by people just getting started on their path to game development, or hobbyists willing to try to market to a bigger artist. The Steam marketplace is somewhat akin to this, although the scale of comparison is even wider and thus more unfair: This was never designed to compete with anything or be marketed as anything other than a goofy hobbyist project. I think people who see this as anything else are either looking too deep into it or are being rather brash about a free 30-minute indie game as opposed to actual problems in the gaming industry. Trust me, your ire is not with this guy.

Reviewed on Dec 27, 2023


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