As I continue draining the bottom of my backlog...

I received Miner Ultra Adventures as a gift, from a friend. At least I think we're friends. This gift has made me wonder.

The "adventure" began immediately, on the baffling title screen. Baffling, not because the title image was baked with Portuguese text -- a damning marketing failure, for sure, but easy enough to figure out. But what I struggle to figure out is how the developer managed to make the main menu. Arrow keys move a cursor up and down, not from one option to another, but one pixel at a time. What?

So I floated the cursor down to the Controls ("Controles") option, to see if there were any-- nope, no settings to change. Okay. Hit ESC to go back to the main menu, I guess? No, that terminates the game application. Doing great so far.

I'd already seen enough of the game at this point, but for the sake of morbid curiosity, went in once more to try to "play" it. Uh... the player is moving by himself? It looks like the ground isn't flat, and gravity is causing him to slide around, constantly. Including at the game's starting position.

As if the ice-rink physics alone aren't bad enough, add an automatic camera that you can't control, and it's like... is this a joke? I have to fight this hard just to avoid falling into a pit? I may as well turn my monitor off, for how little the visuals help in playing this game.

I have no compunctions in calling Miner Ultra Adventures unplayably bad.

If nothing else, it's proof of the Steam platform's successful democratization. When poorly-tested disasters like Brainfuck, hobbyist garbage like Cubots, and utter shit like this can be sold for any amount of money; there are clearly no barriers to entry. Truly, anyone can sell a game.

As for my friend, well, in the future I'll be a bit more suspicious of his gifts.