Warning: Dead PVP Game
This game has no meaningful single player content, and no playable PvP servers. There is no functioning PvP population, it's a dead game, and cannot be played online as intended.

Detritus is yet another PvP arena game with no players. I suppose it's interesting to see one so fresh so dead so quickly. It's autopsy time! Already!

One important note is that even though this is an amateur project, it does seem to be sincerely and genuinely made. I couldn't find any flipped assets, plagiarism or any other kind of insincere actions from the developer, but unfortunately genuine intentions alone are not enough to produce a brilliant PC gaming experience.

This is a PvP arena shooter, 2D retro pixel platformer style (our first big clue as to why this died immediately), but it also includes a game mode that's a ripoff of Worms (which itself is a ripoff of a DOS/Java game called "Scorched Earth"). Different game modes are always welcome, but that wasn't the reason this failed.

I think we can understand why this flopped so hard if we look at three factors where the developer failed. Visuals, pricing, and of course core game conceptualization. Does this look better than the competition? Is it cheaper or does it offer more value for money? Does this offer anything at all that thousands of other games on Steam aren't doing better? I guess if developers want to succeed, they need to be aware of the gaming environment and the competition, especially when they need to compete with better PvP games to convince the players to switch.

The focus of the game is pure PvP, there's no single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the game. The vast majority of PvP-only games fail because they don't "go viral", and without players, or meaningful single player content to add a lasting value to the game, the game dies. Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content to a game.

A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.

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.

Some of the defects in the game can be attributed to the choice of using the GameMaker Studio construction kit/toolset. This is a very poor quality toolset favoured by amateur developers as it's cheap and requires little in the way of development skill, but unfortunately has very limited capabilities. Just as you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, you can't make a great video game if you use a terrible engine. GameMaker Studio is most commonly used to make retro pixel shovelware and cash grabs.

A strong argument can be made that construction kits like GameMaker Studio should never be used to make games for profit, as the "developer", AJ Studio has done here. These construction kits are intended to teach people some of the basic principles of game development, and to make small demos to pass around with friends. They're not intended to replace to actual work of real, professional game developers. So it's inappropriate when amateurs try to use these for profit, without any actual, real game development effort taking place. This doesn't result in products that have any real meaningful value for gamers.

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... that's how badly this failed. It was NEVER able to even field a full server online. People seriously did not want this game. This is a remarkably low number, and 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 110,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 110,000+ games on Steam?

The developer is deliberately and unethically trying to scam gamers into paying them the utterly unrealistic price of $9 USD for a PvP only game with no players. And no, botmatching is not an acceptable substitute for content or a living PvP population.

For comparison, the $9 asking price for this game could get you games like "Mass Effect Trilogy Pack", "Dead by Daylight" or "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter". No pixelcrap is worth $9. If developers want to get paid the same kind of money as real game developers who know how to do graphics properly, they need to learn how to do graphics properly.

Profile Features Limited!
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.