Project Glitch Review

A Free, Half-Hour Souls-Like Built By Five Students In Six Months

Project Glitch, made by a five-person student team (Linus Hochuli, Alina Ikorina, Julian Roth, Manuel Bachofen, and Tim Robin Gnädinger) and released free-to-play on Steam on July 31, 2026, is upfront about exactly what it is on its own store page: a six-month student project pushing "fast-paced combat and game-feel as far as... development would allow," clocking in at roughly half an hour to complete. It casts the player as STRYX, one of the few survivors immune to a parasitic corruption called Glitch, climbing a hostile mountain toward the source of the outbreak, armed with a katana and a gun. Across an all-language pool of 32 reviews sitting at 91% positive, "Positive" on Steam's own scale, and all 21 English reviews read in full here, the reaction is consistently generous, most reviewers explicitly grade it against its student-project scope rather than against a full commercial release, and it holds up remarkably well by that standard.

Everyone Grades This On A Curve, And The Curve Is Earned

The single most repeated phrase in this pool, in one form or another, is some variation of "for a student project." "Considering this was created by students in only six months, Project Glitch is impressive. The visual style is polished, the combat flows well," wrote one reviewer, a framing echoed by dozens of others: "Very impressive for a 6 month student project. Nice work!" and "as a free 6 month student project of 5 people its a good game." This isn't reviewers lowering their standards out of politeness, it's a genuine, repeated acknowledgment that the visual polish, atmosphere, and combat feel meaningfully exceed what the timeframe and team size would suggest, and several reviewers explicitly frame the release as a promising student portfolio piece rather than a finished commercial product they're grading on a level playing field.

Katana, Gun, And A Stripped-Down Souls Feel

The combat draws consistent, specific praise for feeling clean despite its simplicity. "Great game! Felt like a souls game stripped down to the basic mechanics — without all the complicated fluff," wrote one reviewer, while another highlighted the weapon pairing directly: "The Katana is so fun, you almost forget that you also have a gun." A skill tree built around collectible points scattered through the mountain gives the short runtime some light build variety, with one reviewer noting "the combination of sword fighting and gunplay makes the combat feel dynamic despite its simplicity," and another praising the ability to "see what you can climb and what you can't" as a small but appreciated navigational aid. A few reviewers flagged reliance on auto-aim and some enemy-clipping on defeat as rough edges, but these are consistently described as minor rather than experience-breaking.

No Options Menu, No Rebinding, And A Mouse Sensitivity That Can't Be Touched

The interface and settings gaps are this pool's most consistent, specific complaint, and it's raised by enough independent reviewers to be a real pattern rather than one player's preference. "There is no 'options', so the mouse is fast af and you cant put it slower... for fps gamers with big mouse pads, it feels like an epileptic attack," wrote one, and another separately confirmed "the sensitivity... was very high in my case" with no slider to fix it. A third reviewer laid out a specific wishlist for rebindable keys: "what could be better is the keybinds like block should be right click and hold q can be the gun and control should be roll and dash, best would be to give us the option to change binds." Combined with reports of doughy, delayed jump response and controls one reviewer compared to "using a universal controller on a Ps1," this is a game whose settings menu simply doesn't exist yet, and it shows.

Thirty Minutes, No Real Story, And A World That Wants More Room

Multiple reviewers confirm the roughly half-hour completion time advertised on the store page, and several are candid that the brevity leaves the world feeling more like a proof of concept than a finished arc. "Story is non existent, I thought I was just fighting tutorial robots the whole time," wrote one, and another called it "more like a demo" than a complete game. That said, the atmosphere and setting get real, specific praise even from reviewers frustrated by the short runtime: one described "the experimental mix of modern cyberpunk with traditional asian elements" as making for "an intriguing playthrough," and another simply noted "with so little there is so much atmosphere!" Several reviewers close their reviews hoping the team expands the concept into a full-length game, treating this release as a first act rather than a complete statement.

Free, So The Bar Is Different, And It Clears It

Because the price is $0, almost every complaint in this pool is followed by a caveat that softens it. "Cool idea, definitely not a finished game... For a 6 month long student project I would recommend," reads like two contradictory sentences until you register that the price tag resolves the tension: reviewers are comfortable recommending a game they'd hesitate to pay for. "Especially since it's free. Give it a shot and see what these developers pulled off," is the closest thing to a consensus verdict in the pool, and it's a fair one. This is a portfolio piece dressed as a playable release, and reviewers seem to understand that framing intuitively even when the game itself doesn't spell it out.

Verdict

Project Glitch is a genuinely impressive student portfolio piece, a free, thirty-minute souls-like slice with clean-feeling katana-and-gun combat and a surprising amount of atmosphere for its scope, undercut by the total absence of an options menu, unadjustable mouse sensitivity, and a runtime too short to develop the story its cyberpunk-meets-traditional-Asian-aesthetic setting hints at. Judged as a commercial release it would struggle, there's no real progression arc, no way to rebind a single key, and the whole experience is over before it properly begins, but judged as what it actually is, five students' six-month showcase, it's a genuinely well-made, free half hour that's worth the download purely to see where these developers go next.