Capsule Art Review

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Good. Good. Thank you for the Thank you for the notification. I'm sorry. YouTube sucks. It just does, okay? I'm I'm trying my best here, folks. I'm trying my best. All right. All right. So, this will also be recorded. If it all sucks, I'm recording this locally. All right. Good. Here's the deal. Summer Summer sale, cheapest it's going to get. howtomarketgame.com and then just go up to the top and click summer sale, okay? One last thing. A lot of people are like, "I didn't know I could submit my capsules. I didn't know." YouTube sucks because it's so hard to notify you all when you want to do stuff. So, if you really, really want to find out about stuff, how to market a game.com/free. That's this, right here. howtomarketgame.com/free. Join the mailing list. I know mailing lists aren't as cool as YouTube kids. I know you cool kids love YouTube all the time. You know what's cool is reading. And then the mailing list is the best place to get this information. So, please while you're waiting for me to get started, howtomarketgame.com/free. Just put your email address in. That's That's the best place, okay?

I can see you and hear you twice. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. Okay, now let's get started on these things. Now, I got your capsules. I I have I'm on a tight schedule. I can't review each capsule every single time. And what I did was I put all the capsules in a giant sheet and there are so many. I had so many responses. I think I got like 160 capsules. There's no way I can give you a good review. And so I did a couple things. I'm looking at big trends and I grouped you in trends, things that I saw together. There are some that I'm going to call out specifically. But overall, I just want to I want to preface when it comes to capsules the biggest thing is you have to look professional, okay? The whole thing. Um Okay, you have to Sorry about the echo. I'm just making sure. I'm just double checking there's no echo. Okay, here's the thing with with capsules. You just have to look professional. I I don't think you have to stress too much. I'm

going to start with this thing is like you have to set the minimum bar. And I saw a couple people, "Oh, my girlfriend did it." Or "I did it for free." Or "I did it for $5 on Fiverr." Don't do that, okay? Folks, if you're going to do this, if you really want to live your dream and make your dream game, it deserves a good capsule, okay? It's like you're showing up to a job interview without a shirt on and you're like, "Why didn't they hire me?" It's the same day deal. Please, folks, I cannot beg you enough. Please, hire a professional capsule artist, not on Fiverr. Hire somebody. I know it's expensive, but it will pay for itself eventually. I promise. Please, hire somebody, not just like some kid off of Fiverr, okay? Okay. Now, let's go through it. Okay, so I think here's the deal. For the first half, it's all like what is the minimum bar of quality that I that I say? Once you pass that minimum bar of quality, I think you're good.

Like yes, there's little things. I don't think you need to spend time, you know, like tweaking, "Oh, what if I just tweak this guy's face, make it bigger? Will I increase wish list rate by 0.5%?" That is not just with the capsule, you just got to hit what your genre is and it has to look like a professional did it, not like your your girlfriend or something. So, please, don't do that, okay? So, that's where we're going to kind of start. I I kind of grouped these into sections, okay? Now, um I think I'm going to start here and I'm going to zoom in on this. This is my zoom window. So, one thing I did was I just looked at genres in general. I grouped a lot of you in genres. Now, what I did was I just went off Sometimes the title, sometimes the capsule. I was like, "I think this is this." I'm sure I got it wrong and that's a sign for you. If I grouped you in the wrong genre, that's probably a sign your capsule's not doing its job. And so here's what what I mean by this, by doing your job.

Okay, capsules are about secret symbols like the Masons or something. You put secret symbols in your capsule and you can tell people what the genre is, okay? So, I'm going to zoom in on some capsules that I think were great. They got the secret symbols. Some of these are big games that did not submit. I put a little star if that's that, just so you can see an example here, okay? So, for instance, this is a a capsule I thought was great. If you want to make a mystery narrative thing, just throw some blood on there. That's it and now I know it's mystery and it's secret. All you have to do a lot of times and I saw this with a lot of capsules. I was like they were trying to pack every single detail about their game. That's not it. Your capsule is to evoke a vibe. It is to say like this is a basic thing here. This is the the secret, the feeling that I'm trying to evoke. And so just throwing some blood on stuff is good for if it's a narrative game. If you're Reaching,

that is a platformer. Uh here's a good one. I I know the Town Seed guys. Good to see you. I When's that game coming out? I've seen it for a long time. I keep waiting for this thing to come out. But anyway, all you got to do is put a little compass somewhere and I know it's like a map-based strategy top-down type of game. Just Just throwing a thing. You don't have to do that much. I love how this capsule Isn't it great? All they did was put a little compass right in the text and they turned it into the text. Perfect. I know. Ah, map game. You can just add these secret symbols. Now, I know this has got a big pirate multi-sail ship here. Okay, obvious it's pirates. But if you just put a skull in the text, I know it's a pirate game. I just know it is. You know, you kind of If you have serifs on your font and you have a a skull if one of you turn one of the O's into a skull, I'm like, "This is a pirate game." That's what you have to learn, folks. And what I what I advise anybody making a um um any capsule is look at all the games that are similar to yours and play what's the

difference. Just play a game where you look at it and go, "Ah, every single one of these has a skull. We should have a skull in ours." You are not trying to reinvent capsules. You are trying to just find one that is similar to yours and say, "We're just like that." That's the secret, folks. And so I'm going to go through these. Um Um yeah, the ropes help. Yeah, it's just piraty stuff. You see how subtle it is? And that's the main thing is the capsules that didn't work and we'll look at them. They just missed the subtle vibes. You just need subtle vibes, okay? Um look, if you are making a dude with a sword game, a game where you're a dude with a sword, which is like half of all video games on Steam, all you got to do is add a dude with a sword, see? You just got to put that sword in there. Dude and a sword, you're a dude in a sword game. Okay, this is this is one of my favorite I'm just going to spoil it right here. One of my favorite capsules that were submitted, Tricky Ca- Castle. I think this is a great capsule. This is my favorite like one of the favorite ones I

saw this time. Tricky Castle, if you put a key somewhere in your thing, we know it's a puzzle game. And the other thing is like see how it's kind of maze-like? Just This is what I like, how subtle this capsule is. It kind of looks maze-like and this You see the key and the lock and like I bet this is a some sort of puzzle game where I have to get a key, work through a puzzle and get unlock the next door to get to the next level. This is what I mean by just subtle. You don't have to show everything. Look at how how subtle this is. We got a character, some stuff, key, that. It's symbolic. Capsules are symbolic. They're not narratives. It's not like, "Well, you know what? There's a boss on level three. Got to make sure the boss on level three is on there." It's just symbols. You're thinking symbols. So, what I want all of you to do if you're making a capsule, if it's in progress, you just look at all the capsules and pick out these symbols that you have to evoke. Um Die in the Dungeon made by John Nielson. If you watch my other video, I

hired John Nielson who did this capsule. Let me move it over just a little bit. I hired John Nielson who did this one. John Nielson's an awesome one, so of course I'm going to love this. This is Die in the Dungeon. What I like about this is you know it's it's a um instead of it's a dice builder instead of a rogue-like deck builder. All you got to do is you got to add the dice in the text. That's it. And then they'll be like but it's a dice game. And but it is a dude in the sword dungeon crawler, so you got to do the dungeon and a sword. You got to have the guy with the sword. Again, it's symbols. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not like you're a perfectly representing your game. If you're making tower defense, you got to work the text in here. This is another great capsule that was submitted. You see this? This is great. Look, the O has a tower. Tower defense. And also like oh, there's a tower here. And you got bad guys. And notice how the bad guys are on the dark side. The good guys are on the light side. It is symbols. You are working in the world of symbology, uh small symbols. That's what we're

thinking here, okay guys? So that's a great one. Um the nobody submitted inscription. The inscription guys are like how's my capsule? But what I mean by uh symbols, look. If it's a card deck builder, you put the cards in there. That's it. It doesn't have to be well, actually this card doesn't look like this and it's got this no, it's just cards. Um same thing with See, crop deck. Look. You just put the deck. You put a cards. That's it. You put the deck in the cards. And you just put it in the text. You know how like the pirate game, you just put the the ropes in the skull over the O. You don't have to work it into this thing. All you have to do is work it in the text. These subtle things. And it's it's just a couple squares that they put on the text. And that's enough to say this is a deck builder. Also the text on the title like naming the game deck something helps. But I know what type of game this is. That's the name of the game. Look, Balatro. You just turn the A into a spade.

And it's that's it. Like that's it. No, half these games, all you have to do to tell what your game is is change the the the vowel like the A, the O into whatever is in your game. If you're making a pirate game, make the O a skull. If you're making a card game, make the A an ace. It's not hard. You just have to think about it a little bit. It's cliche. And when I explain these things, you're like that is so cliche. That is the point of capsules. They have to work on the sub brain. They have to work on the level of like in an instant I know this is a card game. It's so stupid when we look at it. And I think this is the problem that a lot of devs get into is that they are too smart and they're overthinking it. It is like it's a card game. You put a card in the title. And you're like that's so stupid, Chris. This isn't rocket science. It has to work on the sub brain. The capsule has to hook somebody in a second, okay? Um so whatever your whatever the object in your game is, take one of the vowels in your title and rip it out and put

that vowel in there for it. It is stupid. It sounds stupid when I say it, but that's you have to make your capsule so stupid. Okay, so those are all great capsules. Oh, like another one. Here's another I kind of ran out of room. But if you are making a managing you're managing a hotel, managing a shop, managing a tavern, you just put the title on a little hanging blackboard. That's the thing. I know it's cliche. That doesn't make your game cliche. That just tells people at the sub brain level what kind of game you have, okay? So a lot of the critique Now, I'm going to kind of that's good. All of these are good. A lot of these people submitted theirs. We're going to go to ones where it's like now you know what I mean by subatomic level, the sub brain. We got to go to We're going to look at some capsules that didn't quite hit that. So So really what your capsule has to do. Don't overthink it, folks. At the sub brain flash for 1

second, people know what your game is. That's good. And two, it has to look professional. It has to look like somebody other than your girlfriend made it, okay? Um So what we're going to do I can't I don't have time to look at everybody's capsule. I I got a lot of them. I threw them in here. They're examples. So even if your capsule isn't shown, I'm sorry. I just don't have time. Think about how this applies to other ones, okay? So um let's look at some of these, okay? Um oh, one other thing. Um before I get too into it. Now, I'm going to say this couple I'm never going to say this capsule sucks. This capsule is awful. Here's the thing. Is I know they're expensive. But there are ways if you really don't have money and you can only find a couple artists or something, here's the trick. This is the cheapest solution I have for you. Okay, this might be a way to to bring down the cost. See, I see a lot of capsules and they're very they're like big environments with all this stuff going on. Here's the super dead simple my first capsule hire an artist. What you

can do maybe you can bargain them down to do a little bit more. Just do a a bust. You know like it cuts off here, the head up of one character and some text. And let me show you what I mean by that. This is what I call the cheap man's Hopefully you can bargain your your capsule designer down, okay? And I call it the bust shot. You just take if it's a horror game, you take the bust but you make them black like like just shadowy. Put them in shadows. Make their eyes glow. And put your text. And then what you do is either you download like you can download texture packs probably for free like on Unsplash. And you just throw a texture on the back. This looks fine. This is a total like I know this is a horror game. This looks spooky. So hire an artist to make the text and we'll get to that. Always hire an artist to make the text. Don't make your own text. That's the next one we're going to look at. Don't make your own text. Hire an artist for the text. Hire an artist to make the bust shot.

And then the background is that tells you the genre. And I'll show you. This survival So this is a good one. Look, if it's a survival game this is another good one that was submitted. I love this one right here. All it is you just put somebody in the gear that you're if you're making a survival game like Raft or something, you put somebody in the gear that's going to make them survive. And it's just a head shot or like from here up. And then you do nice for some reason survival games need big bold block text. And you keep it simple. But don't make your own text. Even though this looks simple, there's a lot of subtle things going on. Simple. Simple. Hades. Look. Even Hades. It's just the bust shot. But you got to give us a sword. It's a dude with a sword game. You're a dude with a sword. So you got to do the sword. You got to work the sword in, okay? That's what tells me it's a dude with a sword game. So you get an artist. You might be able to get it cheaper from the artist if you're like I just need a character from the bust up. Give them a

sword. And can you do the text? I'll handle the background. We'll just do a texture. Notice how it's just a texture. Like it's just like yes, it's some fine art but you don't need that. You could just do like a nice splashy texture that you get from an asset pack of something, okay? It doesn't literally have to show every single enemy and every single environment. It's just just do this shot. And so hopefully you could bargain your artist down to say can you just give me this much plus a sword plus some Okay, if it's a dude with a gun game, bust shot plus a gun plus the title text. And then again, simple texture in the background. Yep. See it? I I It's not hard. It's just you have to be aware of it. If a narrative game, usually it's an anime cuz narrative game. Uh narrative game plus a text plus shot. Just a just just like your bust. Okay, this one I Satisfactory used

to have the bust shot but they made more money so they went for the full thing. So you can get away where they just had I think it was just the head. But these kind of factory crafter games look. Notice how similar the colors are these two games. This is not an accident. Planet Crafters, I love them. They're like this game's hot. We're kind of like that. Just steal the color palette. Orange background, blue face, blue colors, shaded white text. It's super dead simple, folks. This is not complicated. It works at the subatomic level. You're overthinking your capsule. Um if you got a joint and a gun, you're a crime game. See, he's like smoking man. Dude, he's totally smoking, dude. Um it's it's just again, it's just this shot. It's just this plus the text. And the background doesn't really matter. You just pick a texture. That's the vibe, okay? That's it. So I was going to say there's one. Here's my example.

I got this one. This is one that was submitted to me. I don't know what the symbol is. Let's see. I I think Oh, you know what it is? This is a skull, I think. I think this is a skull. But it's so zoomed in I can't tell. This one is trying to go for that, but I just don't get the look. I don't get what's going on here. And so I actually couldn't find this game anywhere. I didn't know if I got the right one. This is kind of got the right vibes, but it didn't know the symbols. You have to know the symbols and then you can do it. So I didn't know what to make of this game. But they got the right general idea. Text and a close-up of a character bust up. But I don't know the symbols. And the symbols need to be worked in. If this is a card battler, just turn the E into a card or this E into a card. Turn one of the vowels into a card. If there's an A, turn it into the ace. And then I know it's a card game. If it's a dude with a sword game, make sure that character's got like a sword over their back. If it's a crafter, make sure that guy's holding a hammer. It's super dead

simple. You just have to know the All right. Now, I'm going to look at the games that I think need to better capsules. All of the capsules I'm going to show here, I think you need to redo them. I am sorry. I'm going to do this as nicely as possible. I love you. But I'm doing this as a friend, okay? You need to hire somebody to do a capsule. And if you don't have money, go with the cheap bust up and work one of the symbols in the text and this thing. And I'll show you what I mean, okay? We're going to go through the areas that I see are problem areas that we should all address, okay? I love you. I'm serious, okay? And a lot of people like, you have to explain the game. I see this sometimes, these things like, you don't have to be so literal. It doesn't have to say, well, I know it's a puzzle game, but is it a puzzle game with this or that? You just have to It's symbols. Because if people are like, I like puzzle games, I'm going to click this. That's all you need. It doesn't have to be super deep.

It's just like, here's some symbols that say puzzle game. Don't overthink it, folks. Don't think, oh, you got to do all these symbols. No, it's just like one, two symbols, the right coloring, and you're good. That's it. Okay, these are the ones where I'm like, I see no symbols. I can't tell what's going on. I don't know the genre of this game. And this is where I'm seeing some problems, okay? Okay, Infinite Nowhere. I kind of looked it up. I think it's a puzzle game. And it's just it's so There there needs to be something to tell me. It's kind of evocative, but I just don't know where it is or what's going on here. Uh there are a couple other things we'll get to. You'll see it in the thing. We'll get to it when I say all block text, all uppercase block text. Work on that. Change one of the letters into one of those secret symbols that I tell you. Maybe something like pick one of the characters. I just I just don't get it. Um Arc Arc Arctis is a kind of

strategy turn-based strategy game, but it looks very emo I don't know. It kind of looks like a narrat- It The way it's presented looks more narrative like wholesome campfire people thinking. But this is actually like a strategy turn-based game. It needs more of those symbols of turn-based strategy. It just It doesn't have the the symbology for me to quite understand it. Um it and the the the the cooler colors are somber, and it looks very narrative. Like this is going to be a sad story about me leaving my Arctic village and discovering who I am as a man type of game. But I know it's not because I looked at the Steam page, okay? And so that that mismatch, the feelings that this is evoking is a somber narrative story about being a Nordic person, but it's actually a strategy puzzle game. So again, it's that mismatch. The feeling that the the thing's providing does not match the game itself, okay?

This one I don't I actually didn't have time to look at it. I don't know what this type of game is. It almost looks like a skiing game. It could also this this patch almost makes it look like a management game cuz remember how I said it's it's those It looks like the logo for a company and you're running the company. Like, am I running a ski lodge? Am I skiing? Am I Is this an action game? Cuz see the swooping line evokes speed and swerving. It And basically, what I advise is it looks Aesthetically, it looks pretty good, actually. But it's not telling me the symbols. It's It's crossing the wires. And so it's getting this the sound. It's almost like the echo that I had at the beginning of my call. It's just echoing too many things. It needs to be toned down. So please go look at other games that are similar in your genre and pull a couple of those symbols in to show it, okay? Okay, these similar also. Okay, so here's an example.

The Calling. I was like, what is this? And I thought when I first saw it, I thought it was like a narrative game about solving things, but it's a shooter. It's a It's an arena 4v4 shooter type of thing. It needs guns. It has no guns. I know it sounds stupid. I know it sounds stupid, but it needs guns. Or maybe like the A turn Or like the L turns into like an assault rifle. You know, it's like, The Calling. But um the name The Calling sounds like a narrative game. The Calling. So I'm I'm going off of that. The Not just the way the font is, but just the name of a game tells you the story. So The Calling, it's like, oh, this is a story about three friends who have a calling together, and they're going to go solve this dark mystery. Cuz see how dark it is? I'm like, oh, these three friends are going to learn about the horrors of beyond. They're calling They're calling into that. But it's no, it's a shooter. So it just totally missed the secret vibes that need to be in there to do that. So you just need guns. And then another thing, this is just aesthetic. You have an

African-American character in here, and you've got a black background. They just disappear in there. You have to work at the aesthetics, too, of how to deal with a darker complexion. And that's just an artistic aesthetic thing. Otherwise, this person is there. And it's It's something you got to work out. This needs This needs some help, okay? Um and that's It's just because of that. Now, Cat Namit Have I I love it. And I looked at the game. It's one of these what I sent a kind of avant-garde outsider. It's trying to be funny. It's trying to be silly. And it's super deep and stuff. I still just I What I said is it's weird in the wrong way. Like, yes, it's a weird game. And you can have a weird game with a weird capsule. That's fine, but it's just not Okay, so Okay, the the reason is if you look at a Cat Namit Have I, it's actually a cool like people with cat heads and stuff. But this looks a little bit different. It's not evoking that same weirdness. It's It It It's It's weird, but the capsule's weird and the game's weird,

but they're weird in different ways. And so your capsule weirdness should mirror your game's weirdness. I I can't quite explain it, but I think it's like It's You got different types of weird And I think you need to make more consistent weird. And that's fine to have a weird game and an a capsule that's kind of weird, but it's got to evoke the same weirdness. You're like, what is this? And then when I click the game, I'm like, what is this? But it's different, okay? It's It's kind of hard to see. Um Uh some of these I There was nothing that I was like I I just couldn't quite This one is a bust shot, and it's Western Justice. But I think it needs another thing. Like, Western Justice, am I shooting stuff? Is it a mystery about Western Justice? So I feel like, yes, I get that it's Old West. And this is actually a great shot. Like, you've got the bust shot, simple background, pretty decent text. We can improve it a little bit. But it needs that extra symbology. If you put a pistol or something like if you had a an old Western pistol, then I'd be like, it's a shooter.

Or if it's like a deck builder, an Old West deck builder, you make the A the A Wait, is there an A? You'd make the U into a card or something. You turn one of these a card, or you'd have like a fan out of the cards. Then I'd be like, oh, it's a rogue-like set in the Old West. I just need one more secret symbol somewhere in here to tell me the genre. Um Okay, here's one. Um Actually misclassified this one. I There We'll get to it, but there's some that I just can't read the text. It's like I know you It's It kind of looks like Tart Tart Them Down. I I I kind of looks like Tart Them Down. Like it's a cooking game and you you battle with tarts. Yeah, let's tart them down. I think it's Take Them Down. Sometimes you can get too creative with the text, and then it actually makes it hard to read. I Make Somebody make Tart Them Down, where you just like bake and you cook and you I don't think that's it. So I actually misclassified this one. Um Um but I'd work on that. Now this bottom one, okay.

Here's the thing. Okay, this bottom one is kind of um you you run a shop. I've seen this one. You've submitted this uh the Steam page before. I've seen this game before. Um so uh this is Saddle Uh Saddle Up and Drive. Okay, now it's a game about like kind of being out in the old Arizona Now that's Arizona right there. Saguaro. Um It's about being like running a crime doing some crime stuff, and it's kind of car-based and all this stuff. It's an okay capsule. But here's the opportunity. You can kind of borrow the symbology of Grand Theft Auto. I feel that somebody who would like your game also loves the old school top-down Grand Theft Auto games. You can borrow this symbology where you have the grid, the old uh the old Grand Theft grid. Uh GTG, Grand Theft grid. You just put the grid. You take this guy You don't even have to redo the art. He's okay. He's an okay dude. Just take him, pop him in the grid, pop that sword You

could probably just slice up this thing. Take all the parts apart of your current capsule, slam them in the grid, and then do this color technique where you do the It's color grading where you just do like one color per thing. Your capsule would look so much more professional, and then redo your text. I I really I really think you need to up the text game here. I would I would do a You don't have to copy it, but you kind of like you make something kind of like this. Like if you make You didn't have to do the exact font, which is that I can't remember what this font is called. It's a a very famous font. But you don't have to use this font, but you if you do white text with a black outline, you would actually And what you're doing is the symbology of like, we're kind of like Grand Theft Auto. You're going to drive. You're going to do some crimes, you're doing some management stuff. I'm pretty sure that your game is very similar there. One other thing, and folks, this always bothers me as an Arizonan and plant lover, this saguaro is incorrect, okay? Let me tell I'm going

to give you a quick tutorial this for the artist watching of how to do a saguaro. Saguaros, they they're called they're called columnar cacti, and the cactus arms always grow out of the same spot. So, you have three rows of arms coming out. They always come out of the same equator. They always come out So, like you pick a spot, all the arms come out of here. Now, there's sometimes two, but never three like this. They always come out It's a It's very much like a human. See, our arms come out here, our legs come out here. So, all the arms of the saguaro are going to come out. This is how you do saguaro. It's doesn't look like this, okay? Everybody gets it wrong. And the other thing is this saguaro only grows where I live. There's only an area There's one area where it's called the Sonoran Desert where this grows. If this game's set in Texas, you would just messed up. If your game's set in New Mexico, you messed up. Saguaros only grow in Arizona. So, this game better take place in Arizona. And if it does not take place in Arizona, you failed, okay? You messed up because the saguaro cactus only grows in Arizona. That's our pride. I hate it

anytime I see a map where there's like a picture of Texas and it has a saguaro. There's actually a song, and look it up, it's called Saguaros Don't Grow in Texas. So, if you're making a game set in Texas, I better not see a single saguaro. Search the song, Saguaros Don't Grow in Texas, okay? Um anyway, so that's my thought on cactuses. Okay, so let's move on. Um So, let's go on to some other mistakes, okay? So, I'm going to start with Let's see, what should we do? Let's do text issues. All right. Here's the thing. Remember I said the whole One of the whole points of the capsule is your capsule has to look professional because there are too many hobbyists. That is what Steam shoppers are doing. They are trying to filter out the hobbyists. They're trying to filter out people who hire their girlfriend to make

their capsule. Don't hire your girlfriend to make a capsule. I am sorry. Unless she's a professional capsule artist, don't hire your girlfriend to make a capsule. Um you want to show that you're professional. That just goes towards it. And here's one of the dead giveaways I can tell that your capsule was handmade, okay? And that you need to hire somebody. Please hire somebody to do this. And we'll talk about the text issues. There's a lot of text issues. We're going to zoom in on this section. These are all the text issues that I typically see with a capsule that is a dead giveaway, and it's a dead giveaway to Steam shoppers cuz they are very savvy. You cannot fool them. They know that you hired your girlfriend to make your capsule. I'm sorry. Tell your girlfriend I think she's nice. It's just she was put in a hard position. I blame not your girlfriend, I blame you for putting her in that position. I don't blame anybody. It's It's hard. It's a hard business. Okay, let's Let me see. This is actually a capsule that I like.

Somebody submitted this one. This is not a problem. This is good. Let me show you what I And I'm doing this cuz I love this capsule. Here's how I know a capsule was professionally designed. Okay. Notice, two different sizes of font. You have little font, you have you have you have text that's this little, and then you have big text. Just I know that sounds stupid. That's a That's a low bar, but that's it. Number two, they they reverse some text. See how this is keyed out? So, it's like here's white on black, and then they just put a white box around it, and then there I know it sounds stupid. Just doing that makes your game look more professional. And then look at this R. They could have just done this text, but no no no no. They're like, "We're going to pull this R down, and we're going to put a little spike on there." That's it. So, So, you see how they've they've manipulated the text, okay? That right there is awesome. And the other thing to notice, notice how a true artist doesn't go crazy with the effects. It's white. They didn't put like gradients and shade and and shine and

gloss and all They're just like, "I'm confident. It's just white." It is just white. Maybe there's a subtle drop shadow, very subtle, almost imperceptible to set this off, but there is nothing. It's just white. This is the modern This shows that you are a modern contemporary game by just having white text, and you're just like, "Take it or leave it." It's like what they say, um if you ever have to go to a fashionable thing, you're very fashionable, what you should wear is all black. Just like a black shirt, black turtleneck, black pants, just all black. That shows that you are an artist if you're just like, "I'm confident to wear nothing but black." You're not going to wear a fancy dress or fancy tuxedo, you just wear black. That is cool. That means you are confident. When you make your text all white, you are confident. No drop shadows, no gloss, no glow, you're just like, "I know what I'm doing."

Here's another example. This one's good. I put the star cuz I like it. Let me show you. See? Star because This looks professional. This is beautiful. Notice, they add these little wisps. You got to add something to the text. You can't just plop the text straight out of the text editor. You have to take the text, then you have to pull down the A. See how the A comes down? And then you see how this wisp comes around? And you see how there's a wisp here? See this wisp? And then it wisps over here. And then you have little, big, small. You have like medium, big, small. You just Just nesting the text height is like, "Oh my god, I'm a professional." This is hard to do though, to do this right. This is why you hire an artist. Don't just try and do this. If you're working in Photoshop and you're It's my first time on Photoshop, hire an artist, okay? This is cool. Notice, it's also just white. It's just white text. They didn't fancy it up with all this crap.

Okay, I like this one, too. It's a little I don't quite love it, and we'll talk about this thing. So, the dead giveaway that you did your This is uh This is the dead giveaway you made your own capsule, okay? You have one font, they're all caps, all the text is the same size, and you have no decorator, okay? We're going to look at that. This is These are the four horsemen of making your own capsule. Don't do that. If you I'll show you. We'll We'll look at them. But, you can even look, this Starbound is good. So, Starbound is right on the limit. Now, they they do all the Some of this they didn't do multi-size text. It's all the same size. It's all caps, but they at least added a decorator. They did this kind of like moon star thing, this planet, the star thing. And they added that gradient. Anytime I see a gradient, I'm like, "Oh, you probably made your

own capsule." Um they did it. They're all right on the line. They're like almost made me mad, but they added the By showing this, that's how I know knew they were real, for real. If this O See, they By If you just mess with your vowels, if you just change your vowel into some other object, I'm like, "That's a professional." Um but they did it, okay? They did it, so I was like, "Oh, Starbound, you almost look like you made your own capsule." Nope. Nope. Nope. Yeah, you changed the vowel. You made a vowel into something else. That's how you know. Okay, um so what we got here is These are These are the ones I'm talking about where Notice, they're all the same font, the same size, all solid A you know, like You see how it's all the text is the same height, they're all caps, even though they're white. Sometimes they're white, sometimes they're not, but that This is how I know. Like and there's no vowels. The vowels have not

changed at all. Like this Vortex O hasn't been turned into a moon or something. Um and that just See, these are just signs that um these texts Now, this one's a little bit This one's on the line. This one's on the line. But, all of these where it's like they just picked one font. Like you could even make stage small, fighter big, tactics tiny. You know, just change the text size. Um even though this is here, I still like all the text. Yeah, she have an O, but you didn't change the vowel. You just put an O in the background. Again, if anybody in this list, I'm sorry, but I could just tell that you need to hire a professional. But, it's just These are the subtle signs that a professional was not contacted. And I don't think if you made one of these, if you It's the girlfriend. Just Just say, "Hey, I'm just going to pay for somebody." Just pay for somebody. It's And what I'm doing is I'm showing the dead giveaway that people don't know why. Like Steam shoppers don't know about kerning or letting or something

like that. They just see that and they're like, "There's something that looks cheap here. I don't know. This looks like this guy may have made his own thing." But, I know why. It's cuz they just They just hammered out stage fight tactics and didn't even bother to shrink the text size or make it white. See, when it's the colors, that's when I'm like, "Uh, should have made it white." It looks so much more professional if it's white. But, don't make it white. Hire a professional. Okay, and let me show you, this is a cool one. So, look what happened here. Um I pulled I wrote a script that pulls text or pulled capsules down from Steam, and somebody submitted those, and I could see this was an old one, and they updated it. Look, you could tell somebody bought a real capsule artist. This is awesome. So, good job iron hunters. So, you can see how much It just looks more professional. This is This is how we know it's about you know, not a professional capsule cuz it was like a screenshot out of the editor and then they did the all caps. They at least sized one of the text down. I think it's mainly because hunters went too long. But this still

looks unprofessional. But then they hired somebody. And I like so much better. Like they put a gun in there. That's how you know you know it's a gun shooting game cuz they got a gun in the text. But this looks Even though it's not all white, that's okay. I'm not saying every single capsule has to be white. The capsule text. Sometimes it can be this. This is cool. This is cool. I I like this. But you could just see when you hire an artist, they do all these little things that we would have never thought of, okay? And I'm just trying to show you capsule artists. Yes, hire them. Also, make them do the text, okay? Even if you hire a capsule artist, hire somebody to make the text, okay? Who cares? I like I'm not going Okay, one thing I'm I'm not going to talk about I'm not going to go into the AI debate. I don't know how to identify like I'm I'm either going to offend somebody because I'm calling out their AI art or I'm going to offend somebody because I'm not

pointing out that it's AI. So, I'm just not even going to address AI. I'm just going to show you what some things are. But even if you're using AI art, at least hire an artist to do the text because you can't you can't I I don't think AI can quite do this stuff. So, at least, if you can't afford anything, at least hire somebody to make the capsule text. Capsule text is underrated. Not enough people consider that when they're considering the text, okay? And one thing I found. So, one when I was doing the search, I think I found this Somebody submitted the game Golel. And they had a before and after. So, here's Golel old and then new. I actually like the text of old better. I did because see look, the new text is the one of the the the deadly sins where

it's all the same capital text. Like at least make the G big and the O L E L small. I kind of like the old one better. Look at it looks just looks more legitimate. It just looks looks There's like variation in the heights of the letters and it looks I like the old one better. I don't I don't know. You can do whatever you want, but I like the old one better. Okay, this is the one where what I'm talking about. Okay. Here's the next deadly sin. I I feel like you need to have some chill on your words here, okay? Have some chill. All right, so these are all cool. I put the star cuz I like these so you know and these Nobody submitted It's not No Man's Sky didn't submit like Can you judge our castle? Don't worry. I just pulled this one off Steam as an example. Remember, just like fine art, if you have to look cool, just wear all black. Just all black and you instantly If you don't know fashion and you have to go to a fancy fashionable cool club, just wear

all black. It just makes you look cool. If you're making text and you don't know what to do, just make all the text white. Look at Icarus. That looks so cool. Look all white. They had no decorators. No Man's Sky, all decorators. Now, I know what you're going to say. Chris, No Man's Sky did all caps. No change in text. Yeah, but you can tell. If you don't know why this is okay and the other one's not, make your don't make your own capsule. Hire somebody to do it. There's There's several subtle things in the kerning and the letting between the characters that they did that makes it okay. But just you have some chill. Even RimWorld is pushing the line. Notice they have a gradient. But look what they did. They changed the vowel into a symbol. Just changing the vowel into a symbol is halfway there. But okay. So, if you're making Here's another set of capsules of dead giveaway that you should hire an artist to make your text. And it's the chill. You need to add chill to your text.

Remember how I said, if you don't know what you're doing, just make it all white. Like you don't need to decorate and put all this pop out and textures and glows and gradients and and you know, colors and stuff like that. I know it sounds boring. You would think an artist would want to You would think if you hired an artist, they would add more pizzazz to your text. But when you add pizzazz, it actually looks less like an artist did it. It's actually cooler just to be white. Just like just like all white text. Like I don't know why it is. It just is. So, a lot of the I I could just tell. It's like I just hire capsule artists. Just hire somebody to do your text. Uh some of these like some of these fonts and the color choices just white is cool. Just like just just making the text white super cool. And it just it just needs it. It just just do it, okay? Like see how cool like Icarus looks so cool. It's just it's just white. And there's no gradients. It's just just white. It's cool.

Again, if you have to debate it whether it's this or that, just hire somebody. Hire somebody. Okay. Okay, the next one is watch out your text. Sometimes if you get too cool for the fonts, like Tart Battler or Tart Fighter that that game. Have somebody else read the text who doesn't know what your game is. Um I think this person I I looked up two versions. I think they were Somebody told them, "Hey, your A could be an R or it can be an A. I don't know." And so they went back and see how they changed the A to an R the inversion capsules. I actually like the picture better on this one, but I like the text better on this one. Just watch out. Is it Drift? Daft? Draft? It looks like it should be Draft and it looks like you had a typo or something. I don't know. But watch out your text because sometimes it's hard to read. Um sometimes if you're making a Russian themed game, there's this trend to use the Cyrillic alphabet and you pick out

the Cyrillic letters that look kind of Russiany and you pick them out, but they look like an A, but they're really a Cyrillic A and stuff. Don't do it. It's so hard to read. I don't I don't know how to spell this thing if I want to search it, if I see it. I don't like that effect. I I just don't like it. Um Let's zoom in here a little bit. Okay, the next one. I mean, Pixel Wizard. Sometimes if you go with the old gothic font, I just It's like those old rap albums. Like I just can't read them, you know? And it's like I just don't I know it says Pixel Wizard, but remember working on the nanosecond. People got to get the name. I wouldn't I wouldn't go crazy. You can do maybe one of the letters. Like you can do Again, just talk to an artist. They'll do it. But maybe one letter and then the rest is is that. But especially with the W, the W is really hard because it's like so ornate. It's like W or M or U.

There's so many letters here. Um This one is just I I really don't know. Like sometimes if you change the vowels It's cool that you changed the vowels, but is it double O or looting over looting? It just It's very hard to read. And so, I would just just run it by somebody else and be like, "Can you read this?" Storytime Cats is okay. It's this When you use a heavy heavy scripted font, especially when it runs into this stuff, it's just so hard to read. I don't What's it say? Uh Storytime Cats uh Twilight Tail, I think. I mean, the the Storytime Cats is actually okay. This is a very cozy vibes. Very cool. This this kind of scripted font is very cool with the with the wholesome, which is fine. It's just this gets really crazy. You could maybe knock that into a sans-serif font complements. But work with an artist that knows how to pair a sans-serif font with a serif font. Um Okay, now this one here. This one's very hard to read and it's a It's a director simulator game. But this

genre, simulator, has the text made for you. The um let me One of the symbols. You know how I always say every genre has its symbol. And if you incorporate those symbols into your capsule, you can instantly at the sub-brain level tell people what genre you have. If you are making a simulation game, you have it so easy. You don't don't go too creative with this text where it's hard to read. Go with what they do. Like they've All simulation games have it figured out. One, PowerWash Simulator. Why does just cool? You just you just make it white and you got the answer. But they use this very block font and it's just very lined up. Just like this, okay? This is If you are making a simulation game, any one of these simulation games, just download as many of these and of these simulation capsules and send them to your artist and say, "I want it like this one." These all look so similar and

that is okay. Um simulation games have the most readable text on their capsules, okay? So, just copy this text style. This was the classic one, right here. This was what all simulation text used to look like. And then they started getting more creative and they started expanding out. Um but really, simulation games have the easiest capsules to make. You just show the object you're simulating and then you do a very block text font that is super dead simple, super legible. Sans-serif, no serifs. Sans-serif block font. Uh and you object you're simulating block font. Object you're simulating block font. It is super dead simple if you're making a simulation game and it's awesome. Just copy it. I would expect for this game for Hollywood Director Simulator, you would have a guy that looks like Steven Spielberg and he's got a a camera over his shoulder and then it says Hollywood Simulator. Because you aren't simulating

a Tyrannosaurus Rex attacking car, you are simulating being a director. So, you get Steven Spielberg-looking guy with a camera over his shoulder and then it says Hollywood Director Simulator, okay? It's super dead simple. I I got to say horror fan horror games and simulation games have the easiest capsules. It's so dead simple. Like those are the only two that I would say you maybe don't have to hire a capsule artist. Those are the hard Those are the easiest ones. I'd say the hardest are probably puzzle games. One, because nobody buys puzzle games and two, it's really hard to do puzzles. But look at that craft uh the the the castle puzzle game I I talked so much about, that one's cool. Um They just have other stuff like this frog I like that that text color. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh god. Um hire capsule just hire capsule artist. This is totally illegible. I can't read it. Um color choices again just nail white. If you can't afford an artist, if you really honestly cannot afford it, save and do a bake sale. But if you

really truly can't afford it just do it white. Just change the text white and add no special effects. Just just white text. Um okay, this one watch out to again hire hire an artist. This the way the layout looks here, it looks like it's called The Thus Spoke Donkey. Thus and also kind of looks like it's Spanky. I kind of just looked at this quick and I thought it was Spanky. The Spanky. I don't know. Just the Just the watch your layouts here because it looks like it says The Thus Spoke Donkey. I know it's a silly game. It's a silly game and you're trying to break some rules here, but you still got a we still You can't break the rule of reading left to right. You You can't break all the rules, okay? So, watch out. Um Yeah, we just watch out on some of those. Again, it just have somebody that you don't know and they don't know you're working on a game and just say what do you think this says and just see what they say. Um Yeah, a donkey. Yeah, you missed it. Donkey is spelled wrong. There's no Y at

the end. I I There's a lot going on there. But sometimes you can be too weird. You You still got to sell some copies here, folks. All right. Um here's some illustration issues. Okay. Like I said, even if you hire an artist to do the capsule, even if you use ChatGPT to make you an image, which I don't endorse, pay artists. They're good. They're good people. Even if you do a ChatGPT thing and I'm I'm We're not going to have that fight. At least hire an artist to do the text. The text proves so much because you can't really get ChatGPT to make you good text. You just can't. And it's just going to It's going to say the word the the donkey thus the the the the donkey. It always just kind of does. So, hire an artist at least do the text. Just the text, okay? And if really if you can't do it, just make it white. All right. Um Okay, these are some just illustration issues and the main thing that I see the biggest tell that you got to get the

professional art is um if you took a screen shot of the game. That is just it's a dead giveaway. If you just took a screen shot of the game and then you put it in there, it's like just just don't. So, a lot of these that I saw, it was like you took a screen shot and it was like very simple. Like this one is very simple. I don't know. I just hire an artist I had to do some of these, especially like some of these strategy games. Look at other strategy 4X games. Usually what a strategy 4X game even if it's like a grid-based thing, they usually have a person that looks like a general dressed up like a general like surveying the land and the land is below them. That's Again, look at other games in your genre and just line up the capsules and count how many things are the same and those are the pieces. Really these capsules, you're just rearranging existing things that have been done, okay? It's Again, back to AI. You're doing training data, but for the human brain. Just your training data is other games in your

genre and you don't have to use all the symbols, you just pick them out. Like Oh, it's a card battler. Oh, I've got to put a spread cards on my text or I got to turn the A into the ace. That's just what it is. Um so again, some of these Now, um let me show you. Boomerang Jack, I've seen you you've been in the community for a while. Congratulations. New capsule. Look at how much better this looks. See, look. Boomerang Jack Even at this, you're like I can tell You can find somebody who's a decent artist, but they don't have the verve of a capsule artist. Like the reason even if you have an artist on your team, I'd still recommend hiring a capsule artist cuz capsule artists have a way of just making things pop. And even though I mean, I couldn't draw like this, but it doesn't pop. This pops. It looks like it looks like somebody with some art background. And look what they did. They didn't change a vowel, they changed consonant. They put a boomerang. They turned the K into a boomerang. This is why you hire an artist. See, they just They just sketched it here, but here they turned the K into a boomerang. It was just lying there and

nobody saw it, but an artist will see it. An artist is like, let's turn the K into a boomerang. And you're like duh. Why didn't I think of that? That's why you hire an artist. You hire an artist to do that stuff. See, and the artists just do stuff. They're just good. Hire artists. Um okay. Some of these like So, there's something that I see and Boomerang Jack, the original Boomerang Jack, kind of had this thing. I can tell when it's not a professional illustrator. Everything looks very smudgy. Very blurry smudgy and I thought this one My Sleeper looks It just looks smudgy. I know you did a blur, but when you take an artist and maybe you have somebody who's a good artist on the game and then you make them do a capsule, they just something happens. It just looks smudgy. This is a kind of um car builder simulator. You've got the answer here. Just look up these car builder simulators. You take a high-res shot of the car and then you use the simulator font. You

just do simulator text and this is a scripted font. It's a kind of scripty font. It's the wrong font for a game about building a thing. You don't have to show the dude. It's A card game is like very realistic. It's pencil sharp. It is super laser sharp all this stuff, okay? That's what it is. So, it just seems like there's symbols that you just you just adopt the symbols and and it and it works. Um this one here um App Empire Tycoon This is four screen shots all thrown together basically. Um the cart the If you're making a tycoon game, very similar to simulation games, all you got to do is who's the tycoon? You put a picture of the tycoon and then you write the word tycoon in a nice text, okay? See right there. See? That's all you got to do. It's Tycoon games are pretty easy. Just show a picture of the tycoon, what they're tycooning, the stuff in the background, and then the text. And almost you can almost do the simulation text. It's a little bit more ornate, but

yeah, just hire an artist, folks. Hire an artist. Okay. Um I think we did Eldenae Secrets. Let's see. I just want to make sure I got all the little stuff. It took me a long time to build all this stuff. Um nothing wrong with those. Okay. Oh well, just Okay, so then what I started doing was I just started sorting in my genre. And I was like, well, a lot of these capsules were totally fine. There was nothing wrong with them. I'm just like Again, folks, you just got to clear the bar of it wasn't made by my girlfriend. That's That's the bar you got to make, okay? Just If you do that, I I see the thing is after you get over a certain level, it's just not worth reinvesting. I've seen people with totally reasonable capsules. They're like, Chris, we're thinking of redoing our capsule. I'm like, it looks fine. Like you got an artist to do the text. It look It doesn't look like you took a screen shot or it doesn't look like a girlfriend made it. Do Just as long as you clear that bar,

you're like there. All this fine stuff like, well, I don't quite get that. It's just as long as the vibes are right in there. So, now what I did was I sorted by genre. And so, the test here is Sometimes people they hire an artist, they get the the text. The text looks good. They But they miss the symbols or they grabbed the wrong symbol. And I don't know because I got over 150 capsules I had to go through. I didn't have time to look at everybody's page to compare, oh, the game that presented and the capsule, are they matching the genre and stuff like that? So, here's my test is I just threw all these together based on genres that I interpreted, okay? And if you see your capsule in these things and you're like, Chris, that's not I'm not making a puzzle game. You threw my game in puzzle game. That's a sign that you should probably change your art. Even though it looks good, it looks like you didn't adopt the right symbols or you put the wrong symbol in, so your game genre is a little wrong, okay? So, let's take a look. Now, um sports sports games um

Um sports games are fine. I Nobody submitted Rocket League was not submitting. They weren't like, Chris, can you take a look at Rocket League? I I I just put it in here as an example. Like you just With sports games, you just got to show who's playing. Yes, every sports game has a ball, but you got to show what type what's happening to the ball. So, Rocket League is like cars crashing into the ball. That's the sport. Like am I kicking the ball? Am I punching the ball? Am I hitting the ball with a sword? When you're making a sports game and you got the ball, you got to show what you do to the ball. And we'll talk about that in a sec, okay? So, if you look, Urban Disc Golf, pretty good. I mean, you got the title says it all. You don't really have to do a capsule to know what it is. But, you do at least you show the object, you show where it's going. I mean, we could quibble about how the contrast is and stuff like that. The that comes into Metaball. Um it's so meta, I couldn't tell what you do to the ball. Um so, there were two versions. I don't know which one's the later. I can't remember. You've got the ball, you've got the dude, but this dude he doesn't have

limbs really. I don't know what he's doing. I can't read the symbology of what this guy's doing to the ball. Is he kicking the ball? Is he punching the ball? Is he throwing the ball? As a sports game, you got to be clear. And I looked I This one I did look at the Steam page. And I think it's futuristic basketball. He's got like a jetpack. Well, you got to show the the hoop. You got to have the symbology. You got to have a hoop like a basketball hoop looking thing. Even if it's a futuristic hoop with like neon around the rim. If you want to make something futuristic, you just put neon around it. So, it's a basketball hoop, but it's got neon around the rim. You do that and you just put it in the background, okay? And then you have the guy doing a throw a layup po- like he's laying it up or he's throwing or he's got a hook shot. You got to do something, but I just can't read what this guy's doing to the ball. He doesn't even have limbs. He's just kind of like he's kind of a stump. I really can't tell. And oh, I think he's reaching for the ball like this. It just doesn't read. I can't tell what the guy's doing to the ball. That's a very critical thing if you're making a sports game. You got to show what the ball is. I think this guy's going up for dunk. But, again,

this could be soccer like he's throwing the ball back after catching it. You got to be more clear on the thing. I think a basketball hoop if this turns out it is futuristic basketball, you got to have a basketball hoop somewhere. Just just the hoop or maybe the outlines of the basketball court. Uh you know, the free throw line, the key, all that kind of stuff. Um that could help. Racing games also are pretty easy to do. Um the only thing with this one This one looked a little bit more. I actually had to look this one up cuz I was like, is this one a a charming adventure about venturing out in my RV? It's actually a racing game. I'd make it a little racier looking. It's a classic Out Run style racing game. This kind of looks like I'm going on a on a quest to find my true identity as a turning of age ver- visual novel. I I kind of got those vibes. I think it this is one where I'm like, the vibes aren't quite right. But, these other racing games are really good. I could tell they're a racing game. Um Title Rush,

great. That looks like an N64 style game. I love it. I love it. It looks like an N64 racing game. Great. I love that title. Really good title. This is good title art. Even though it's not white, but N64 art looks a little different. Okay. Uh let's keep going here. Oh, yeah. This one This is just general. This um Moonball. Moonbrella. Again, this is a 2D You know, when I looked it up, I was like, what kind of game is it? I couldn't tell. And then I looked at the screenshots of the game. The game looks like this. So, again, if you just screenshot the game, I don't know. It just doesn't It doesn't It shows again like I don't have a budget for an art, so I just took a picture my screenshot. Then people are like, well, why didn't you invest in your game? This is your game. Invest in it. I'm not going to buy your game unless you do the work. And so, it's that you're just showing a good capsule just shows I've done the work. I've spent the money. I look expensive. I'm worthy of you spending money on me cuz I worked hard.

If you just took a screenshot of the game and like uploaded it, and that's your capsule, it just tells people, this guy doesn't care about his game. Okay? So, you got to you got to spend money on this stuff, folks. Hey, um one thing. Here's another problem that I typically see. Um line weight is very important in silhouettes. It's got to work on the base level nano second level. How to Survive, they did not sup- the star because I think this is a perfect example. Look how contrast this is. It's a silhouette. It is clear. You can tell it's a night. You can tell he's got a sword. I would put the sword in the other hand because the sword gets clipped off the side, which is not good, but that's minor issue. What I like about it is how contrasty it is. It is hard lines, clear lines. Some of these the contrast is so low, I can't quite see what's going on. Like and there's if you get too small See, when you work as an artist,

and this is a tip for you if you're hiring an artist. An artist works like this. But, you look at a capsule like this. And so, what I recommend, when your capsule artist sends you their drafts, close squint your eyes. Just go like this. And you will see the contrast. And when I squint my eyes Everybody do it right now. Squint your eyes on this thing. You can't see it. You see the outlines here. See that You can see the outline of this. It go- You can see a tower. I can't see all the detail that's in here cuz it's low contrast and the the fine line work is too detailed. You need to squint your eyes and do the squint test. That's what they taught us in art school. They were like, you do the squint test and you see what it is. It blends All this fine line work goes away. Or zoom out. When they send you the the test images, zoom way out so that it's this big and it all disappears. This game is very clear. You can see a dude. You just squint your eyes. Now, squint your eyes on this one. See? It looks pretty much the same when you squint your eyes on this one. Go like this. It's the same. See? This is That's why

this is a perfect example. All of these fail the squint test. Like that I It just It just is mush. It's just not enough contrast. It needs hard lines, thick lines. Um Bonds of the Zodiac, I think it's a good evocative title, but look, there's so much there and there's a character at the bus stop, but she disappears in the blackness of this bus stop. So, either rotate it so you can see her sitting at the bus stop or this bright See, what you got is this bright li- flowers and super dark things. So, you've got this like contrast. It's like you're looking It's like somebody's shining a flashlight right in your eyes with these bright yellow and then you have this black and the character that this whole game's about is hiding right in here. She's right there. But, you can't see her cuz there's a flashlight here and she's sitting in the dark. I can't see it. So, zi- either zoom in so the whole capsule is just the bus stop and you just see her sitting at the bus stop. It It's It's also a layout issue that you have

to have. Um Uh a lot of these like Senorita, Manana, uh you can see the cards good and you got a dragon, cool, but it's just like the text blends in with this and there's too much fine detail. I would just no background, just a dragon, bring the text, make the N into a card or you have an A, you can make the A into an ace. But, change one of the vowels into that. Um This is a sports game, Pin City. You could probably get away with no backdrop. If you do Pin City, you put the symbols in here, you got some keys. You don't even know I know it's a bowling game. All this bowling stuff, it just complicates and I can't quite see it and it distracts from the text. I think you could get away with just removing the backdrop, maybe just making it the bowling wood, the wood from a bowling lane, and then it's just this label. And I know it's a bowling game, okay? Cuz bowling is so iconic, all the symbology of the pins and the bowling ball and the king symbol for some

reason. Bowling's always about kings. Okay, Diggapolis. I actually I actually really like this text and I think the text is great. But, then the stuff the stuff that tells me that this is a a digging crafting style game are so tiny. I can't even see them. And this is this is a squint test. Do the squint test. I can't see what's going on up here. I just see some big trees. So, either zoom in on one of those miners. I think you could get away with getting Well, I think it's a dwarf game. Just one dwarf with a pickaxe over his shoulder and he's just looking gruff and all diggy. Like he's got mud on his face. And it says Diggapolis. I know what type of game this is. You don't literally have to show me him digging. He's got a pickaxe or a shovel over the shoulder. I know he's digging. I know he's digging. You don't have to go show all that stuff. So, that's what I mean by just kind of Okay, this Cone Rush. Okay, this is what I mean by silhouettes and having that sharp contrast. Okay, so the game's called Cone Rush and it's a runner with a guy with a cone on his head for

whatever reason. But, notice he's this little thin thing. Okay, the hook of your game is you got a guy with a cone on his head for some reason and it's a runner. But, he's running at you. See? See where his arms are? See his arms? This is This is an animation test. Look. See? This is how it runs. And then if you turn to the side, now you can see See how I'm running? That's the silhouette test. So, your silhouette is off. So, you can't tell I'm running. You can't tell if I'm punching you. But, if you turn like this, aha, I'm running. See? That's how you have to do it. I I saw an artist, a very famous video game artist who got canceled. He's kind of a weird guy. He's kind of a racist guy, too. Um but, he had a good point about not nothing else. The only good point he had about art is he said in video games from the back, when a character is running in a video game, they have to run like this. And I'm going to turn off the mic. That's how a video game character has to run because behind the camera the real way you run is like this. But, your arms aren't swinging. So, you have to run

like this. So, that you can see that you're running. Your character is running like this. So, off to the side like that. That's how your character has to run. Here's your options. You either make this guy Like I See this? This is cool. I'd make cone head, that cone guy, run off to the side. See how they're all on profile? They're They're this. That'd be good. Or if you don't have the money, the bust shot. Do a bust shot with a guy a cone on his head and it says cone rush. I think that's enough. You don't even have to make him running. Just like, why does that guy have a cone on his head? I'm going to check this, okay? Bust shot saves the day. Uh I kind of like this one. It's got a cool pop. This cool color pop. I just can't tell what's going on all over here. So, watch out for that.

Okay, here's a couple clear actions. This one I just thought Some of these are like it's not that bad. I just kind of think they're funny when I look at them too much. I kind of saw this I was doing this at like 11:00 last night. If you really interpret this one, it's like, "Dude, why are you throwing a harpoon at me? Moby Dick is behind you. Turn around and throw the hook at Moby Dick. Why are you throwing it at me? It's like why am I getting my Why are you throwing the dart at me? Behind you, that's who you should be throwing it at. It's the wrong action. He's throwing the hook at the audience and you got Moby Dick. I know what you did, but maybe make the guy going like this and he's got the harpoon coming out and Moby Dick's coming behind him. Like, all you have to do is change this guy's pose to be like "I got the harpoon." You don't have to make him kind Like, "Burt, why are you attacking me, Burt?" And then IT'S LIKE,

"TURN AROUND!" UH THIS ONE, UH JUST WATCH YOUR UM your focus. I know what you're trying to do. You're showing you're trying to show it speed, but look at the focus. The uh what's in focus is this road. No, you want to show the monkey in focus. So, why isn't the monkey in focus? You put the blur line You probably put a motion blur on. So, I can't see what you're in there. It's the focus is wrong. So, I would make the monkey in focus and make everything else out of focus. You just flipped what you should do cuz everyone wants a monkey in focus. So, so make the monkey monkey in focus. This one, cross country case. I The symbols are right. It's a narrative mystery game and you can tell cuz she's got a magnifying glass. But, if you look at the capsule, she is looking at the sun with a magnifying glass. Like, don't do this. Don't do that to your eyes. Don't look at the sun with a magnifying glass. You're going to hurt yourself. Like, and what mystery is she solving? She's like, "What is that glowing thing? Let me go up here." You

have to use a magnifying glass to look at little things that are close up. It just doesn't the You know how I say it works at the nanosecond level? These capsules kind of fail at the the two-second rule when you're looking at it and you're like, "What is going on?" So, the answer, I do think a magnifying glass is a perfect symbol. It is a perfect symbol for a point-click adventure narrative mystery solver. You make the O into a magnifying glass and then you go there. This this game also has um all bold caps all same size text errors. So, hire capsule artist or a text artist to make cross country case have a magnifying glass in it. That's all you got to do. And then just This actually is a cool-looking capsule. Just have an artist remove the the thing so it doesn't look like she's looking at the sun. Like, that's the world's worst detective. She's like, "I can't solve this mystery." You're like, "You're looking into the sun with a magnifying glass. Don't do that. Do

not do that. You're the worst detective I've ever seen." Um Um let's see here. Left Behind. This is also kind of like the running thing. Okay, so it's cool to be attacked by a zombie and hitting it with a hammer. But, if you notice, look at his hammer. He's holding the hammer like this. So, there's no silhouette of the hammer. See it? See it? You can't see the hammer. See how he's like this? I can't see the hammer. What you want to do is him going like this like in a very dramatic way and then I could see the outline of the hammer. I think you took a screenshot out of this. But, really all you have to do, here's what you could also do. This is the cheap version. You just have this guy in a hoodie. He's got a bloody hammer and he's just like this. And he's just standing. You do a bust shot with him holding the hammer like this. And then maybe like a zombie coming up behind him or something. And it's super dead simple. You can clean up all this stuff. The Left Behind sounds spooky, but you can't read the hammer because it's in front of him. Because he's like this. You can't see the outline. You have to always think in silhouettes. So, hold

the hammer to the side. Um okay, this one um SCP. This is like three capsules in one. You got to pick an art style. A capsule has one art style. So, you have this sketch All three of them. You have three cool capsules in here. It's almost like you got three and you're like, "I don't know which one to pick. Let's do them all." Pick one of them. I like this sketchy graphic format. Either do that whole thing. Just remove everybody else. Keep the scratchy zombie and then this title all big. Or take this um mystery writer-looking guy. Get rid of this. He's cool. And then you have a zombie versus T-Rex. I don't know what's going on here. That's a cool game. I've never seen zombies versus T-Rexes. But, now you've got And this one looks like Alan Wake. So, it's like, is it Left 4 Dead zombie versus Alan Wake versus zombies versus um T-Rex? And you have two different types of zombies. You have scratchy zombie and this polygon zombie. Which one? There's There's like four different art styles going on in here. Pick one. They're all cool. You just got to pick

one and then hide everything else. So, you got three You got too many art styles. But, zombies versus dinosaurs. You heard it here first, folks. Okay? Oh, no. Does somebody have I don't know. He's got kind of good legs. Is somebody talking about that T-Rex? That T-Rex has got some some kind of sexy gams. He's got He's kind of like, "Yeah, sexy gams." I My favorite, I think if I were to pick one, I'd do that guy. But, and then I wouldn't do after this game, I'd make dinosaurs versus zombies. Um okay. Um this one I Again, this is kind of like you have to look at sight lines. Like, I just don't understand what's going on. Puzzle games are the hardest one to capsule. Um it looks kind of like a screenshot, but it's just this guy and he's just looking at a ladder. I I I just don't know what the action is. So, the the whole thing about puzzle games that's hard and I we'll talk about the art of reflection, too. This one is also I've seen this game you've you submitted this game multiple times. Thank you. I think the hardest thing I've seen with your game is it's very hard to show

what's going on. It's a game about It's kind of a hard game to describe. It's not very iconic. And you've got a ball and then a reflection of a ball. That's not very interesting. And I know it's like the art of reflection. It's like, "Dude, have you ever looked at your hand in a mirror, dude? Look at it, man." It's like, "Yeah, that's kind of cool that the ball's in a mirror." And I know that's kind of a puzzle mechanic. I don't know, but it just doesn't there. So, this is hard. It's hard to show a puzzle game in a capsule. You kind of got to go iconic. You kind of got to go You got to go kind of weird. I just pulled some puzzle games. See, Portal is awesome because it shows you go out of one portal and into another and you're a robot. That's pretty good. Talos Principle, they're pretty cool cuz they're just like, "We're not going to even explain that we're a puzzle." Um One symbology is if you do a classic Roman, you know, like return classic style uh figure. If you do that, that kind of

just means this is a game about thinking. This is a thinking game. You're going to learn about philosophy when you play this game. And And this is just an iconic There's not This game is not about collecting cats. It's like a puzzle game where you collect cats. They're just like, "What if a robot held a cat, dude? Think about it." Makes you think about reality, doesn't it? Um So, that's what they're going with that. So, if you do that, same thing with Talos Principle. I don't even know what that image is. Like, dude, what if you saw a giant sculpture? Isn't that cool? Um You just need an iconic image and I think for these they're just not iconic enough. Like, a ball in a mirror just isn't that iconic. With this, I think what it is is you have to detect what's visible in a mirror or not. So, I'd have a dude holding a How about this? Like, the capsule could be a dude holding a ball and you can see his reflection, but he's going like this and there's no ball in his hand. Then I kind of get it. It's like, "Why is Why is reflection have a ball?" But, see, the thing is one of the things that people detect very easily. I've seen a

lot of games where it's like it's a platformer, but it's a ball that you're playing as. Well, everybody knows you picked a ball because that's very easy to draw. You don't have to model anything if it's just a ball. You just do a ball, you put a texture on it and it's like, "Boom, I got a main character." So, you have to show that you are worth it and you've done character design. And when you put a ball front and center, people are like, "So what? You got a ball." If you did a dude and he's like holding the ball, then you have to model the dude and yes, you have to pay for that, but that's how you prove that you're investing in your art. So, you have a dude holding a ball and then his reflection, it's him doing the exact same thing, but there's no ball in his hand. Then we kind of know what's the story of this game. But, just showing a ball, a reflection of a ball, it's like, "Yeah, I've seen that. My kid does that. He'll hold a ball in front of a mirror. Way to go." Uh so, I that's just what I I'd do. And then the skull seeker, I don't know. I would expect to see a skull. I mean, I know he's like seeking the skull. I can't find the skull. But, I would expect maybe the E You turn the E into a a skull or a the U into a skull. All right, I I Maybe have a skull and he's like, "Where

is it?" And the skull's behind something and he's like, "Where is it? I don't see it." At least have a skull that he's seeking. So, it's Puzzle games are hard. Puzzle games are hard. I'm not going to I'm not going to lie. Uh Yeah, but that's it. Okay? Um Okay, I went longer than I should have. I went half an hour longer. I Here's what I'm going to do. That Those are the big things, I think. Again, the main thing I want you to all to do is hire an artist. I'm not trying to shill for artists, but artists are great. They make the world go round. Um you got to meet that minimum bar of quality. And if you don't, people aren't going to trust your art. They're not going to trust your game. You have to show that you've invested in this game. I know it costs money. I gave you some ideas for how to save money. You do the the the the bust shot and a simple background. You don't even pay for the artist to do the background. You do the background and it's just You just take a texture and you put it on the background, but you got to pay for the text and you got to pay for the bust shot. That's the minimum, okay? Now, I

am going to do this So, at the bottom here, I did all the genres. If if I didn't see any problem, if I was like, "There's nothing here to point out." I just threw it into genre columns, okay? I'm going to scroll these up. And so, what I'm going to do is I am going to go through and I'm just going to do a slow pan so that hopefully I can get all of your capsules in. And if you see your capsule and it's in the wrong genre, then that's up to you to say, "Chris, I guess my genre is not clear. I need to add an ace for the letter A because it's a deck builder and you put it under horror. Boo boo boo. Okay. Um so, um I'm going to slow scan over these. Now, I lined up all the things. Guess what? This is a funny uh not total data. This is not full sample size. But if you look at the genres, you can see what are the most popular genres just by how many

capsules are in there. Guess what? People always complain about so many roguelike deck builders. Here's the roguelike deck builder column. It is not the longest. Like, it's not It's uh It's like in the median. I I This is the second blog post I'm going to write. I don't know why people freak out about how Oh, so many roguelike deck builders. There's not. Like, this is the number I put this thing. I was like, "Question mark." Because I was like, "Come on, guys. Why why are you always on Reddit? Every time you see a roguelike deck builder post on Reddit, people are like, "Oh, there's so many of them." Like, it's not that many. Like, it's not even You just look visually. This, horror. Here's horror. And that should be. There should be a lot of horror games cuz it's very popular genre. What's this one here? Um Oh, yeah. Action adventure is a dude with a sword. I don't know what they call this genre. So, the second most popular is dude with a sword. Um But anyway, there aren't too many roguelike decker builders. Just chill out, everybody. Everybody just chill the freak out, all right? Just chill out. All right. If you're If you're like, "My

My capsule's not in any category. I don't even have a genre. I have invented a genre." You got bigger problems than that than a capsule cuz people buy games based on genre. I'm sorry. You're probably not going to invent a new genre. Okay. Let's see what I can do. Here So, I'll just go genre by genre and I'll go down and if I got your genre wrong, that's not on me. That's on you. All right. So, uh thank you so much. Let me just uh If you're still with me, join the newsletter cuz YouTube sucks. This is where the real stuff happens. Um courses are on sale now. Um sign up. Please. This is uh so awesome. I only do the sale once in a while. Best deal is this, most popular. This is my flagship course. Tells you everything about wishlists, pitching and funding, find out how to get that money. And then I do conferences. I study capsules on this,

all this kind of stuff. But yep, highly recommend this. Just updated. Really cool. All right, let's go through it. Let's do this. Thank you so much, everybody. I'm going to just go to each genre. I'm going to scroll down and point out anything I can. I'm going to even go into low mode here. Just just hanging out low down. All right. Here we go. Low horror. Horror, by the way, is the easiest capsule to make. All these are good. Good job. Good job. I getcha. Story of Question says, "Trust 666." Get it? But yeah, you just Horror's the best. You just put a scary face and you just put some white text over it and you are you are good to go. So, if you made one of these, that's a lot of teeth. I'm not saying this is AI generated, but that's a lot of teeth. And sometimes they have two things down here and you got one thing. I'm not saying it's AI, but there's Count those teeth. But I'm saying, horror games are the best genre to make capsules out of. There we go. This one could be a deck builder. Could be, but it's a horror

deck builder, so I put it as horror. So, okay. Um okay, so the next ver the next genre here, only one idle that I saw that I could tell was an idle. So, we only had one. Idle games are nice because they just say idle. You can put As long as it says the word idle, you got all the symbology you need. Okay, Survival Craft is good. I love this Fear Below Zero. Um this is cla This is a classic easy way to do a capsule. Bust forward, all that. Winter Survival. Good. You got the word survival in there. Dead Hold. This one is not quite good. I did I had to look that one up to see. I I think you could do a couple things. I don't know what to make it a little bit more survival crafty. Here we have action platformer. I consider action platformer any platformer that has like you might shoot a gun or you do some sort of secondary action, not just like a pure Mario platformer. Um so, if you did this so I think this Gun Miner Ascendant has the word

ascendant. I think this is a classic um I'm going to get my stool out here so that I can sit cuz I'm killing my knees here. Um I think this one's a classic like you Oh, you're throwing bombs and you're jumping cuz he's got the jump pose. So, all these are kind of action shooting jumping this I know you want this to look like a uh a pen cuz it's a well, but it actually kind of looks like some sort of cell that is produced by men that is not produced by women. That's kind of what those W's look like. Might want to double-check that one. Same thing with those little things that are going to me. Maybe this is what the game's all about. I don't know, but I would double-check that. It's kind of sending some symbols I don't think you intend to. I know they're supposed to be looking like an ink fountain pen, but I don't They're not reading fountain pen to me. Not reading fountain pen to me. Hack and Climb. This looks like an old SNES cover. An axe is another good symbol. It's like you jump and you and you hack it. Um again, this one Okay. Okay, so this one. Beautiful beautiful um capsule here.

I love this one. I thought this was an action run around, but it's actually also a survival craft. I think you can add some more symbology to this to make it more. It just reads platformer, but you are much deeper than that. And I think you got to add more symbols to your capsule to make it deeper. It's not bad. Your capsule's actually really pretty, but I think it's sending the wrong message, okay? All right. Let's see. Platformers. I just put this in here because if you're reaching for something, that's the symbol for being a platformer. And yes, to everybody who's going to ask this question, even if you're making a pixel art game, you need to hire an illustrator because it proves that you just didn't take a screenshot of your art. Just like Celeste. Celeste is illustrated. Hire an artist. They're worth it. Um Sixth Force. See, this one's pretty cool cuz he's actually got platformers. Um Coco's Revenge. Origami. You made two origami, I think. And I like this one better. I think I saw a second version and I like this one better than the other one. Mice Maze. Um I know I say it I I follow you.

Uh TT What What are you? TT Games? Trampoline Tales? I think, right? The maker of Lucky Landlord. I saw this game. I I know it's kind of a maze plat a puzzle game, almost. It's reading platformer. I like you. I like your games. I just this reads kind of platformer to me. Okay, cuz they're they're in the jump pose. And I think your game's top-down. I don't know if this capsule's sending the right message. Um Egging On, even though he's egged off the off the egg, but it's fine. It's fine. Make the O into an egg. What What are you doing? Um Chickens don't fly. A lot of chicken games for some reason. And Oh, here's the other origami. Actually, I think I like this one better. I don't know. They're both fine. Yeah, I I like this one better cuz the cat actually looks like origami. Um okay. Are you changed which one, but I like this one better. This is the one I like better. It's the silhouettes are better and it stands out. The cat stands out more and the cat looks more like origami. And I think you're using the other one.

Strategy game Strategy games are um hard. Basically, you do a full body, not the bust, and then you do a big world map down below. I think World Explorers did an excellent job. This is how you do a strategy game. Just look at like um Civilization. So, if you made a If they If your game is not a strategy game, it looks like a strategy game in this uh in this list. Tells of Fortune, Rise of Realms. Coming in for the behind the hug. That That I can't tell if It's a little hard to read, but it looks like that uh that dragon's doing one of those over-the-shoulder hugs from behind. You're like, "Ah, give me me a hug." He's like, "Ah, come here for a hug." I I don't know. I don't know if it reads right. I can't tell if that's an armor chest. I don't know if he has a chest armor or he's hugging the knight from behind. I hate when people hug me from behind. I'm like, "Stop. I didn't want to be hugged." And so, it kind of looks like that dragon's doing that. He's like, "Ah, come on in for the hug." Um Vox Tenebris. Uh Rodeo Good good value change. Good value change. Um Coldplay concert dragon, yeah. He's like, "Ah, come in Oh, no. We're We're on camera."

Um Brain Hack Squad. I think that's cool. Uh Brand uh Band of Crusaders. And Folk Emerging. I Folk Emerging, I see you all the time. Thanks for being in the community. It looks good. This is a good strategy game cuz you got like strategy happening, the world of time, villages, childbirth, all that stuff. It's looking good. Builder. These are I I don't know. Builder kind of strategy. Basically, I consider strategy game a builder if it's a strategy game, but there's no like direct combat uh or you're building like a city. Could be city builder, could be environment builder, all these kind of things. All of these look good. Lift Lands. I like these. These are all good good capsules. Even though this one's all text, all this, there's something about it. I would if anything, maybe make the M into mountains cuz it's Terra Firma, then make some mountain peaks or something. I think you might be able to do a little bit of a text just to make it look even more impressive or maybe make Terra smaller, change the text. I like this one. I would just maybe maybe do a little zhuzhing of the text. Only one vampire survivors that I could

find. Uh well, there were there were a couple, but they were really not such great capsules. But a really good uh vampire survivor like I really didn't see many vampire survivor likes. So, don't don't yell at the vampire survivor people. Okay, tower defense. I just put a couple of stars on these because a tower defense game, you need to put the tower somewhere in here. These are These did not submit, but your capsule has to have a tower somewhere either in the text and the image or not. So, like Tower Alchemist, very good. You got an alchemy for the star and you got a tower, so good job. This one I I don't know what this one is, but it's given tower vibes to me. I don't know. That one I didn't know. Rogue Kingdoms, I love this. This is a really cool text. I like that that thing. Looks like a tower. This is This is one of my top favorite capsules. This is really good one. Kubrix. Uh Kubrix. Stanley Kubrick's. Um I feel like you could tower this up a little bit more. I think you could do a little bit more towering here. Or maybe make it maybe make a letter look like a tower like it's

shooting something. Brains Defenders. I think it's a I I would at least put a tower with a guy with a sniper rifle on there. Just just to double double do it. Greenwood Defense. It's looking sword. I think I looked this up. If it didn't have the word defense, I would assume this is a dude with a sword game. So, double check if I got that genre right, but I would do a little bit more towery defense symbology in there somewhere. You got to get a tower in there somehow. I only call it a tower defense cuz it has the word defense in it. Uh shmup shooter. Um they call it gravity and then the thing's falling, I guess. I didn't look into this one. I think it's that, but good thing if you have a spaceship, you got to do spaceship ass ass with the long wispy tails. Both of these games did good spaceship ass, so good job on both of these. Okay, arcade action is just like you have to jump really fast. This is a good Remember how I was talking about how conehead, that game cone guy has to do a side pose run. This is a good side pose

run. You can see the silhouette. It's much easier to see the run if they're running sideways. Um Mat- Hamster Mind. Decent. These are just kind of like you just go through a beautiful environment and run around. Neo Junk City. Oh, decent. All All these are fine. No real problems here. Action adventure. This is like dude with a sword. It's It's It's those adventure games, but the guy's also got a sword. So, here's classic dude with a sword. So, dude with a sword is its own genre. It should have a tag on Steam. Dude with a sword, Hopefall. There's two dudes with swords. Um that guy's got a dude with a battle axe. Sword. Then nobody's got them. But Um Tales of Mabogans Mabogans Ion Shift Undermyer Valkyrie Rising Life Altered Shadow Beneath. That's a cool sword. That guy's got a cool sword. Um and then the final

dude is sword. Um Yeah, puzzle game in an action section. I don't know. I don't know what type of puzzle game you got, but we'll look at some puzzle games. Puzzle game is a hard one to do. Can you put anything in the puzzle game like a key with a lock is just like we know it's a puzzle game with that or some other type of like pressure plate or something. Put it Look at symbology for a puzzle game. So, puzzle game You got cute characters and they kind of go in slow. That's That's a puzzle game in my book. Find my frogs. He's like, "Where's my frogs? I found them. He's right there." Um Tiny Auto Knights. I don't know. I This one I just didn't know. I The word auto is actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting. When I saw Auto Knights, I was like, "Oh, I bet I have to chain together knights and it's kind of a factory puzzle or something." I kind of threw this in even though it's got a dude with a sword. I think the word auto is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I think you might be able to to work something. I feel like there's more to this game and I don't know what it was and I was at 11:00 at night and I just threw it in

here cuz of the word auto. Um Core Trials. The word trials is doing your heavy lifting. Trials tells me, "Oh, there's like some sort of puzzle to it." Piece Together, very good. This is This is classic um wholesome puzzle got to organize type of thing. Uh very good vibes. I like this one. See the tape? Piece Together. This is good. This is a very good capsule. Chicken Scratch. It's a kind of I know it's not a puzzle game. I know it's like a a word game or you draw as somebody else draws with you, but I put it under puzzle. I consider that puzzle. I I think I know what the game is, but I'm sorry. Um puzzle games. But I'm going to feel something like I'll learn about my life. I would I guess I should have put Piece Together. Piece Together, I'm going to find Caver- Canvas Infernus. Ayasa and Reproach. Um good beard on that reproach. I bet I bet the developer of this game has a beard. I find that developers who have beards love to put guys with beards in their game.

Um so, very prominent beard. Okay, Papers Please like. Um I know it's like puzzle. I don't know. They were kind of management games, but I think a lot of them um I don't know. This one I think um I saw that one. I think you need a person. Um the um those Papers Please likes, I think you need a guy judging. I think this one is actually this Peppy the Frog. I don't know. This is reading a little too peppy for me, but um this actually is pretty good. I could kind of see it from this cuz he's like judging this thing and who it is. I think you also need like a shadowy figure to in the background to say like, "Is this person who they say they are?" Um uh but I think this International Ga- Gas Station, it's reading to me it it's giving, as they say on TikTok, it's giving I manage a gas station, but it's really I run a gas station where I have to figure out if this person's actually who they say they are. So, I would double check that one. I I I think you could go more in the direction of uh Papers Please like.

Deck Builder. Here's our favorite. Question marks like, "Why does everybody complain about deck builders having too many? There aren't that many." So, um deck builders are nice cuz you just get a deck in there and you you say the word deck and you have some cards. Um I'm pretty sure Myth Scroll is March to My Heart. Look at those cards. I think you can make the cards more prominent. I'd just put the cards in white underneath as an underline. Uh that's do more. Hand of Hexes is doing the heavy lifting. I was like, "I bet there's a card builder cuz the game's called Hand." Um Moon Sigil. He's holding cards. I think you could make it bigger. You see it's a little tiny. I only saw it cuz I looked up close. And then you got cards and then Pip My Dice. Just got board game stuff. So, those are the deck builders. Why does everybody complain about deck builders all the time? I don't know. RPGs. Quest of Heroes is doing the heavy lifting. They're like It'd be really weird if this was a dating sim. Um Tears of Vane Fell. This is classic RPG. Have all the characters. Very um

um what do they call it? Um ba ba ba um Final Fantasy. You put all the characters up together. Um I couldn't This was I almost threw this one in text. I don't know if I'm supposed to read that or if that's supposed to be, but supposed to be fake text, but it's too bold and so I can't tell what it is. A lot of fishing games. Um Drizzle. Out Fishing. I almost thought this was a gay visual novel about fishing as a cuz he kind of looks like a bear. Like he's like, "I came out and I'm I came out with fish." It's like it's kind of like Brokeback Mountain. I thought this was a gay visual novel. I'm sorry. But it's actually a very cool I don't mean to make fun of it. It's very funny. Um but um um it's a horror fishing game, which I think is a great idea. I think it's great idea. I just saw Out Fishing and this guy looks He looks very masculine coded uh out. Like he's out and he's like, "I'm having questions about my sexuality, but I learned about it well on this fishing trip with my friend."

Just like in Brokeback Mountain. So, um uh ch ch ch Black Hole Fishing. Oh, oh, cool. Idle Fishing. I know I could have thrown this in idle, but um the word idle does a lot. There's not as much symbology for idle games. I think if you have a huge stack of something, that codes as idle. Um Upstream. I know this is not a fishing game. It's a platformer and I've been following I followed your game a little bit just to see how it would do. It's a platformer. It doesn't quite read platformer. Again, I think you if you change the silhouette, it would. Um but it reads as a fishing game. I know it's not a fishing game now. Um these are funny platformers. These are those um um uh like fizzy funny physics funny stuff. Funny stuff happens. Doggy Don't Care. We're going to talk about Doggy Don't Care in a second. Creature Collector. Temtem is the example that Temtem did not give me that. The way you do the symbology for a creature collector is you just throw a ton of creatures on there and you have cool cute font. So, Bestiary also is a

good word for that and then you got all the creatures just piled up. Dragon Sprouts. I didn't know. I just threw it in there. If you had more dragons, then I would think it would be a creature collector. And Tamertown. See how you have all these cool looking creatures? That's how I know it's a creature collector or that's what I assume. Management games. Again, if you put the sign like there or you have the word hotel in it, yeah, that's creature or that's a management thing. Oily depths, out of stock, you get it the shop stock. The name that you name your game helps a lot in telling what it is. Um Sunny Trails, I'm not entirely sure, but it kind of has that sign, you know, like the vintage sign. Um extra coin Villainville, The Greening. My Tiny Garden, this is a This is classic showing the shop front, very good management looking thing. Run the office, Full Metal Sergeant, Carlo C calling out, good to see you Carlo C. I like this. That's I like this

better than your previous capsule. So, better than Full Metal Sergeant 1. Uh I like that one. Junkyard Space Agency, I didn't know. I didn't know because it says junkyard, that makes me think management like I use junk to build a spaceship and it takes off. That's what it's giving. But I could also see a a thrilling tale about discovering your childhood through rocketry. It kind of looks like a storybook. It's illustrated It's beautiful illustration, but it's kind of giving I'm a 9-year-old learning about life when I build my spaceship and I go on a magical imaginative voyage. Okay. Oh, we got one more. We got narrative games. Uh I put Greenwood Defense cuz I didn't know. I was like, this also could be a narrative game. Um Rotten Roots, usually um the coding for narrative games is like kind of an anime looking script font. The characters like having some sort of interaction. Okay, that's what I go off of or sexy succubus. Is that That's

redundant. Just say succubus. But anyway, uh if you got this this is a dark sexy narrative game. So, anyway, um Vampire spin. Um yeah, this narrative Narrative games are either a detective The The successful narrative games are pure anime dating. Um sexy uh sexy narrative with a vampire. She's got like horns or something. Or um a mystery. A mystery. Those are like the three narrative genres that work. All the other ones just if you're like I don't know. Uh but so, these are all pretty good like da da mystery, that's good. You got judging and blood, yeah, that's good. Um Sucks to be in stitches, is that But in general, those If I could sum up narrative games, it's these two right here. These are the two type of narrative games that do awesome on Steam. I couldn't find these. Somebody submitted these and I I wrote a I used

ChatGPT to five code me a scraper that just sucks in capsules. And somehow ChatGPT sucked in these and I couldn't find them on Steam. I don't even know how ChatGPT got these on here. I couldn't find them. I have no opinion. I don't know where they went. Shooters. It's good. You just give somebody a gun and you're good. Uh all right, yeah. Trick shooters, all these, yep, all good. And then you got general um wholesome. I could see Tiny Marbles I could see this one also being a creature collector. I just didn't know cuz you beat you mentioned that you got the wrong that I grabbed the wrong one. That's ChatGPT's fault. I went and looked you up. This is much better capsule. Good work on the good capsule. I would have yelled at you for this capsule, but this capsule you're looking good. Thank you so much. And Little Crossroads, maybe creature collector. I don't know. I just threw it in wholesome cuz that was a cheat.

Okay. So, here's my favorites. I'm going to give you my favorites. This is the end. I'm going to end with the favorites. I I don't have Q&A. I went over I I spent too much time doing this. Thank you for staying patient with me. I got to go. Um but um these are my favorites. Here's what I like about this cave diver one. It's that meme, but it looks good. And it's a game about that meme about that poor horrible guy that got stuck upside down in the cave, but you made a game out of it. That's genius. I mean, it's kind of going off a tragedy, but it's more making fun of the um the diagram of the tragedy. Um and it's I don't even like to look at that picture, but you captured that image wonderfully. And so, I think that's This is the classic capsule where you are adopting a language, a symbol that people have in the back of the brain, which is that diagram that's turned into a meme, and you turn that into a thing. That is classic. That's That's what you do is you you take these

symbols that we all know publicly as a conscious as a symbol of something, and you adapt it in your in your capsule and say this is what it is. That's why I like your capsule. It's one of the top ones that I saw. Die you don't care. Now, let's see. You have a new one and I ChatGPT T pulled in your old one. I like your old one better than your new one. I'm just going to say cuz your old one is cool and it's giving Untitled Goose Game vibes cuz you're kind of it's the game that's a jerk animal. It's the jerk animal genre. And it really gave me it's the same basic color of blue and it's very clear and iconic and it's funny. It's got a good silhouette of him peeing on stuff. I like your old one. I don't like your new one. Your new one's too Your new one just looks like a bad platformer that's not going to sell anything. I'm just being honest. I'm being honest. I This is iconic. I like this one. I think you should go back to this one.

This one just looks like every platformer that I say don't sell. So, I would go with this one, but you're the You're the one in charge. Um I don't love this one. I just kind of threw I mean, I know I say pull the symbology, but this one might be a little too much pulling in. You I I think if you get too close to the sun, it'll burn your wings and I think you're playing a little too close to the sun with this one. It looks like Fall Guys. And so, yes, I think if you just made it a little less like Fall Guys, played up some of the Fall Guys symbology, but not all of it, you are raising the bar to a level This game is very well made, very high production values. If you cannot live up to this, people are going to yell at you over it. So, I would not do that. Yep, and I like this one just to finish with this one. I love This is a very good capsule that I think

for puzzle games. It's got the puzzle symbology. It's very clean, very iconic. I love the the use of negative space and contrast. It's just cool looking. Folks, find out who made this. If you're making a puzzle game, hire whoever made this. Track down that developer and find out cuz that is a very good capsule. I love that capsule. I like this one because it's so symbolic of survival crafting games. I love it. It's got the bust. It's a nice cheap capsule. It's like a capsule that you you could almost make yourself. Almost. Um and then good typography on this one. I like that Colonel Bay. It actually looks like a clothing brand, but I still like it. It doesn't look like a game. It looks like this is an ad for outerwear, which is cool, but I just liked it. Um and then John who did the John Nielsen did that one and I just like John Nielsen's work cuz he's the one who did the artwork for my course. Just to wrap it up, here it is. I hired John to make the capsule art for this. I

made a capsule art I hired an artist to make all this stuff. He designed the title and all this stuff for me. He did all this artwork. He made these little things. John Nielsen who made Die in the Dungeon, made my course, all this stuff. I worked with him. If you want to see how to make a capsule, go to my YouTube channel. This is the one time I did a one and a half almost one and a half hour breakdown where John and I went through and we designed these capsule art together. So, I would watch it if you're like, "Oh man, I believe Chris. I need to hire an artist. How do I possibly work with an artist?" Watch the latest YouTube video I uploaded just today on my YouTube channel. Watch it. And if you like my work, please buy a course because this is what I work on. This is how I make my money. It's on sale right now. It's the best deal and it teaches you everything you know everything I know about how to get wish list on Steam. So, please folks, I do this for you and this is how I get paid. So, if you like my work and you want me to keep doing it and not have to get a boring job, I don't know, doing

spreadsheets or something, help yourself and buy a course. It's going to be really good. So, thank you so much everybody. If I didn't get your capsule, it's because I had so many and I tried my best to get everybody. I'm sorry if I missed your capsule. If you need it, my Discord has a feedback channel. Get it there. If you didn't hire an artist, don't ask for feedback. Ask for an artist. So, good luck everybody. I'm going to sign off. Thank you everybody. Um I love you all. You're my best friends. You're my best virtual friends. Um enjoying the newsletter. Don't join this channel. Don't subscribe to my YouTube. Join my mailer. care about YouTube. YouTube kind of sucks. I'm going to end the stream. I love you all. Bye.