I Have Some News About My Indie Game "Twisted Tower"

Hey guys, this is a This is going to be a kind of a one-off video where I kind of free flow my thoughts here. And the reason why is I hate to say the the B word, but I'm
[music]
I'm busy. I'm [laughter] really, really busy with two things. First, I I have 12 12 wonderful new beautiful clients that I'm coaching and working with on their indie game. So, I'm busy doing that. And but also primarily just finishing up Twisted Tower. So, I wanted to give you a quick update on Twisted Tower and how that's going. And if you don't know what Twisted Tower is, Twisted Tower is a game that I've been working on for 5 years. It's basically BioShock meets Willy Wonka, but like indie. So, it's not as
[snorts]
frankly expensive as, let's say, BioShock would be. Um but yeah, it's got that indie flair. So, I'm going to give you an update on it and just let you know how it's going. And then after this video is done recording, I'm going to jump right back

into Unity and continue working on Twisted Tower cuz it's Well, it's getting urgent and I'll tell you why in a sec. And by the way, if you want to learn how to make, you know, a demo and turn that demo into an actual paycheck, whether that's with publishers, Kickstarter, or just getting a ton of wish lists and using those wish lists to actually make money from your game, there's a link below to a really cool webinar and it just teaches you how I've done that on three separate occasions. Look, this is Never Song. That's Pinstripe. Both these games I went full time before I even finished the games. And that was with Kickstarter and that was with publishers. You can actually secure funding with just a great demo. In fact, that's what I'm teaching the 12 clients that I'm working with right now. How to make a demo. I call it a magic demo and turn that magic demo into an actual paycheck. So, click the link below to to see how I did this. Um it's totally free and it's just my treat to you. Okay, so hm

let's start with this update here or or move into this update here for Twisted Tower. Um there's so many things that I've done. Um let's start with beta testing. So, beta testing with Twisted Tower has been one of them one of the more painful processes for this game. And frankly, it's painful for every game. And the reason it's painful is because you're testing it with a real audience. And and it's people who hopefully you find some people who they have your best interest in mind, but they're also very honest. By the way, that should be your metric for for when you're going to assign your game to various beta testers.
[snorts]
You want them to have your best interest in mind. But you also want them to be honest, right? You don't want a dishonest person, but you also don't want a person who hates your guts, right? Uh let's say like your sister. She does maybe she doesn't want you to succeed. Maybe she's always wanted the

worst for you and you knew it deep down. You should you probably shouldn't have her play your game, right? Um but you also want honesty. So, it's it's this it's this fine line and it's this balance. But the reason why this has been painful for Twisted Tower is because despite the fact that the the reviews have been great, uh the I think the game is sitting at around a 8.2 out of 10 which I'm thrilled with. I think that's awesome. And by the way, that's the scoring system I use in the beta testing survey. Despite the fact that the the score is exactly where I want it to be for a a title like this, you still get thousands of bugs rolling in. And then you also get a few people, just a few people who really don't like the game. No matter how hard you try and how hard how how good you think the game is, you're going to get people just they give it a five out of 10 and you don't you can't you can't put a finger on why why it's a five out of 10. Even when you read their review

or you read their survey, you're like, "This doesn't say five out of 10." But they gave it a five out of 10.
[laughter]
So, it's painful because you you sit there and you open up your survey every morning during beta testing and I've been doing this for like 60 days. You open up your survey and you're thinking, "What kind of bad news am I going to get today? What kind of opinion about my precious project that I've been working on for five years? What kind of bad news am I going to get today?" This is the one of the fundamental issues with most game developers. Which is they can't handle feedback like this. Now, I can't handle it, meaning I don't like it and it gives me incredible stomach pain that lasts for 14 days. And by the way, I'm not joking. It makes me feel horrible, just reading survey results. But most indie game developers, and that includes you, maybe watching right now,

you deep down you can't handle the fact that what you're creating isn't good enough. And I have seen this with students that I've worked with. I've seen it with some of you guys. Where it's just almost impossible to crack through, frankly, that thick skull to think maybe, just maybe, your game isn't good enough yet. Right? And you see this with launched indie titles. It's it's pretty obvious. A ton of indie titles, I would say the majority of indie titles, they don't go through a process of beta testing or play testing. Where the mirror is wiped squeaky clean and put directly in front of the developer and it says this is what you've made. This is who you are. This is what your game is. That's what a beta tester is there for.
[gasps]

Uh the only way I could describe it is something like if Quasimodo had only ever surrounded himself with other Quasimodos, he would think he was a beautiful specimen. But the moment he's put in front of another human being who isn't Quasimodo, he's going to feel like, "Whoa, this really hurts." Something like that is true with game development. When you're making your game, you get sort of wrapped up into this ego or something. And you you start to you can't see what your game actually is. And the only way to see what it actually is is to get other people to look at it. It's this weird thing that happens psychologically. Cuz like most of you right now, you could play a indie game on Steam and you could identify exactly what's wrong with it. In fact, that's what Steam reviews are. But the moment you have to do it with your own game, then it becomes a problem. Then suddenly you're blind. It's a weird ego thing that I I don't

fully understand. That's why it's important to get beta testers. So, the way I do beta testing is again, I find people who have my best my my best interest in mind, but are honest. And I'm going to do maybe 100 testers. I don't I don't really think I need to go more than that, honestly. Fingers crossed, knock on wood. Maybe maybe not. But then I just give them a survey and I ask them score it out of 1 to 10, right? And I'm sitting at 8.2 right now.
[gasps]
Um really it's actually 8.4 because there's 10 other people who played it, but they're more advisors and they're more friends and I I'm trying not to count their scores cuz theirs are higher actually. So, it's like a 8.1 to 8.5 out of 10. I asked, would you recommend it on Steam? Uh for me, I've got one person who said no. And here's the funny thing, okay? And if if she's watching, she knows that we've had a very honest

conversation with each other. This one person, I want to get to know why like why they gave it they they they don't recommend it. I got to figure it out. Because maybe, just maybe, it's not necessarily that I need to convince this person, but instead, I want to well, learn maybe maybe there's one or two things that this person really didn't like that I could easily remove, right? So, instead of getting angry and saying, how dare this one person not recommend this game on Steam in the survey? I'm going to go talk to them and figure out what's the core issue here. What's the root problem, right? So, I guess what I'm trying to say with beta testing, oh, and by the way, other questions are like, how much do you think the game should be? In my case, it's sitting around 19, but it could be between 15 to 30, you know, I don't know what I'm going to launch the game at, but people are saying 19. Um other questions are what what would you what's your review of the game? How long did it take you to beat? How hard was the game? What was the worst part?

Meaning, was it the music? Was it the cutscenes? Was it the character design? What what was the worst part? What was the best part? And then other comments and bugs, right? So, it's just this simple Google form, right? That's all it is.
[snorts]
But, what I wanted to say before we wrap up this portion of the Twisted Tower update, which is beta testing, there's other things I'm working on as well. One thing I wanted to take note of is instead of getting angry, instead of getting angry when you get negativity for your game, when you get someone who just doesn't like the game, you need to be humble and just accept that you don't know everything. So I think in conclusion with with beta testing, I think humility because I'm the most humble guy I've I've ever met. I'm just kidding, kind of.
[laughter]
But humility is important as a game developer. It's incredibly important. And I don't think most game developers have humility.

It's so weird to me. It's so weird to me when I'll be in a conversation with a game developer who hasn't released a game at all. They've never really even finished a demo and they're stuck on an idea and no, this is how it should be. You know, I okay, I'll I'll I'll listen to you but really this is this is the way it should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure Thomas but this is the way it should be. You got to get out of that paradigm. You're not You're You're not. You're not smart enough. If you haven't released even one game, you're not smart enough. Let alone you're on your third commercial release like me. I still I'm telling you guys, I am not smart enough to know how to release a solid game. In fact, I I'm smart enough to know that I'm not smart enough and that's why I lean on beta testers and I lean on advisors. I am at this point in in the final sort of

stretch of Twisted Towers development, I am psychotic about feedback. Every little thing. And I've got people on Twitter, right? I've got friends and family. They send me messages and they say, "Just release the game, Thomas. What are you doing? You're just tinkering at this point." This is my third title and I I know what tinkering looks like. This is not tinkering. There's a bajillion things that you have to do to launch a solid, I'm not going to say game, product. Launching a solid product involves a lot. And the reason I there's a distinguish uh the reason I'm What's the word? There's a distinguish di- What? What's the word? There's a distingu- a distinction.
[laughter]
But the reason there's a distinction between an actual product and a game is because a product cannot

fail in certain ways that a game can, okay? So for example, options menus, frame rate for lower-end devices, right? Uh how is Vsync on or Vsync off? How does post processing look at different resolutions?
[snorts]
Are players Are there any bugs that just completely corrupt the save file? Right? Are there any bugs that are in insanely frustrating that feels like you just stole from the player? So for example, there's a bug right now in Twisted Tower that I'm working on where the player loses a a gun. Randomly the gun will just disappear. In a way, Thomas is stealing value back from the player. It's kind of like if um I gave french fries, I was I was a McDonald's employee and I Someone gave me two bucks for french fries and I gave them french fries and while they're eating the french fries, they disappear.

Like, "Oh, where did my french fries go?" The same is true with a digital product. Bugs are like things just french fries randomly disappearing. All of a sudden the pickle's off of my McDouble. If I don't have a pickle on my McDouble, I don't want my McDouble, right? So the same is true with your game. So that's the second thing I'm working on,
[snorts]
which is turning it into a product, and that's fixing bugs.
[snorts]
One thing that I worked on last week was just stupid stuff. Stuff that you you never would have thought about. Stuff like um uh sleep zones, being able to adjust the sleep for um the joysticks. And that's from beta testing feedback, right? I wouldn't have cared. But apparently people really care about that, right? Getting it to run at a stable frame rate on Steam Deck, right? So, optimization, that's another thing I've been working on. So, you got beta testing, you've got bugs, you've got optimization. Optimization, getting it to run at 40 frames per second, queue

the comments, 40 frames per second on average, consistently on Steam Deck. And I know a lot of you probably going to say 60. I just played um I just played um Mouse PI on Steam Deck, and it's it's max it's capped at 40, at least by default. So, I'm kind of just using Mouse PI as the standard. I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but but getting it to run at 40 frames per second is easier said than done, right? That's another thing I'm working on for Steam Deck. Achievements, getting all the achievements set up. Localization, localization is uh obviously, most of you already know this, but just translating it to like 10 different languages, right? Well, in order to do that, you have to be feature complete. Um in in order to have be feature complete, you have to beta test it so that the story and the dialogue and the UI makes sense. So, there's all these layers of things that you have to do before the other thing. So, it's this giant train of events preparing a game to be a product and

launching it. There's this giant train of tasks and events that you can't put one before the other. I can't localize the game until I've beta tested and the story is good and it makes sense, right? I can't finalize a cutscene if I don't know the story is good. So, there's all these things you have to do in sequence. So, that's what I'm working on with Twisted Tower. Are there any other things, Thomas? Any other things I'm Oh, lighting, post-processing. I'm I'm cranking up the contrast and the exposure in every single scene in the post-processing cuz I noticed that whenever I record the game, it feels a little gray. I low contrast, and so I always crank up the contrast when I'm uploading a video or I'm creating a trailer, and I thought, why don't want to have to do that anymore, and I don't want streamers to have to do that. So, I'm going to crank up the contrast in game. So, we'll see [snorts] how that goes. Um oh, I uh I told my publisher the game was feature

complete, but then I told and then I told them I lied and said that secretly I was changing stuff, which is shouldn't be a surprise to any publisher cuz that's exactly what indie developers always do. Uh all studios do that. They change stuff because well, any passionate art director for a video game is going to never be done until it's released, right? So, for me, I'm changing story stuff. So, there's a big twist at the end of Twisted Tower, and I thought I needed the twist, and then Felipe, who's the 3D artist and he's the level designer, he reached out and he said, "Hey, the game's actually better without the twist." And he explained why, and I was like, "Felipe, I love you. You're so correct." So, I change I'm changing up all the story stuff
[snorts]
secretly, but it's not a secret anymore, apparently. So, story stuff's getting changed. Then, there's the marketing side of finishing a game, right? Which is
[gasps]
getting that final release trailer done,

um and getting your Steam page updated. Oh, but Okay, so Thomas, you're That's all you really need to do, right? And then you're going to release the game. No, wrong. There's more. Music licensing is a huge problem. It's a huge problem. So, this is something I've been struggling with. This game has to have 1950s music, okay? I want stuff like Julie London, she's right there. It's an incredible album, it's called Her name is Julie. Let's see if I can get it to focus. Her name is Julie. Then there's Doris Day's Greatest Hits. That's Glenn Miller. All this stuff, it's like, oh, it's old music. What's the big deal? AI can't make this stuff. And by the way, I don't use AI for any art assets, including music. AI can't make this stuff. It can't. It's cuz this stuff's too good. 1950s jazz. Whether it's cool jazz or big band, right? Or more like romantic

kind of classical jazz, like Doris Day. You can't have AI make that crap. And you cannot find anything like it on any of the stock um music sites. It's really, really hard to find it. It's cuz this music is the best music. And it's it's so inherently human. Uh it's something like a dance cuz I I hired a jazz musician to to help or a composer to help write a jazz song. And the best way I can describe jazz that I need for Twisted Tower, 1950s jazz, is the singer dances and moves with the music. Right? As opposed to pop music, this kind of jazz music, big band music, or romantic soft cocktail jazz, it's got a rhythm to

it that is organic and it flows and it's dancing with itself. Right? You're always sort of a beat ahead or you're a beat behind. It's this dance. You cannot find that. Not really on the stock music websites. Um that's why these musicians are so special to me, Doris Day in particular, and also Julie London. So I had to find I'm like I need music like this to put on gramophones and record players in the vintage 1950s world of Twisted Tower. So what I had to do is I had to find musicians who are insanely passionate about this style of music and they do it currently. So I'm not going to mention who they are yet, but I found them. And I was just on the phone with one of the agents this week for one of the musicians. And then I also spoke to one of the singers herself on the phone two days ago.

And so the goal is to license their music. Now in order to license their music, this is weird, you also have to on YouTube you have to have the license freed up on YouTube for the game. And the reason why is cuz I want let's players to play the game. But if let's players are playing the game and this music gets flagged, so for example, if I put Doris Day, if I put Doris Day on in the game, all of the let's play videos would get flagged to hell. And no one would play the game. At least that's the theory. Because who wants to play a game that gets flagged on YouTube? Right? So we have to release that flag or release that copyright on YouTube for the game. So it's this sort of it's a little it feels a little complicated cuz I have to have this conversation with every one of these musicians and if they don't fully understand it because they don't really know the YouTube world or the game world, right? So that's a whole other thing is licensing music. So I'm working on getting the licenses correct for the

tracks, right? Anything else, Thomas? Anything else you're working on? Finishing up for this game? Difficulty. Okay, so this is one other thing when it comes to releasing a game. Instead of the the temp- the the temptation is to make all the difficulty modes while you're making the game. Easy, normal, hard, extremely hard. What I decided to do was to make it balanced, however whatever that means, make the game balanced, and then have the beta testers tell me at what level was that balanced. So you send out the beta testing keys, you get 50 to 100 people to play, and then you look at the pie chart, the average of what people are saying. And if it's easy, then great, we have easy mode complete. And then you scale from there. If it's hard, you scale down from there. Does that make sense? So,

the problem is, this is what I'm struggling with today, that's why I got to wrap up this video.
[snorts]
With Twisted Tower beta testing, it's 50/50. It's split between this is easy and normal. So I'm I have to pick one. Um or maybe just scale I I don't even know like y'all let me know in the comments what to do. I don't know what to do. But I think what I'm going to do is just call it easy and then scale from there. And the way you scale is you increase enemy move speed by a percentage each by each increment. Uh you decrease the health drops, you decrease the amount of ammo that's dropped. Uh you have enemies that more enemies spawn in with certain difficulties. Um you have traps, for example, like in my case we have traps that will be in the game um that make it a little bit harder. So yeah, the difficulty mode is another thing I'm finishing up and wrapping up here. What else? I'm not tired. I'm

I'm very happy, actually. I feel really happy. That might be the happiest I've been in 5 years. Um because I am I am feeling really I'm feeling satisfied with what was made. I made an indie BioShock. I'm not sure how much I'm going to release it for, what the price will be, but in my heart, as long as the game runs well, that's the big question. As long as it runs well across most machines, and as long as it's not buggy, I feel like I've done what I set out to do. And it was really hard. Those 5 years were really hard. And I'm so Thank God this is almost over. This has been a freaking nightmare. I feel amazing now, but that was a nightmare making that game. So, please Lord, will you help me

release this game in a solid state and let it do well. Please, Lord. And by the way, guys, if you could if you want to and you think Twisted Tower sounds like a really cool concept, again, it's basically like BioShock meets Willy Wonka, click the link below. Wishlist it. We're almost at 100,000 wishlists. It'd be awesome if you were the 100,000th with wishlist with wishlist. And again, don't forget about that cool webinar below. Um the cool thing about the webinar is, number one, it's free. Number two, you're going to learn how to do what I've done in the last decade, which is you take a demo like Never Song or Pinch Drive or even Twisted Tower. You take that demo and you convert it to six figures. Now, I can't promise you'll do six figures. I can't promise it'll be anything. Um you'll that you'll make any money off of a demo. But that's what I've done. I've always turned demos into six figures. That's always what I do. And then you take that six figures and you just work on it full-time. It's a dream come true, it really is. But you just have to make great demo. Um and if you want if you want to eventually work with me as a client, um cuz I only take on like 12 every 6

months. Um I think I'm taking on 12 in October. 12 other students, and um if you sign up for this webinar, I'll also contact you and let you know that the the coaching is available. Um so it's just a way for me to contact you, but you also get signed up for the webinar. Um yeah, that's about it. Thanks guys for listening to me ramble, and I know that this video wasn't very edited and maybe that annoys you. I don't know, but I I just got to hop back into Unity and and finish Twisted Tower. I love you guys. Take it easy. Cheers.