Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 014

of your games that you submitted on Twitter. And by the way, if you guys want to follow me on Twitter um or X or whatever you want to call it, uh you could submit your games. Um anytime I post this you could submit your games below. So, we're picking from these 55 here. So, we're picking from these today. It's going to be a lot of fun. Hey, huge huge thank you. Huge huge thank you to the new students who joined Full Time Game Dev yesterday or not yesterday in the last week. Alexander, Thierry D, Thomas S, Anish B, Sergio K, David W. Thank you so much for joining Full Time Game Dev. It means the world to me because it does support the channel, supports the development of Twisted Tower, and also Brave Boy. Apparently, I'm still working on Brave Boy. I didn't think I would be, but I am. So, it supports those games alongside, you know, uh 3D Realms. 3D Realms is also supporting me, so that's pretty cool. Um yeah, so check it out below. You can learn everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games. And

that includes how to get funding, you know, how to get funding six figures of funding from a publisher or six figures of funding from Kickstarter, uh how to hit the Steam front page. I've done all of this multiple times. Um and also, my students have done it, too, which is really cool. Chris Dare, Bart, uh Everflux, Everflux got funded on Kickstarter, as well, which is really really cool. So, check out the link below. See if it's something you're interested in. 25% off. I think it's honestly, it's going to be amazing material for you in 2025 if becoming an indie game developer is a dream. It's one thing to want to make games. It's another thing to to make money making games. And so, that's what I teach all about. So, check it out below. And by the way, if you're a student, let me know in the chat what you think about the program. And I'll give you a shout-out. And I think that's all of my shilling I'm going to do for this intro here. Let's go ahead and jump into the first game. Let me check the chat here. How's everybody doing? Good good good. Michael, True Player Games. Welcome

welcome. Mike Jemmy, Real Unreal, Tailhammer. I forgot to update the description on this one. Okay, one sec. You know, sometimes this is just the way things go if you're me. Oh my goodness. No, this one's updated. No, it's not. Okay, one sec. There it is. There it is. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, and I'll update the thumbnail, as well. Goodness gracious. It's just one of those days. All right. And again, guys, Mr. James is with us today. Hello. There's Mr. James. He's just some random student hanging out in the office for some reason. I don't know where you came from, actually. No, he's from a a local school, um and he's shadowing me today.

Um learning Unity terrain and sound and ambience. Let me update the uh thumbnail here. There we go. There we go. All right. You guys ready? You ready to jump into the first game? Freddy Freddy Farmer is our first game. Freddy Farmer demo. This microphone Okay. It's going to be a good stream, I promise. All right, Freddy Farmer demo. First things first, we like we like to look at the description because the description, in my opinion, is the foundation of the entire Steam page. It's not cuz it's the most effective thing. I don't know what the most effective thing is. Honestly, it might be the thumbnail. But the description indicates whether the developer knows how to communicate what their game is. If they can communicate what their game is in the first sentence or two sentences and the a a hook is clearly evident. It's clearly evident um in the description, then they're going to know how to translate

throughout that throughout the rest of the Steam page, right? Um in all the other specifics, like the thumbnail and the trailer. Chris Hewitt says, "Thomas, your demo was amazing. I can't wait for the full game. Thank you so much." Matt says, "Ah, yes, my absolute favorite program in recent times. Always appreciate the streams, man." It sounds so uh classy to call this a program. Um Oh, are you talking about the the course? Sweet. Sweet. JNP says, "Pretty cool for James." You're telling me. He's so He's just so lucky to to sit with me and drink coffee all day. Um you are blessed. Hey, uh there you are. Jam Jammy Mations is in the chat. Hello. Um okay, cool. Game Dev gets so much fun. That's from Jay Stewart. Uh JNP says, "Mentors are everything,

James. You're a lucky one." All right. Well, I thank you. Well, I thank you, he said. Uh okay, anyway, let's go ahead and take a look at this, guys. Freddy's daughter has been kidnapped by an evil dragon. Is there a hook there? No. To rescue her, he must cross the entire kingdom taking some ingredients with which to make the a magic potion, but it won't be easy. They must be collected in a specific order, and Freddy will have to overcome the dangers he finds in his path. Okay, yes or no? Let's do a poll here. Yes or no? Is there a hook? Yes, there's a hook. No, there's not a hook. What do you think, James? Is there a hook? I'm not paying attention. Okay, but here's the description. You tell me if there's a hook. Freddy's daughter has been kidnapped by an evil dragon. Do you know what a hook is? Yeah. Okay. To rescue her, he must cross the entire kingdom taking ingredients with which to make a magic potion, but it won't be easy. They must be collected in a

specific will have to overcome the dangers he finds in his path. Sounds like a setting, not necessarily a hook, but it gives some like hooky kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's uh James says that it it feels like there's a setting, but it's not much of a hook. So, let's see what what we're saying in here in the chat. True Player Games says, "Sort of." Mike Jemmy says, "No." Ember Arcade says, "No." Um no no, and the genre is missing. You don't necessarily need the genre in the description. But I think James is right. I think there's a setting here and like a a a vague story, but there's nothing that captures me, right? There's nothing that goes, "Whoa, that's cool." Right? Um Here's an example. Uh prison escape game where you play as a jelly bean or what is it? You play You're You're an alien breaking out of prison. Or you're a gummy bear break breaking out of prison. That's Cuff Bust.

You know, it might not be everybody's cup of tea. I don't know I don't know. It might be, you know, for kids or for teenagers or I don't know who this game is for, but there's a hook, which is prison escape with these really wacky jelly bean or jelly uh What is What's the word? Alien characters, right? So, the same is true or the same is not true for Freddy Farmer. There's not much of a hook here, but let's go ahead and look at the uh the trailer.

I think it's fine. I think that it's got that retro classic 90s vibe, you know, a farmer looking for ingredients. There's something of a hook there. I'm not sure what you do to to strengthen the hook, and I'm not sure it necessarily needs to be strengthened because it looks like the gameplay and the look of it and the feel of it might be enough uh for this. So, I could be wrong that the description isn't hooky enough because the trailer feels a little bit more hooky. Um so, let's go ahead and hit this up in Steam and take a look. And this is from By the way, this is from Flint's Art uh Cat Cade Games. Let me try and make this chat box a

little bit bigger for you guys. Okay, let's go. Oh, I love that. That's really really cool. But too slow. Let's go. I got 5 seconds to get excited about this game. And I'm playing as if I'm a gamer, okay? I just downloaded a demo. I have no idea what this game is. I have no idea who the developers are, and you've given me so much lo- so so many logos to look at. That was like 20 seconds. So, just get started. Get going. Okay? That feels great. I love that.

Oh, that feels so good. Right. I love that. Oh, that feels good. Oh, no. Freddy, powerless, could only watch as the dragon took his daughter away. But, he decided to venture into the forest, remembering the stories of a wizard he had heard as a child. Finally, he found the wizard who agreed to help him. But, it's a little slow. But, first Freddy needed to gather certain ingredients. This looks really good, though. I really like the pixel art. It's really pretty. I love that lighting. So pretty. These ingredients had to be mixed in a

specific order using magical cauldrons scattered across the kingdom. I would rather it just go and then you can press enter or space and it skips ahead. Space. Right? The wizard gave Freddy a scroll with the Okay. And that's the kind of why. If I'm streaming, I can't be perfectly timed. And you want to you want to cater to streamers. I can't be perfectly timed to this. So, give me control over the dialogue. Game's a little loud. Let me turn it down for you guys. That better? Okay, there we go. All right. I wish there was like little dots on the map so that I knew where I could go.

Oh, that's cool. I love that. That's cool music. I wish when climbing ladders it was like Nice. Cuz I can't touch those guys, obviously. So, you get points when you jump over them. Game game feels professionally made. It feels really solid. It feels like a love letter to classic gaming. And uh it's hard to like really complain about anything. From a marketing perspective, I don't think it's going to I don't think it's going to be popping

off or going viral or anything. Um just cuz I don't think there's much a strong hook, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It just means that in terms of marketability, it might struggle. Wait, what? What did I miss? But, we'll see, you know, maybe I'm missing something here. Uh in terms of the marketability, I think the game itself is pretty rock solid. And it is Some people might say, "Well, that's hard to screw up with these kind of games." It It isn't It isn't It isn't hard to screw up. Um these kind of games need to have a really solid platforming feel. And I think this is great, honestly. The art looks incredible. The pixel sizes are pretty even across

the artwork, which is always a problem. Look at the UI. The UI is just classic. Um really solid. Feels great. I love those mushrooms. So, there's a cauldron. Is that all I need to get? I I guess I don't understand why I'm crying. Yeah, you want me to turn it down? Okay. It's frozen. Why is it frozen?

There we go. You have to pick them up in the correct order. Oh, Thomas, use your brain. Okay, it's over there. Let's do it. Apple first. Got it. At first I thought it was like getting stars in Mario, like Mario 64 where you have to go like each level you get a new ingredient and then you combine them after like a chapter or a world. But, this makes sense. Nice. Okay, I get it. I'll I'll play correctly now. I promise. This is really polished. Honestly, I I don't have much to complain about. I think it's

rock solid. All right, let's play it correctly now. No, Thomas. I have to jump over it. That's actually a kind of a fun mechanic. You have to collect them in the collect them in the right order. Apple. Oh, this is great. I actually really like this. It's kind of uh what's the word? Therapeutic? I don't know. Let's go. Close. Oh, man. I get it. I get it. I I collected collected the wrong one at the beginning. All right, here we go.

Mushroom. Oh, man, that jump height is pretty pretty low. Woo. Mushroom. Look at that. I love that. Oh, this Eyeball. Um egg.

Come on. Cool. Pretty fun. Um I don't know if I'd play it for a long time, personally. But, um I think if you're into relaxing, chill sort of puzzle type games, could be really really fun. Honestly, I don't have a ton of complaints here. Um it just might not be my thing. Um let's move on to the next game. Jazz Jackrabbit vibes, for sure, for sure. Um okay. You guys ready to move on to the next one? Yeah, music gets a little annoying. I would agree with that. All right. Um next game is Tito. By the way, those of you who are just joining us, just remember you can join full-time game dev below if you want to

learn how to make an indie game studio your career. Obviously, I can't make any promises, but I can just tell you what I've done, whether it's getting funded from publishers or getting funded on a Kickstarter, or hitting the Steam front page, um making games in Godot, Unreal, Unity, take your pick. 2D or 3D, it doesn't matter. Uh the program is awesome. I think you're going to love it. It's definitely worth your time. Um it's an investment in your future, so check it out below. And also, it supports the channel, which really means a lot to me. And hey, I'll give you a shout-out tomorrow. Um or not tomorrow, Monday, on our live stream, okay? All right. Tito is a 3D adventure platformer. I would remove this, personally. That's just my humble opinion. I don't know if this is actually correct. Um it's just my gut. My gut says you don't need to tell me the name of it. And you don't need to say it's a 3D adventure platformer because it's right here. Play I would just start here. Play as a tiny blob and bunny duo

on an extraordinary journey. Absorb objects from the world, harness their powers to fight the shadow corruption. Let's Can we clarify this? I don't If we're going to If we're going to make a a silly fun trophy game that's just a lot of fun and uh It's It's not supposed to be serious. Then give us a nice villain, a clear villain. Often times the best villains are contrasted to the characters. So, instead of a a shadow corruption, it's an evil farmer. And suddenly you're much more motivated as a player to go and save the world. What is a shadow corruption, you know? I mean, I'm sure it shows up in the game and it's get it gets clarification, but if we can clarify it here, I think that's in my opinion a little bit better. Um Help cast out crazy characters in an

action-packed adventure. I think this is great. So, what's the hook? Um it's Banjo-Kazooie, basically. And you can absorb objects. If that's a strong hook, I would I would say that it's what seems like a strong hook. So, let's see if it's actually a strong hook. Am I excited for Next Fest? This is from Shane. I guess, you know, I'm I keep hearing from everybody that Next Fest is is a big um cluster right now. It's a kind of difficult to stand out. Uh everybody puts their demos out and nobody really gets noticed anymore. I will say I've gotten 22,000 wishlists in addition to what I already had. And it's already It's been a week. And it's not even Next Fest. So, for me, things are going really really well. You know, an additional 20,000 wishlists prior to Next Fest sounds awesome. And I'm I'm really grateful for those. So,

a demo launch is clearly important. Um I just don't know if Next Fest is as valuable to most indies as it used to be. But, we'll see. You guys ready to take a look at this trailer? Oh. Oh-oh. I'm going to call you Tita, and I'm so glad to meet you. You'll never defeat me. Oh, no, I'm defeated. That's funny. This looks great. I'm really impressed by this.

Somebody's been playing Banjo-Kazooie. I love that. And I love that tagline, power to change. That's a great tagline. I think this is great. Honestly, I think everything's there that it needs. Um I'm not a huge fan of the music. It It It's not like kind of repetitive. I wish it had more emotion to it. Um But, that's just me. I think we could go ahead and jump in though. Overall though, this is great. I mean, this is clearly made by somebody who knows how to sell, not only make games, but sell games. Let's see if Eat Pant Eat Pant Eat Pant Games has other games. Let's see. So, this is about it. This is about it. I love the the art in this. It's so pretty. And it's not just typical toony style. It's got a very unique I I think it's the uh

the gray outlines that I love so much. Very cool. Let's Let's take a look. I can't wait. I'm excited. Let's hope the music is better in the game. The trailer music was kind of annoying. And this is my opinion. I'm I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying that's my opinion. Yeah. Oh, the music isn't great. Let's uh Let's discuss what we could do about the music. Oh, come on. Give me a sound. Give me Give me a little bubble. Right? Let's go to our settings here and we're going to turn the music off really quick.

Here we go. Let's turn down the music volume. See, there's the bubble sounds. So, give me just a subtle hover sound. Not necessarily over this, but the definitely over the menu items. And I'm just being picky because the menu's awesome. It's great. I mean, this is so good. Um This feels great. Oh, what? It feels amazing. Um so, music-wise, you guys know I always go to certain soundtracks. And this kind of game, in my opinion, could use a classic soundtrack. A classic soundtrack vibe. Okay? So, my theory is Let's see here. What kind of classic Anybody got any recommendations for some classic music that might be what played well in this

menu? Cuz right now, the music is not classic. It sounds like a Honestly, it sounds like a a seminar that you might hear at like a B2B conference. Um And if you don't If you want to know what that sounds like, just skip backwards and listen to it um the live stream. So, I'm thinking something obviously like Banjo-Kazooie. Now, Banjo-Kazooie's has sort of a creepy Halloween vibe to it. I don't know why, but it does. I think it's the the witch. But, um I wonder if we can find something. Turn it down a little bit. Yeah, something that's silly. We need We

need silly, playful, like kitty music. We don't need corporate music. This feels great though. Yeah, something like that would would work. Or obviously, you could always go to the Just to give some inspiration here. Um You could also go to the uh What is it? I always go to this one. Cult of the Lamb, baby. Always Cult of the Lamb. This is probably better for a level, but yeah. Ooh, I want to go to Sunshine Forest. This is great. Wait, what? Oh, I thought you had to jump into the

painting. Um Okay, but let's go ahead and turn the music back on. I know I'm being annoying. Yeah, this is Anyway, I'll just I'll shut up. Yeah. Do we agree about the music or is Thomas wrong? Yes. Oh, this is what I need you to write in the chat. New music, if you want new music, or keep, if you want it to stay the same. New music or keep. This is generic RPG music. Oh, I could choose a different

character. Uh yes, please. I love that. Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. New music. We definitely need new music. T33 Tio, iteration aim. Test the neutralization of the corrupted shadow matter. This is silly. I like it. So, this is great in game, but as a hook it or in the description, it didn't really make sense to me, but now it's like I think saying an evil science experiment, like stop the evil science experiment. Having it say that on the on the Steam page makes more sense to me. Phase one complete. Feel free to look around while I take notes. Please don't break anything.

So, I'm like a science experiment. I'm a blob. I like that. That's funny. Hey, it's a it's a bunny. Come over here when you're ready to start phase two. Yeah. Oh, quick intro. I'm Nori. You are subject T33T0. That's awesome. I love this. I'm going to call you Tito, and I'm so glad to meet you. I know you just got here and everything, but I need your help with something important. Yes. Okay, so I think this game is amazing. A like really really good, but there is just something missing with the music. Um, so like what we should be hearing right now, we should not be hearing like really exciting music. We should be hearing mysterious like science lab music. So, like imagine like science lab

um Gosh, why doesn't this want to work for me? I can't type. There we go. Science lab ambiance. We need to hear bubbles in the background. And like beeps Okay, like that. Obviously, that's a little bit creepy. Let's see if we can find a better one. Yeah, here we go. Here we go. That's it. So, we need to hear that. And then we also need to hear something else. Let's see here.

Something like that. There we go. You see? Is Thomas right or wrong? Yes, Thomas is right. No, Thomas is wrong. And this isn't for my ego. This is for the developer cuz if they're watching, I want them to read the chat and figure out, okay, is Thomas onto something here? Does this help? That's enough of that song. I need you to focus on the shadow matter in this jar. I absorbed it. Effectively neutralized. Good job, Tito. Give me a minute to write this all down. Feel free to hang out for a moment. Make yourself at home. Yeah, we need we need it to feel quirky. And I need to hear the sound of science. It needs to sound like a It needs to

sound like a lab. You know? Okay, I'll shut up. You guys know I always I always sort of get on a a rant about music and sound. Anyway, let's go back. Yeah, it just does This is not right. J&P says, how was this so accurate to his singing? I was probably just thinking about Cult of the Lamb. Uh Okay, so here we go. Now now it's back to the loud music. Um Sorry, I got distracted. Let's absorb it. What? It's like Kirby. Woohoo! It's like Kirby and Banjo-Kazooie. That is hilarious and fun. I love that so much.

So, what do you want me to do, girlfriend? Oh, I can swap. What if I need to go like behind something? I'm a flower boy. crazy. I know a way we can use that. I know you're only like 5 minutes old, but I'm going to blow your tiny little mind. Hey, come over to the big screen. I've got something to show Okay. Watch her presentation. I'm here. Oh, the big screen. So, here is where we're at. Bad guys.

All right. We got bad guys. So, here's where we're at. Snap. Bad guys. A device to harness your abilities and the all important power cells. It's also a rescue mission. Why does the voice sound like it's being spoken from a inside of a shoe box? It seems like it's been sped up or slowed down or something. There's something something wrong there with the the voice acting. I guess this is supposed to be like a joke or something. All that all that I don't quite understand what this is. What I mean is like there's a lot of stuff on the screen right now. And maybe it's supposed to feel really like complicated and sciency. Kind of like the Zach Galifianakis math meme. But it was a little confusing. Nori, every adventure needs a hero and this one's okay, good. All right. Comfy? I know I am. Aw,

you're my friend. a speed vine out around here somewhere. We should bring it with us. This is great. Ooh. So, what are we doing? That's great. Nice. Now, let's get out of here. Oh, man, that was great. This feels so good. Honestly. A baby Michael, quick, catch him. Wait, what? A baby Michael? Give me baby Michael. This is going to be great on Switch. How phenomenal. I love this. You see that crane with a captive? Let's use that to get us out. Okay. Oh, I love collecting stars. Uh

Oh, I want that to bounce. How do I How do I become something again? Woah, I can shoot. What? Okay, how do I How do I absorb stuff again? I forget. Q. So, why would I want to be a trash bag? I can be a glass of water. Water jump. And ooh, what about flame? Oh, sorry. To leave the burrow, absorb the flower. Okay. Grappling vines, nice. Woohoo! Sorry this place seems like a bit of a junkyard. It's because it is.

Yeah, the music is a problem. I think it's a big problem on honestly. You need to We should have shifted the music. The music should shift to this. It's one of those things where I feel like it might be an afterthought for the devs and it really shouldn't be. So, like I need to hear this. Give me a sec. It should fade out and it should play this. Not that. Hang on. Honestly, just stop the music. Give me an emotional beat. Do you see what I did here, guys? And then we could go to uh Epidemic Sound and let's find an old sort of um desert ambiance. I'm sure we'll get a cool

weird sort of ambient song. See? This is definitely important. I think it would say it would just make this game a freaking plus. Hey, that drone has a vine out. We need to get it down somehow. And if you don't want that, if you don't want it being spooky, if you want it to be more like uh I don't know, like a classical

No, that's too much. There we go. But you get what I'm saying, right, guys? I think we need a tonal shift and we don't have it. Here, let's go back and I'll show you. It's like, "Whoa." Coming up, I'll put together a super high-tech simulation with the shadow creatures to help train you in combat. Oh, I can double jump. I didn't know that. It's my fault. I know. It's my fault. Hey, buddy. Baby Michael. Woohoo! Baby Michael. Oh, this is awesome. piece. It's just

cardboard. But um Oh, wait, there's more. I'm a big bad shadow monster thing. I'm a I'm a bad guy, an evil bad guy. Who's talking? I'll never be defeated. Cardboard monster? Oh, I see. Oh, no. Congratulations on defeating Cardboard. See here, hang on. Trying to pull up my chat. Sorry, guys. Yeah, industrial industrial sounding, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Do we agree? Let's This is for the devs, right? This is for the devs. This is not for our ego. Do we agree the audio has a problem, the music and the ambience? Um yes, it is a problem. No, it is not a

problem. Yes, it is a problem. No, it is not a problem. Please let me know in the chat. I have to be in normal form. Okay, we're getting a pretty overwhelming consensus. We've got a big problems. Devs, if you're watching, make the effort, make the change. It's going to help your game so much. Cuz right now I feel really disoriented with this music. Oh, wow. Okay, hello. Ooh, this music is really nauseating. Cuz the game itself is just phenomenal.

Like it's so well made. Like this game is really really well made. Um let's see here. Next game, Turtle Run. Let's take a look. And for the for the devs who are watching, if you're watching your game and you you're like, "What, Thomas, why don't you play an hour?" We don't have an hour. We can just take a look at that initial feeling that your game offers. Because well, that's the most important thing about your demo is that first 5 minutes. Do you hook the player or do you not, you know? I'm not perfect, but I feel like I've done a pretty good job with Twisted Tower. And uh you know, my previous games before Twisted Tower, I did I did start slow and I I I shouldn't have and it was a mistake. Um Okay, let's let's check out the uh store page here. By the way, those of you just joining us, remember you can join Full Time Game Dev below, 25% off for the next couple days. And you can learn everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games as a job from my bedroom. Or in my case, my home Or in this case,

today, my home office. Um XYZ. Okay. Here we go. Turtle Run. You're a peaceful turtle enjoying the comforts like I wish I could zoom in here. Hang on. There we go. It's getting warm in here. Uh you're a peaceful turtle enjoying Thomas, how do you feel about no commentary YouTubers who play your game demo in full for views? Is that Is that a positive thing? Oh, it's the greatest thing ever. I love it so much. Uh you guys want as many eyes on your game as possible, as long as those eyes aren't also fingers playing your game for free. You want eyes. Okay? And if you can get no commentary

YouTubers to play your game, definitely definitely do it. You need it. You need it. You need it. Um I think I got like 4,000 wish lists 4 days ago because some YouTuber played Twisted Tower. Um and I think it may have been a no commentary one. There's several of those. So, I think it's awesome. You're a peaceful turtle enjoying the comforts and tranquility of your home pond when suddenly you're swept away to a strange and unknown wooden realm. So, all of this is not a hook. It's the story. Now, story can be a hook, but in this case it's not a hook because it's not super unique. So, I wouldn't spend too much time on this sentence. I would instead spend a sentence on this one. Leap, dodge, shoot, and parry as a turtle. So, that's funny. That's your hook. Um You can ask ChatGPT even. Watch this. And I always use ChatGPT just to give me

a quick sort of you know, idea on something and then you can write it from scratch. I'm making a game where you're a turtle, but you have crazy combat abilities and parkour abilities. The name of the game is Turtle Run. I want to write two sentences that really emphasize and humorously explain that the game game's hook is simply a turtle, a slow boring turtle. Uh it is simply the opposite of a typical turtle. Use funny puns and make it silly. See what she says.

There you go. There's your hook. You're not just a turtle, you're a shell-shocking, gravity-defying, ninja-flipping speed demon. Okay, let's do a vote in the chat. Vote in the chat. Which one of these descriptions here makes you want to buy the game? And we'll talk about why this matters as it pertains to your trailer and your thumbnail. But which one of these makes you want to buy the game? Which one hooks you? Which one emphasizes the hook? It's okay, it won't hurt my feelings. Say goodbye to slow and steady because in Turtle Run you'll be leaping, slashing, and sprinting like a reptilian rocket. See, this is just too much. But like let's just say this right here. And then and then you can explain the story. You go through a portal in your home pond and you're swept to swept away to a strange wooden realm.

Right? So, you definitely don't obviously want to just copy this outright because let's not do that to our world. It's really sad if everybody's doing that. I've done it before, I will admit. Let's not do it. Let's let's come up with our own, but this is a great start. You're not just a turtle, you're a shell-shocking, gravity-defying, ninja-flipping speed demon. That's awesome. Start with that and then the next sentence you can explain the generic story. Um So, do we agree? Do we agree that that helps, guys? Um okay. So, if that's if that's the humor, and who knows, by the way, why this works? This works because we're taking something typical and then we're contrasting it with something that's the opposite. And so, in every great story, this is always the case. Space cowboys.

What? Lord of the Rings with zombies. What? Sherlock Holmes in Louisiana. What? Contrast, contrast, contrast, right? That's, by the way, Game of Thrones. That's True Detective season 1. That's Star Wars. All incredible stories and they're capitalizing on contrast as being the hook. Turtle that does backflips. And that's Turtle Run. All right, let's take a look at the trailer. What does he shoot out of his mouth? That's hilarious.

Oh, yeah. This looks hilarious. This is so dumb in all the right ways. All right, I get it. Man, that's a long trailer. Well, I guess it's not. That was only 40 seconds. Hey guys, who remembers what um what is the fuel for action? What makes action really really fun? Does anyone know? What makes action in a trailer really really exciting? Action in and of itself isn't fun. Not really. You can double it or triple its value by doing something. Does anyone know? And the music is great, by the way.

Yes. Yes, Antonio. Antonio got it right away. Meaning. Imagine this. And maybe I'm wrong here. You need to start me as a turtle. Give me some conflict. You need to start just quickly. Again, we we've gone through this. We went through this yesterday. But start with the first 5 seconds of the greatest action you can show. Or maybe the second greatest action you can show. So, let's pretend that this is it. 1 2 3 4 5 drop. Flashback. Turtle is sleeping cozily next to his baby turtle in a pond. And that baby turtle gets sucked through the pond through a portal. And the daddy turtle cries and screams and does a backflip into the portal. Back to the action. Yay! Now all of a sudden the action is 10 times more exciting because we're trying to That's right. Portal turtle.

So, we're trying to get our portal turtle. So, give me some motivation. Okay. Does that make sense, guys? Let's go ahead and play the game. And by the way, those of you who um are curious like why are you looking at the um Steam pages. And why are you harping so much on the game before you even play it? And the answer is because I want developers to make some money, right? And I'm I'm viewing this for the first time. And you all of us are viewing this for the first time. And to get someone to even download your game or your demo, that's already a win. That's That's what you would call a conversion, right? And you need to convert them. And you do that with what we're discussing. Very strong hook that's

immediate. Maybe it's funny. It's quick and to the point and it makes sense. You're motivating the game with a good sort of story moment in the trailer that's like 5 seconds long. Okay, let's hit play. I love this I love this. It's so funny. What a silly game. Oh, I wish there was a sound. Let me show you the best one, by the way. The best menu I've seen in a long time is my own game. I'm kidding. Let's see here. We have a shadows. Oh, man. It's not installed. But, you know, let's just show you my game. Um what you can do is you can have a very subtle um sound when you move menu items. And that subtlety is so immersive. I don't know why I harp on it so much, but every time we play a demo, I need to hear it. Do you hear it?

Right? It's very subtle. It's not the same as the click. So, a lot of these games um at most games I play, they just they feel a little void on the menu. Like cold and gray because I don't hear anything. I want to hear when I'm moving that. Okay, here we go. Oh, that was really quiet. Give me a burp. Oh, I love selecting um Whoa. What? Oh, I can type. Okay, so no mouse. Whoa. What? That was a little confusing, honestly, cuz it was it was keyboard

controls, but you could type at the same time. It was kind of weird. Uh okay. Huh? I was just sitting by the pond relaxing with my friend. Where am I? The These woods, they seem familiar. Wait. This looks just like the woods from the stories. The woods we were told never to wander alone. Oh my, it is. It's It's Colodin Woods. This is bad. This is beyond bad. I better find my way back to the pond right now. This is so silly. I love it. Dude, when I land, it screen shakes. But there's no sound. Yeah, give me some sound there. All right, let's jump over the sewage. You collected eggs. Okay.

These must be a gift from the grand keeper Andy's rabbits. Oh, groundkeeper Andy's rabbits. Hold left mouse button to fire. Causes major kickback. Whoa. Excuse me. I actually really love the art. I think it's hilarious. I don't have any issues with the art. I wouldn't change a thing. I'm being dead serious. It looks really silly and childish. Looks like a 5-year-old drew it. But that's great. I think it's It's just It makes me so happy to see games that don't look like asset flip games. This is clearly hand-drawn. This is not assets. And that makes me smile. So, they're they're shooting berries out of their mouth. Um which is fine, you know, why not? That's hilarious. Oh, look at that big boy. No. No. No. No. Really?

I wish the jump was a little bit quicker. The sound. Also, put me put me perfectly on the surface. Don't put me It looks like I'm like going into the ground. So, put my feet exactly on the surface. Yeah, I actually do think this is too difficult for the first level. I agree. Whoa, bro. They can shoot at me already. Just give me melee enemies for now. Like spike enemies that you can't touch. Whoa. Okay. Yeah, you got to be careful with this kind of platforming. It's a little too tight or uh too high. I would I would Well, the one of the big problems I'm struggling with here is I don't really know where I'm supposed to land because I'm going through the ground. I should be perfectly on top of that pixel. Got a checkpoint. You collected the parry ability.

Send enemy projectiles back from whence they came. Some enemies cannot be hurt until they've had their shield removed. Parrying their bullets right back at theirs. Wait. At them should do the trick. Press right mouse button to parry. Spinning. What? Makes you dizzy. Oh my. Excuse me. What? Try again. Give me a little bit of grace there. Give me a little bit of grace. Yeah, isn't it weird, guys, that I'm through the ground, but the enemies aren't? What is that? Is that a armadillo? What is that?

Doesn't feel great. Um There's like a delay when I shoot. See how I can shoot my mouth, but nothing comes out of it? I can do it like three times and only Look. There's like a lag. That could be really frustrating. Ooh, shamrock. Well, that feels good. Yeah. Got him. Is that a badger? Okay, it's a badger. This is really funny. I would say the platforming is still a little frustrating though because I don't know why I'm like crawling on my belly. Bro. Music's great. I really like it. Kind of wish there was some ambience

though. Got it. Level one complete, baby. This really good music. Who wrote this? Oh, wow. This is I don't know, kind of kind of hard for a second level. I I don't know. Oh, not that bad. Okay. Oh, my word. Okay. This is kind of hard, okay, but I kind of like it. Um Hey, nice. Not bad. Not bad.

Shoot. So, if it Oh, no. If it were me as the developer, I would make it so that it's not simply touching those. It's you have your velocity. Great. Your velocity has to Okay. Your velocity has to be lower. Your Y velocity has to be uh in the negative for you to actually get hurt. Okay, we got it. Uh transition sound for the closing black bars. Okay, so far so good. Okay, I think we got a good idea of what all these games were, guys. Um I'm going to go ahead give you my opinion on three the three games, which ones I think are

best to worst. While I do that, guys, go ahead and vote below. Vote below. Is it Do you guys see the the link in the description? There is a poll that you can click on. Let's see if it's the right one. Um yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, the poll is in the description. So, go ahead and check that out. While you guys check that out, one final call here before the weekend, check out Full Time Game Dev below. If you want to learn how to make games, but not only make games, whether it's Godot, Unreal, Unity, take your pick, 2D or 3D, it doesn't matter. You'll learn it all in this course. If you want to learn how to make money, that's that's the most important part, in my opinion, because it's it's hard to keep making games when you're not actually making money or doing it full time. Um That's what you're going to learn in the course. It's how to go full time. Uh Obviously, can't make any promises. I

can just tell you what I've done in the last decade of making indie games. Um And also what Chris Stare did. That's a student of mine. Bart, he went full time. Everflux went full time. Soltar went full time. Antonio, Thomas Stewart. Pretty cool. You're going to learn how to make games full time, whether it's securing funding from publishers with just with just a demo. By the way, I've done that four times. Uh full time. The first one didn't wasn't actually full time. That was when I was 18. Um but the other three, yeah, went full time with just a demo. Um or how to secure funding on Kickstarter. I've done that multiple times. Uh both of them were basically $100,000 raised. And so, I teach how to do that as well. And I actually what I think Ever Yeah, Everflux did that with the course, which is really really cool. So, check it out below, guys, and thanks for letting me do these ad reads. It supports the channel. Um and supports the podcast and the live streams. Okay, you guys ready? So, my vote is

third place is probably going to be probably Turtle Run. Second place, Freddy Farmer. First place, Tito. And honestly, I think most of these games we played today I would Yeah, I would say all of them are pretty solid games. They're not terrible. They're pretty they're pretty decent. This one's great. Tito's great. Um Yeah, really solid games. That's not it That's not true with every stream. But in this case today, great streams or great games. All right, let's take a look at the the votes. All right, here we go. Tito gets an overwhelming win. Turtle Run gets second place.

And Freddy Farmer is third place. I understand why this happened, and that's probably because Freddy Farmer is very niche. IMO, Freddy Farmer is a much better produced game. Really solid. Really solid in every way. But it's hyper niche. Whereas Turtle Run, the the art isn't great, but the music is fun. The art is funny. Um and it's just got a silly premise. There's there's definitely a hook there, especially if we decide to go with this here. You're not just a turtle. You're a shell-shocking, gravity-defying, ninja-flipping speed demon. Uh which isn't necessarily true after we've played the game, but it would be great if you could do ninja flips in the game. All right, guys. Did that make sense? Was that helpful today? Was that super helpful today or was it kind of helpful? Was it okay helpful? Was it not helpful? Was it very very bad helpful?

Niche, but more polished. Yeah, I agree with Juke. Jukebox. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, the marketing of I think the marketing of Tito could use some work. And that music, we need to redo that music. Um Awesome. Okey-dokey, guys. I love you all very much. Take it easy.