Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 015

the greatest day of your life. We're going to be looking at four, well, three games today. We're going to shoot for four if we have some room um or some time to do four games today. Basically, guys, what we're going to do is Thomas Brush, despite, you know, despite the the fact that I do have some insecurities, I I think I have some credibility in reviewing uh your games. Um this is my third commercial release. Uh my game is called Twisted Tower. I've been published three times. Um, I know how to hit the Steamfront page. I know how to make very positive games. I've never hit overwhelmingly positive, but I've hit very positive. So, I'm going to offer my insights as best as I can um for some games that you guys submitted on Twitter. Um, so we're going to play those games really quick. A huge huge shout out. I'm so grateful, so grateful to this stream's sponsor and that is Bezi. Huge shout out to Bezi. So, I'm

going to run the segment here really quick and then we're going to jump into playing some games. Before we continue, I want to say a big thank you to this video sponsor, Bezi. They're the creators of this new development assistant that has full understanding of your entire project and helps answer questions, write code, and navigate repetitive tasks so you can stay focused on the bigger picture for your game. They just launched the beta of their latest feature, agent mode, which is really unique. It enables Bezi to create and modify code directly within your project at your approval, allowing you to update and iterate everything within the app. It shows all differences so you can clearly pinpoint and validate the suggested changes in the context of your code. And it keeps track of all changes so that you can revert at any time. Bezi automatically searches all your assets, scripts, scene graph, Unity Docs, and the web to give you the most accurate assistance tailored specifically to your project. Bezi is completely free to try

and you can check them out and get started by simply clicking the link in the description. All right, the first demo we're going to play today, by the way, you can check out this uh webinar below. Um, totally free. Uh, teaches you how to make money with just a demo. And that is what we're going to play today. So, we're gonna play some demos. Let's go ahead and jump inside of What are we gonna jump inside of here today? Oh, we're gonna jump inside of Steam. Let's go. All right. First game. First game we're gonna play. I haven't seen these games. Um, I just downloaded them. I haven't played them or anything. The first one we're going to play is called Who Are You? exclamation mark, question mark. Um,

we'll also probably take a look at the uh the Steam page, but I don't want to look at the Steam page just yet because I don't like to see the reviews. Um, I kind of want to go in fresh and I want us all to go in fresh. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Are we doing good today? Good. The voice is very quiet. Okay, let me see if I can turn it up. Turn it up. Turn it up. How's that? Is that good? Is that better, guys? There's a fly in here. Get out of here. Is that better? All right, let's go. Um, that's right, Ryan. Um, how many of you are on YouTube right now? I want to make sure that we're streaming properly to YouTube because I I tried streaming about 10 minutes ago and for some reason it did not stream to YouTube. But let's go ahead and take a look here. Yeah, looks like we're on YouTube. Looks like we're good. Um, okay. Yeah, I think we're all set. Let's

go ahead and jump into the first game. You guys ready? First game is called Who Are You? Let's play the game. Whoa. What? I just heard a scream. Content warning. This game is blah blah blah. It's very offensive. Blah blah blah. What in the world? Okay. Okay. Okay. Wow. We good, guys? Sound good? Can everybody see the screen and hear the game? For best experience, use headphones. Let's go. Come on. Come on. What in the world just happened? My screen just changed. Hang on. So, that's the first issue with the game is these games that struggle going full screen. It's so frustrating. Sorry, whoever made this game. I love you, but this is so frustrating. You

cannot have this happening. Where did it go? Where are you? Okay. Well, let's try again. Oh my word. What in the world? So, I can't see the chat for the stream because all of my the full screen just gets completely screwed up. Whoa. Hang on, y'all. Let me move you over here. Okay, that's just the way it goes, guys. This isn't the developer's fault, really. It's the I think Jonathan Blow was talking about this in the one of the podcasts I had him on. Um

even now you know 30 years after making you know game what has it been 40 years since games were invented video games were invented I don't know we still cannot go full screen we still have issues come on come on for better experience the use of headphones is advised yeah this is just a it's probably an unreal thing Okay, you guys ready? See, I'm trying to take a look at the chat. Make sure everybody can hear me and see me. Give me just a sec, guys. Okay, for some reason, I can't see the chat. We're having technical difficulties today. I think we're good. Let me let me give me just a sec, guys. I want to get the right chat up here. Technical difficulties today for sure. Um,

there we go. I'm going to pull the chat up from YouTube. Yeah, there we go. I'm going to use the pop out chat here. Okay. Are we good? All right. Good. Come on in, guys. Come on in. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. How you doing? Uh, Faker, how you doing? Flare the lazy, how you doing? John Livingston, you doing good? Come on in, guys. Come on in. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We're good. We're good. I can finally see the chat. And we got the game running. Okay. Good. All right. That was kind of a pain, but we're good. My stream is set up properly. Thank god. All right. Let's go. New game. The Roswell family tragedy.

So, these are games from people who follow me on Twitter. Um, which is all indie game developers. Um, these are all demos, unreleased games. Let's turn this up. Stop it. What's happening? Stop it. Are you [ __ ] crazy? Stop. Stop. I don't know. I don't do this on purpose. Amanda, what? Screwdriver. Amanda, stop. Mommy, why is mommy doing all of that bad? Is she sick? Don't let anything happen to you, Maddie. Mommy is going to take care of everything. Tell me what's happening. Are they going to hurt mommy? Don't let them. Mommy won't let you get hurt. They won't hurt you. What in the hell is going on with you? Your family is here. Where's your [ __ ] mind gone? Amanda, you're acting

insane. Damn it. Answer me. Okay. Okay. So, couple things here. Um that I I like the the premise. I think it's interesting. Um however, Oh, it's real dark. Things get I think that was great. I just think that the I think it was great. I think the premise is cool. It's It's creepy. Um, two things, three things really. First thing is you really can't have the screen black for that long. Uh, mainly because people like me who are going to stream it, you they're going to get people to fall off. They're not going to watch because it's just a black screen, right? Um, so you want to show something. You got to show something. Um, so whether it's, you know, just still images, photographs,

something, panning into a a three-dimensional scene, even if there's not movement, you could still pan in and show like a frozen shot of maybe her like cutting herself with a screwdriver or something. Um, number two, the voice acting felt real cheap. Um, there was a lot of uh popping or pllosives. Oh no, I'm really really gonna blow out my brains. Oh my word, I'm I am from Pennsylvania. That can feel really cheap when you have those pllosives. Um, and then finally, the child's voice was clearly voiced by an adult woman. Um, so you just want to make sure that all of the voice acting is professionally done. Especially look, if you've got a walking sim, and I don't know if this game's a walking sim, but if you've got a walking sim, you can just pay like a $100, $200, maybe max $1,000 to some voice actors onvoices.com and get some pretty sweet voice acting that's going to make it

feel so much more uh polished and premium because walking sims have this reputation of feeling just cheap. Um, so yeah. Okay, let's go ahead and open this up. That's a woman. The Dark Knight of the Soul. Dark Knight of the Soul. Go through your shadows is a powerful exploration of a hidden Okay, I'm not that. Let's keep going. Just because we don't have time. We got a lot of games to play. It's super dark, but let's see. There we go. Cool. This looks great. really looks great. Let's open up this cabinet cover. Press E to unlock. There's no key in inventory. A R. All star sports. Okay, let's see if we can find a key, I

guess. Wait, there's no key in my inventory. All that I don't want M to see is in this chest. I need to find the key. Let's go. Can we turn up the brightness? Can't turn up the brightness. There we go. Oh, good settings. Lots and lots of settings here. This is good. Okay. All right. So, graphically, you know, feels pretty good. I think there's some unwrapping issues here, but overall or not unwrap, it looks like that's these are set pieces. So, yeah, it looks it looks good. Um, I think it feels a little asset. Um, but I could be wrong. It might not be assets. How to deal with loneliness.

Cool. I like the um volutric fog here or volutric lighting. That looks great. Oh, I can sprint. Let's go. Graphically, it feels good. The mood is great. Sound is really good. Very nice. We got some grass blowing in the wind. Whoa. Whoa. So yeah, they look a little bit they

should have more bloom and glow to them. They look like um just little simple circle sprites. That was fun. Okay. An interesting tree. Look like part one of the lower LODs. Keep going. Keep exploring. What do we got here? So, yeah, we've talked about this with with with previous horror games. One of the best things that you can do, and look, I I I I struggled with this with with my game for the first build with Twisted Tower. I had the problem with and the problem is is that in the first like 30 seconds you got to capture my attention and and prove to me that this game is unique and that this game is

different. Um so I I think we haven't done that yet and I so it's just the modern era of games. If somebody's playing a demo, you got to capture them in the first 30 seconds with something that's unique. I need the keys to open this door. Okay, so I need another key. Okay, let's go look for some keys. Hang in there, baby. What? Hey, that's fun. Woohoo. All right, let's turn that off. It's just about here. Let me turn the audio up for you guys. Bright Land Silver Haven keeping you company through the deep hours of the night. We got to say big thanks for

sticking with us. So, moving forward with a good old classic from Neon Fragile Mind. Now, sit back, relax, and let it take you somewhere. That's great. [Music] Be quiet. All right, let's see here. Guys, help me find this key. Apparently, I need to find a key. But yeah, I think honestly if the cut scene was like more engaging, had better voice acting, and you saw like really good footage of like what the wife was doing or the mother was doing, I might be more intrigued and want to know like more. So, I think the cut scene could create that initial uh curiosity to keep me playing this game. Um, but right now I'm like, "Okay, I

can't find the key. It feels kind of like a typical horror game. And so I think some players might get bored. Um, so you you got to give them something pretty quick before um before they quit quit playing. But I mean, it's great. It's a good game. I just think you want to you want to capture people's attention. Got to find the key. My memories number four added to the mystery haunts us, but my love for Amanda persists, driving me to unravel the truth, reunite our family, and put the Roswell family tragedy to rest forever. My hands still shake when I recall those painful moments. A woman now. Damn it. I can't stay on my

feet. Oh no. No [ __ ] way this is an earthquake. No, this can't be real. Okay. He really had a hard F there. Okay. Is my mic better? I'm trying to turn it up for you guys. Is that better? Thomas, your mic is utter silence. What the hell is going on? Scares the [ __ ] out of me. I can't get out. I wonder, this is fun. I wonder if it's like a a for loop that finds all the rigid bodies. and just starts throwing that up randomly.

This is cool. Look, the room's a mess. [Music] Okay, so this is great. You know, this is kind of the what we needed and but we needed it about three or four minutes ago. So, that was great. Cool. Very awesome. Okay, let's keep going. Who in the hell could be ringing the doorbell after what just happened? Oh, that was a doorbell. It's all really hazy, but I think I keep my keys. I know they're around here somewhere. Am I still looking for a key? Where did I put the keys this time? I don't know, bro. Can you tell me?

Can you like give me a hint? So, there it's supposed to be like an alien attack. All right, I'm looking for the key. I don't know where to go, though. I've looked kind of everywhere, I think. So, I I'm getting a little a little bored just because I don't know. The front door must be lying around the floor somewhere. Okay, the floor. Okay, so I need to look on the floor. Um, fetching a key is not the most exciting thing. And I'm I'm working through this right now with Twisted Tower, trying to better understand like what are some ways that you can basically do a key and a door, but like make it more interesting.

So, cuz everything really, I mean, in these kind of games, everything is a lock and a door. Espec like even Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4 in particular, the the remaster, everything's a lock and a door or a key and a door, but they they just theme it so that it feels different. So like it's a medallion or it's three different broken pieces and you got to find all three and then plug them into like a machine, you know, or you find the battery and then it opens the door. Everything's a lock and a a door or a key and a door. Um where's the effing key? Okay. What? Where is the key? There's like two different keys. I'm looking for on a floor

in the sock drawer right there. What sock drawer? How do I know what the sock drawer is? Go to the front door and look at the ground. Try to make keys that aren't keys. That's great advice. What? Okay, it's right here. Make sure that was that was in a box collider. That was a mesh collider. And I was trying to I was trying to collect it. And if the developers in the chat, I was trying to collect it. And if you're not perfectly touching the key ring, it's hard to collect it. So, I would make it just a box collider or a sphere collider. Okay, let's unlock. Oh, apparently you can lock it. Okay. All right, let's go.

What's this? As I opened the door, I discovered a box. It read, "Help me, Ray." And the handwriting seemed eerily familiar. My heart raced with a mix of anticipation and fear. What could this box hold? Too much flashing. What secrets might it reveal about Amanda's disappearance all those years ago? Still feeling hesitant about the situation, I took the box to the desk and cautiously opened it. The box was sizable, but inside there was only a cassette. A label on it read, "I'm still here." My heart pounded in my chest as I realized the truth. These labels were written by Amanda. Fear and anticipation welled inside me as I press play, ready to unlock the haunting secrets.

Oh man, we could This game could be so much more polished if the voice acting was good. I'm praying this message gets you. I This is so much to explain. They've imprisoned me all of these years for who knows why. And you are my only hope. You must do as they say or they'll kill me. Please. [Applause] Um, this game is called um, what's it called? I'm scared to get out of full screen mode. It's in the description. Um, yeah, it's the first game in the in the in the description. Uh, no, it look the game the game graphically is great. The voice acting is really holding it back. Definitely go to voices.com and get some people to try out what the hell just happened. Um,

and also that that I is lowercase. Make that uppercase. And now I'm here. Did I pass out? This is our old cabin. This is where we lost Amanda. Okay. So, let's let's get everybody's opinion here. Do you know what's going on? Does Does anyone have like a slight Give me Yes, I have motive. No, I don't know the motive. Yes, I know what the motive is. No, I don't know what the motive is. I'm going to say what I think before reading the chat. I have no idea what's going on. I have no idea. So, it's it's a little too abstract. The thing is is abstraction is great after it's been grounded with something with some kind of through line, some kind of

motive. So in a story give this basic motive to the player and then you can stack that's like the foundation of a house. Once you have the foundation of motive then you can stack abstraction on top of it. You cannot stack on abstraction on a liquid surface like water. And right now I feel like that's what's going on. Um so I would say solidify the motive to the developer. Solidify the motive for me. Make it clear. Came down here just to sit alone with her watching the sky. Those beautiful nights Amanda and I spent together. And is he talking to himself? Am I in his brain? Am I reading a diary? Who's talking? Um, so there's there's a lack of clarity of the characters. Um, so yeah. Okay, let's go ahead and move forward here. And I don't know why I ended up here. And what what decade are

we in? What decade are we in? Okay, so that fog right there doesn't match this fog because it looks like there's a shader issue. So, it's causing this really disorienting shading. Um, those those I think that's because it's a skybox or something. It's either a skybox or a billboard. Um, so that that's making this look really disorienting and frosted. The Roswell family, the mood, the sound, the atmosphere is great. Okay. Okay, that was cool. [Music] Cool.

[ __ ] Those hard fs are hilarious. Daddy, come play with me. Yeah. What? What is this feeling? Maddie. Is that Maddie? So, who's Amanda and who's Maddie? Daddy, come play with me. Yeah, I feel like we need new voice actors and clarify the motive. And this feels pretty good, though. Like the game itself feels good. The movement feels good. The graphics are good. Um, what [Music] Okay, I don't know.

Okay, let's move on to the next game here. Um, there's a there was like three or four major issues there, but let's start with the positive. Okay, and don't vote yet, guys. Nobody vote yet. Okay, nobody vote yet. Um, let's start with the positives. Okay. And everybody in the chat, if you could if you could mention some positives as as well for the developer because I'm sure they'll watch this. I number one, I know how hard it is to make games. It's it's brutal. And so to have people play your game publicly and critique it is very hard. So I just want to say to the developer, good like seriously, good job, good effort. You've put a lot of effort into this thing. Um it shows a lot of the story moments and triggers. You really thought them out. You thought out the story and the dialogue and that takes a ton of effort and and keep going. Keep working hard. You've got this. Okay. Number one, I'm going to give three positives here. Number one, graphics look good. U movement feels good. Atmosphere and sound is great. You did a really good job. And I'll I'll throw in

a bonus there. The story moments or like events and triggers really good. Um, critiques. Voice acting is bad. It's not okay. It's bad. Daddy, come play with me. No, not going to happen. I live in Pennsylvania and I like potatoes. That's going to make things sound really, really cheap. That's just a a a a quick almost instant red flag for players. They know when something sounds fake. Um, so voices.com, grab some voice actors and actresses. Did you finish the script? Once you finish the script, go and go ahead and pay for great voice acting. Um, number two, I don't know what the player's motive is. And it's not that you didn't, this is to to the developer. I don't know what the motive of the player is. And it's not that you didn't try. I know you tried. And to the developer, you're probably like, it's right there. The motive is right there. But it's not clear to me.

It needs to be very straightforward, like instant, like in the first five seconds, it's like Amanda's missing. She got taken. Boom. Let's go find Amanda. Right. Um, so yeah, motive. Okay. Okay. Um, let's see here. Check one two. Let's see. Thomas, every time you pop in the mic, the sound goes down. Yeah. Um, and then finally, finally, let's see here that the here, let me let me turn the safe off. There's a setting on my mic that causes it to do that. Thanks, guys. Um, finally, the a third critique. I love what one of you said in the chat. Create keys, but they're not keys, right? So, somehow figure out a way to ensure that it's not keys. Again, big shout out before we move on to the next one uh the next game. Big shout out to Bezi for sponsoring today's live stream. Check out Bezi below. It's pretty sweet.

It's an AI tool that understands the context of your entire Unity project. That's really, really cool. Like you can use Chat GBT or Claude, but they don't fully understand all of your project hierarchy, all of the different files and how your project's put together. So, Bezi is a sweet tool, links below, that understands the the project that you're working in and then can help you write code and solve problems with your Unity project. So, check it out below. Okay, next game, guys. You ready? Next game is called Primal Planet. And again, don't vote. Don't vote below yet, guys. We still need to look at every single game. Um, these are all demos. Um, and these are from folks who follow me on Twitter. So, we're going to take a look at this game, offer constructive criticism, and any thoughts that we have. Okay, there's no music or sound. Um, that's a problem. Why is it so dark?

There's no sound. Okay, that was weird. Oo. All right, here we go. This is great. I love that music. Wow, look at that lighting. That's great. Wait, what's going on? You guys can't see it. Hang on. Hang on. For some reason, you can't see my screen. There we go. What's going on? It doesn't want to stream right now. Hang on. I'm going to have to close out of it

really quick, guys. Give me just a sec. Oh boy. We got another full screen issue. We got another full screen issue. The rule is test your games, guys, and make sure they're streamable. You have to make sure they're streamable. If they're not, they're not going to do as well as they could, you know. Um, this is a problem. I can't even I can't close out of it. Um, let's see here. I'm going to try one more time and if it doesn't work, we might have to just not play this game. Okay, let's try again. Let's exit out of full screen for Steam. Yeah, this isn't going to work. It's sad, you know. Um, it doesn't want to stream. What I'm looking at, guys, is,

you know, I can actually see it. I could see a cut scene playing right now, but for you it's frozen. Um, let's start another game and see if it's not the stream's fault. But you got to make sure my my suspicion is it's the game, but let's go ahead and start another game. This one's called First off, that's kind of hard to read. Just it looks really cool, but that's really tough to read. Um, it's called Hack and Climb. So, I would change that font. That's really hard to read, especially with a smaller thumbnail size. That's tough. And Hacking Climb is a really good a really good name because it tells you what the hook of the game is. [Music] Oh yeah, let's go. Good intro here. You got me hooked already. Choose your weapons.

What? Okay. Hard to read that, too. So, we got a font problem with this game. Welcome to Hack and Climb demo. You will be able to play on normal difficulty in short in a short map that includes three unlockable weapons. Full game includes blah blah blah. This feels great. Feels very professional. Feels like somebody knows what they're doing, honestly. Um, all of the font work. This is cool. I like this. I really do like that font. It's just hard. It's just hard to read. Um, A and or Q and E. Oh, that feels great. I'd speed that up. It feels a little uh sluggish, but it's super cool. I would be I would make it like All right, let's go ahead and pick some weapons. Start new. So, this game definitely has a clear understanding of what a hook is. Um, the

temptation is, well, give the axe to a Viking, right? Give the axe to a character. Um, give me some story. Give me a cut scene. But this game knows exactly what it's doing. The hook is you play as weapons. And I think that's a really good hook. Nice. That feels really good. I love this. This would be great for mobile. Really great for mobile. I kind of wish it was like there was a sound when you release it. So like this. And I don't think there's a sound. Let's listen. There is. It's just really quiet.

Let's try again. Achievement unlock bottle flip challenge. That's fun. Mash the rooms. Oh, I should be able to cut those. So, the pixel art is cool, but it's not truly pixel art because it's not actually pixelated where we're at like 4K right now. And you could tell because those squares right there are rotated. Um, it's fine, but it does it does sort of make it feel less retro. That was great. Okay, let's see here. For some reason, it's balancing off the I think I have to go over here. Oh, wow. That's crazy. Okay, so the rotation is being predetermined, which is brilliant. [Music] Okay.

Oh, Thomas, be careful. Nice. Okay. Okay. So, you can you can see where it's going to go when it uh turns green. Careful, Tom. Yeah, it's a cool mechanic. Um, I would consider, if I was the developer, I'd consider trying to figure out a way to lower resolution. the it doesn't really matter but decreasing the re re resolution of various elements like the UI dash line it it takes me out of that pixel feel because that's that's not pixel art you know but I know I'm being a little bit picky um really cool mechanic I like it a lot what are you going, dude. No. No.

Thomas, think, buddy. Think. Think before you act. Nice. So, that's cool. There's different weapons you can pick from. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so those particle effects, those are really taking me out of this classic retro vibe Thomas. Okay. Whoa. How's that happening? I want to know how they program this. Look at that curve, guys. Watch the curve. That's wild.

Like I That is such impressive math. That's crazy. This music reminds me of a Ocarine of Time dungeon. [Music] Okay, just get it just right. You want to be careful, man. So, it's it's only predictive to an extent. I think that'll do. Woo. That's great. Okay, I like that. I feel like that Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I feel like that was uh intentionally done by the developer. Good design there. You have to sort of make a faith judgment. Um, okay. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Okay. [Laughter] Okay. What am I missing here, guys? Got it. Okay. Oh, no. No. Okay, we're okay. We're okay. I think this is a great mechanic. Um, I think it's fairly niche. It's one of those games that you need the right device or environment to play it. You know, I would play this game on my phone while watching like Game of Thrones or something,

but I don't know if I'd play this like as a Steam game on my PC. What do you guys think? Would you play this on Steam? Okay, this is tough. No. Yeah, I would say this is a rage game. Um, I think that uh I think it does what it's supposed to do, you know. I don't think it's there's any I don't honestly I don't have any like major changes other than

Yeah, I don't really have any ma major changes. I think visually it's a little bland. Um, but I'm not sure that that needs to be resolved. I don't know. That was unfair. That was totally unfair. It was set to green. No, no, no, no, no, no. That was unfair. Okay, I think we've got the gist of this game. Um, I feel good. I mean, I feel like it's a good game. Uh, I don't know if it's going to like go gang busters. It might. Um, but I think it's a solid idea and I think it does what it's supposed to do. You know, I don't really have any tons of complaints. Um, let's move forward. So, Primal Planet didn't work, unfortunately. The next game we're going to play is called Brazilian Drug Dealer 3. I opened a portal to hell in the f the favlla trying to revive me AIA. I

need to close it demo. Okay. So that's what this is. Let's play this demo. Okay, this looked rough. This is an early alpha, so it's buggy and the design isn't fully polished. Suggestions are welcome and sorry for some stuff you feel needs to be improved. Okay. Uh here we go. Are you guys Oh no. How to play? Move the This is a mess. Mo move the arrow keys on the this menu to the right to find out. Press escape on the keyboard or B Xbox O PlayStation A Nintendo to quit this menu. Wow. Golly,

this is awful. And it's clearly intended. Move with Okay. Move with WD on the left controller analog stick and use the mouse right analog to move the camera to shoot. Okay. Duh. To shoot, use the left mouse button and right trigger on the controller. To jump, use the space button or a XB button. Open stuff by shooting or getting near them. 96 style. There are Okay, keys, ammo. This is hilarious. Okay, anyways, let's go ahead and go play single player. Whoa. Whoa. [Music] To save load. The game is like Quake Doom. Press this. [Music] This is great. Press escape, then single

player, then save. Load. There's no checkpoints. Be careful. F6. Quick saves. [Music] This is great. Look at this map. Oh man, it's amazing. Look at that. You found a secret area. Oh yeah. How do I reload? Apparently right is is jump or right click is jump. Great music. Wow.

Get out of here. Oh, thank you. Oh crap. I love that model. [Music] Thank you. Gold. I don't know what that is. All right, we got a key. This is such a chaotic mess. Oh yeah, [Music] guys. As as awful as this game is, it's quite literally genius. It's genius. It's a mess.

It's like a a horrifying fever dream. Let's go. There is an art. Ask Toby Fox. There is an art to making something look bad. Beautifully bad. Oh, it's such a mess. It looks good though in a weird way. It's cohesive. It's like a Picasso painting is what it reminds me of, but like Quake. Gotcha. Whoa, nice use of fog. Oh, double, [Music]

Ronaldo. So, I'll explain in a sec, guys, why I think this is actually a really marketable game. I'm not just saying that. I'll tell you in just a sec. Brazil. [Music]

Oh man, I'm going to die. Oh, I love how that looks. It's such a mess. In order to make a game that looks this bad, you have to understand how to make things look good. There's a clear intention to make everything look like like terrible color theory, terrible unwrapping. It's purposely done. It's got to be like there's literally no color theory at all. And it Yes. Yes. And it's on purpose. [Music]

Oh no. Let's go. So, we're going to vote in a sec, guys, once I finish up here. Hoot. [Music] [Music] How do I press it? Cool. Okay. So, we've got three games played here. I want to try and get this Primal Planet

one working again. And I'm wondering if we can go to windowed mode. No, J. James, I don't think you're right, dude. I really don't. I think it's a good game. I think that uh the design, the art is intentionally done that way, and it's it's actually really eye-catching. All right, so it's still not working. I wonder if it's possible to do a different source game capture. There we go. All right, we got it working. Wait, what? H dang it.

Okay, I got it. I got it. I just need to set this to the proper size. [Music] All right, you ready? Left and right are move. So, right off the bat, I would make that a little darker and more contrasty. I know this is silly. I should have known, but I just started playing and immediately got hurt. So, I would make that a little bit more, I don't know, silhouetted. Okay.

Oh, cool. We got a climbing. There we go. That's cool. That feels good. Yeah. So, the attacking the animals doesn't feel like that one. I can't attack, but I could attack the flying animals. So, it's there's a a little bit of an issue of knowing what you can attack. So, for some reason, I can't get this guy. Oh, is this my buddy? Is that my boy? Oh, I think that's my guy. My little pet. S to use item. A to browse items. Fruit. Deep breath.

That is so cool, guys. Look at that dinosaur. I love that your dino can eat fish and insects to heal. Oh, that's so great. Oh, that feels good. So that attack animation is rough. So there needs to be a new one when we're swimming cuz that looks great. Um, okay. I just died. Hey buddy, thank you. I love that dinosaur

in the background. That is so cool. Get out of here, dude. How do I use an item? S to wait. A to browse items. Okay. I think graphically this game's really nice. It looks really, really good. Really good depth there, too. pixel art is all very consistent. All consistent pixel sizes, which is hard to do. [Music] I love how my pet dinosaur swims.

Okay. So, that's why I died. I I had low oxygen. [Music] Okay. So, it sort of does it automatically for you. There we go. Okay. Tall grass slows you down, but you can't cut it, which, you know, I kind of feel like I should be able to cut that with a knife. Oh my goodness, this game just took a dark turn. Creatures won't attack while eating. Raw meat, baby.

S hold and throw food. Hold to throw food. Why do I Why would I throw Oh, you're throwing food at the dinosaurs. I see. That's kind of cool. Meat distracts carnivores. I love how I'm petting him. That's adorable. I'm trying to remember. Oh crap. Get him, dude. Get him. Dude, it would be great if you lose your pet and the game you have to go find him down in space. Your dino can eat thrown food to heal. I just don't know. What was it? Okay. A there's meat. Okay. So, I don't have any food right now.

Come here. Come here. [Music] Wood required. Let's do it. Oh, campfire with crafting and skills. Very cool. Cook some meat. Oh, listen to that music, guys. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I'd say that this game is pretty solid. Honestly, I think it's uh really charming. I just want to listen to this music all day. [Music]

Sorry, I'm just really relaxed. Find your family. C and space to roll jump. Nice. I love that. I got a spear. So, how can I use it? Up to grab the spear. I did. Oh, there's two. I'm full. Okay, got it. So, how do I use the spear? Oh, yes. This is solid. Can I go grab him? Yep. Yeah, baby. Hold X to throw. Aim with

movement controls. Wait, what? Oh, yeah. Great mechanics all around. Seriously, you can use spears as platforms. Are you kidding me? Oh, Thomas. Come on, dude. Come on. I would kind of get rid of that lip there if I'm being honest. What? That felt a little unfair cuz I was learning something and I got attacked.

All right, let's go. I see X is my secondary fire. Got it. Okay. So, that's so weird. Um, I It's dumb, but I hold up when I'm jumping and that's causing me to pick up the spears. I'm not sure if that's an actual problem or that's just me being stupid.

There we go. Great music. really good music. I like how the music changes when enemies get nearby. So, yeah, like plenty of Hollow Knight vibes here. Um, even the enemies have Hollow Knight sort of mechanics, but it doesn't look like Hollow Night and it doesn't like the atmosphere doesn't feel like Hollow Knight. I think it's got its own unique uh voice. I'd love to play this with a game pad. I think that would be probably ideal. It's hard with the keyboard. Hey, my my woman and my child.

No, I love that. Remind the player what we're doing. See, this is motive, guys. Super simple. Notice how the music stopped during the cut scene. Small stuff like that that make it feel immersive. Get out of here. I need a stick. Oh, great sound. I feel like I'm in Jurassic Park. Okay, I need fire. Okay, I think we're ready to vote. And yeah, I I try and mention this whenever I do these reviews. We can't play these games for, you know, an hour. Um I don't

have honestly I don't have time to do that. Um, I can't do a 4 hour stream, but I think we've done a pretty good amount of uh we've done four games here, and I think we got an idea of what these games were. Um, this game some positives. Um, I think the art is great. I love the the clarity of the pixel art and the consistent the consistency of the pixel art is what I mean. All of the pixels are exactly the same size. The UI is great. Um, the art style is clearly done by a talented pixel artist. Music's great. Sound is great. I think controls are my only concern. Um, sometimes it feels a little heavy, but then again, it is a Metroid Vania and those games tend to feel that way. Um, I would say also play it with a game pad. Um, it just it needs a game pad for sure. I kind of wish you could zoom out a little bit. It feels a little close,

but I understand that these these old school pixel art games are the camera's pretty close to the character in in the classic game. So, but I I wish you could zoom out a little bit. It feels a little tight. Um, yeah, the character movement feels a little what's the word that there's a lot of easing and I wonder if that's if it should be a little tighter. Um, it feels like the player is like running on soap. So, yeah, there's aliens in this game. Um, UFOs. So, that's really cool. Um, yeah, great great work to all the developers um today. So, guys, let's go ahead and um vote. I'm going to add this game. I haven't added this game yet, so hang tight. Hang tight. I need to add this game to the straw pole. So, that game was called, what was it

called? Um, Primal Planet. And then the other one is Hack and Climb. Okay. And I think all of them are added to the Yeah, they're all added. Wait. Yeah, they're all added. Okay. So, let's go ahead and vote. And then, guys, don't leave after we vote because there's one final thing I wanted to do. This is so important. And I totally forgot about it, but I wanted uh I want to do it. I want to look at the Steam pages. I think the Steam pages are like honestly they're they're in a way more important than the games. Um so, click the link below, go ahead and vote. Um, before I even look at the results, I'm going to make my prediction about what I think. I I think it's fun to just predict this stuff, but

I think Primal Planet. No, I actually I'm not going to make a prediction because it'll influence you guys' vote. So, I think who who are you? No, I think Hacket. Nope. We're not going to make a prediction. Click the link below. Go ahead and vote. I'm going to let you guys vote. And while we do that, how about this? While we do that, I'm going to go ahead and take a look at all the different Steam pages. But you got to be careful because that'll influence your vote because of the reviews. So, I'm going to do my best here to not look at the reviews. Fourth is not there. Okay, hang tight. Hang tight. Um, give me just a sec, guys. And while I do this, another final shout out to Bezi, today's sponsor for today's uh live stream. The link is in the description for Bezi. Um Bezi is this really sweet tool. Um and I I really appreciate them because they've supported they've supported me in this

channel and the podcast. They've just kept the podcast going and I really really do appreciate them. U but it's a really cool tool. It's it's different than like Claude or Chat GPT. It obviously does code, but um it understands the context of your project. That's that's the important part. Um Hacken Climb's there. Brazilian drug dealers there. The vote is there. Oh, I need to save the poll. Got it. Got it. Hacken Climb's not there. Okay. Um so guys, go ahead and if you wanted to vote for Hacken Climb, but you couldn't because it wasn't there, go back and change your vote. um if you wanted to vote for Hack and Climb. Uh but I'm going to give you guys a lot of time here to vote because we've we've done this in the past and I feel like I didn't give people enough time to vote. Um but that's there. But what I was going to say was um what was I saying? What was I talking

about, guys? Um, I was really interested in what I was saying and now I completely forgot what I was saying. The link is in the description. The description. That's where you vote. Bezi. Bezi is really cool. Yeah, Bezi is really cool because um it understands the context of of your Unity project. So like it understands what your game is. It's so cool because when you download Bezi, you can say, "Hey, Bezi, what is this project?" And it will scrub through your entire project and then basically tell you what it is. It's pretty wild. So that's super helpful because when you tell it to write code, it understands what the context of your project. Um so huge shout out to Bezie. Thank you, Bezi, for sponsoring today's video. All right. Um,

yeah. Is everybody everybody voting? Has everybody voted? Yes or no? All right, let's go ahead and take the take a look at the results. And also, let's take a look at some of these Steam pages. Um, let's open up Primal Planet really quick while you guys continue to vote. This is Primal Planet. Um, I can't zoom in. We probably need to copy this here and go to Chrome. All right, so this is Primal Planet. Let's take a look at the Steam page just to get an idea of the marketing. Marketing is great. The hook is there. Pixel art game, hacken slash, aliens, dinosaurs, everything's there. Unveil a heartbreaking story of a family, dinosaurs, and UFOs. Craft. I don't love the word heartbreaking. It just doesn't

feel like it needs that. I would just say uh save your family from dinosaurs and UFOs. That's what I would say. Um craft, upgrade, and survive in a realm of primeval predators, savage tribes, and ancient aliens. Rise from humble cave dweller to the planet's last hope alone or in local co-op. Welcome to Dinoania. I wouldn't say Dinoania. I'd say Primal Planet. Oh, I guess I guess that's fine. It's It's a little strange to say that. I don't know. That's just me. Let's watch the trailer. But the hook is present. The genre is present. Um the story is present. I think it does everything it should as a description.

Good trailer. Oh, that's great. Sneaking past dinosaurs. A sweetie. Look at them. I love that there's like pets and kids. It's about family. That gives me chills. I love it. Seriously, the this Steam page is one of the best I've seen in a long time if I'm being completely honest. All right. Um, let's go ahead and guys, just a reminder to vote. I'm going to look at the next one. As you guys vote, I'm going to look at

the next one here. Um, Hack and Climb. Let's take a look at that store page. And why is it important, guys? Why is it important that we look at the the store pages? Because it's the front door. It is the book cover. And people won't play your game if they don't like your book cover. It's pretty straightforward. Uh I love this. I think this looks really good. Um that's hard to read. I just I wonder if that's going to be a problem. It could be that you need to separate out the letters a little bit more and then maybe do an what is that called? Is it called a Is that an amper stand? I totally forgot. Yeah, it's an amper stand. Um, do an amper stand there and that might help. But this is great. Um, the art is really, really great. Throw, chop, and climb your way up in this physics-based platformer. Unlock

new weapons as uh as you explore stunning untamed landscapes. Master the axe, conquer the climb. I would Okay, we're gonna use chat GBT to do something that I think that this description is is not doing well. Um, we need to emphasize more. We need to emphasize more that it's about weapons. So, uh, I have a Steam description for a game about using weapons as, uh, using weapon where you play as weapons like an axe, a hammer, a bow and arrow, and a spear. Each with their own unique abilities and play styles. However, the description

doesn't use enough puns and language related to each weapon's abilities. Can you recraft my description to feel more? And this is not impressive, by the way, what I'm doing. Obviously, I'm using an AI to rewrite a description. But the important part that I'm trying to focus on here is you can use chat or you can just brainstorm with your friends. All right? Do something to figure out a way to add a lot more clarity and salt to your description so that people know what the hook is. All right. Can you recraft my description to feel to to put uh put more emphasis on the unique abilities of the weapons and the fact that you play as weapons and not characters. I think that's the the hook. Here is the description.

And please keep it simple or short and sweet with just a couple sentences. That's a challenge, isn't it? All right, let's go. Here's a punchier, more punfilled version that leans into be the weapon. Oh my word, that that's really good, actually. Hurl yourself like a spear, swing like an axe, cling like a hammer, and soar like an arrow in this physics-based platformer. Do you see what I'm saying, guys? Every weapon has a wild way to move, master them all, and carve your way. That's great. Carve your way to the top. I know it sucks because it's chat GPT, and we all hate it, right? We're supposed to at least. That's really good. And that really, really helps. I don't know, Marushia, if you actually did that, but

amazing work. Um, be the weapon. This This is This is what I mean. This is so helpful. This says exactly what the hook is, whereas this not so much. Okay, it's brilliant. It It absolutely is. Um, so don't be afraid to use AI to help you with your marketing, guys. Um, I'm I'm opposed to it from an artistic perspective, like actual like art, 3D art. I won't I won't take sponsorships. I won't use 2D art, 3D art, sound, like voice acting, anything like that. But when it comes to like helping you brainstorm for your Steam pages, it's so helpful. Um, but that's what I would do. Let's watch the trailer. [Music] [Music]

I think it's fine. Um I the reason I say that is I'm not sure what else you're supposed to do with a game like this. Um it's pretty simple. So yeah, I I think that's good. Yeah, you wouldn't want to go too aggressive with it because it's not an action game. Um so I think that that does what it needs to do. All right, let's take a look at the next Steam page. Um, I think my hope is to try and give you an idea, guys, of why I actually think this Brazilian game is brilliant. Um, and I think I judging from the reviews, I mean, well, let's before let's take a look at the let's take a look at the the votes. Has everybody voted? And then we'll look at the Brazilian game because I think you guys would be surprised. Um, I'm going to go ahead and show the

results. Uh, let me make a prediction really quick. Um, the Primal Game is going to win. Hack and Climb is going to be third. Brazilian game will be second. And then the fourth one will be the Alien game. So again, Primal's number one, Brazilian number two, Hack and Clive number three, and then fourth one is Alien. Let's see if I was right. Ready? Come on, Thomas. Do I get a little bit of credit here? I mean, come on. We've got What? What? Why do we have 700 people watching and we've got 71 votes? This is outrageous. And And then all the votes start coming in because everyone wants to sway it. Do you guys not have courage to just vote on something without being manipulated by Thomas or the masses? I'm not being sarcastic. You you're you are you just you're just uh what do you

call it? Parasites. You just consume consume consume and then wait for people to tell you how to vote. I'm just kidding. Kind of. Not really. A little bit. I'm totally joking. Not really. Okay. If we take a look here, why? Let's take a look at Brazilian drug dealer. The Brazilian drug dealer does a really good job marketing itself. This This is actually I'm not kidding. I'm not joking. What I'm about to show you is brilliant. This is brilliant. This right here is very smart there. What they've done is they've figured out a way to stand out in it in the most ridiculous way. You have to click on this game.

So, I think one of you in the chat said Thomas is like trying to make something seem cool when it's not. No, I mean it's this is actually really smart. You're trying to the one of the most difficult difficult things to do on Steam is to stand out. Um, in the age of AI, it's incredibly difficult to stand out. And this game has done it. Like, this game has made some pretty good money. Look at this. Almost. We've got 2,000 reviews at $3. So, I'm thinking maybe o at least over 100K. Maybe 200, maybe 300. I don't know. I could be wrong. and it's early access, but this is just brilliant. A Brazilian boomer shooter game made using the ID Tech 2 engine. Shoot, jump, embark on a journey throughout the state of Rio de Janeiro, hell, and even heaven.

Save Brazil. I love this. This is hilarious. Um, it's a mess. [Laughter] This is great. This is the best. All right, you get the idea. It's a mess and it's supposed to be. Um, yeah, this the game is sold 38,000

copies. Is that what we're assuming? Do you guys want to do the math? I mean, it's pretty straightforward. It's 38,000 times two. Um, or is it three? Yeah, it's three bucks. So, something like 300 or over 100K. Um, one of you said they need to market it better. No, they don't. This is early access. Look, there are Look at what they've done. This is a really This is solid, guys. You could try and polish and make it look amazing and really, really pretty. This is exactly how they need to market it. I would not change a thing. This is hilarious. Um, very solid reviews, um, solid numbers. Look, it's not even been a year yet and they've made over $100,000 on an early access game. So, it's phenomenal. I think that I think it's just brilliant. Brilliant. Um

I I I don't know how to explain it, but it's just it's got a flavor that is very it has a voice. It has a voice. Um so, great job to Brazilian Drug Dealer 3. Um, I opened a portal to hell in the flla trying to revive mitt. I uh I need to close it. I think it's a great great game. Game play is fine, but I think aesthetic is what's selling this thing. Does that make sense, guys? How did I make that estimate? Uh, based on um nothing at all, I just pulled it out of my butt. Um, I know how much my games have made and I know how many reviews I've made uh or have gotten. So, I mean, I wonder if we can look at maybe Steam DB. Let's Let's look at Oh, it's hilarious because it's it's Brazilian Drug Dealer 3. Um,

but it's I don't think it's a sequel to anything. Uh, so let's take a look at Brazilian Drug Dealer 3 and see if we could find some data here. Um, so this game has sold. I don't know if you could tell how many it's sold, but let's look at the data, guys. Charts. um 2,354 followers. So, it's probably got um like 40,000 wish lists. The estimates of owners, this says 169,000, but this says 38,000. So, look, if we if we've got 38,000 owners times $3, I'm just going to

assume it's never been on a huge sale. Uh, that's over $100,000. Um, right. 38,000* 3 is over $100,000. Yeah. 114,000. But I don't know if that's true. Um, you know, let's let's just go with the mid-range here, which is 80,000, something like 80 240K times 7. So, the net is 168. Um, and they don't have a publisher, so they're not splitting the revenue probably. So, does that make sense? Um, but this is early access. They've got 3,000 or 2500 followers, which

translates to probably, let me look here. I have to use my own games to know what the how what the because I'm almost at 100,000 and I have 7,500 followers. So the how that translates is is it 100,000 divided by 7,800. So 12 so 13. So multiply times 13. Um right. Yeah. Uh so multiply it times 13. So the the general general rule that I'm coming up with off the top of my head right now is if they've got 2500 followers, you multiply it times 13. So let's just do a nice even 2500. Multiply it times 13. So 30,000. So

30,000 wish lists, but they've also got players, right? Um but yeah, so 30,000 wish lists and they haven't even it's still early access. So, I don't I think this game is probably it's probably done the the most revenue it's already going to it's going to do. I don't think it's what I mean is like I don't think it's going to do a ton on launch. Um because it's already been out for almost a year. Game Analytics underestimates 63 copies sold in Steam Analytics. Yeah. So yeah, I think a nice even um somewhere around like 60 or 70 is probably the case, but it could be that they were in a bundle, you know. I don't know. But I don't know if they can you could be in a bundle when you're early access. Um yep. Okay, guys. So that those are the results. Primal Planet. I mean, you guys want to take a look at Steam Spy with Primal Planet? We can estimate a

lot of stuff with this. So I'm just going to show you guys kind of how I do things. Um, Primal Planet, we've got 200 followers. So, again, about 30,000 wish lists. This was probably when the demo dropped. So, fe This was a year ago, although that might be the demo, too. So, let's see here. When was the demo dropped? Primal, what was it called? I totally forgot. Primal Planet. Uh, the demo came out November 12th, 2024. So, yeah, that's it. That's the demo. This must have been like some I don't know, Steam page or something. So, yeah. Um, this game will probably do fine on launch. There looks like they're around 30,000 wish lists. Um,

I could be wrong, but I think it's around 30,000 wish lists. So, yeah, I think it'll do I I don't I don't think it'll like go gang busters on launch, but I think it'll do fine. Um, I can see this being a really good Switch game. Um, okay, let's take a look at some other wish list numbers. Um, Alien, what's it called? Oh no. What's it called? Hacking climb. It's funny, guys. We're looking at basically a wishlist regression that is directly correlated to the results of the um play test today, the votes. I can imagine that hack and climb. Um, is that what it's called?

Hack and climb. Yeah, I can imagine that Hack and Climb has maybe 5,000 wish lists. Um, let's go ahead and take Let's see if I'm right here. probably probably somewhere around like 700 to a,000 followers. Oh, 13 followers. So, yeah, it looks like we're we're we're not getting the wish list we need. Um, what you want to do is you always want to make sure that you're hitting the charts to some degree. So, for example, if we look at hackit slash, um, if you look at the charts, you want to make sure that you're somewhere you're somewhere on the, uh, man, it's not showing up here. Like, if we go to Twisted Tower, and I learned this from Chris Sakowski, if we go to Twisted Tower, if you go to the charts, you could see that we're number 455. So,

we're somewhere on the charts, right? And that's what you want. Um, yeah. Uh, so Hacken Climb is struggling with its wish list. So you want to at least be around 10,000. So that's something for the developer, you know, you want to make sure that you're you're you're aiming for like 10,000 wish lists before you launch this thing. Um, okay. And then finally, uh, who are you? Um, yeah. I can't I can't imagine Who Are You has It's probably I mean, what I mean is it's probably a similar amount of wish lists as a hack and climb. Yep. So, we're sitting around what what was the number? 199* 17 3,000. Okay. So, yeah, there's not a correlation. Yeah. So, Who Are You is Is the wish lists are much higher than Hack and Climb. Um,

but yeah, good wish list numbers for for who are you? At least uh starting out here. So that's good. Followers is on the dev page. What do you mean? Uh, is it really? Okay. I didn't know that. Let's see if that's true. [Music] Let's see here. 471. Yeah, I don't know if that's true because if I click on this developer here, you can't um it doesn't show up. So, it's best to just find I think it's best to just find it at Steam DB. But Steamdb is great, you know. Um, and by the way, like if we take a look at something like Blueprints,

um, you can see here that when they launched their demo, their followers, I think this is when they launched their demo, like somewhere around here. So, this is pre-launch. Everybody, everybody, including me, forgets how valuable a launch is. They're like, I got to build up. I got to build up for launch. I got to build up for launch. But it's like, well, the after you launch, then your followers skyrocket. Now, this is particularly true with Blueprints because it's a great game, but it's this is true regardless of how good your game is. You know, if we if we take a look at Pinstripe, the followers is always before launch, you know. Um, let's see here. Really? Really? I can't go to long longer than how long it's been out. Um but yeah, like after the launch of Pinstripe, the followers went way up, you know. Um

271 people are being have left negative reviews. You are not allowed to dislike my games. What are you doing? Um okay. Well guys, that was really, really fun. Wish list the games below if you thought they were interesting. Check out Bezi below, uh, the sponsor of today's video, and it means the world to me that you guys hung out with me today. Feel free to opt in and learn how to make six figures with just a demo. Can't make any promises. I can just tell you what I've done. Whether it's Kickstarter, whether it's wish list, whether it's um, publishers or platforms, there it is possible to make money and pay yourself while you make a game. So, click the link below to enroll in that. And I will leave you guys with the final sponsored segment. Again, thank you to Bezi. Means the world to me that Bezi supports the podcast and the channel. All right,

guys. I love you. Cheers. Before we continue, I want to say a big thank you to this video sponsor, Bezi. They're the creators of this new development assistant that has full understanding of your entire project and helps answer questions, write code, and navigate repetitive tasks so you can stay focused on the bigger picture for your game. They just launched the beta of their latest feature, agent mode, which is really unique. It enables Bezi to create and modify code directly within your project at your approval, allowing you to update and iterate everything within the app. It shows all differences so you can clearly pinpoint and validate the suggested changes in the context of your code. And it keeps track of all changes so that you can revert at any time. Bezi automatically searches all your assets, scripts, scene graph, Unity docs, and the web to give you the most accurate assistance tailored specifically to your project. Bezi is completely free to try

and you can check them out and get started by simply clicking the link in the description.