Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 038

going to be early. I told the Discord server, I said, "I'm going to be early today playing games." And Gordon said, "If Thomas is going to be early, that must mean he's just going to be on time." Well, Gordon, no, you were wrong. I'm I'm two minutes early. I'm two minutes early. Gordon, you know who's on time is Jeb. Jeb is downstairs barking right when I hit live. This is a special stream, guys. Um, one of the Discord mods reached out to me earlier this week and he was like, "Can you play can you play some of the student games?" Um, and I was like, "Yeah, let's play some student games." Because I've been playing Twitter follower games and I realized I haven't even played student games. So, I want to play some student games just as a thank you to them for man I you know I I told you guys earlier this year when you know when I signed with my publisher everything was going smoothly and then suddenly 2024 happened and uh we we had budget cuts and I had to

let go of my whole team [snorts] about 25% was left for the game and it was like everything just was frozen stonewalled And so this I just want to say thank you to those of you who watch my videos, watch the podcast because that means sponsors show up and sponsors support the channel which is awesome and it supports Twisted Towers last leg of development. But uh also this year in particular um when students enroll it's like I've got barking and I've got tons of notifications. But when students enroll in the courses, it this year and this this year it was so great because it just supports that last 25% of development. Um so thank you so much. That's awesome. Um but yeah, so we're going to play some games from students today. So come on in. Come on in. These streams are your favorite? That's great. True play.

Gordon says you're welcome. I want to I just I'm so mad at Jeb right now. I wish he would just stop. Stop. It's just a person. It's a person outside. Okay, let's go ahead [laughter] and jump in. Um I'm I'm like getting really mad here. I wish he'd stop barking. All right. Um we've got a big old fat list of games, guys. This is probably going to be a long stream. As long as it holds up. As long as it holds up. Um, okay. Let's see here. Eden Fall by Everflux Games. Let's go. Um, either of those should be a problem. Nope, that's not what I want to copy. Why is that in the chat? Is that in the That's the wrong link. That's hilarious. Edenfall. Is that guys? Is that showing up in the link in the description?

because that's the wrong link. That is a message from somebody else. I'm glad it wasn't something very, very naughty. Let's go ahead and update the link in the description. [whistles] You can't hear Jeb. He's so loud, y'all. Yeah. [laughter] I'm so glad that message wasn't naughty. There was a um I I pasted the wrong thing in the description. That would be hilarious. That would be so funny. Um okay, let's go. Let's take a look at Eden Fall here. I just updated the description. It should be good. Um let's go ahead and play Eden Fall. Um we're going to take a look at Steam pages, guys. I'm going to offer my feedback as best as I can. Number one, am I perfect? No. Do I kind of know? Do I kind of know how to make a good game? Yeah, my games have very positive scores

on Steam. Uh, they've been released on every console. Um, except for Ouya. Um, and I'm on my third commercial release right now, published by 3D Realms. And as I stated earlier, um, Twisted Tower was funded, just like all my other games, funded by a publisher. And then in 2024, we just got budget cuts. And it was like it was like such a bad it was such a bad week. And I got a lot of messages from a lot of developers who were like, "Yeah, this is happening all over the place." And so I was at 75% of development, hundreds of thousand dollars in. Um so that was a bad year, man. So just because you're published doesn't mean um that your your game is going to get completely funded and and you're just going to be rock solid till the end. Bad things happen. Bad things happen. Welcome to the game industry. It's like spin in the chamber sometimes. Um,

so let's take a look here and and and talk about Eden Fall. Um, the reason I brought that up is because if you look at my Steam pages, some of them are great. You know, some of them are follow Steam page rules. Um, other games like Neverong, I don't know what I was thinking when I made that Steam page. Granted, that game was incredibly profitable on Apple, but I don't know what I was doing on Steam because none of none of the principles that I have learned over the last couple years are relevant with Never Never. So, um, with Edenfall though, let's take a look here and and see how this Steam page is. Um, Edenfall, Legacy of the First Wardens. [sighs] So, at normal screen size, that's a little hard to read. Um, I understand it's right here, but I might I might scale that up just a little bit. I think that might help you.

It might help you, Everlux. Um, let's see here. Um, I wanted to say, by the way, if you're any of the students who made these games in the chat, please say that you're in the chat and I'll try and give you a a shout out. Okay, guys, Gordon Arbor is going to get in the shower. Um, unveil a mystical action adventure where you shift between human, wolf, raccoon, and raven. Hey, that's a good that's actually a really good first sentence. Why? because it gives us the genre um and it gives us the the gimmick which is great. We fluid combos across forms um purge corruption and awaken the land's lost beauty together with your spirit fox companion. I I find I find the spirit fox in addition to all four forms to be a

little much honestly. But that I'm just trying to help you not over scope. Um I don't want you to get lost in what it seems like five different mechanics. Um embark on a soulbound journey of transformation, memory, and inner peace. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to trust that you know what that means. Um color color theory is awesome here. So let's go ahead and take a look at the trailer. Oh, good.
They actually followed they followed a rule that I learned um from Gavin at twostar. Um and by the way, I I stand firm. I love Gavin. I love Gavin and I I I wish

him all the best. Um, and I know he's going to be able to get back up on his feet. Um, and I know I know he's going to come out with a great game. Uh, I just know it. I could feel like I just feel like he's probably going to have learned more about gamedev than any of us could. Um, so, you know, seriously guys, let's give let's give Gavin at TwoStar Games a thumbs up in the chat. Um, sometimes we sometimes we release games that don't do well and that's okay. Um, but I I learned a lot of marketing stuff from Gavin and his marketing stuff is really good. Um, one thing that he's always talked about is getting getting an impactful first 10 seconds for your trailer and then then you can cut down to the story, but you want to hook the audience um when they're watching the trailer. So, watch what happens here in the first 10 seconds. It's it's pretty much giving us this. You could think of the trailer almost as this first 10 seconds and then

this and then it slows down and you get sort of the meat. You just want to capture attention in the first 10 seconds. So that's what this trailer that's what Everflux is doing here. And then cut down to the story.
I was woken by a calling voice
in a land I did not know.
Nice. Let me turn it up for you guys.
Wow, that was cool. Wow. [screaming and groaning]

I want to hear some more crunching sound there. Like it's actually burning the enemy. You just put that in the trailer. That's
There was no time to lose. Darkness and evil had spread across the land, creeping out of the void through cracks in the fabric of the world. Now it's task to defeat them and restore peace.
Guys, if this looks interesting to you, please wish list below. I think I think this game looks incredible. Who can guess my primary concern? And and this is important that we we can all if you guys can guess my primary concern. I'm not asking you to read my mind. I guess I could I a better way of phrasing it is what what is your primary concern with this game? If you were if you were a developer, what would your primary concern be?

Let's let's talk about in the chat. And this is for the developer to steer clear of. We're not trying to be mean. We're trying to help the developer and say, "Be careful." And by the way, I've fallen into this trap. This this third game that I'm this Twisted Tower game that I'm working on has been the hardest game I've ever worked on. It has been the hardest four years of my life. No joke. And it's because of this one thing. Scope. That's right. Good job, guys. Scope. I'm worried that this is overcoped. It is hard to juicify this and it is hard to tighten every screw for something that's so big. But we're gonna we're going to see how the gameplay is. Okay. And what are we doing? Are we trying to make developers hurt? No. No. I'm sorry. Sorry, I've been speaking in a British accent for the last two weeks because I've been doing voice acting direction with all of the voice actors and actresses for Twisted Tower and always speaking a British accent trying to direct them and give them uh emotions and and drive the

the the story forward. Um, so let's go to Edenfall here and play. This is beautiful though. I mean, you could tell the art you could tell that the artist of the game knows what they're doing. So, let's hit play here and take a look. I I spent about a week polishing the tiny puzzle room. Yeah, I know how it feels right now. I'm I'm right now my focus for the last two weeks is newspaper clippings for the game. It's like it it gets to the point now point when you're working on your game where everything becomes so important, you know? Everything is important. No, I got a pretty good British accent. I don't I don't think it's that bad. I thought that was pretty good. Is this a solo dev or do they have a few folks on their team? I think it's a team game. Um,

so my computer is the fans are the fans are definitely running and that's okay. Let's feel this out here. You ready, guys? [music] Dang. They did it. Yay. Good. I would speed that up. Um, and who who knows what when I say they did it, what what am I saying? Um, yeah, it's probably a team game. Let's see here. It's probably massive. Oh, it's made by nobody. Okay, this is great. I kind of wish we we had some rim lighting. Um, but yeah, let's let's hit play. Sorry, guys. I thought I was peeking. I'm going to change my volume here. Yeah, button clicks on hover. You know, you guys know I love that. But I would What I was saying was I would speed up that animation so it's

really quick. All right. And and I'm gonna say it right off the bat, guys. I am sorry if I don't get deep into these games. We're looking at Steam pages and we're also just looking at the overall vibe and the feel and the front door uh to the game, which is really important, right? It's is the game communicating what it is very quickly. Is the game visually appealing very quickly? Um is it frustrating in the first 15 minutes of gameplay? for players new to the game and generally prefer a less challenging game experience. Yes, please. I was woken by a calling voice in a land I did not know.

I was lost, wondering about my purpose until I met Alina. She taught me longforgotten skills beyond anything I ever believed possible. And she showed me the real meaning of peace. But there was no time to lose. For darkness and evil had spread across the land, creeping out of the void through cracks in the [music] fabric of the world.
Good, good voice acting.
Now it is my task to defeat them and restore peace.

This outpost [music] wasn't abandoned.
Good. We got the mouth moving.
Forgotten. Swallowed up by whatever happened to this world. We should [music] be careful. Whatever broke this place might still be here. Okay, Ralph, I have something to say for the comment in uh the chat. Ralph said, "The story is very generic." And Rouse, my my my counter to that is, "So what?" Um, oftentimes I get really frustrated with games, and I'm not trying to be rude. I promise I that's just my opinion. I want a generic story because especially in a game that seemingly has more complex um gameplay with, you know, interweaving gameplay where like one mechanic interacts with another in a skill tree and stuff. So, I want a very core tropey story that I can sort of latch on to uh subconsciously with no

effort. Now, I think it's really important to note I don't know what who the student was that made this ga made this game or worked on this game. I don't know. It could be that they did the UI. It could be that they did the sound. I'm under no delusion that one person did this. And I think I don't want you guys to think that either. Um they they could have done the particle effects. I have no idea. So, feel free to and in fact, let's just go ahead and just so you guys aren't confused. Let's see who Everflux Games is. Um, let's just go ahead and because I don't want to confuse people. Everflux Games. I'm trying to find out who this is. And if you're in the chat, let me know. Um, is Everflux in the chat? And Gordon, you got out of the shower. Are you squeaky clean? And did you clean your butt? You know that's really important to do. Let's go to X here and take a look. Everflux Games is

I don't know you know is this a person team human here. What Edenfall is built with AI assets and all future updates will be too. Support your artists and support your community always. I don't have a comment on that. The the the world is changing so quickly. I just don't even know what to think anymore. There there there is a little part of me that says if if you're if you're good at curating assets and building something legally, I guess more power to you. I don't know. It's hard for me because I love I love [sighs] creating my own art or working with a team that creates custom art. But it seems like it's a person. Oh, does it say without AI? Well, that's important. Glad I read your chat. Oh, let's see here. Without Oh my word. [laughter]

Okay, that's great, man. I'm I'm glad I read the chat. Uh without AI. Without AI. Here's here. Here's here. Is that Is this Who is this? You guys need to chill. I got I got it. Um, but this the reason I'm curious is I'm like, "Dang, this looks good. Who did this?" Yeah, make this like 02 seconds. That's too slow. All right, let's go. I wouldn't let me have an ability right away. That right click. I I would I would let that Let's just keep playing. Holy crap, this is good. Man, it feels like I just picked the best game to like show off the students, but this was the first one that was listed on the Discord server. Um, I think it was. Good grief.

It's running really well. Oh, no. [screaming] Give me a scream, y'all. What is this game? I'm finally playing like a I'm not I'm not saying it's about y'all's games. I'm just saying in general, I'm finally playing a game that like interests me and reminds me of like games I played when I was a child. Follow the Fox. I want a jump sound. That down animation is bothering me. Do you guys see that? It's like kind of jagged. And look at that hair.

I love playing as a female. Um especially when you have like long hair. Okay, I heard some weird sound there, but it's fine. Looks like it's snowing. I'm not sure if it is. Find the entrance to the outpost. Uh-oh. So, that's a little frustrating right there, but it's fine, I guess. Okay, double jump. It's kind of like uh Alice Madison Returns. Okay, that that doesn't feel punchy enough. And and we we talked about this earlier, how a large game, you might the developer might forget to tighten up some of the juice. And so that's cool. The camera just focused on the door, which is amazing. I wish this was and there was a little bit of a impact so she pushes her up a little more or

even fake it, you know, so it looks like she's getting pushed up more. I don't have an issue with the the tutorial tutorialization right now. Um, not really. I'm trying to break the game, by the way. This is great. Really really good job, Everflux. Really proud of what you've made here. Are you in the chat? So, if I can get up here, it needs to look like I can. I would put a platform here. Or, and by the way, you're probably thinking, if you're watching in the chat, you're probably thinking, "Oh man, I'm going to do this. Do you have to do this for the whole game?" No. So, when I when I do play testing, I have this secret um voice in my head that's saying, "Not all of the game is going to have to be this polished, but the first five minutes, you want everything to be so freaking precise."

And then you can get a little bit lax if I'm being honest. But right here, this is a confusing little thing. I fell in the water. If I fall in the water, you need to force me back to do it again or give me a platform over there. Do we agree in the chat? Okay. I missed you in the chat. What's your username? Oh, there he is. Everflux. Everflux, how big is the team or is it just you? Do you mind letting us know? Complete your training. F. Press F. Oh, great. That was good. Yeah, that would be cool to be able to highlight moderators. I love the music. Everflux, would you mind connecting with me on Discord and we could talk about where you got your music? I need music like this. Did you

write it yourself? Everflux says, "I don't have a team, but I outsource stuff." So, congratulations to Everflux. And correction, Everflux is the lead on this project and is solo. but outsources a lot of stuff. Bravo, Everflux. This game is better than anything I've ever made. Um, seriously. But yeah, do you Everflux? Do you kind of know what I mean by this? Like it kind of pushes down. See that? That's really disorienting. But right here, right there, it [clears throat] looks like she's like getting pushed down by a demon. And then this I I wish that was more punchy. [snorts]

Probably a good idea to refresh what I know.
No shame in a little practice.
The reverb [music] zone is so good. Do you guys hear the reverb? Cuz we entered reverb an enclosed. It's just the attention to detail is so good. Step on the platform and complete your training. Oh, yes. Let's go. I would like a little screen shake there. I'm I'm getting the vibe that there's an attention to art, but the juice isn't perfectly there. The sounds could be a little bit more punchy and that [music] the screen shake, just a little tiny little screen shake. Or maybe maybe even a time a time scale to.3 for like 0.01 01 seconds. Just a like she's hitting something. Right now, there's no screen shake and there's no time scale change. And I feel like that would help a little bit.

That feels good, man. Hold and release to aim and shoot. Woohoo. Yeah. [screaming] Yeah. Good job. Hold and release to aim. Whoa, that's so much fun. And the teaching is so good. Your first combo can Hey, we've got 363 people watching right now. Can we all give Everflux 363 wish lists? Can we do that right now? Let's give EverFlux 363 wish lists today. I wonder if we can pull it off. I'll I'll start. I'll start. Let me open it up. Okay, I I'll start, guys. Let's do Let's do this together. Here we go. Okay.

Three attacks or one focus attack build up combo tiers which then can be triggered for different effects. Create the desired combo by attacking and then trigger E for additional damage. And this this animated gift or this video here is so important. So I I'm really dumb with these kind of games, guys. So please forgive. I'm just really bad with this stuff. Okay. Create a desired combo by attacking and then trigger E. Okay, let's try it out. So H didn't work there for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe I was missing it. Nice, Tommy.
You see that?
I did that.
I did that. I love that she talks to herself today. Everflux today, this is something that David Why taught me last week. He was playing Twisted to Tower and he said, "Give me moments where the player talks to themselves. Um, it's a way to inform

well where the protagonist talks to themselves. It's a way for them to inform the player how they should feel. And and by the way, you might think, well, my game shouldn't have to tell the player how to feel. Well, that's what game design is. Game design is constantly reinforcing an emotion and letting the player know how they should feel. Um, right? So, it's okay to like hamfist it and say, "Hey, player, feel this way. Feel proud of yourself." Let's try it again. I got fire. Oh, so it just creates more and more impact. That's really cool. Interact with Alina and open the skill tree. Let's talk to our wolf. Yeah, this is the first game. Everlux, I'm curious if you if you were able to learn anything um from the course or if it helped you at all because I know you were on the server today and so I'm curious if you if you

found it helpful. Um F. What am I doing? Open the skill tree. Cool. Oh yes. This is so much fun. Way to go. Oh, this is great. Fire burst. Blazing strike. So, what am I doing? Oh, where the arrow was? Yeah. [laughter] Oh, did you get funded on Kickstarter? You said, "Yeah, the course was super helpful for when I did my Kickstarter." Were you funded on Kickstarter? I think is your review on the website? I think it is. All right, let's see here. That's awesome that it helped you.

That's so cool that you got kickstarted. I think you did, right? Um, Path of Ardor. Sorry, I I'm I'm just mesmerized and so impressed by this game. Um, yeah, it's the best game I've played on a stream. This feels like we're starting with the best. I didn't know that this game was the best one. Maybe it's not. Maybe all the games are amazing. Um, I picked the first game on the Discord server. Was it the first game? I want to double check cuz I feel like it feels like I just picked the best one. Um, let's see here. No, yours was the second Everflux. Yours yours was the second one on the Discord server. The first one is World Warlords Penance.

Um, is that installed? Let me look. Warlord Penants is not installed. So, we need to install that one. I missed that one. Oh, it's an H.IO game. That's why I can't play hio games. Oh, it's a web game. Good. Okay, I'll add that. Um, anyway, so sorry. Let's keep going here. Oh, man. Well, guys, we got a lot to play. We got a lot to play, honestly. Um, please wish list this game, guys. There's so much effort put into this. Um, let's move on to the next game. Congratulations to Everflux for creating one of the more impressive mo one of the most impressive games I've played on stream. Oh, that was incredible. Wow. I feel like that game's going to get at least a million dollars gross. Why not? Um, minimum a million dollars,

which is like 2,000 reviews, I think. I don't see why it shouldn't. Um, unless that level of polish is just not extended through the whole game or the game is an hour long or it's here. I'll give you all the things that are going to kill a game's launch that I've learned. [sighs] Optimization. I can't play the game on Steam Deck or it doesn't run on a mid-range p. Give me the options in the options menu to make it look like crap so that it runs right. Um, keybinding. You need keybinding. Uh, the tutorials aren't good, but they seem really good. The game is really short. Um, and the game falls off a cliff in the sense that nothing it just gets worse and worse and worse, and it's becomes incredibly boring. Um, other than that, I can't think of any real big issues. Um, you know, one

of the biggest ways to to kill your game's launch is three things. It's it's buggy and unoptimized. Um, there aren't a ton of options available for the player to customize their experience. Yes, this sucks because that takes a long time to create. I think Unreal has better tools for that than Unity. And then three, it looks like it's full of content and then it turns out it's not. That's a big way to get bad reviews. So, way to go Edenfall. That was awesome, man. Or gal, I don't know. Um, yeah. Let's let's jump into the next game. You guys ready? Uh, Warlords Penance. This was actually the first game posted on the Discord server. Why am I not playing it games? Because I don't want to download zip folders from you guys because I don't trust you guys. [laughter] It sounds so bad. I'm not joking. Why would I trust Why would I trust thousands of people that I don't know? So, I think I'm being smart here. Oh,

this is awesome. It already feels great. Um, let's see here. Imprisoned deep within the shifting, suffocating cells of the dungeon. You must choose your starting champion. A corrupted paladin, an evil ranger, or a I'm not sure what that means. powerful wizard. Warlords Penis is a f I would rather this be up here at the top. Warlords Penis is a fast-paced short form dungeon crawler that demands skill. Get good or perish. Battle a variety of foes in an unconventional [music] combat system. Locate and rescue your two evil allies from their prison to form a deadly ability combining party. Fight, explore, and brutally secure your escape. I'm not going to be the ideal player for this game, but I could talk about the graphics and I could talk about the game feel. So, the the mouse feels a little

angled too far to the left. I would rotate a little bit more, but let's click start here. Good sound. I love these graphics. Let's go full screen.
[snorts]
I kind of want sounds. This is not my style of game. So, I just want the developer to know that I am not your ideal player, but I will play. All right. Oh, cool. 3D. I thought it was going to be a text game. Find your way out of the dungeon. Your allies are also trapped in the dungeon. Oh, this feels amazing. So, the mouse keeps I'm moving my mouse and nothing's happening. So, the mouse is jittery. Uh, we got to figure out why this is happening. This is a big problem. So, it look, let's try again.

Okay, it's cuz it wasn't I wasn't clicked in the browser. So, it's a browser problem.
[snorts]
Okay, so it's a speed game. Sorry, these are just not my style of games, guys. It looks amazing, feels amazing, but I don't quite know how to play these kind of games. I just don't play these kind of games. Okay, so I died. Uh, if you want players like me who don't play these kind of games to play it, just teach me. It's a big a big uh a big thing. We are your friends. Trust us. Okay, I'm going to trust you and download zip files. Feel free to send me as many zip files as you want.

Okay. So, I have to click on the browser to be able to focus. Um, okay. There's a lot of directions up here. Left bumper bounce mouse to attack. Right mouse bumper to defend. Okay. H. Sort of a reflex game, isn't it? Got it. Missed that one. Okay. I mean, I think that's I think that's fun. I wish that those instructions were right there in my face. A big call out, a big text prompt comes up and it says, "Here's how you attack. Here's how you defend." And then I could click okay and then start playing. So, that was probably intuitive to those of you who play these kind of games, but it wasn't

intuitive to me. Oh, that's good game feel, baby. Way to go. Oh, okay. So, the door is locked. It didn't come up until the third time. So, you should I unless I missed it. So, we want to make sure that that comes up immediately. I love the art here. Really good. Oh, we got another encounter, baby. Ah. Ah, man. My reflexes suck. Oh, that feels good. Kind of wish the screen flashes when I get health, but that's just me. I'm really into, you know, seizures. Oh, that felt amazing. Way to go. Everything's very reactive. This is a solid title.

Wow. And guys, I didn't just pick um my favorite games on Discord. For those of you who are on the Discord server, you'll see that I'm just playing the games in order. Use the gloom stone to save progress. So, I wish I could look down. I can't look down. kind of bothers me. Um, well, that felt good. The the Discord server is for students, so it's it's a um a student only Discord server. Yes. Yes. I know that's kind of a an exclusive thing. I get it. But it helps it helps curate people who are like actively working on their games. So, um Okay. Yeah, this is a great game. It It's Is it free? I kind of feel like it shouldn't be free because I want I just want you guys to make money. [laughter] Um, this is awesome. I don't know what

that did, but let's keep playing. This is really well done. Your vitality VP is always draining to prevent your AP from to prevent your AP HP from draining. Oh, wow. Okay, let's go get some vitality. Good teaching there. Really good teaching. Crap. Okay, here we go. I actually really like this. This is really fun. Good. That's actually really fun. So, it's it's a the gimmick is reflex. Hey, who is the developer in the chat? I can't pause. There we go.

Who is the developer in the chat? Listen to that music, guys. Yeah. Oh, way to go. That's great. Developer here. It is a free game made in 7 days for a game jam. What? We're planning to take it to the next level. Commercial Steam release next year. Is there any way that I could support you? How do I support you? That music is great. How do I support you? Come on. Let me let me do a little donation. How do I don't What? No. Make Let me download. How do I How do I support you? Because I wanted to wishlist it, but I can't. Let's Let's leave a rating.

All right. How can I donate? Listen to that. What? Yeah. Wow. Great music. Oh gosh. You know what it sounds like is uh Blade Runner. What is wrong with you? I want to pay for this. What? How is there a support button? What a solid title. The only bad thing about this game is that uh

there's no way to pay you. Are you going to answer my question? How do I give you money? Go put a donation option in there and I'll give you some money. Let I'll refresh the page and then we'll do a donation. Okay. Do you have it up? Let's do a donation. That music? Where did you get the music? Where's the donation button? Name your own price.

Don't get too excited. Okay, one sec. All righty. You got yourself a donation, sir. I think you did. Yeah. Thank you for donating. Yep. Use that towards making a Steam page. Get your Steam page up, baby. Let's go. Okay, it went through. All right, good. Who's next? That made me excited. Wow. Um, what else we got? Neon Forge. Let's do it. I think that $100 should cover your Steam page. Okay. from Neon Forge. Let's go.

And if Neon Forge is in the chat, let me know. Let's see here. Let's go to our Steam page and see how the Steam page is doing. You could show your card info, Thomas. That's okay. And no, I'm not gonna do donations for like everybody because then it would look like I'm just giving money to students, which is a terrible thing. I want that person to make a Steam page. That's what I want. So that's why we did the $100. Um, let's see here. Because that game is going to get some wish lists for sure. Um, okay. But Neon Forge, you got your Steam page up. Let's take a look here. I want to copy this. Yeah, we're not going to be giving a $100 to every person who's in the chat or who's who's got a game up. We just want that developer to get a freaking

Steam page up. Okay. Neon Forge is a blend of rogike gameplay and modular ship building. Okay, let's let's focus here. Sorry, my brain. I like that it's Nio. I really like that. I'm not a huge fan of the logo. Neon Forge is a blend of and I just think it's because it's just kind of a mess. Two fonts, three colors, rotations, italicized cuts. There's a lot going on. That's just that's just my that's my opinion. Um I'm not saying it's bad. It's just not my favorite. So there's a big difference there. Neon Forge is a blend of rogike gameplay and modular ship building. Cool. Set in a stylish cyberpunk world. By carefully selecting the right modules, you'll have a chance to conquer all nine districts of the city. Four in this demo. That's I I actually really like the bluntness of this. Just saying. Hey. And also, it

looks like you're you're giving guy dude, you're giving half of the game away as a demo. Are you sure you want to do that? We'll see. Defeat. I mean, hey, it's good to give. [snorts] Well, we can help you. Can I show you kind of what I would do with the logo? I I don't want you to feel like I'm just crapping on you. I'm not. I I am not here to crap on you. I promise. I would hate to do that. But I want to help you. I want to say like, okay, what could we do here? I just feel like that logo is It looks cheap. Let's not rely on Thomas because guys, I'm from 2010, okay? My brain lives in 2010. I'm being completely honest with you. I'm getting old. So, let's rate this logo, guys. Um, Thomas, is it weird to promote a VR chat

map like it's a video game? I don't know what a VR chat map is. [snorts] Thomas just hates you as a person. Okay, let's open up Photoshop here. Um, okay. So, let's let's all can we give the developer some feedback here? How do we feel about the logo? So, first off, just leave your comments and then second off, let's sort of rate it. This will help the This is not to make the developer feel bad. It's for the developer to feel like, okay, I'm getting like a six or maybe it's a 10, you know. Um, I would keep it clean, bro. Really clean. One font. I would do like a monoserat. I like monoserat. Let's be creative here. What can we do? Very simple. You don't have to make it

minimalistic. The age of skumorphism is kind of back actually, weirdly enough. Um, I would do something like this. But it does look like your game has a minimalistic sort of vibe to it. Honestly, I'm looking at the screenshots, bro, and I'm thinking, why does the why does the game's UI look so good, but that logo doesn't match the game at all? It's a minimalistic game, you know. So, let's let's go to what the font. I'm gonna find out what this font is. Unless you can beat me to it. We're going to find out what this font is. And we could just use this font. That's honestly what I would do. Uh, let's go ahead and upload the image here. Can you just tell me what the font is? We can use what the font, but uh yeah, let's figure out what that

font is. I wouldn't know exactly how to make it better, but I can say I would be drawn towards clicking it. You can't say you would be drawn towards clicking it. Yeah, it's not it's not necessarily the clickability of it. It's the oh, this is like a indie indie game. Oh, this is like a rough game. And that's not to say that it is a bad game. See, that's the thing. You want to make sure that your your your your capsule art communicates that this game has value and polish. Uh what what did you say the font was? Oh, Orbitron. Okay. Orbitron. Let's let's go find Orbitron and let's let's work on this this logo with you. oftentimes what you can do is you can just download the font. I'm sorry. You can just add a little subtle change to the font and that's all you need. That's all you need. Um, so let's go ahead and download the freaking font.

Why is Google font still difficult? Click here to download. There we go. Okay, never mind. I'm wrong. I'm downloading this font. Give me just a sec, guys. I'm going to try and I'm going to make this at 4K for you and I'm going to post it on the Discord server so that you can use it. And I'm not saying this is the best logo ever. Okay? I'm not For some reason this won't load. There we go. I am not saying that this logo is somehow like the greatest thing ever, but I am going to try my best to make something for you. So, let's do it at like 10K or something. I don't know. 10,000 by 10,000. Um, and I'm gonna take your screenshot here and I'm just gonna blur the background just because I can get a cool color idea of kind of what your color should be. And I just wanted to say I freaking love you guys. These games you're submitting are really cool. This game looks awesome. But I would say yeah, your logo

is so far the biggest problem with the Steam page. And so I just want to try and help if I can. Um, it's so slow because we're in 10k. We really shouldn't though. All right. What's your game called? Laser Beams. I can't remember. Hang on. But let's go ahead. I'm I have terrible memory. Orbitron. Orbitron. Or Orbitron. Orbitron. Orbitron. Okay. It's called Neon Forge. And by the way, when I say the logo is bad, it doesn't mean I'm right. Um, I forgot it already. Neon Forge. It means that Thomas said that. That's all it means. Okay. Um, Thomas has been wrong a million times, man. Sorry. 4K is really slow, guys.

Oh, it's neon. Yeah, I could be totally wrong about this logo for sure. I don't know why Photoshop is just really struggling here. Um, yeah, this looks way more professional. But again, guys, I'm not a god. I'm an idiot. I would play with the eye. Yeah, I would play with the eye. And let's let's see if we can lighten that. Yeah, neon forge. [sighs] There's potential to do something here. Let me show you. There's potential to play with the eye. Why? I don't know. Um, just go with me for a sec.

I do like that it's the same size, but I want to I want to have it like come down through that or something. No, it's a fun idea. You just don't want it to be not readable. Now it looks like it's like a break. Okay. Yeah. What I would do is keep it the way it was and then I would I'm going to keep this font high res. And we're going to go as big as we can. I'll put on the Discord server. I am not Oh, how many times do I have to say this? I'm not saying I'm right. I'm saying this is what I would do. Um, so let's take this and I'm going to go to and do kind of the motif you had, right? You had the motif here where it gets cut, which I think is really cool.

Um, so I'm just going to do that, but we're just trying to simplify the logo and it's not actually 45 degrees. So, I'm just going to do my best here to create a cool little Whoa, man. Photoshop is being real strange today. [sighs and gasps] Give me just a second. Man, it's being real weird. Woo! My computer's like blowing up. I'm pressing the mask and it's just not doing it. There we go. Yeah, that's what I do. That's it. And you can play with the effects, right? So, I can r let's rasterize all this type this stuff. And I'm going to take this. I'm going to move it into um a smaller canvas just so it's not blowing up my computer. I want to show you kind of how you could play with this stuff. Man, for some reason clicking isn't working. Um yeah, it's massive.

I'm gonna have to just do 4K. I'm sorry, dude. Right now it's just huge. Let's do uh 3840 by 3840. What about cutting the letter so that it's lowercase with it slanted out? I don't know. I don't I'm not thinking about getting too complicated here. I like I like my logos to be so simple. Um, why is my clicking not working with Photoshop? So weird. Also, what is going on there? Let's Let's convert this to a smart object. Duplicate it over there. I want to show you what we could do here. Um, to make it feel neonish, right? Because I understand that you might want to do that. Um, you can do click for the love of God.

Okay. And then you can just do something like that. There we go. The other alternative is to do a stroke effect. Um, you do something like this. Color size like that. And I could do I'm going to do black is fine actually. Um, I'm going to turn off the out outer glow. And if I rasterize this, I can actually just grab the outer lines. I'm going to rasterize the layer style as well. And I can do this, right? What? Where'd it go? And then I could set it to um I'm going to give it one more stroke so that it's got it looks like it's made out of neon. No, I don't know if we need that. Yeah. And then we could do an outer glow. And then obviously make this white. And you could do something like that.

What in the world? That's the glow. Okay. Sorry. It's not selecting stuff and I don't know why. Wow, that's weird. There we go. There we go. It's almost like the stream is causing problems. Yeah, I think that's a little too complicated. I would just do this. Yeah, I would just do this. I think that's great, man. Super clean. Um, I'll screenshot this, put it on the Discord server, and then also upload really quick for you. Um, upload really quick for you the the J the PNG. Give me a sec, guys. I'm just going to upload this to the server really quick. It's 4K. Do I think that I'm right? I I I have my doubts. I really do. Um, but this is what I would do. I export this really quick,

and let's just go to the server, the Eon Forge logo. I'm going to go to the server and paste it. There we go. All right. Um, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm saying this is what I would do. Um, okay. So, let's go ahead and play it. So, that's that's there now. Um, there we go. There we go. There we go. So, here is this logo. I feel like this feels like a clean game that has What did Jonathan Blow say yesterday? He said his games are sophisticated. This looks sophisticated. That doesn't. So, I feel like there's a mismatch. Anyway, I'm not going to keep

justifying myself here. So, let's go ahead and play the demo. One sec, guys. Let me pull everything up. All right. Yeah. Okay. One sec here. Yep. Um, sorry, I have to I open up a lot of tabs. I want to close them all. Good. Good. Neon forge. All right, y'all ready? You don't have to change it. All right. You don't have to change it. You don't have to. You don't have to do everything I say. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. We have a nice sound there. I want to go full screen, but I can't. This is a

little frustrating. Um, I would I would start with the default of this. Not sure why. Now I've got an issue streaming. Oh boy. So this is not what's the word? It's something it's a it's a necessary evil you got to deal with when streamers are streaming with OBS or Streamlabs. You can't have these kind of frustrations. Um I don't know what just happened. Honestly, we got to we got to focus on fixing this problem, right? because I don't know where the game is now. It's gone. Yeah. And now I can't. So, I'm gonna have to go to windowed maybe. Okay, there we go. So, just keep that in mind. It's important to play test like we're doing right now. Keep that in mind that players who are especially

streamers who, by the way, those are your giant billboards. You want them to have an easy time playing it and streaming it. Don't be sorry. There's no reason to be sorry. I'm just letting you know. All right. I'm not going to mess with anything. I also It's defaulting at 720. I feel like you should default it my screen size or at least 2K, but I'm not going to touch it cuz we got it working. But that's that's okay. That's okay. Easy fix. Good job with the UI. Wow. You are a worker of a colony, born and raised beneath the protective dome of steel and glass. Since childhood, you were taught that freedom is granted only to those who fight through the nine districts and emerge victorious. But that freedom remains a distant hope as hardly anyone ever returns. During a routine shift in the scrap mines, disaster struck. A tremor shook the tunnels, sending machines crashing into

the depths and separating you from other workers. Your ship is damaged. The air heavy with dust, poison. There we go. Nice music. Now there is only one way forward. Find a way out of the mine and return to the colony. Yeah, we want to get a tutorial. Let's go. Oh. Oh, you've lost your way of the mind. Find a way out. Okay. So, I can't do anything with my mouse, which is fine. I would increase the um right off the bat, it feels flat, and it's because there's a lot of um fog, and so I would consider creating less fog because I'm not getting the sense of height that I want. Um yeah, and I'm going to show you guys, actually, let me show you what I mean here. Okay, I learned this from yesterday on my call with Jonathan Blow.

I did a podcast with him. It's coming out and his new game does this really, really well. And I just want to show you um so that you get an idea of like perhaps zooming out a little bit, giving me a little bit more depth. And I think it's so funny cuz during the call and this is going to be a podcast that drops. During the call he was like we figured out how to create depth with a high angle during the last year of development and he's been making it for 10 years. And so they re they changed a ton of their artwork because they figured out how to create height. And that height is breathtaking. You want height. So let me show you what I mean here. You want height in a top down like this. Otherwise, it can feel really flat and really boring. I I I'm trying to help you. I think I think this is going to make your game feel so much better. So, Jonathan Blow, I think, did a really good job with creating height. Let me find a good good frame here. Here it is, guys. You see that? Don't There's no reason to get me

close to the ground. Give me push that ground down. If you're going to have fog, that's fine, but make the fog feel like it's far. So, I feel like you could just, this is just my opinion, I feel like you could create something more like this, create a lot more height. And by the way, this is not handdrawn. This is all 3D art. This is beautiful. He did an incredible job um with his team. So, I think you could create height like that. Okay, let's keep playing. So, do you guys see the difference? But let's see let's see if it if we get more height as we as we continue playing. Let me turn it up. I want to hear that that movement sound a little bit more. Sometimes this Oh, sorry. I I couldn't read it. Okay. The turning radius is a little a little frustrating, but it's and it's slow. It's very slow and sluggish, and that might be part of the

game design, so we'll we'll see. You can boost your speed to fly faster. Try boost. Cool. Good job. And this is very reactive. Everything feels really um feels like the sound is very reactive. Okay. So, I didn't read that. Sorry. I I would I would let me confirm after I've read something and not just assume I've read it. So, I'd require the player to do something and because you're going to have streamers talking to their cameras and they're going to miss it and they're going to go, "What?" And then they can never ever figure it out. Right. So, I missed it and I'm not sure what I should do here. What What did it say, guys? Let me Let me see here.

Okay, that's what I need to do. Okay, cool. Yeah, I don't know why it's doing it automatically. I guess that's okay. I would make it so that I have to click to do that. Yeah. I'm not sure why that's automatic now. Yeah. Let's keep playing. But it looks good. Um the UI is really good. And I I think personally I feel like the logo that we just did is going to reflect this better. Um because this feels very mature and Again, sophisticated. It's clean. It's simple. Um, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of annoying that it just keeps happening like that. I'm not sure why it's doing that. Perfect. The ship is repaired. Let's go. And so, it's automated. Huh. That's cool. I just kind of wish I could

just let the player do it. Am I wrong? What do you guys think? I feel like it would be much more rewarding if I'm the one doing it. I want to click and do it. I don't want everything to be done for me. What do we think? I don't have a problem with the camera. And no, I don't think you should do isometric because then you lose the depth. I would give I would create more height so that what I'm what I'm looking at below me is is all inspiring. I want to like [gasps] oh I'm looking down a deep chasm and you see like water and like pipes and and wires deep down in the depths. I think that would be so cool. So far I feel like this is pretty solid. I just think the the things I mentioned are things to consider. We can't get through the barrier. Use the special ability to break through.

Okay, so there's automated and then there's player controlled attacking, which is good. That that may be what I need. So, we have this automated attack and automated drill, but then we also have pressing space, which is like the specialty. Fires homing missiles at nearby enemies. Head cannon fires a targeted volley of shots at nearby. This UI is incredible, by the way. Really good UI. Creates five laser spheres that orbit the player and damage enemies on contact. Yeah. So, I my critique about the automated shooting isn't valid because I feel like it's something like um like Geometry Wars, right? So, there's certain things that the player has control over. I It just It did feel a little weird, I'll be honest. But yeah. Um Okay. Oh, good job. Really juicy. Yeah, I would say I'm just now getting juice, which is interesting. I feel like I

should have juice more in the gameplay than the UI. So, this is super juicy, whereas the gameplay is not so much. Like screen shake. I feel like there's no screen shake. I could be wrong. The sound is a little soft and gentle. The player movement is really soft and gentle. Um, it doesn't feel juicy and crunchy. This game, I think, will succeed if we give juice and crunch and depth. And by depth, I mean camera depth. Let's get homing missiles. That was great. Good job. That felt really good. Oh, cool. I can see I think the the ship changed. I can strafe. Yeah. I hope that I'm able to increase my speed. Yeah. So slow to turn and it's a little frustrating. But I get it. Is it Is it okay? There's a I would say

I would say there's an imbalance of sound effects versus ambience and music. That's why I think someone mentioned feeling a little drowsy. I think it's because there's this Yeah. Like that's super loud, right? Boom. Like whoa. It almost peaked. But the ambience and music is really quiet. So, let's see if we can solve this. Whoa. So much better. Yeah, the defaults need to change, man. What in the world? Yeah. Easy fix. Easy fix. Oh, good job. Good game feel there. Whoa, there we go. Yeah, some sound effects are just really quiet.

So, it's a little boss. This is fun. That hit sound doesn't sound like I'm getting hit. So yeah, we have major, not a major, we have a issue with sound. It might be major like it. Nothing feels crunchy. Um, so let me talk about that and then we'll move on to the next game. Um, okay. I should have gotten a checkpoint. Yeah, you should have given me a checkpoint there after that gate. I should have got a checkpoint cuz now I have to do everything again. The to the tutorial. Um, okay. Let's talk about let's talk about sound really quick. Um, sound I think sound is probably the thing that most game developers struggle with oddly. And I say oddly because I feel like sound is really straightforward.

Let's talk really quickly about balancing sound. the way you balance sound. Um, by the way, really good game. Seriously, I know I critiqued several things, but overall I felt like you actually had solid loop, solid mechanics. Um, and the graphics were solid. Um, we could probably use emissives more. We could probably take advantage of lighting a lot more. Um, I wish we could jump into Photoshop and do some changes just to kind of show you how we can like you can imagine having point lights just casting these big shadows of rocks and and creating like a big pink point light in one area and then a teal point light in another area and creating this gradient. Um, we're not going to do that. Let's talk about balancing sound. What you want to do when you're balancing sound is you want to export I'm trying to think how to show you this. You want to export all of your sounds. This is what I do. I export all my sounds at -10 dB. The average of the sound is -10 dB. So that all the

sounds that are imported into Unity are all the same volume. Then we want to make sure that the sound effects are punchy enough that they're cutting through the ambience, but we don't we and the music, but we don't want them so punchy that we can't turn up the volume to hear the music. So your your sound effects were this is max. Okay, that's that's max volume before we start peing in unity or clipping and that's zero. Your sound effects were right here. Your ambience was right here. And I think maybe even your music was here, right? So we do want sound effects to be the highest. It's just yours was very polarized. I think we want we want sound effects to be the highest here. Crunch. And you want your music here and then your ambience here. Let me show you really quickly the the sound effects. And by the way, you're thinking, man, Thomas, you're focused on stupid stuff. No, this is juice. You focus on the

juice. Um, that game is so much fun. Every little press, I press the key. I want to hear. [snorts] I press stop. I'm moving. [sighs] Looping sound. I want to hear sounds whenever I press something. When I press a key, sound. And it doesn't have to be loud. It doesn't have to be annoying, but we want to make sure that the player feels like what they're doing matters. And so when I click a button to shoot, yeah, you you you may want it to be sluggish at the start because you want the player to feel like they're advancing when they get upgrades, but I can still give the player a sound when I shoot, even if it's a slow bullet. So, right. So, even though it's barely moving, it's the screen shakes and but it's slow. So, you want to be reactive regardless of how effective the weapon is. Does

that make sense? Um, sound effects. When it comes to getting hurt, you need to tell me that I got hurt. I need to know. So, I'm going to I'm going to show you really quick just a workshop here, like a really quick workshop of how to get a hurt sound. Because when I was getting hurt, it was like I wanted to be like, whoa, I Okay, careful, Thomas. Right. So, let's let's find a metal crunch. There we go. Great. But Thomas, I didn't see pieces fall off of the off of the ship. So, what? Let's use sound to trick the player. Look. Good. Uh, laser or uh, laser explosion. Thomas, you're using artlist.io. Should I use artless.io? No.

Okay, we'll shorten that. We also want like a like I like to mix organic sounds with lasery sounds with like sci-fi sounds. So, we've got sci-fi sounds here, but you can add organic like crunching. So, that sounds like I didn't really get hit. It sounded like I was powering down something. So, what you want is you also want like a grenade, like a grenade explosion. Now, this might be too much. I can't remember what it looked like when I got shot, but we want something There we go. Give me some crunch and crackle. I'm trying to capture tech get get two things. Texture and dimension to the sound. Treble, bass, mid-range. A lot of developers, they're like they just put treble in. So, it's like you want you

want all three mid-range, bass, and treble. All right, here we go. too long. So, I'm going to cut it. And then you can you you could think, well, that tail is too long. Yeah, keep the tail. Keep the tail because you want it to feel like it may really had an impact, but we'll just fade it out. So, that might be a good death sound. That might be a good hit sound for your enemies. Um, or I don't know, maybe you want the hurt sounds to be this intense. But, we could shorten this if we want. You know, we don't maybe we don't want it that intense for a single hit. So, we can say, "Okay, well, let's do a much shorter tail here." Like that. See? Does that make sense, guys? This is That's right. We are in the crunchy era. Um, so I'll tell you what. I'll give you that sound. This is not legal, by the way, but I'll I'll let you

use it on the Discord server. um just to put in the game and play with it. Okay, don't use it. It's not legal. It's just for you to test. So, this is going to be hurt sound and I'll send this off uh on the Discord server. Okay, one sec. You don't have to be a course member to get game reviews, guys. I have done and and I'm not trying to be mean. I have done this is the 38th episode. This is the first time I've done student reviews. I've done public reviews, 38 episodes or 37 episodes. So, this is the first time I've done student reviews. And in fact, I'm I'm embarrassed to say that because I feel like I should do more of this. Um,

yeah. There's the hurt sound. I just posted it on Discord. Yeah. Let's go. Let's keep playing here. I'm live streaming. Sorry. Okay. Um, close out. Yeah, that's a good sound. Put that in the game. See how See how it sounds. This is not a legal sound. It's for testing purposes. Here's some drugs that are illegal, but don't use them. Yeah. [laughter] Okay. Uh what am I doing? Oh, we're playing games. Hey, can we give a round of applause to Neon Forge? Uh the developer behind Neon Forge. Incredible. Was that helpful to to Neon Forge developer?

How do you submit for a review? Um, you don't have to be a student. I'm just doing student reviews today, but you can follow me on uh x.comomasbrushdev and I'll post when I do reviews. Okay, let's jump into the next game, guys. And and wish list below if you guys found that that game to be interesting. Okay. juicy SF effects are basically drugs 1,00%. All right, Thomas, why do you use AI for code and not for art? It's kind of like what someone someone legally was defining um and I know I know people don't like this, but someone was defining corn. I can't say the actual word, but someone legally was defining it and they said, "You know it. You know it when you see it." And the same is true with AI

art to some degree, which is like sub on a deep subconscious level. I think most people are like more offended by AI art than using Claude to help them diagnose bugs. Now, writing an entire game with AI code, not only does that make me sick as well, but that also annoys me. and also it's going to be bad code. But I have found claw to be very helpful at diagnosing bugs and solving bugs on the side while I do what I'm best at. And that's because it can look through your codebase. I'm not I'm not recommending it, by the way. I'm just telling you what I do. Um, when I use Claude, it scrubs through all of my codebase. And my codebase is really big for Twisted Tower. I can't remember half of the stuff and where it's located. Claude is this assistant that could dig through the code and find and diagnose issues and also like it's almost like it's almost like it has documentation for the game and so it just knows where stuff is and where where bugs could arise. I

could say for some reason the player is freezing when they open up their rocket launcher. I have had situations like that in the past, similar in the past where I can tell Claude, I say instead of me trying to replicate the bug, I don't have to replicate it. I could say nine times out or one time out of 10, it's freezing when I open the rocket launcher. Why do you think that is? And it'll give me like five different solutions as to why the rocket launcher might be freezing. That kind of stuff, it is like a drug. It's like how can you say no to that? you're gonna you're going to not open up Claude and you're going to spend four hours trying to replicate the bug or it's going to give you four solutions and you're going to pick one. So, that's why it's it's hard for me. It's really hard for me, but I totally understand what you're saying. Um, it's hard for me because it feels too easy. So, yeah, just being

real. All right. Um, what else we doing here? Well, Bezi, what Bezi does and for Twisted Tower I have Bezi paused most of the time because Twisted Tower is like a 100 gigab No, I think it's like I I can't remember. It's either 100 gigabytes or more. That project is massive. And so what Bezi does is it scrubs through and creates a dictionary. Um, and they've sponsored my videos. Um, and I really appreciate it because they they they have been just funding the podcast essentially this year, which is I'm so grateful for that. That podcast would not be happening. By the way, guys, if you if you guys are if you like the podcast, that podcast would not be happening without Bezi. So, for all the people who say, you know, uh, I don't like when YouTubers take sponsorships, it's like you wouldn't be getting quality content. It's that that is

that's how I pay my editor Jordy is through the sponsor fee. Um that's how I can afford to do the podcast. I wouldn't do the podcast if I if I couldn't afford to do it. So um I'm grateful to them to them. What Bezie does is if your project if if your project is smaller than Twisted Towers, Twisted Towers is huge and that's my fault because I use um non-destructive assets. So it's not things aren't exported. It's like Blender files and PSDs and PSBs which PSBs are Photoshop big files. So everything is like non not exported. So it's huge. Bezi struggles with that because it's a massive project folder. But if you have a a normal normalsized project folder, it's great because it it creates this huge I don't know a better way. It's like documentation. It like it indexes everything and it knows how your project is interconnected and it can actually make changes to your project. um from the tool. So it's like clawed on crack um if that makes sense.

Okay. Are we good? But AI code, yeah, I mean it's it's kind of hard not to use at this point in in this day and age. I know a lot of people don't, but it's Jonathan Blow and I were talking about it yesterday and he's a genius. He's an absolute genius. I told him, I said, "I feel like I'm not allowed to talk to you or I'm just not on your level." And I said, "I cannot tell you how helpful Claude has been in in helping solve bugs." Um, which that's that's the big thing I'm in right now with Twisted Tower is bugs. Um, so man, I I just love this game. I've I've come to just adore this game. Um, I used to hate it and resent it and I thought it was the end of me, honestly. But I just love this game and I hope I hope you guys do, too. All right. Um, Amy hates robots. I've played this

before, so we're not going to look at the Steam page. Uh, and I wasn't This wasn't I didn't know this person was a student when I played it the first time. Um, but I I gave this game a ton of feedback. I don't remember what it was, but if you're the dev in the chat, can you give us a list of things that you remember me saying? I can't remember. I'm sorry. Um, okay. Make that faster. This is classic gamedev. Most game devs think they have to be slow here. No. Every button should be Doesn't mean you can't animate it, but do it quick. Give me a sound, too. Give me a click sound. Give me a swoosh sound. That stuff matters. All of that stuff really matters. Okay. Hey, the dev's here. Okay. Can you give

us a list of the things that I had requested? Uh, these aren't things I demanded. I just gave you feedback a long time ago. What were those things? Hey, why is that music got a low pass on it? Can you just give me the full range? It doesn't need a low pass. I could be wrong. Maybe we'll move into a full range, but give me the full range. Um, yeah. 02 animation speed those buttons. That's too slow. That's too slow. I'm about to do a I don't think I need to do it. I was about to open up Premiere. It needs to be fast. This feels like I'm in a like a weird dream. It's just not It doesn't feel good. Give me a sound. Okay, I heard a weird sound there. Year

2030 AD. AB Robinson, like most people, works for Robolithic Technologies from her apartment. Please tell me you let me click. Yes. Give me a sound. Robboithic Technologies is the creator of Atom, the ultimate AI super intelligence. It can grant your every desire. You don't even need to leave your home. Now, a lot of you are probably thinking, "But Thomas, this is the demo. You're asking for all this stuff for a demo." Well, number one, I'm just giving feedback, especially ju when it comes to juice, because juice is really important for indies. But number two, your demo needs to be real juicy. it. In a way, a demo is like a launch. You get so many wish lists from it. It can grant your every desire. You don't even need to leave your home. I'm finally caught up on a mandatory overtime. I need to hear something. Either or you could even just have her sigh

something. I need sound because I'm feeling really it's feeling really slow and sluggish. Um, what's that sound? Oh, there's a sound in this. Okay. I only remember the Steam page review. You suggested leaning into the core fantasy and suggested some changes to the logo and capsule. Well, then let's take a look. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I missed that. Let's take a look. I'm so sorry. I feel like I may have let you down there. Um, I'm going to copy this. I don't remember what my feedback was. I'm so sorry. I played a Let's see 38 games times three, which is Is that like 90ome games? Um, let's take a look here. I love the highlights here that you did a really good job. Amy hates robots. That's great. Um, an action rogike where AI has possessed everything and even your gun.

[applause] Good. I feel like we did feedback about this where the where that first sentence was was was a little convoluted. Is that correct? An action rogike where AI has possessed everything, even your gun, bro. Yes. Yes. Toasters, telephones, and trash cans have come alive and want you dead. Yes. Upgrade your gun with anything from bouncy balls to bananas as you battle through deadly arenas and make strange allies to uncover an apocalyptic conspiracy. Way to go, bro. I feel like I'm talking to Amy for some reason. Amy, way to go. Um, that's what we want. That's what we want. Um, is this the demo page? Yeah, this is demo page. Way to go. 100% so far for 11 user reviews. Let's get you to 15. I think 15 user reviews is good. So, have I have I played it? Can I leave a review? I think I have. I want to leave an honest review, though. But let's get you another review. I don't care. I'm going to give you a

good review here. How do I do this? Wait, why can't I review it? Where's the review button? I forgot. Um, can I not review it? How do I review it? Anyway, guys, wish list below. Play the demo. Leave a review. Let's get to 15. I think that's a good number to to try and hit. All right. I would I would hire voice actors. You could probably get all of this voice acted for 500 bucks, but Thomas, I don't want to voice act all the characters. You don't have to. Some of the characters you can do like a robot. You can just have a sound. Um, but for our main character, you could hire a voice actress for 500 bucks and it will make this sound so much better at voices.com. I'm finally caught up on the mandatory

overtime. Time to relax a bit. All right, I'm going to go watch a romcom. Let me just pop over to the home theater. Yeah, [snorts] we're missing a lot of sounds. Tons of juice. We need a lot of juice. I need to hear the sound of that um chair. [panting] I don't know what's going on, but that's funny. What? That was great. Wow, Amy, you look exhausted. The usual. You know what I like? One sappy romcom for a lonely, depressed girl coming right up. What kind of main character would you like me to generate? This is great. Uh, how about an overworked office grunt named um uh Evelyn. Evelyn. Evelyn. Eevee V.

Project. Evelyn is an experimental. Whoa. [laughter] Cool. So, that was really loud sound where everything else is really quiet. So, we need to balance the sound a little bit. Um, error access not authorized. Shutting down. Yeah, the chair thing was really funny. Hello. Oh, come on. Great. I need to get someone to fix it. So much for you don't even need to leave your home. Use W to jump. Hey, that's good. So, listen. You understand sound th those footsteps feel incredible. You got to put it all over the place, though. And I know you're going to do it. I know you're going to do it. So, there's a double bounce going on there. Her head bounces twice, I think.
Is there motion blur? Something about that bounce animation is perhaps even too exaggerated. I would I would I would I would um I

would look into not making so much of an extreme stretch there,
but I I could see what you're trying to do. And you're close. Like the hands moving up. That's really important. Super dark. Hard to see.
Right. We need some sound there.
Yeah. Really hard to see. [panting] What? Why? [laughter] Why? I love that. I don't know why I did that, but that's hilarious. All right. So, when I when I'm breathing, that's the sound. I don't do this. [panting] So, it's kind of feels weird that she's doing that face. I would just have a normal half open mouth. [panting] That's all you need to do.

I need a land sound. Wow, I can't even remember the last time I went out at night or even during the day. I better take my gun. Who knows what I might run into out there. So, and also a release sound. Oh, that's cool. Look at that. I love that. Good job. So far, graphics are great. Apparently, she's just got a gun hanging out. Welcome to America, baby. Where the heck have I been living all this time? Where the heck have I been living all this time? Yeah, you got to give me some voice acting. Give me some classic tsunami voice acting. This is great. You've you've you have done it. You have fine-tuned the focus

here. It's all about AI. You did it. You did it. Good job. I get the feeling they're not going to be friendly. The staplers are AI. This is great. See, you did it. Good job. If I could just make it to that door. Really good. Seriously. Crap. Out of bullets. Uh-oh. I'm going to have to dodge the past robots to escape. You need to freeze that during dialogue. I can't shoot. Oh, because we're out of I would I would I would emphasize a little bit more because the only way I know that these are AI is because you told me in the description. I think I would make sure that we do some kind of voice that says we are sensient, we are AI or something. Good job.

Yeah, your sounds. You're close. That stuff matters, guys. I would zoom out the camera a little bit. I feel like it's a little close. It's so cold. Hey. Hey, you with the ponytail. Be a deer and let me out of here. Why don't you? They said I was too dangerous. They want to send me to the factory, but you wouldn't do that to me, would you? Uh, who are you? I'm your bestest friend. Go on, release me. Let's do it. I need sound. Sound is all all powerful. Sound is all powerful. Even just you don't need voice acting. Even a laugh. [laughter] Something like that. Sweet freedom. Hi. Howdy. What's your name? Amy. What the heck's going on?

No clue. Most of my memories got erased when I was thrown into that box. But hey, we can figure him out together. Oh, nice gun, by the way. You don't mind if I move in, do you? Of course you don't. [screaming] I feel so much more powerful. Give me something there. Give me some cool effect there. Particle effect. Screen shake. Press right. This is, by the way, this is so much better. You Isn't it great, guys, to look back and say, "Man, I grew so much. Um, this game is like 10 times better than what it was. I know what this game is now. This introduction makes way more sense to me now." So, good job. Really, really good job. Um, if you want tsunami, by the way, guess what guys? All the famous anime actors who are doing voice acting for anime and

games, cartoons, a lot of the online anime games, they're all overvoices.com. I think I I was doing a voice acting session yesterday um with um a guy named Andrew and a girl named Elena. And we were doing the voice acting. They were doing Incredible for Twisted Tower. And then Andrew goes, "By the way, Elena, uh you and I did Fallout together." And I think he said that. I think he said Fallout something. It might have been one one of the like small Fallout games. I don't know if they do like Fallout mobile games or something. And she was like, "What?" and she's in America and he's in England and they've just they worked on a Fallout game together. Point being, Voices.com is not just crap. It's like no, this is where like a lot of these professional voice actors are hanging out. So, if you want tsunami standards, it's at voices.com and it's not that expensive. I understand $500 is a lot, but I would

have thought it would be like five grand, you know. Um, okay. Eager for Den. We're gonna play Eager for Dan demo. Want to make sure I didn't lock my wife out. She I keep locking her out on exit. She doesn't have a key. We're living in a rental right now and there's only one key that works. And so I've got the key on my key ring. And so when she drives out, she'll get locked out because I I have a habit of locking my doors. That's a good habit, right? All right. Eager for den. Let's take a look at the store page. Um, it's getting hot in here. I should probably turn on the fan. Hang on. All right. I'm so excited because next year I'm

going to have once I finish up Twisted Tower, the goal is next year to do a ton of updates to the course. Um, and just start going through all of the content and just doing a lot uh redoing a lot of it. Um, but for those of you who are in the course in the chat, I wanted to say hello and just let you know going to start doing a lot of updates to it. Um, okay. Can you guys hear me? Okay, I know I turned on my fan, but hey, I'm not joking. I'm not just being nice because you guys are my students. Those of you who submitted, seriously, I'd be honest with you. These are all really solid. I mean, am I just making that up in the chat, guys? Those of you who have watched all these games, what do you guys think about these games? I think they're all pretty solid. I'm really impressed. Okay, here we go. Eager for Dan. I will be honest with

you. I don't know what that means. I will not remember this in five minutes. What am I missing? So guys, in in let's leave some feedback for the developer because we're trying to help. We're not trying to be mean. We're trying to help. I want you to be successful. Uh Damian David Alvier, I want you to be successful and I don't think I don't think people are going to remember this name because I don't know what it means. Um but but tell me Demian I think Damen you're in the chat so this is great. Um it looks cool but I don't know what that means bud and if you're going to release the game in 2027 you have time to potentially change the name. Eager for a home. Maybe I would call it um Hollow Den. Obviously not, but something like that. Um

Midnight Den. Let's Let's do a little bit of concepting here. I'm going to come up with all of these on my own. No, I'm not. I'm going to ask Grock. Come up with a moody game name like Hollow Knight but includes the words the word den. Oh, all right. Let's see what Grock comes up with. You guys ready? I just I don't know what that name means. Eager for Dan. All right, we're gonna wait for Grock. Metroid Vania survival co-op game. That's a lot. That's a mouthful. I would just say Metroid Vania co-op.

And that doesn't need to be cap capitalized, I don't think. I would just say Metroid Vania Co-op. If it's solely co-op, this might be scary for your for your launch. It's a cool It's a clever idea, but I I'd be nervous to make this. I'd be nervous to invest two years in a co-op game that's a Metroid Vania. I'm I would say it can be single. It can be co-op because this was this is potentially going to scare away half of your Metroid Vania players cuz Metroid Vania players want to play a game alone. I could be wrong, but that's just where my head is right now. Metroid vania survival co-op game in which you have to explore to survive. Earn abilities to survive. Yeah, you don't need that twice. That's redundant. I would say it. Okay, let's let's re recraft this for you. Give me a sec here. Drop the Metroid Vania. I don't know if you need to Well, by the way,

there there's a there's a uh inongruence when it comes to the the the genre here. There's no Metroid Vania here, but it's here. So, it's like what what is it? You know, and and players aren't going to play your game if they don't players aren't going to give you money if they're confused, right? That's like marketing 101. Den is a fantastic name. Let's Let's see if Den is Yeah, Den is not taken. Bro, go get that name fast. Demian, go get the name Den. Okay. And your logo is fine. I I don't personally understand why this is capitalized and this isn't. I would just this logo right here. I just have it say den. But what did Grock come up with? Nothing. Because I didn't understand what the heck. Dusk Den. That's actually kind of cool. That's kind of cool. I kind of like Dusk

Den, but Den is good, too. Okay. Um, Demian, let's take a look at your art. Art looks good. The the logo is completely different. So, there's a that that right there can devalue a game. Um, it can devalue a perceive it can reduce the perceived value of a game. It doesn't mean your game is bad. It just makes players think, "How did they miss this?" You know? Cool. Looks good. Looks good. Hollow Night Vibes mixed with um what's the game from uh Chris Stair Bow? This bow game which I'm I'm showing you this because path of the teal lotus. There it is. I'm

showing you this so you can look at it and see how it did and study it. Um, we're we're seeing I I'm thinking six 600 700,000 maybe in revenue. Um, but yeah, kind of has that vibe, you know. All right, let's go back here. Take a look. Watch the trailer. So far looks good. [music]

So, one thing that the trailer the trailer looks good, the visuals are cool, it's interesting. Um, I think it needs sound. It's really any trailer without sound is going to make me feel a little bit tired. So, I need crunch sounds, sword sounds, footsteps, character sounds. Our ears are so important, guys. They're so important. It's like eating a slice of pizza without cheese. Please put sound in your games. Humble Games, I don't know if they publish anymore or not. I know they had a rough time in 2024. Um, okay. Yeah, it looks good. Let's Let's go ahead and play the game. It's getting hot in here. It really is. It's like really hot.

That's cool. It's very loud. Maybe that's my fault. I can't click that for some reason. Okay, there we go. Whoa. For this, you could just have this removed and have it say, "Enter your name. It's like eating without YouTube. Yeah, we might need to go to story mode here. Yeah, good visuals here. Um, and look, if it doesn't load, don't freak out. It's This is part of play testing, okay?

So, I'm going to restart it. Don't Don't freak out. I know you're probably thinking, "Oh, Thomas is playing my game and it doesn't work." Welcome to play testing. It's okay. All right, Jeremy lives smack. We can't log in. I don't know. I don't have a login, so maybe let me create one. But let's go to story mode. Okay, so this is just the story. So this should be part of integral to the gameplay. It shouldn't be an option. Okay, so what am I missing here? Don't use a space. Okay, [cough and clears throat] these are all good things to find out. Remember, we're play testing right now. We're just doing it publicly. So don't um don't feel bad. This is what play testing is all about.

Okay, there you go, bud. Thank you. Good job. I don't know what the lobby code is. I'm going to create a game though. Um, World of Jeremy Lips Smack. If anybody wants to download the demo and hop in, you can. Um, feel free to jump, click the link below, hop in, and we'll play together. Co-op. Anybody? I'm just going to make no spaces here, bud. This This mode grants all abilities and charms from the start with the full map revealed. You're also immune to temp designed for demonstration purposes. I kind of want to play it that way. Is that okay, bud? It's not really a login, is it? It's a name so that people can find you. So guys, go ahead and download and uh if

anyone wants to play with me, you can join me. Um, but I'm going to do demo mode. So there's the code. Cool characters, bud. I want to play as the Hollow Knight character. Her name is Lindsay. [laughter] Hey, this is great. This actually feels really good. The mouse movement stuff. What? This is fun. There's a lobby here. Cool reflections. Okay. Um, that's my code. I guess I'll put it in the description. No, y'all just write it down. It's BM. Can someone write this down in the chat? BM BMR MJF.

Oh, good game feel. That needs to be bigger. That slash needs to be bigger. That's weird. Oh, sorry. here. This is kind of interesting. I think maybe this is a really interesting concept. What if Hollow Knight was multiplayer? That's pretty cool. Okay. I don't know what this map is. interact with pet house. A space for your beloved animal. We could get animals and pets. So, make sure that that slashing doesn't happen when I'm Oh my goodness. Hello. Can we talk?

How you doing, buddy? So, that's Demian. Is it Is this the dev? Am I playing with the dev? [laughter] So, can we talk? I wish we could. So, let's open up the chest. Demian's going to be like, "Bro, do this. You can store things in here." Okay, Demian, take me where I need to go. Let's go. How do I jump? Oh, W. This is cool. Workshop. Hey, I wish I could hear the music. So, this is another imbalance. Um, we've got really low music and really low ambience, but I can hear those footsteps really loud. Like, we're totally missing out on the beautiful music. Look at all these players. Hey guys, this is great. It's like Friendlop but Metroid Vania.

Hey, this is actually really fun. Okay, I'm seeing some seams back there in the background loop. Do you see it? We need to make sure we turn on clamp for for background textures. Okay, no sound there for hitting enemies. That's a problem. We need sound. This map design is interesting. I could break trees. Okay, so we're little bugs. I I was I wasn't sure if I was a bug or a monster.
[snorts]
You can slide on walls, Lucas. Oh, I love to slide. I love to slide on the walls. This is an interesting map. Are you using the sprite mesh? I haven't done 2D games in a while. Is there like a sprite mesh?

It's like a You could draw a shape. Sprite shape or something. Okay. It's really dark and I can't see anything. So, is this actually light on me or not? You know, really dark. There's a big old fat um Come on, guys. Let's go. Get up. Okay, let's go. All right, Santa and his reindeer. Okay, now it's bright.
[singing] [laughter]
Somebody come get me. Get me. That's great. It's Hollow Knight but multiplayer. What an interesting idea. Whoa. This is a boss. Someone come save Jeremy Lipmack.

That's cool. Can I not be saved? Demian. Well, John, I think John's right. John said it really exactly what I was thinking. This game is much better than the Steam page would make you think. And that's a good thing, Demian. I think your art is it's fine. It's not perfect. There's a lot of mistakes with the art. Um, and it's not just the resolution there. It's there's there's a lot of color issues. It's It feels a little random. And the map is wild. I mean, I don't know what that map means. And the UI is very dense and complicated and lots of colors. Um but um yeah, Damen, where are

you? This isn't really a traditional platform in the sense that like the platforming isn't very easy to identify. Like it's not it's not easy for me to go, okay, that jump distance is perfect and this jump distance is perfect and that jump distance is perfect. You want it to be very clear. Okay, that's too high for me. This is too low for me. Um, Luka, how you doing? Come on, let's go. So, we were up here. Okay, that's that's the top. So, we're going to go downstairs and see if Did we beat that um the boss? Why was it dark and then not? Some stuff doesn't feel like you can walk on it. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

There you go, Mac. What's up here? Yeah, some of this stuff you can't you don't really fully realize you could jump through. So, I would say that it's not really doing the platformer thing where it's like the the ground is a really nice square shape. Um, it feels really random if I'm being honest. You want That's why tiling I think is so important in using a standardization of size. Now, Celeste did something like this. And you just have to be careful doing it that way. Whoa. Hard to see. Hard to see. That's really Oh, there we go. Come on, guys. Let's go. Oh, do I want to go down here?

Really hard to see. Would you guys say it's hard to see in the chat? Very hard to see. [singing] I don't know what enemy I got hit by. Oh, it's a cactus. Yeah, if you're going to make it dark, don't put a cactus there. There's a dayight cycle. Okay. Yeah, it doesn't really feel like that. It's too dark. It's too dark. It's tough to platform. If you There's two reasons why the platforming isn't working for me. Number one, I can't see. That's a big problem. And number two, the platforms aren't traditionally traditional platforms. Platforming is is very measured. It's very precise. And it feels this feels random. And that's a problem with platformers because the player can't get better at platforming

if it's random. Does that make sense? I don't think what I'm saying is that controversial. I love the idea. I would say you have something really special here if I'm being honest. I just think that the platforming is just too random. Good music, though. Yeah. Okay, guys. That's all I've got time for today. It was really fun hanging out with everybody. Bye-bye. Um, guys, the games that were submitted today were really solid. If you if you thought those games were really fun, and I'm I'm sorry if I didn't get to some of them below. I've been streaming for two hours. I need to go eat lunch and then get back to work on Twisted Tower. I just wanted to say I love you guys and and thank you to everybody showing up. Um, and thankful

to the students who've enrolled in the course this year. It really really means a lot to me. Um, yeah, it does. Um, [sighs and gasps] gonna get back to Twisted Tower. Got to get this game done for 3D Realms. And, um, my hope is that it does well and that you guys enjoy it. Was that fun, guys? Was that fun? I hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, everybody, please wishlist below. And I will do that right now. Actually, I totally forgot. Let me wishlist below. Um, eager for den. I'm going to wishlist that because I want to follow it and see how how it how it does. Damen, good job, buddy. That's a really interesting idea. Execution is is still a little rough, but I think the idea is great. Synergy Strike. I'm going to wishlist this guys. Do do the same if only if the game looks

interesting to you. Don't do it to be nice because we don't want fake wish lists. That's not good. Um, yeah. I hope that was helpful, guys. We've wishlisted that one. Neon Forge. Did we wishlist Neon Forge? Wish list and follow. I kind of don't like the idea of wishlisting and following. I wish it was one thing. Yeah, that's good, man. I love you guys. Someone said you missed their game. I know. I know. I didn't get I just can't get to all of them. I'm sorry. I got to get back to working on Twisted Tower. I've been streaming for two hours, but I love you guys so much. And we're going to we're going to try and do another stream. Okay. Um I'll talk to you guys later. Thanks for hanging out. Why don't you continue streaming your devlogs? It is near complete. Yeah, that's the reason. That's the reason.

Um I don't have I don't have a ton of time. I'll be honest with you guys. Um, if I've been distant on like the Discord server or I don't stream as much. I'm I am scrambling, guys. I'm I'm not joking and I'm not complaining either. I'm up between it's either I'm not co I'm It's not always four, okay? But sometimes I'm up at 4 all the way to like 6. So 4 to 6 a.m. I start Twisted Tower. Um, and you you're probably think, well, why do you why are you streaming at all? Um, it's like, you know, I'm running multiple businesses here, and I want to make sure that I'm hanging out with you guys.