Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 044

Uh, I'm willing to admit that the internet in at the new studio is bad. It's real bad. I'm looking at one bar right now. So, just let me know, guys, if this stream sucks. I can't It's like really struggling. Hold on. Woo! It's slow. Are you guys going to let me know? Please let me know if the stream is struggling. Let me know. Can you go get my headphones? So, we're going to try and see if we could stream today, guys, and play some of your games. But, boy oh boy, it is slow as Christmas. Why is it at one bar? There's no way that this Can you guys see me and hear me and Is it okay?

Is it okay? Oh, man. Is it frozen? Please don't tell me it's frozen. Cuz I've been wanting to stream all day. Thank you, Cyber Rift. Luke says it's frozen. Is it frozen? I have one bar. But, we're going to stream, guys. I don't know how we're streaming, but we're going to stream. All right, first game we're going to play is called The Saint. Before I we play The Saint, I want to say a huge huge welcome to Katie, Rita Ban, Nikki, Landon, Benjamin, Volker, Igor or Igor, and James B. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Full Time Game Dev. And by the way, if you guys want to get a shout-out in tomorrow's live stream, and you're really interested in joining my massive game dev program called Full Time Game Dev, the spring sale is currently live. And

is so slow. Why is my upload speed faster than my download speed? That's the ultimate question. But uh hey, you got 8 days left to join full-time game dev for this spring sale. If you want to learn from an actual indie game developer currently in the trenches making games, if that's something you're interested in, check out the program. The link is below. Again, ends in let Well, I guess one day one day more than a week, 8 days. You also get my 2D and my 3D art programs completely free. But here here's the interesting thing. You're not only going to learn how to make a game, right? In Unity, Godot, or Unreal. Um and you can take your pick, whichever engine you want to learn. But you're also going to learn how to pitch to publishers and get funding with just a demo. Uh how to do a Kickstarter campaign and get funded. How to hit the Steam front page. Uh how to get wishlists. How to get press coverage. These are all things you're going to learn in the program. And you're probably thinking, "Well, why why do we need to listen to you? You're just making up stuff." Well, no. This is

everything I've I I teach I've done. Um So, uh it whether it's again publishers or Kickstarter or hitting the Steam front page, these are all things that I've done, okay? And by the way, if you don't trust me, at least read the reviews on the website to see if it's something you're interested in. And by the way, if you're a student in my program, let me know in the chat what you think about it. Um happy to hear your thoughts. Okay, let's go ahead and play our first game. Yeah, the Wi-Fi receivers I have I I don't know why, but during the move I lost them all. I had five of them. And I brought one with me. So, I have one in my office. And hopefully I can find another one and plug it in as well. I'm going to go back to the rental that we were staying at. Um and see if I can find some. but overall, the Wi-Fi, I think, it looks fine. So, yeah. Cool. Yeah, I'm glad you like the the new the new office, guys.

Um okay. Um the first one we're going to play is called this game called The Post Mortem Abyssum. Um I love the name of this game. And I love the It feels It feels like it's precious to the developer. Does that make sense? It feels like a game that is precious to the developer. Um and it means something to the to the developer. Listen to that. I love that. Okay, so I love these sounds. Way to go. Let's hit start. Good sounds. I love the developer so much for doing this. Great use of sound.
This is where your investigation has taken you. To the catacombs of Post Mortem. You're not normally superstitious, but

this place instills a sense of foreboding, which is hard to ignore.
Uh-oh. Oh. This feels great. Give me some sound effects for the footsteps. I love the tone, though. The tone is great.
You can repeat or dismiss these pop-up texts manually.
Great sound. Seriously, great sound usage.
As As easy As As uneasy as you feel about this place, you still have work to do.
Oh, good. There is There is There is sound effects for the footsteps. I would make this uh the sound two-dimensional or three-dimensional. I shouldn't hear that fire as I go down here. In fact, it'd be much more effective if it slowly goes away.
As you enter the lower chamber, you spot an ancient-looking stone effigy.

As your eyes rest on it, you feel a sudden compulsion to reach out and touch it.
OH, GREAT SOUND! YAY! To the developer, you get a round of applause. The sound is so good, and sound is a great way to cheat when you don't have a lot of time or money or a big team. You use sound to make it feel more interesting and more What's the word? What's the word? I feel like I'm in the world. All right.
Chamber nautics.
Okay. So, I'm not sure what I did there.
Chamber one through two. Peaceful.
Like I said, this game it feels like the developer is taking this game seriously. And that they

really care about this game. It's polished, and it has a tone and a voice. Not a lot of games have that. Okay, so the the movement is a little bit sticky feeling. If I would That's a great use of sound! Oh, I love it when developers use sound like that. It They understand that we are ears and we are eyes. Okay? So many developers think that we're just walking around as two sets of eyes. That ears are always secondary to people. I don't understand that mentality. Sound is so important. The sound is great in this game. Very crunchy. Instant. Um But anyway, we'll keep playing.

Whoa. I don't know if that was fair. I would make this the the player movement not so sticky. It feels a little sticky. Not going to lie. I guess balls can fall to the left and to the right. Nice. Great sound. And do you notice how the pitches are random when it falls? That's not an accident, right? Are we good? Are we frozen? Everybody, are we good? Yeah, the player is locked to the grid, Jason. And I understand that. I understand the value in that. But that's what kind of makes it feel sticky. You might be able to You might be able to solve it with sound.

Right? You may be able to solve it with sound or speed it up. Make it way quicker. I think that might feel better. Yeah. I might speed it up if I was the developer. We're good? I don't know how we're good because I have like one bar of internet. Okay, so here we go. Great sound. This game supports both keyboard and gamepad controls. Key bindings can be changed in the settings. Okay, so we got to be careful here. Nice, Thomas. You win. Uh I've awoken the beast. Oh, no. Oh. Crap.

Oh, I love puzzle games so much. Okay, how do I restart? Let's see. Restart the chamber. Capitalize that C for me if you can. That's what I Oh. The sound is so good. Do you guys hear it? Do you know what I'm talking about? It's juicy and it's crunchy and it's variable, meaning like there's always sort of a random sound playing even if it's the same action. It's great. Yes, I'm sure there's a massive stream delay in terms of the chat. Absolutely. I'm going to I'm going to try and solve the internet, guys. I promise. Um I got to get uh I got to get the internet the internet guy out here and say, "Hey, bro. My internet's bad." I'm trying to look and see like maybe there's a a solution to my problem. But there's not. Okay, let's keep playing.

This game is awesome. Something about it is really in uh engrossing? Is that a word? I love the the way the character looks. Hello. I'm just going through the cave looking for clues. I'm looking for looking for answers to the meaning of life. Okay, so let's let's not mess this up. So, what do we got to do? There's We've got to do something. I think I have to get both of them. What What do I have to do? Does anyone know? What's What Wait, what do I do here? Guys, what's what's what Does anyone know what we need to do here? I freaking love this game. I could play this game for a long time.

But I don't know quite what to do. Go up to the right side. Right here? Do I have to push Cthulhu up there? I don't know what the puzzle is. Jace Jason, what is it? Probably activate the eyes on all three statues. Okay. We shall try. Whoa!
For you, death is not the end.
Good job, Jason. Something happened. Yay!
Chained by four.
I want to hear a song. I want to hear like um

Bum bum sweet. Yeah, this game takes itself very seriously, which is There's something about the tone of this game that's really fascinating to me. Um Let's try and think about the tone. Guys, let's study the tone really quick. It It might just be the music. But there's there's something about this game that says I It's the same sort of tone I get when I read a read The Great Gatsby from F Scott's F Scott Fitzgerald, which is this book is more important to me than you are. When I read that book, I hear F Scott Fitzgerald saying, "This story is more important to me, the writer, than to you, the reader. So, I don't care what you say." That's kind of what this this game feels like. It feels like the developer takes it very seriously, and they made it for them. And I don't know why. That's just how it feels. Do you guys know what I

mean? Uh Jason said, "It's singular. There is polish in each system and no wasted systems." So far, yeah, that's how it feels. Okay, let's keep going. That was great. I GOT SMASHED. What's the puzzle here? Be careful of the falling blocks. If you ever get stuck, just hit skip chamber in the pause menu. You can only have a number of limited number of skip chambers in each episode. But, you can always come back and solve them later. Why, thank you.

Oh, no. The stream has died. No. True play. Oh, no. The stream's not dead. Are we okay?
Stream's fine. It seems fine. Stream's still up, says Jason. Here we go, GUYS. READY? HOLD ON. I LOVE THE SOUND OF THOSE BOULDERS. SORRY, I'm not thinking here. Give me a sec. Oh, gosh. Good screen shake, too. Uh-oh.

No. What a great concept. I love this game. I hope this game does well. I could see this game being successful if it has like 300 levels, and they're like wildly difficult. Oh my word. You guys know that I'm not usually like orgasming over games, but every every once in a while I find a game that just totally You guys know I love tone. Where tonally I just feel good. It's like Finally, there's a game that has this singular voice that's clearly from a single mind. Um And it may be a team effort, but um

yeah. Yeah, it's very crunchy. Oh, listen to that sound. I love this so much. Isn't that amazing? You like those sounds? It's about the little details. If I was the developer, I would invest an hour into making the the character standing there go just like that. Or something like that. HERE WE GO. OH, GO.

I THINK I FIGURED IT THIS OKAY, I think I know what to do. You need to go from the bottom up. Yeah, it does feel Jonathan Bloy. Here we go. Expertly done, Tom. Oh, crap. Okay, I think I got it. Give me a sec. I could play this game for a long time. This would be the kind of game that I get irritated with my kids if I'm playing it and they come and talk to me and I'm trying to solve it. So, that's probably why you don't play it. You know. Oh, crap. No, we're okay.

Yeah, if I was the developer, I would definitely make that fire sound three-dimensional because it is kind of annoying and add like cave sounds. HERE WE GO. YES. LET'S GO. I love this game. Oh man, so fun.
Abominations. Chamber wonderful. Abominations.
Oh my goodness, we got squishy monsters. Okay, we got to play another game. Great job to the developer. Wow, let's take a look at the store page see if it

has reviews. Four user reviews, what a shame. We need more than that. But it's just a demo, eh? Um this is from Renan's Studio. Renan's Studios is just an independent game developer. There's nothing more there. Um Congratulations to Renan's Studio. I think it's a really solid title. I I I I find it I'll remember it. I will actually. I will remember it. Um I'd love to play more. Okay, uh The Saint is not installed yet, which sucks. So, we might need to play Scared by Squales. Ready? Here we go. This game is called Scared by Squares. And by the way, please for those of you who are curious, check out Full Time Game Dev below, which is my massive course. Um Something's wrong with my screen. Hang on.

Oh, not one of those games that screws up the stream. Not again. It's always Unreal games. It's always Unreal games. But, if you want a shout-out tomorrow's stream, just like right here, and you want to check out Full Time Game Dev, which is my massive course, which teaches everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games, whether it's publishers, whether it's Kickstarter, whether it's Unity, Godot, Unreal. Actually, Godot and Unreal, those two those two courses are taught by buddies of mine. Very good courses, but the Unity portion's taught by me. But, how to get publishers, how to do Kickstarter campaigns, how to do 2D art, 3D art, massive course. Um everything I've learned in the last decade. Check it out below. It's It's a great course. Over 4,500 students worldwide. Okay, let's go. Scared by Squares, which is an Unreal game, and it's going to screw up my stream. Always. That's why people send

That's why they send people like you. Disposable. I'm sorry. I missed the beginning. To survive and earn your freedom, you must not be scared by squares. So, it's going to have that cube vibe. You guys ever seen Cube? It's a great Cube is a great movie. Something's off with the resolution, if I'm going to be honest with you. It feels very crispy. Um I would potentially throw the anti-aliasing on, and then some bloom. Maybe I'm missing it. Let's double-check. Yep, I freaking Well, no, anti-aliasing is there. Yeah, okay, we need to turn some on. Looks better, but I If I was the developer, I would definitely add some bloom and volumetric light, cuz it feels very very um It's like there's no moisture. It looks very dry. So, developer, number one, step number one,

throw me some volumetric light in there, especially if you're making an Unreal game. The shape stabilizer, a device that Music's good, by the way, and ambience is good, and graphics are good. The shape stabilizer, a device that when placed in an corrupted room restores order by turning distorted shapes back into perfect squares. Okay, so this is just a Okay, so this is Oh, I got a laser coming out of my belly button. Oh! What? Oh. Oh! What? All right, here we go. Siege Industries presents That's fun. I like that. Scared by squares. That's cool. Very nice.

So, I want to hear footsteps. Unstable cubes glow with a grid. Point your laser at them. I just feel like that this laser is it it feels like it's coming out of my crotch. Right? So, I just kind of feel like maybe don't I would just use a cursor or a crosshair. So, yeah. Is it just me? So, what does it say? Pointed out at the I would make these look a little bit different than these because they all look the same, and so it's very disorienting.

What I would do is get rid of this weird laser cuz it looks like a laser you know what. And I would change it to a crosshair and turn the crosshair green when I'm hovering over a block that can be clicked. And then make it normal white when you can't. Oh, it It's It's for It's for VR. Okay. It just feels strange to me. Um Yeah. Okay, so let's see resolution is 1024 by 768. Wow, very very slow. So, let's go all the way to 1920 by 1080. I don't know why it's um It could be that it's a VR game. So, there's 3840 by 2160, but there's not 1920 by 1080. There it is. Okay, we're good. We're good. We're good. So, let's see here.

Oh, crap. Not again. No. Something's wrong with the pot this screen now. This is why I don't change the resolution for Unreal games, guys. It always screws up my streams. This isn't the developer's fault. It's really not. It's um It's It's always Unreal. Sorry, guys. I don't know what's going on. We're going to have to change it. 1280 by 760. Save, maybe? Is this it? Okay. Oh my word. Okay, let me close it again, guys. Sorry. Unreal. It's every time it's unreal. Every single time. Um

It's not the game's fault and and I feel bad cuz we haven't even played the game yet. Um
A shape-shifting entity that plunged the world into chaos.
Okay, now the resolution I changed to the wrong one. Now my mouse is kind of slow. Mouse is really slow now. What is happening? No. It was going so good, guys. We were so excited to play. And now it's just messed up. Oh, man. I'm sorry, Cube Game. It's just unreal. Super slow on the mouse, too. Now my mouse is really fast here. Hm. Whoa.

So look sensitive it got. I'm just going to have to play it this way. Guys, I'm sorry. It's just so broken now. I can't play it. Um I can't play it. I'm sorry. Sorry. I feel bad by scared by squares. Is it possible to maybe remove the the game files? You know, maybe I can just delete everything and start over. Man, now my mouse is really slow. Okay, well, let's let's go ahead and play this other game. It's called The Saint. It's only 4 gigs, so let's see if we can install it really quick. Does anyone have any questions or comments as this installs? It's going to be a It's going to be kind of slow. I Apparently, I didn't install this before we started our stream. But, does anyone have any questions? I'm going to actually download this and keep

playing that um Abysmal game. This is a solid title. Abysmal is is definitely made by Unity. Um Okay, so Azidad says this is my game. What Which one? Azid Azidine Taladev? Which one? Which game is yours? Okay, now things are getting serious. Oh. It cut frame rate in half. Thanks, Jason. Azideline Talha, The Saint. Okay, cool.

We're going to take a look at The Saint here as it downloads, but we're going to play this game while we wait. It's going to be a while. Thank you, Andres. Thank you. All right, let's keep playing here. I love those sounds. Jason, what do you think about this game, man? Curious your thoughts. I feel like Jason likes this game. Maybe I'm wrong. But, you definitely want to use 3D sounds. Uh the developer needs to use 3D sounds for sure. Um let's see here. Okay, the saint is currently at 2%. Sorry. But, let's keep playing here. What are the top things you like to see in games? Uh, crunchy variable sound. Ambience, great music, like rock solid

music that makes me feel something. Has a really moody score. Uh, I love good juicy game feel. I like a really good setup. Meaning the character has a motivation. Here comes the little Half-Life monster. This developer must be I'm going to guess this developer's age. 36? 35? Maybe 34? I can't It can't be 34. It's probably 36. Oh, yeah. By the way, to the developer, I would make it more clear. Make those things really glow. Maybe even make them the whole thing turn orange. Because right now it's not It looks like

you're activating an enemy. So, I would just clarify that if I was the developer. Thomas. What are you thinking? Oh, no. We're at 2%. It stopped download. Okay, we have to go again. Okay, there it goes. That's my internet for you. Okay, it's going. It's going. Hey, let's take a look at the saint's Steam page and do a review of the Steam page, okay guys? Um I love to do Steam reviews of Steam pages. This is for the developer. And by the way, I'm not a genius here. I'm just going to give you my old college try. Um which is what one of you said earlier. Let's Let's go ahead and take a look at this. The Saint is a is a psychological horror

where you explore the ruins of a cursed forest and uncover the truth behind the dark ritual but to behind the dark ritual a grieving mother. Well, okay, let's let's let's clean this up, okay? And this will also help you. Cuz this is a kind of all over the place already. Um I'm not quite sure what your hook is. Um I'm pacing it over on my other screen so I can look at it. What's your hook? Who Who's the developer? As in dine, what's your hook? The Saint is a psychological horror game where you explore the ruins of a cursed forest and uncover the truth behind a dark ritual, a grieving mother. What? What? Investigate the past, face disturbing supernatural events. What's disturbing about them? Th- These are important questions because if you can if I can if you could tell me specifically, for example,

uh talk with a possessed raccoon. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, it's about a possessed raccoon. And he could talk to me. And he's my He's like my sidekick. Or or or um uncover your your your mother's body went missing and you found her wedding dress uh drowning in blood in the tub. I just need more specifics cuz it's like everything's very generic right now. Dark ritual. Okay. Investigate the past. Okay. What Okay. Uh face disturbing supernatural events. Okay. And discover what really happened the night the village burned. What? So there a lot is going on here and I'm not saying that the game is wrong. I'm saying that how you're putting this together is very generic and dry.

And then uh so this is a it's about a village and it's about a forest, but I see a bedroom. Right? So all I've got this sort of amalgamation here. I've got an amalgamation here of sort of chaos chaotic abstract generic language. It's as if you took all of the tropes of a horror game and you put them into a description. And again, I'm not saying that the the game is bad. And by the way, I think it's great that you got the name The Saint. Cuz I'm surprised you got that and it wasn't taken. We need a very and it's going to be a horror game, so it's going to be story-oriented with maybe an interesting hook, mechanical hook. So give me the mechanical hook.

AKA uh use a lantern to expose the realities of your to expose the secrets of your mother's death. Use a use a use a magic lantern to expose the secrets of your mother's murder. You know, that's a I'm I'm making up a mechanic. That's a mechanic that should be said in the description along with the story. Uncover the mystery behind your mother's death at the hands of a 3-year-old child. What? You know, we need something strange here. We need something strange here. Um So, no one reads the description, Thomas? No, that's not true. Also, your description is going to inform everything in your game. If you can get your description down,

it's going to inform This should inform how you do your capsule art and how you do your trailer. So, let's watch the trailer here. What is a hook? Oh, that's great. Thank you, Yitsu. I just published a game in 10 days for the LAGS Game Jam 2026 and I think it has a ton of potential. It's called The Legend of Chupacabra and the Sentient Log. Oh man, I can't play itch games. I'm sorry. But thank you so much. Vengeance is in my heart, death is in my hand. Okay, so it it took 8 seconds of my time and I'm trying to help you as a developer. I'm trying to help you. That took 8 seconds of my time to not capture me. So, those first 8 seconds, that's the time to capture the the audience. And I I'm guilty of this with one of my previous games. I think it's Never Song and Pinstripe. You got to go.

Give me the hook right away. Something It doesn't mean it has to be action. I just need something. So, let's see here. Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, blood and revenge are hammering in my head. Get rid of the screen effects. I don't need to see that. Okay, cool visuals. I like the visuals. Very cool. I don't need that all the That's Okay, that's cool. So, you're the New York the New Oh, sorry. I couldn't read it. Oh, I couldn't see that. That's cool.

Cool visuals. Okay. So, I I don't know what the game is about. I don't know I didn't learn anything from that. I think it looks cool and again, it's not the the problem is not the game. Right? The problem is not the game. It's your marketing. Marketing is really hard for a lot of developers and I understand that. Marketing is taking the core identity of your game, the hooks, the thing that mechanically make it interesting, the thing that make it interesting narratively, the things that make it interesting visually, and with audio. And by the way, that I I call that the trinity hook, which is a mechanical hook, visual hook, and audio. So, it's more of a sensory hook and then story.

And your job is to communicate those three things in that trailer. I've no idea what the story is or even the mechanics. All I got was like slight visual hooks, but even then, there wasn't an the audio hook wasn't very good cuz it um Well, let's let's turn it up and hear it. And if I'm ripping this game apart, I'm not. If it looks like it, I'm I it's the marketing. The marketing is what's what what's what's making this struggle. It's not the game necessarily. Um we'll take a look at the game once it downloads here. Okay, let's watch this again. Let Let me give my recommendation. Cut this intro right here. I don't need to see text. Get rid of the weird screen effects. They're not serving a purpose.

Um and then also and then also uh give me the narrative hook right away. Even if you're telling me what the hook is with text. Uncover the mystery of your sister's S U I C I D E. Cuz I see a news here. Uncover the mysterious murder of your sister at the hands of the red eye. With some Give me the mystery. Give me the mystery at the very beginning. Give me the narrative hook. You got your visual hook cuz the game looks decent. Visually, it looks really interesting. Um but mechanically though uh I'm not sure what the mechanics are. So, let's see here. What happens if it's also unreal? It's It looks like it's frozen here. It's

really struggling. Slow slow internet. I mean I need to call Charter for sure. Um Does that Does that make sense? Um what I'm saying so far with with uh what I said about the saint? Does anyone have any questions about why like this whole Steam page? Um let's look at the screenshots here, double check. Check that I'm not sure what that is. Visually it looks it looks good. Very dark. Very It doesn't need to be this dark. Very dark. Uh a good rule of thumb is to crank your brightness down on your monitor, guys, while you're working. I think mine might be at like 50%. Uh not 50, uh 60 or 60 or 70.

Just so that there's room to go up. Right? Cuz a lot of times it's about as dark as it can possibly get and there's no room to brighten it, and when you do brighten it, it looks washed out. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what the genre is. This is cool. I like this. I'm excited to play it. I really am. I I think the marketing material isn't serving us. Um super dark. Look at this. What in the world? Why is that? Why is it so dark? And then these are like really bright. So you want to make sure that you're very consistent in your brightness. These are so dark. I can barely see them. Is it just me, guys? Let me know in the chat. And as a dime, I'm not saying the game

is bad. I'm saying that the marketing material needs work, right? Does that make sense so far? Okay, horror psychological. As in As a dying, how you doing? Okay? So, I just I just gave you a lot of critique. I just gave you a lot of critique for the Steam page. Now, let's move into the positive, okay? I actually do like this. I think this is a really cool um Let me actually open this up here in Photoshop. I want to show you um some potential tweaks we can make to the cover art. Um but overall, I actually do like the capsule art. I think it's great. Um very very dark screenshots though, but the screenshots the art itself looks decent. I think it's I think it's pretty good. Um So, in terms of the cover art, give me

just a sec here. I'm going to open this up here I think Honestly, I think if anything, I would make the noose Is that a noose? And that's the big question, right? Is what are you trying to say here? What is this? Is it that she's floating? Oh, I see. It's a ghost. Yep. So, the ghost is here. Yeah, the problem with that is like if that's a chair, it looks like Yeah, there's a couple issues here. And I didn't fully get this, but this is actually a very clever visual. I actually really like this. Um I would say that because this chair is so large compared to the girl,

um there's like a sizing issue. I'm trying to imagine how big the chair is versus the Yeah, there's something's off here. I don't know what it is. Let me look here. So, this would be the girl. That's what she would look like hanging. But, that's a huge chair. So, I might rework this visual a little bit and make it a very very clear. And one of the big questions you can ask is you can just ask your friends and family or ask on social media, "What's going on here?" And it needs to be apparent immediately. I need to go, "Whoa! There's a shadow of a ghost." That's what I need to know that immediately. And I didn't at first. So, does that make sense? Does that make sense so far? But, I do like I like what you did here. Actually,

I like this uh right here. I may consider Let's see here. I may consider making this bigger. Like that. You know? Yeah, I would I would consider making that bigger and doing it like right here. And then you could uh And if that's pink and that's red, it's just disorienting to me. You could either go this route, right? That That's what I would do. And by the way, I would also do this. I would make it fade red a little bit more here, like this. Just so it blends a little bit better. See here.

Just blends a little bit better into the saint. But I I think overall capsule it looks good. Is that straight? Okay, that is straight. Why does it not look straight to me? Okay, it's straight. Yeah, I like that logo. I think it's great. I might consider doing this though. Yeah, that's what I would do. Yeah, that's what I would do right here. I like logos like that. That's just me though. It's personal opinion. Feels more balanced that way. Um Okay.

Um That's kind of how I would approach the the um capsule art. But let's go ahead and play the game, all right? So I think the marketing material definitely needs some work. Um the trailer doesn't make any sense to me. I don't really know what I'm looking at. And also um the genre isn't clear. I mean it's horror sure, but um also also the capsule light uh I'm sorry the the description doesn't really describe what our various USPs, which is unique selling point / hooks are. All right, let's go. As As a dine hang tight. Hang tight. We're going to play your game here. I know it's hard. I know it's hard to have people play your game, especially live. This is hard, isn't it? Is it hard for you? Um I know I know how it feels to have people play your game. It's It's scary.

Um Okay, I don't I don't think this is necessary, but okay, let's keep going. Woah. I would do this first and then show Um I would speed that up. Good menu, though. I would make it really fast animation. Right now, it's a little slow. Okay, I don't I don't want to hear that sound right now. That's That's very uh disorienting. Okay, so this isn't really effective because you can't see anything in the dark anyway.

So, I don't know what I'm what my point of my relative point is. So, if you're going to have it say so that the dark areas remain difficult to see, there should be something behind the TV, some silhouette or something. Cuz right now, I don't really know what I'm looking at. What What am I looking for? Is it just me, guys? Is it just me? Let's Let's help Azadine out here. I don't know what darkness I'm actually looking for. But anyway, let's get rid of that sound. We don't need to hear that. Um it's a little disorienting. This is an awesome menu. But it needs music. Wow, okay. So, we've got a lot of sound. Okay, a rule of thumb for all of you listening and as as in dying.

All your sound needs to be around -10 decibels. Something like that in Audacity or wherever you're you're editing your sounds so that when you bring them into Unity we're all at this sort of unified volume. That TV was really loud and now I can't hear anything. But if I crank up the volume I could barely hear it, right? Can you imagine if I restarted? And then I had to do that TV sequence again. It'd be like So, be careful. You got to be real careful, okay? Let's keep going though, okay? I love this menu though. Visually, this is great. By the way, as in dying. That's your cover. Right? That's your cover art. That's a great menu. Okay.

Good music. I just could barely hear it, bud. Let's see if we can change it in options. By the way, guys, this I've learned this the hard way. A lot of your negative reviews are going to come from people who just can't optimize your game or fix the sound. And it just doesn't play well, right? That's the problem. Not the quality of your game. Right? So quiet. Oh. Well, let's turn it up, I guess. Let's keep playing here. Let's keep playing here. Okay.

Okay, so Let's Let's let this finish and I'll I'll I'll say what I'm thinking. I hear thunder. A storm is coming. My heart beats fast. My wife is calling. Hmm.
Where the hell are you?
Everything doesn't need to be in quotes.
you home hours ago.
I know. I know. I'm sorry.
Sorry, bro. I didn't hear that.
at work and then there was this roadblock on the way home.
Are you serious? Why didn't you call me earlier? I've been worried sick.

I didn't realize it would take this long. I'm in the middle of the forest now. It's dark and foggy and there's a storm coming.
Oh my god. Are you okay?
Capital G. Get rid of the quotes.
a little bit scared. Trying to find my way out of here.
Please be careful. I don't want anything happening to you. Promise me you'll take care of yourself.
I promise I'll be careful. I'll call you as soon as I'm on my
I'll comment in a sec, guys.
You better. Love you, too. Get home safe.
Okay. So, all of that exposition, we we really don't need that right now. Right now, we need to get playing. Um we we need to get going. We need to get going. Um so, anyway, um yeah, we should have started here.

Ooh, a person. Nice. He's getting tired. Nice. Good job. That's great. Start me there. We don't need any of that exposition. Now, you might think we do, but figure out a way to put that somewhere else because I'm getting bored, if I'm being honest. We got to get moving, got to get moving quickly. Whoa. What was that splash? Hello? Is anybody here?

Okay. I'm definitely ready to play. So, just just know that players are going to get impatient, especially with a game where it's kind of unknown, right? They're going to want to get to the point. So, couple things here. I liked the I liked the car driving sequence. I liked the jump scare. I liked uh how I fell over and woke up. I think that's all great. Sound is good. Uh um the the first exposition with the wife calling and the black screen and

everything's in quotes. By the way, things shouldn't always be in quotes like that. Um you could just get rid of the quotes. Um the voice acting is AI. I'm pretty sure it's AI, which I understand uh potential cost constraints, but if you can, hiring voice actors is amazing. It adds so much to your game. Um but I would get rid of it. I would get rid of the voice acting, honestly, and I would just have it say uh maybe get a phone call in the car or a text message. Ding! It looks at it and says, uh I'm tired. I'm going home from work. And boom, there you go. You just like what really quick. Most of that stuff I don't even think was necessary. Um but the voice acting really hurts the game. It really does. So, let's keep keep playing here.

Welcome to the Saint.
Good sound. I like the fog. Very nice. Crouch, good. I like the mood. This is good so far. Having no voice acting is better than AI voice. I totally agree. I actually do. Oh, good lighting. Yay, we got some lighting. This is good.

The series permanently closed by order of the regional authorities following the destruction of the village by fire. I would just say following the um arson of the village. Um the cause of which remains unknown. The site has been declared unsafe and restricted to the public. Investigations conducted after the incident were unable to determine how the fire began or So, that you could probably shorten and just say someone burned down the village. We don't know who it is. Due to the instability of the remaining Okay, by the way, I heard this from um a friend of mine who worked at I think it was id. Who Who did he What did he make? He made something. He helped make one of the Doom Doom 2016, I think. And he was just like, "If you're going to do notes, make them real fast, real quick." Like a sentence. And a lot of times these on-screen notes especially at the beginning of the game when they're just full of text, it could

be a problem. Due to the instability of the remaining structure cuz it can get boring. Due to the instability of remaining structures and the unexplained circumstances surrounding the event, access to the village and surrounding forest has been strictly prohibited. Anyone attempting to enter the restricted zone will be considered trespassing. So, that's kind of a useless sentence. I would just say it's it's prohibited. Boom. Um Yeah, okay. I would love to know where we are, what part of the world. Escape instead of tab would probably better for that. Okay, so we got a a note kind of in the middle of a cave? Okay. So Okay, shift is run, good.

I got a note. Let's see where we can go here. So that fog there is interesting. Um those mountains should not be black. There we go. It crashed again. Or it didn't crash, it just anytime I tab out of a s- No. Okay, so it crashed. It crashed. Is this a Unity game? I'm surprised because we're getting some full screen issues. It I don't know if it's saved as and

done. Mhm. Okay, now let's see here. Let's see if it saved here. Ah!
Okay, so I'm going to go out to get read that note again. Um Yeah, it's a lot and the walking's very slow, so I would definitely put a checkpoint or some kind of save at the note.

Yeah, it's an interesting fog. I don't I'm not sure how it's being cuz some of these elements are not taking in the fog. Like that that mountain back there, that black one. Maybe that's part of the skybox and that's why it's not taking in the fog. Cuz the skybox doesn't absorb the fog. The skybox skybox, it's not even lit. But up there it's the same thing. So I'm trying to figure out how the fog is being handled. But we'll see. And by the way, one of you said, "Thomas, follow the road." Well, when you start a game or when you give your player the game, they're going to play it the way they want to. And you got to you got to guide them,

right? So if I go over here, what happens? You know, if I'm the player and I want to come over here, am I going to be rewarded for this? Cuz I should be. If it's available, I should be rewarded for going over here. Right? Does that make sense? If it If I'm able to go over here, I should be rewarded with a something. So, we'll see if that occurs. Cuz And then And then all of a sudden, 5 minutes, 10 minutes goes by and the player is like, "Where am I?"

You know, where do I go? So, there's no need to have this this size of a level. You can make it look this big. But now I'm just lost, you know. Thomas, you knew you shouldn't have gone that way. No, I didn't. I'm going where I want to go. So, you just got to be careful. Yeah, it looks like it's a fog volume. So, for some reason there's just a ton of invisible quads and I can't go certain places. Okay. There we go. Okay, so we may have found our trail, so that's good. So, some of this is in English and some of it's not. It's kind of confusing. But we'll figure it out. Mysterious car crash leaves no trace of

driver. Samewood Highway, a violent storm raged. A lone car got lost control skidding on the slick pavement and slamming into the gnarly gnarl trees lining the roadside. Um Up. Let me check my Make sure my wife's not calling. Um This is not the first time over the years travelers have whispered about the road in Saint Woods. So, car crashes are happening on this road. Okay. I'd get rid of the motion blur. Okay, let's go this way. Let's go this way. Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't use the

that effect either. I don't love it. The the waving warp effect. And I would also get rid of the depth The depth of field something's off with it. See? It's like the whole thing goes blurry randomly. You know what I mean? Hang on one sec. Yeah. All right, guys. So, I'm going to give you my final uh vote here cuz I got to

go. Um I think the saint the saint needs some work. Um So, this thing won't close. The saint needs some work, I think. I think it needs some work. Um I mentioned all the things that that I felt needed criticism. Um I liked the artwork. I liked the sound. I thought the sound was really good. I liked the menu. Um but yeah, I think it I think it needs some work. Um definitely favorite game definitely my favorite game was um that mind game that we played. That was awesome. I think the developer did a really good job on that game. It's polished, solid. Um so, anyway, thanks so much for hanging out, guys. I love you so much. Feel free to check out Full Time Game Dev, which is my massive course, below. If you want to a shout-out in tomorrow's stream, check it out below. See if it's something you're interested in. And learn what I've learned in the last decade of making indie games. Cheers. I love you.