Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 047

playing your games. I've had a ton of submissions on x.com/thomasbrushdev. So, be sure to follow me there if you want to submit your games next time I play. [clears throat] Come on in, guys. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Let me see if I can get the chat pulled up here. Hey, huge, huge thank you before we start playing these games. Huge, huge thank you to the new students who joined my massive program called Full-Time GameDev. Richard P., Robert H., Hassan F, Dmitro K, James M. Mahandria R, welcome to Fulltime GameDev. And by the way, look, if you want to take a look at uh Fulltime GameDev, the link is in the description. There's a spring sale. There's about five days left and nine hours to join the spring sale. This is my massive course if you want to learn from an actual indie game developer who's made actual indie titles. This is my game Pinstripe on Nintendo Switch. This is my game Never Song on PlayStation 4. I've released on every platform

um two commercial releases and then I'm on my third commercial release. I'm in beta testing right now. Hopefully going to be releasing that soon and that's published by 3D Realms and that's a 3D first-person shooter. Um so point being I've actually made indie games, right? That's that's the point. And so I want to teach you how to do it. not only how to make a game in Unity, Unity, GDAU, or Unreal, but also how to hit the Steamfront page, how to get wish lists, how to get publishers to invest in your demo so that you can go full-time with just a 10-minute 15-minute demo. Uh, how to do 2D art, how to do 3D art, those are included free, but only for this sale event. And then also, you know, how to reach out to the press, how to get press coverage, how to do a Kickstarter campaign. And you might be wondering, why should I listen to this guy? Well, you shouldn't listen to any YouTuber, you know. You shouldn't just listen to me because you like my studio and my backdrop. Uh you should listen to me because I've actually released games, right? That's that's the point. Not only have I released games, but I've gone full-time with those demos. And also students as well have done the same

thing. So, these are my students who went full-time with the help of the program. So, just click the link below, check it out, see if it's something you're interested in. By the way, if you're a student in the chat, let me know what you think about the program. All right, guys. Let's go ahead and stop doing the ad read [laughter]
and let's go ahead and uh start playing some games. Yay. Hello, Amdx Delore. Man, you guys have some strange usernames. D'ore Digital Eddie Schulty5017. Um let's go ahead and jump into Steam and get started. How you guys doing today? And it's a it's a little bit of an early live stream. I'm sorry about that. Um, TZ Fraser, the games we're playing today are Dungeon M, Dungeon Mut, and Plague. Jeb, are you throwing up? No, he's not. Okay, so Dungeon M. Actually, guys, I forgot to mention here. Uh, I'm going to put these in the chat or I'm sorry, in the description because I forgot to do that. So, give me just a sec here. Uh, Tuck, how you

doing? You're only listening because of the backdrop. Okay. Uh, [laughter] Andrew Store. Hi everyone. How you doing, buddy? Come on in. Come on in. Um, Brain Johnson says, "Howdy. It's my first time catching you live." Thank you. That's awesome. Um, well, I guess you didn't say anything nice, so never mind. Uh, okay. The next first game is called Dungeon M. I'm putting that in the description so that Dungeon might hopefully get some wish lists from this. I always want that. And then also the next game is called Plagueorn, which I think is a great name. Plague. Okay, I'm going to hit save here. So, those are in the description. You guys ready to play some games? So, what's the goal of today's live stream? Right. What are we trying to achieve? We're trying to break the spirits of these indie game developers. We're trying to ensure that they quit their game so that I have less competition. [sighs] Um, no. We're trying to give them We're

trying to give them positive, I'm sorry, constructive criticism and feedback so that they don't launch a game and get that same feedback. You don't want feedback from people who've given you money. You want feedback from people before you launch, right? That's the ultimate goal here. So, let's go ahead and jump into our first game here. And by the way, I freaking love this game we played yesterday. Cat named Mojave. I highly recommend Catnamed Mojave. This is a game that deserves your money. It's a great title. Okay, let's go ahead and start with Dungeon Mut and hit play. Thomas has been kidnapped and put in a warehouse. What are you talking about? I'm me. It's me. Okay, let's hit um Okay, so let's make sure that let's make sure that that hovers because that I that that doesn't feel very good. I can't see any change when I hover over

that. Felt all right. Okay, there we go. Good. So, this is our new game save slot. It's not super re uh apparent what's going on. I would have it say choose your game or pick your game file. That felt good. Awesome. Hey, nice music. Let's go. I'm feeling Zelda vibes. Oh, we got ourselves a locket. He's got kids. He's got a wife. He loves his life. He loves planes. Who's that mystery man he's looking for? Jebby, come here. Look at this. Come on,

Jeb. Come look at this. Come here. Come on. This is great. Oh, [screaming] it shoot cannonballs at me. Okay, some sound is missing there for sure. Give me some Give me the sound of the cannonball hitting the plane. Yeah, that weird transitions here. So, some of this is really good and some of it is not good. It feels very um it's kind of a mixed bag because that that intro was like great and then it wasn't. But anyway, let's keep playing here. That's great. Okay, good.

Okay, I can sneak like Goofy. I can only walk. I can't run. I don't love that walk animation. It feels very stiff. I like the gimmick of picking up things and throwing them. I think that's cool. Hopefully that's a a core gimmick in the game and it has a lot of relevancy. I don't love the invisible walls here. They kind of drive me crazy. Music isn't very great. The music was awesome in that cut scene, but I feel like it's a little bit underwhelming right now. It doesn't match the vibe. Let's talk about matching the vibe here. Um, let's go to our music. You can tell that the developer understands what localization is and how expensive it is because that's why they're using icons for everything so they don't have to localize anything. And in fact, I don't think I've seen a single word in this game, which is

great. I think that's I understand that completely. Let's go to artlist.io and let's find some like tropical casual tropical music just to show you guys the value of having because it the music that's playing right now is like it sounds like a wedding and I think what we need is instead tropical acoustic music. That's what we need. [snorts] [music] Here we go. Okay, here's what I'm thinking. Ah, no. Hold on. Give me something a little bit more acousticy.

No,
genre.
Acoustic. [music]
We're going to find it. Music is everything, guys. This is more like Hispanic or Latin, but it's fine. Oh, I kick it and it Okay, so some things can be picked up and some things can't. And it's very strange. Like I can't pick up rocks, but they're like the exact same shape and size as everything else. So that is really disorienting. I'll be honest. This is so much better.

Get all I have. Yay. [cheering] Oh my goodness. This is a puzzle game. I freaking love this. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to keep this music playing because it's so much better. That's definitely the one. Where'd he go? No. Here we go. Let's put it on loop. I would get rid of the specular if I'm being honest. I think the game would look so much better without specular. And some things have it and some things don't. So, like the I love the dog's ears. Look at that. Hey, we need footprints. But Thomas, that's feature creep. No, it's not. Those footprints are going to

add so much value to this game. Okay, I got like a wrench here. What's that wrench? How do I use it? Am I missing something? I shouldn't be lost at this point. Oh, cool birds. That's awesome. Why am I stuck? See, that's that's kind of annoying is like I can't walk around stuff because there's invisible walls everywhere. So, I would just be really careful with that. Give me a reason why there's invisible walls everywhere. I don't know why things are respawning when I get near them or like when I come back. I don't know why. But let's keep playing.

We'll we'll we'll do the the developer justice and let them have their music. Where's the music? So, what do I do? Anybody have any ideas what I do here? Wait, so I can I can kick that one? That's [clears throat] weird. Somebody hurt him. Let's go take a look. Thank you for the bananas.

Hey, that's good music. Although, I will say I think it's the same music. It's just I feel like it's too exciting. I feel like it needs to be a little bit more chill and mysterious. We just crash landed on a mysterious island. Yeah, I think it's too exciting. This music should be playing in like a cut scene or something. So, I don't know. I don't fully understand that, but that's okay. It hid my foot last time. If I were if it if it's directional, then it needs an arrow on it. Um, yeah.

I want those to wiggle when I run through them. No. No. I need a sound there. I need a slash sound when I get hit. Yeah, I think the sound in the game is is is not perfect. I think we definitely need a hurt sound. Okay. So, so we got a kind of an issue here um with this the overall premise of this game. I have no desire other than, you know, to to play puzzles, which is fine, but I don't really have a

desire to keep playing. And that's because I don't know why. Um, so there's no there's no I unless I missed it. There's nothing that tells me where I'm going. Like, what's my destination? Where am I? Who am I? Do I know where I am? Who am I saving? Who am I rescuing? Why was I flying a plane? Why do I have a shield? Why am I in a dungeon here in the P? There's a lot of weird questions that don't really make any sense to me. I have no desire. I have no desire to solve anything. Um, graphically the game is solid. Colors are good. UI feels pretty good. Um, movement's fine. I'm sure the puzzles are pretty. They seem like they're solid puzzles, but I don't really have a motive. But Thomas, it's not a story game. It's a puzzle game. I've talked about this before. You can you can

really crank up and amp up a puzzle game by giving me a destination. And sometimes a destination isn't even a story. Sometimes it's a gameplay or a mechanical upgrades destination to say, "Here are all the cool weapons you can get and abilities. Now I'm going to take them away and you're going to fight for them. You get to solve it puzzle by puzzle." So right now there's really no I have no context of where I'm going both mechanically, story, setting, and that's that's a little disorienting. And it's a little demotivating. Now, let me know in the chat, guys. Is Thomas being mean or is Thomas correct? We want the developer to not just trust Thomas because Thomas is a YouTuber. We want the developer to to take solid feedback and make really good changes that help this game. So, what do we

think in the chat? Is is that um is that true? I could spend decades solving puzzles if I knew I was going to get my daughter back. Like in real life, let's say a let's say somebody um somebody kidnapped a family member or something. I would spend decades solving puzzles. That's an ex the extreme of what I'm saying, which is give me something here in my heart. Give me something in my world, aka move me, change my emotions. And that will push me to solve puzzles. Puzzles are one of those things that require brain power and they require me to work and use energy. I use more energy with puzzle games than I do with sh like a shooter because I'm just sitting there thinking and it requires work. It's like it's almost like doing spreadsheets like an accountant. If you're going to make me

work, I need to be working for something and I don't know what I'm working for. Does that make sense, guys? Yep. Uh, I would I would I would agree with um [sighs and gasps] the alivaria the aloe vera design that right now it's like all of a sudden pretty expansive and you didn't really teach me much. I don't even fully understand what those I don't fully understand what kicking those metal things does. It doesn't fully make sense to me. And if I didn't play a game like this and I don't fully understand the the puzzle that the genre I'm in, I might be very confused. So, it's not that you give me on-screen text. It's that we need to we need to start very small and and scale slowly. You can open up after five minutes of teaching. Just open it up. But what? But

right now, I don't fully understand what's going on. I It's pretty big now. Oh, that feels good. That felt great. Good job. That felt really good. I want that treasure. Yeah. So, why is that, guys? Does anyone know what? This is an important question. Am I missing something in this genre? Why is it that I can't kick this certain directions? I can only kick it. Like, that's a little strange to me. Am I missing something?

I'm not quite sure why that is. So, I can only kick it in the direction of its solution. I don't know if that makes sense. I don't know. No, but that's not true. Look. Watch. Oh. Whoa. No. You're right. You're right. So, if I kick it over here. I see. I see. So, why can't I go back there? I don't know. It's It feels a little frustrating.

And now I can't get it at all. I don't know. Am I missing something about this puzzle design? Let's try again. I appreciate them resetting. So, once it's in its final position, it can't be kicked. Okay, let's let's let's think this through. Let's think this through. I'm not trying to tear apart the game. I'm trying to help the developer make some tweaks so that it makes more sense cuz I'm trying to figure out what what we can do visually to make that make more sense. So, let's go up to this one and figure out what was going on. Okay. Oh, I understand. Okay, I need to turn this music. The music is way too aggressive.

Okay, so let's talk about the puzzle design here and how we can help the help uh uh telegraph what's going on. Yes, it makes sense. It makes sense now. Um, the game is so much funner without that music. Is it just me, guys, or was that music too aggressive? Okay, there's a reason why um Jonathan Blow's new game, everything looks like it's on a grid, because it's very difficult to play a puzzle game like this that doesn't clearly have defined grid. So, let's think this through. What are some quick If if I were making this game and I knew this was a problem and I knew some players like Thomas were dummies and they were going to have a they were going to have a trouble with it.

What would I do to solve a lot of these design issues? Well, let's start with let's start at the very beginning. And it might seem like Thomas is going to overkill this first portion of the game, but here's the thing. I I I understand the game now. Um, but getting into it and understanding like the grid pattern and what those kickables were um was very frustrating and I would have quit. I would have quit the demo. If I had downloaded a free demo, I I just would have quit. But I don't I don't get it. So, let's let's let's focus really quickly on some lowhanging fruit for the developer. So, they don't have to change much, but they all they have to do is is make this simp cleaner or or make uh just telegraph a few things so that it makes more sense. So, what I

would do with with the invisible walls, this is a big problem. The invisible walls are very frustrating because I feel like I don't know where I'm it it feels like the controls don't work. So what I would do if I was the developer is I would set dress various parts of the game so that the invisible walls are being honest. Uh, dishonest dishonest invisible walls are very frustrating. And I'm going through that right now with my my own game, Twisted Tower. I have a whole section called invisible wall frustrations on my Discord server that beta testers are going are giving me all of the places where they get frustrated with the with invisible walls. So, I would do something like this where you have fences where where the invisible walls are just reduce the terrain here. So, it's it's

thin, right? Cuz look, this is this is ridiculous. I I cannot stand that cuz then I'm like, I just want to go around this. I'm like, got to pick it up, but I could just let me go around it. Okay, so that's one design issue. Um, footprints are another um lowhanging fruit. And the reason why is because people feel really good when the world interacts with them on a frequent basis. If the world can interact with you on a frequent basis, the player has fun just moving. Seriously, this kind of stuff is hyper hyper valuable because the world is constantly interacting with the player and all you had to do was instantiate footprints with an animation event. Right? So, that's another lowhanging fruit that I would do if I was the developer. Obviously, we talked about

sound and music. The music is is kind of annoying. Um, yeah. Oh, rope. rope would be great if that's a such a good idea. So you call them stansions. I call them stansions in in Twisted Tower because it's in a theme park. But same kind of concept here. If you could create a rope system and you get bonus points if the rope system is automatically connects from pillar to pillar so that you don't have to do it in the set dressing process manually. But yeah, something like that to lock in the player would would would definitely be valuable for sure. Uh, another lowhanging fruit here, and I don't know how I would do this now that the game is pretty much made, but what Jonathan Blow does in his puzzle games or his his what is it? Order of the sink order of the order of the sunken star. Is that what it's called? order of the

I can't remember. That's a It's a hard game to remember. I'm gonna be honest. What he does is he has a shader. I believe it's a shader where everything is on that grid. So, let's let's take a look and see how this would look visually. Okay, I'm going to close No, I'm not going to close the game yet because we have a few other things we want to talk about. But if it's on a grid, the problem is is the game looks very um organic and so I don't know if this would help. This is isometric though. So that means that we're not going to get any depth, but we will get a squashed look like this, I think. And we're going to set it to overlay. Let's make it dark. And I'm curious what would happen if we had a very subtle grid here because it's hard to know where I'm going to kick something because I can't

quite see where it's going to go to because everything looks so organic. But you wouldn't have the grid on this. And and by the way, if the developers watching and you're thinking, I can't do this. I don't know if it would be that hard. I could be completely wrong. I don't know if it would be that hard to put a grid shader onto the terrain, especially because we're an isometric or orthographic because there's no depth. So, you're not going to get weird grid like skewing with the grid. I don't think you might get some. I'm not quite sure. I it's hard to visualize it, but some kind of grid here and then um this you wouldn't have a grid here. You wouldn't have a grid here. This would help so much. Honestly,

guys, am I off base here or do we agree? If you don't agree with me, that's totally fine. We're trying to help the developer here. At the end of the day, we're just trying to help the developer. So, let's convert that to a smart object. And I'm going to fade it out away from the player. Now, if it was perspective, it would make more sense what we're looking at. Like, if we did this. So, I would consider, if I was the developer, I would consider doing perspective because we might be on a perspective camera actually. Um, let's let's unlink this here really quick and do a perspective. And you might be thinking, what's the value in doing this? Well, now the the the player knows the path

they can walk on and they know um where they can kick things. It's really hard to solve a puzzle like these when we don't have a grid. So, I would consider the grid for sure. What's the purpose of the grid? The purpose of the grid is to is to solve the puzzles and to know where where we can kick things, where we can throw things because the game is um it's all about throwing objects to the left and right down a grid and also um kicking things in various directions and orientations onto different buttons. So that that's kind of what I would do. Let's see if that that makes sense here. Let's see. So, this right here, this is on a grid,

but it's not super duper clear to me that it was. Oh, I agree. Conversion to a grid would be tough. It would also stuff like this. Let's see here. Let's see if this is on a grid. Okay. No, that's on a rounded edge. Status says, um, games like this 110 10% need a grid. I don't like the visual of a grid, but think about all of the mechanics that we've just done. You throw to the left or the right, and I can't run. I can run at a 45 degree angle, but like throwing things, I believe throwing things are you're throwing it left or right or straight or or up or down. Um,

and there's certain like limitations that are purely based on a grid. And so I kind of wish that I could see that visually. And the game is pretty flat. So, like here's an example of how the game is using a grid. Um, right here. Okay. Next up, let's take a screenshot here and talk about maybe some It's not that we're trying to make the puzzles easier. It's that we're trying to tell the player what's exactly going on. If this was on a grid, um, what I could then see, let me scale this up here. I could then see kind of the puzzle. I could get a good overview in my head of my plan of action. Right?

So, that's that's the purpose of a grid. It gives you a it it gives you the ability to sort of map out what your plan is cuz like this is clearly a puzzle that I can I think hopefully solve with just those two pieces and that's why we're locked in. Right? So I kind of wish that I had a grid so that I could map out the plan. Right? This is why games like um Chips Challenge is on a grid. Do you guys ever remember playing Chips Challenge from the 90s? There's a ton of games like this where it's clearly on a grid. Um, now if we didn't want to use a grid, my only thinking was um is [sighs and gasps] the graphics aren't fully it's not clear in my mind. It's not clear that it is on a grid, right? It feels very organic. Here's an example.

Because that extends to here, I would expect to see another one of these pillars here, right? Just plenty of room to to show. Okay, this goes to here. This goes to here. this like little margin here because it extends past that. It makes me wonder if that's gonna do this. And I know that that's dumb, but that's how it feels when I look at it. So, there's just some things that don't feel like they're on a grid like that. See that? Because I have this, it makes me wonder if it's going to slide past it. Because if I'm all the way over here and I'm I look over here, I might not be able to match up the bottom there. So, does that make sense? It it sometimes it just feels

sometimes it feels like it's not on a grid and so it's hard to trust my own decisions, right? Also, another example is here. Look, let me show you something. Look at this. This is another example of why a grid would be valuable. If I kick that over there, is it going to get on that? I don't know. Maybe. Let's try it. It's like what? It's kind of Is it kind of on a grid? It's sitting on something. I'm not sure what. So, by the way, this looks This is another issue with the design is that that kind of looks like a button, but no, but that's a button for some reason. So, there's there's there's some issues with the and we'll talk about it in a second with the visuals of the buttons.

So, the the Titoia design. Let's let's let's talk this through, guys, because I'm trying to figure this out how we solve this. The way the block ends up misaligned with the spot on the floor when you finish the puzzle makes me think the whole game is driven by physics and colliders. And it could be. I don't think it should be. The game needs to be purely grid-based. Hey Canon, how are you? What? So, does is it just me now? I'm not a super I'm not a puzzle guy. Is it just me or does this not make sense? What is that?

What is that? What does that mean? It looks like a button. What is that? So, okay. So, yes, that makes sense now. So, they just indicate Okay. Okay. Let's do this first. Let's not trust Thomas. Let's trust the the the demog the the the the democracy of the chat. Let's first let's first vote on the grid. Okay. So that the the developer knows what they need to do. Should the developer It's not a qu here. Let's let's ask this question. It's not a question of whether we add a grid. It's that we do something to make it feel more grittish. And it's remember we talked about the two solutions. It could be

it could be that we throw a grid on. That's one option. Okay. Another option is the developer just needs to go in and clean up elements of the grid so that things are aligned more clearly to a grid. So that's a set dressing thing. Go into the visuals and clean up the alignment of visuals on the grid. Even stuff like this kind of bothers me. I wish it was like this. Everything was clearly aligned on a grid. So, this is the first question for the developer. Does it need to be more grittish? And that means add a grid or just clean up the visuals or no, it's fine. So, yes, more grittish or no, it's fine. And do it in all caps. Yes, more grittish. G r i d i sh or no, it's fine. This is for

the developer in the chat. I want them to see it and and hopefully get some um feedback from you guys. Go. That's the first poll. And this is not I am not trying to tear this game apart. I think there's a lot that this game is doing correctly, but man, some of these puzzles are really disorienting because I think there's we got some design issues. Okay. All right. Developer in the developer, please look at the chat, buddy. This is for your benefit. And Jason's in the chat. I trust Jason a lot here. I think Jason's a good designer. And that's Maslini.

No, there's no reason for a poll here. Okay. So, yes, more Griddish. I there. Okay. 3D Printer Academy says no. 3D Printer Academy. What do you think? What is what is what 3D printer academy? Why'd you say no, bud? And Ysef, what do you think as well? Yeah. Okay. The next and I'll let you guys write your reasoning. There were two nos out of like a bunch of yeses. Yeah. For the puzzles, yes, I agree. at bare minimum the puzzles. But the problem is is you can have enemies following you around and the only way to kill enemies is to throw down a path and so I feel like that's a potential problem, right? Um

[groaning] okay, next up we have visual issue. We have an issue with the visuals. Okay, [gasps] these look like buttons. This does not. So, I actually feel like these might need to be switched because what this is trying I think what this is trying to say is that this is a moon door. This is a circle door. But it's not clear. They look like buttons. [snorts] Um, so there's a lot of strange feelings I have where I'm like, what is this and what is this and what is this? And I understand that we're

supposed to solve this, but I think the the um the puzzle should not be in understanding the icons. The puzzle should be in how those icons work together and how we get to have those icons work together. They should be pretty obvious what they are. Now, let's double check and make sure that that's what they actually are. These don't do anything. And look, it's not even lined up on it. It it it didn't even snap snap into the center, which is very um it breaks a lot of design rules in my opinion. I kind of Oh, okay. There's a couple things here. There's a couple things here. Okay. So, first off, and developer, if you're watching, I am not I have to say this a million times lately because GameDev is so hard that I don't want the developers to get discouraged. I really don't. Um, I'm

trying to help you and I I I've had a thousand complaints about my own game just like this. So, don't take it personally. This is just making games. Okay, first off, let's solve this. I would get rid of that. That looks like a button. Okay, I would get rid of that. And I know what you're thinking. Well, Thomas, what are we supposed to do here? They look like buttons, man. I'm sorry. They look like buttons. Yeah. Okay, got it. It's cuz they're square. So, here's what we do. Oh, man. We need I think you need to solve this with UI, man. I think that's the only solution here. I think the solution is UI.

Yeah, let's let's figure this out together, guys. We have a moon icon. Let's just grab this one. I think that's the solution is UI. [sighs] And you're gonna have to probably put it in like a a circle reticle. I'm gonna close this because I understand now. Okay, I understand kind of what we need to address here. Um, I would do it in like a white reticle with a drop shadow. and it has an arrow pointing down that it's saying, "Hey, this is it. Let's just try this." Okay, let's see what happens. And you never really know.

You have to just sort of workshop it because there may be another solution or maybe a lock icon. No, I think it needs to be in the sand. This right here could just be carved into the sand like that. Let's try this for a sec. I'm going to do an inner shadow of white. moon. Moon moon and make let's make give it a little perspective as well. And it looks like the game isn't

actually orthographic. It looks like it is perspective because you can see some perspective happening here. Okay. So, moon moon. So, now it doesn't look like a button. It looks more like an indicator. Um, it's still not perfect. Um, and then that circle looks like a button you can press. I would change that to sun. We've got moon and then we've got sun, right? So, what I would do is I would use a sun icon. Guys, I'm just spitballing here. Well, the reason we visualize the moon in in the shape in front of the door is because these are puzz puzzle games you want to plan ahead, right? So, like if I'm looking at this in my head, I'm going, okay, I want to open all four doors.

Well, where do I need to get each block? Right? So instead of getting it on a button and then discovering which which door it is, I want to be able to plan ahead. So let's let's think here. Uh let's do a sun icon on noun project. Let's see here. Yeah, something like this. And so when you have the the problem is one of them looked like a button and then the other one's like a moon. And so it's like what? when in reality all this is is keys. I believe it's all it is is keys. So I would have a sun icon here and these would be these would be decals that could be used wherever you wherever we are. So for example, there's a decal there and then you could have a decal here, right? And as long as it's perspective,

and I I do see the value in it being perspective because it now it looks like it's imprinted onto it. Um, I think that's fine. It's not my favorite thing ever. I think with an inner shadow it would look pretty good. So there you go. You got things that are printed on the ground. Now I'm okay. I'm okay with them being like imprinted in the sand like this. I think that's fine. Um, I would make it look a little bit deeper. So, give me a sec here. I would do I would make it very strong. Something like this. A deep deep hole. Honestly, I think they need to be buttons.

Yeah, they need to be buttons. Yeah, I think they need to be buttons. And I would use color as well. Let's think here. Why aren't we using color? We need we should be using color. Look that circle one. I'm going to pretend that that that circle one is solved by by Oh, it's a it's a ball. It's a ball. Okay, here's the solution, guys. Color The solution is color, not moon icons.

And the developer might be thinking, "But Thomas, there's so many different key types. There's a lot of colors available in this world. There's colors and shapes." So, and if if the developer is watching and they're thinking, "Thomas, you didn't play long enough to realize, I understand. And I apologize, but we should be using color. Okay. And by the way, those of you just joining us, check out the link below if you want to check out my course, Full-Time GameDev, which is currently 50% off for the spring sale. Check it out below. See if it's something you're interested in. You're also going to get my 2D and 3D art programs completely

free. So, not only you going to learn 2D and 3D art for free for this sale event, you're also going to get the full-time gamedev program, which is um it teaches you everything you I've learned in the last decade of making indie games. I'm currently on my third commercial release. It teaches how to find a publisher. I've been published on three separate occasions, which helped me go full-time each time. Um, and I did that with just a demo. So, I teach you how to do that. I can also teach you how to do a a crowdfunding campaign. I've raised basically $100,000 with both of my campaigns. One of them was 86,000 with another like 7 or $8,000 in a post campaign. Then another one was like 95 no 105,000. Um so I teach how to do crowdfunding as well. How to get wish lists. Um I've raised I've I've gotten 10 to I think 30,000 wish list for my first two game and then my third commercial release is almost at 100,000 wish list. But Thomas, you were a YouTuber when this happened. Well, with my first two games, Pinstripe and Neverong, I was not a YouTuber. Never Song. I started being a YouTuber towards

the end of development, but that's not how I got wish lists. Um, and uh, that's not how I did the crowdfunding campaign. And also, that's not how I got published. So, I teach out how to do all of that, how to hit the Steamr page, how to get wish list, how to get press coverage, all of that stuff. So, check it out below. And if you don't trust me, you can at least look at the reviews on the website of students who actually went full-time. So, check it out below. It's 50% off. Okay, let's take a look here. Um, color, I think, is the solution here. And then these need to be buttons. I think these need to be buttons. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to make a really terrible looking button here just to show you what I mean. So what you could do is you create some kind of frame here. and then inset in the button.

Right. Like that. So, we don't need icons, we need color. That's my theory. It looks terrible, but you guys get the idea. So maybe that's our solution, right? And then the circular ball, what you could do is I I get this now. I understand this. Um and I think it's a really fun idea for the developer to do. I assume we'll find a a silver ball somewhere. And that's what this is. I could be wrong, but we could make it so that the ball is golden and you have a golden ring there. Right. You'd also make this golden as well.

Right. And you want to make sure though, it's extra important that when I move this, and it's it it presses a button, it needs to be locked in there perfectly. There needs to be no question that that thing snapped into place. So, I'm just spitballing here, right? But that's the idea. Have it lock in real nice. So it just snaps on in there. Right now this is really cool because it allows us to create a bunch of puzzles. If I wanted to, I could say, you know what,

and also what this means is I don't have to put icons everywhere. I don't have to put weird icons in front of every single spot. I could just go, no, it's going to be colored. Right. So, before we move on to the next game, um, in the chat, let's break this down. What do we think about this solution? Does this help the developer? Does this help the game? I think that's a hole for a ball to be thrown into. Yeah, absolutely. I don't quite know what this is, though. I think it's a button you have to hit with the ball, right? Um, which I think is fine. What I just spit everywhere. What I would do is I would make this kind of like a hole, too. So, I would make it look like this. And the way to do that is I'd have a big panel right here,

right? And I would make it a metal's fine. And I would just put that ring along with the that and it would lock into place. It'd go right. And frankly, I would do that with this one as well. I just have it lock into place. So I would have the it needs to look guys these keys they need to look the same and they need to be reusable all the time. So the ball I would make it a gold ball because you we have silver all over the place. So when you've got a key which that's what these are. When you've got keys they need to be pretty obvious. So, you'd have the ball the same color. Okay. What else in the chat, guys? Do we do we think this this is helpful? I

don't really make puzzle games. I've never made puzzle games like this, so I don't know. But what do we think? Material swaps and accessibility settings. No, I don't agree with that. 40-year-old here. If you are young and can allow it, I think there is no better time to start your gamedev journey. Okay, let's see. That's great. I agree. Um, no, it's not an accessibility issue. This is just design. Um, we don't need to make it look like a lock. We need We need to make it look like things can be put inside of it. That's all we need to do. It just needs to look like things can set inside of it. I don't I don't think that this lock, this lock right here, I don't think it's any different than this one, except that it requires a sphere.

These are kicked. These are thrown. There's no difference, though. It's the same exact mechanic. So, might as well make them behave the same way. The ball snaps into place and stays. The ball snaps into place and stays. Or if for some reason we wanted this to disappear, I get maybe I understand why there's a hole. But if it's if it's if it's no longer usable, then just have it snap into place and stay. Black Ember says, "This looks visually pleasant. Easy to see what needs to be done now." And the bonus on top here, guys, is that if things are on a grid Oh, see that's such a problem. Look at that. That's so frustrating. It needs to be this. I need I need Mr. Mickey Mouse here. I need him perfectly down here like that. For this to be fun, it needs to be

perfectly lined up. He needs to be right there. But that's frustrating, too. So, we're going to clean this up here. Hang on. This is frustrating. I should see this log should be perfectly lined up like that. Puzzle games, it's all about planning your your your next move, right? This is why chess is on a grid. You want to be able to plan your next move and see. And it's hard to have foresight when you it's it's like an Excel spreadsheet as well. I don't want to have to figure out where the cell is. I want to see nice clean lines to know where I'm going. Grid. Oh, that feels so misaligned because that's on a grid here. I guess that makes sense. Okay, there we

go. Kind of. Yeah, things feel really misaligned. I don't know if they're on a grid. Okay, that's better. But again, we need this here, right here. It needs to be perfectly on that grid. But now we need to move him up here. And then we need to make sure that this. And then we need to make sure that this uh let's let's merge all this together really quick here. That needs to be the same exact size as that grid, right?

So this right here needs to be brought down. And maybe I'm just not interpreting correctly what the developer has done, but things really need to be on a nice clean grid for this to work. Yeah. And then nice clean grid here. Whoops. I don't know what happened there. Yeah, nice clean grid. Everything's on a tape, right? What can be kicked versus what can be thrown. That's there. That's another thing. This should be kickable. That should be

throwable. H There's so many wonderful things to do here to help out the player. This should be a box. This should absolutely be a crate. This should be a crate, guys. It looks like it it looks like a anvil or something. It's the last thing I'd want to kick. Um, I'm so sorry. Give me Give me just a sec. I'm sorry. What I meant was this should be a box. This that should be a sphere. Okay, I'm not going to draw it all out. I'm just going to talk about it. This should be a sphere. Spheres are kickable. They're balls and they go into holes.

This should be a crate. Crates can be thrown, right? This should be a ball. This should be a crate. Crates are throwable. Balls are kickable. It's not that the developer needs to redesign the whole game. They need to change up the visual. The visuals for the puzzle elements. It won't be like Goof Troop if it was a sphere. Is Goof Troop Let's take a look at Goof Troop. Does goof troop use um cubes and spheres? See, I've never played Goof Troop. Okay.

Okay. Let's take a look here. Cool. So, Goof Troop uses these cubes that are kickable, but are there things that are throwable in in Goof Troop? Right. And look, Goof Troops from uh 1993. I'm Okay. So yeah, we could pick up cannonballs and throw those here. So that's I guess if we wanted to stick with the goof troop, but look how much of a grid this game is on. Uh yeah, if we wanted to stick to the tropes of goof troop, I guess that's fine. Um but just remember that we don't have to. Um or or another way to telegraph this is not telegraph, what's the right word?

You could put it like on wheels or something. But I guess yeah, if we want to if we want to stick to the goof troop tropes, that's fine. Um yeah, that's fine. If players who are going to play this game are goof troop players, I don't know why that was the design decision of goof troop. I would have swapped them. I would have made balls kickable and uh boxes throwable. Is it is it better guys or did it did it uh crash on us? I may start another stream here.

Let me know if I'm if it's uh if the stream crashed, guys. [snorts] let me know. Okay, we're better now. Cool. All right, let's move on to the next game. That's one of those games that I've played where I don't fully trust my own judgment with certain things because I know that it's based on some kind of on a game that I never played, right? Um, yeah. Okay, let's keep going. Overall, I think the game is has a lot of potential. All right, let's play a game called Plague Born. And feel free to check out the link below uh for the course, which is currently on sale for 50% off. It's my

massive gamedev course, so check it out below. Plague born is starting. I don't know why it's taking so long to load up here. Yes. Yes, a great shader. Or that might be a a mesh for with a what's it called? Spline 2D. Let's hit play. Multiplayer game. I'm disconnected for some reason.

Huh? I'm going to host a game and see what happens. Is it laggy? Let me know if it's still laggy, guys. I might need to start a new stream. Let me know if it's still laggy.

Okay, here's my gear. Decrepit blade. Good. Good. I'm just going to play it by my No, I'm not plugged in. ad spaces jump. I like the art. I don't know how to

attack. Left shift. How do I attack?