Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 052

Good night. I am so excited to hang out with you guys and we're going to play three games today. We're going to play three beautiful games. Hold on, let me fix something. Something just broke. No, we're good. Okay, we're gonna play three beautiful games today. They're games that you guys submitted on X. Okay, so if you ever want to submit a game, just go to x.comomasbrushdev and submit your games and I'll play them and I'll rip them to shreds. No, the goal is not to rip ripen to shreds. The goal is to encourage you. I want every developer who submits a game to be encouraged. That's my end goal. Encouraged to do the right thing and make their game this much better because this much can make a huge difference. So, come on in, guys. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Let me double check. Make sure everything's good. Are we good? Everything's good. There we go. Yay. Everything's rolling. Huge. Wow. Huge. Huge. Thank you to Sebastian, Zach,

Jose, Jean, Oscar, Ganix, Satic, Jan, Richard, Rita, George, and Jake D. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Fulltime GameDev. And by the way, these students enrolled during the summer sale for Full-Time GameDev, which is my massive gamedev course, which teaches you everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games. It's currently 50% off for the next 13 days. And if you want a shout out tomorrow, I'll give you a shout out in tomorrow's live stream just like I did for those students. And you're going to learn everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games. And that includes, look, that includes these games here. Okay, I learned a lot making these games. Okay, this game is Never Song. This game is Pinstripe, right? These were my 2D games. And then also I have a game that big announcement is coming tomorrow um called Twisted Tower. And Twisted Tower is um wrapping up development. This is my first 3D game. Okay. So I say all that just to say I'm a game

developer who's been published three times. I've gone full-time on three separate occasions. You just take a demo, you pitch it to a publisher, you get funding or you get funding on Kickstarter or you make obviously you make revenue from your games as well. You hit the Steamfront page, you market your game, you reach out to the press, you do all sorts of cool marketing stuff and business stuff. And I'm going to teach you how to do that in this course. But on top of that, obviously, you're going to learn how to make a great game in 2D, 3D, Unity, GDAU, or Unreal, whichever engine you want to learn. And look, don't take it from me. Don't take it from me. If it if this annoys you and you're like, "Who is this YouTuber?" Well, at least take a look not only at my work, my games, my my previous two games got great reviews. They're on every platform. Um, my third game, the demo, has great reviews. I can't wait to show you guys the full thing, but take it from my students. These are students who actually went full-time. Okay, so just click the click the link below, see if it's something you're interested in, and let's get moving here and play some games. Oh, by the way, my 2D art course, my 3D art course, and my YouTube course

are included free. And then there's also an hour-long meeting with me and a few other developers that you're going to get if you enroll during the summer sale. So, um, yeah, click the link below. Anyway, let's jump right into the games. Thanks for letting me do that ad read, guys. Um, okay. What do we got here? A lot of fun games. So, like I said in the intro, you know, the big goal here is is to play play these games and to crush the game developers spirits, right? That's the end goal. We want them to be miserable. We want them to know that their game I'm kidding. We want them to know that the game has potential and we want to offer up feedback and critique. And it's not just me. I want you guys to offer up feedback as well. And this is to help the developer, okay? This is to help the developer. So, we're going to start with the g with this game called Escape the Red Curse. So, let's just go ahead and hit play here and get started. You're my goat, Thomas. Well, thank you. Oh, I love it when a game just starts.

There's no pretention. This is interesting menu. Feels a little disorienting if I'm not going to lie. Uh mainly because we've got super crisp UI, but then that's really low res. I see this more times than not with indie games. I don't know what it is, but indie games always have a lowresolution logo and everything else is high- res. I don't understand it. Um but the menu feels good. I love the sounds. Good job. Yeah, not not not the best menu, but that's okay. Let's hit new game here and get started. Sorry. Let me turn it up for you. Check. One, two, check. Check. Check. Phone's ringing. Hey, this feels really good, actually.

Okay. Okay. Uh, this is great. AD, mouse, control is crouch. I mean, escape is zoom out. E is zoom in. We don't really need this. I don't know what that means. I don't know what this means. Mouse click. Collect. I don't know what that means. I don't Okay, so this I don't know what that means. I don't know what this means either. But what I would do is if I was the developer is I would definitely not show that in the final game. Just teach with little call outs when we approach things. Teach the player um step by step by step. Hold their hand gently and teach them how to look at something. Teach them how to escape. Teach him how

to solve a puzzle. Don't do it all in one go, especially when an annoying phone is ringing. Oh, look. We've got a frog. Oh man, I wish there was a sound. Okay, let's go pick up the phone. This is driving me nuts. There it is. Hello. Uhhuh. Hello. Can anyone hear me? I've been trying to get through for you for 2 hours already. This object is too difficult. Find everyone you can save and escape the apartment. What? This object is too difficult? What? Who needs to be saved?

Yeah, you could just send me an email at Thomasulttimegamedev.com. Okay, so I didn't understand that call, but that that's okay, I guess. This door is cursed. Oh no, I need to find a way to break the curse. It looks like these are the apartment's residents, Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood. Hey, bud. Curses. Oh, looks like you don't know each other. Okay. So, I don't Does anyone know what's going on? And this this is like a common theme

with every indie game I play. Um, it is the I would say the cancer of all indie games, most indie games, and I've suffered it too. It's what it eats the game and destroys the game. And that is a an a a a poorly designed uh introductory sequence that does not give me any um motive. It doesn't give me a a problem. It doesn't give me any idea as to if I know who I am or where I am. Just give me some deets. Give me some deets and give me some motivation. But let's keep going here. I don't know what this means. Okay, that's my bag. So, what what what you should do here is when I press E on this, this flashes white and an arrow goes

and I click it and there's my stuff. That's all we got to do. We don't need that weird call out. The music doesn't work for me. Um, if it were me, I think the me I think the tone of this game is really nice. Um, it's just the the the music is is really throwing me off. So, if it were me, I'll show you guys what I would do for the music. I I feel like this this game needs a a very eerie, ominous tone. It doesn't need happy guitar music, right? So, lo and behold, what are we going to look for on Spotify? Well, of course, we're going to look for the Salad Finger soundtrack. Let's do Beware the Friendly Stranger. This is from Boards of Canada. Okay, here we go.

I'd do this one. It's very eerie here. Or I would do this one. This is Brian Eno. Now the tone works right. Um the lighting even back rooms is fully lit. Um even back rooms like is a horror game and a horror movie and a horror genre. It's fully lit. Um but not flatly lit. There's still shadows and darkness, right? Um, so I want to show you guys how we

could make this scene look a little bit more interesting because right now I'm pretty uninterested in what I'm seeing. Um, so what you could have is you could have simple volumetrics for just a few lights. Okay? So let's just say it was something like this. So you'd have a few volumetrics here. and inverse. And if if if you're wondering why is Thomas doing this, um uh it's because art and tone and ambience and music are are definitely a forte for me. That's it's the one thing that I lean into constantly for my games. Um and so I want to help the developer out if I can with something that I feel is my strong suit. Um, so tonally the game would feel so much more interesting in my opinion if we had a

lot less light. Now, you don't have to make it black. Okay, this is a big problem a lot of um indie game developers have. They they go, "Here's my spotlight." And then everything else is black. And that's that's frustrating. Okay. Instead, you want to just have a subtle a subtle tonal shift of light. Okay? You could even if you really wanted to, you could make it so that the light is warm and the um the the room is um let's do this really quick. The room is like a cool color. Okay. So, here's what what I mean here. So, we have warm light here, right? And then this, you could maybe even go a little bit more green. Throw a vignette on there on the post-processing.

And now you have a much eerier sequence. Um, throw some emissives on there. Now, do you have to go full full dark horror? No, of course not. But right now, I just feel a I feel like it's pretty bland. Um, but that could be like this is the thing is like there's there's certain bland that works. So, um, Cat Named Mojave. It's a great indie game. Um, and it's super bland and and it's bright. It's almost too bright in like a scary way. Um, so you can have bland lighting like that and and it works. So don't don't make don't think that I this is the only solution, but I just think that this scene is a little bit too a little bit too bland. So let's go ahead and open it up, though. But let's listen to this tone first. So this is the tone I'm kind of after.

Oh, long shadows are your friend, by the way. So obviously this shadow doesn't make sense but something like this is very interesting when you have long shadows in a room. So like this you see you could put an emissive behind the newspapers so that they're they're like glowing from hot sunlight behind it. You can do this, right? You could even do a little emissive there.

So, that's kind of what I would do if if this was this was my scene. You know, the assets aren't terrible. The assets work just fine. Um, it's just the lighting and and the music. So, that was what we had and then this is what the original is here. But that that's what my idea and here's the original. So, hopefully you could see kind of why I would go in that direction. Right now I'm just like, okay, there's blood, but there's also 2012 emo Midwestern guitar. Uh, so, okay. So, who needs to be saved? This guy? I don't know. How do I get to the second floor, bro? Looks like you don't know each other. Okay. Okay. Alistister Wanukott. We studied together and started working together. He's strong and he knows exactly what

happened. What happened with what? That's a little odd. I I Yeah, it's just hard for me to follow what's going on. And guys, let me know if you can follow what's going on. Um, it looks like you don't know each other. Okay. What? Okay. So, I can't talk to him about Alistister. I just don't know what's going on. I I I want to know what's going on, but I'm just I feel very confused. It looks like these are Okay, I already talked to them. Oh my. Oh man. If the music was better and the lighting was better, this would be so scary. It'd be so creepy. I would love it. Like you can imagine, sorry guys, but you can imagine if you had this shot here.

Where's the Where's the very strong? If you had the um lighting really dark and dim, right, it'd be so eerie. And it was just shadows sort of being cast on this guy. It' be just so interesting. Uh anyway, let's keep playing. Alistister is very strong. Cages feed me. Okay. Okay, I got a knife. Let's see if we can take it. Oh, what's this? Oh man, with eerie music, this would be

great. Let's just put the eerie music on. It would feel so much better. You see? Oh, we got ourselves a key. Ah, I want to work with the Sorry. I want to play with the lighting of this scene because it would look so good. you throw some post-processing on and just dim it down and add that ambience, it'd be so spooky. The mysterious music makes the mysterious confusion of the dialogue justified.

How do I use that key? I have a key and I can't use it. That's a good devil's advocate argument. The music if uh if I play devil's advocate is to give you a sense of nothing is wrong, but as you look around and start discovering stuff, slowly you realize that there's something wrong. I I think that's a great devil's advocate argument. I don't agree. I think that it's best if it's if if there's a giant toad in a cage and there's blood underneath a door, we know something's wrong. So, might as well just have the music reflect that. Okay, we we need to be careful not to Oh, no. No. Okay. How do I turn music off with the uh with Streamlabs? Does anyone know? I accidentally started it.

What is this? How do I stop music freaking Streamlabs? Why would anyone want this? How to turn off music on Streamlabs? What in the world? Click the speaker icon next to your music source. No. What music source? Golly. Yeah, this actually if it was this happy, if the music was this happy, I would actually see the contrast. And I think it could work. But what in the world? How do I stop

this? I pressed the play button on my keyboard and Streamlabs started playing music. How do I turn it off? Yeah, like if if it was super happy super happy, it might work. I'll show you I'll show you an example in a sec. press the play pause button on your keyboard again. No, it doesn't. What the f? How do I turn it off? No.

What? What is this? No. What is this? What do I do? It's not a music. I don't have a music source.

I don't know what to do. Is it Streamlabs? Well, how do I get How do I turn it off? Huh? What is happening? Okay, we're going to try something.

What? What is happening?

What is What is this? I'll see you guys in the next stream, I guess. What the?

Okay, I was able to turn the music off from Streamlabs, but I don't know where that music's coming from. Okay, let's keep playing. I think. Okay. Okay, we're good. So, this is a fun puzzle. I like stuff like this. Um,

but it's not particularly hard, which is fine. It's fine. Okay. So, we just match it to this. Maybe it is hard. Maybe uh look, it won't match. Huh. Okay. So, it is kind of hard for me apparently. I'm kind of confused because it's not perfectly matched up. What?

Yeah, that it it would be cooler if the the painting was a bit more interesting. I agree. Um I'm not sure what happened. So the footsteps kept playing. Follow the cloud. What do you mean? Follow the cloud. What do you mean everything's lined up? Yeah. I don't I just don't know what's really going on. This is Van Go Star Night. I love this painting.

Okay, we got a key that we can maybe use here. Okay, I would make the the key icon like have it like a little dog on it or something and then the lock itself has a dog on it. So, you know, cuz like that we had two locks and one key and it was just a little frustrating. Okay. Can we open it? What? Okay, there we go. What? Okay. Um, let's move on to the next game. I'm not quite sure what was going on there, but let's move on to the next game and kind of figure out what's going on here. Um, that that game I couldn't quite figure out what I was

doing or like why. So, maybe it's because maybe I just got a little frustrated with the music that started playing in my stream and but I just don't I didn't really know what was going on. So, I think that some more clarity at the beginning would have helped a lot. clarity about um and I say this all the time, who who I am to a degree, where I am to a degree, what I'm trying to resolve, what what what what's the problem I'm trying to solve. Um I think that could that could really help. Okay, let's keep playing. Um and by the way, those of you just joining us, just remember you can join my massive gamedev course. It's called Fulltime GameDev. I'll give you a shout out in tomorrow's live stream. Uh the link is below if you want to check it out. You're going to learn everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games like this one, indie games like this one, indie games like this one. Um, how to get publishers, how to get find uh funding, how to hit the Steamfront page, how to get wish lists, how to get press coverage. Um, and check

out the reviews on the website. See if it's something you're interested in because I have students who actually went full-time with the help of the course, which is really, really cool. Okay, let's play this next game called Nemat. I'm excited about this game. I love the older I get, the more interested I am in in ancient Egypt. This is an early demo of Nimat. Many mechanics, puzzles, animation, sound effects, and story elements are still in development. This demo does not represent. So, I say this all the time. I said this in the in the in yesterday's live stream. Um, a demo is not a place to release something that is not finished. A demo should be the greatest the greatest thing you've ever released. And I'm being a little bit tongue and cheek, but it should be incredibly polished. It should be the best that you have to offer. That's the whole point of a demo. A demo is not a is not a play test. Um, it is a public offering that advertises

what your game is so that you get wish lists. So you do not you should always treat a demo in a way like a 1.0 launch. It's that important. Do not cannibalize your game and its potential by releasing something that's unfinished. So to the developer, instead of having a splash screen like this, resolve the issues, right? Um make make the sound effects, animations, puzzles, mechanics in the demo pristine. But let's keep playing. And that I'm not trying to be rude or mean. I'm trying to help the developer to realize that that a demo is really important. A demo gets you wish lists. All right, let's go. This is cool. I like how that looks actually. Q is interact and attack. X is back and run. Tab is pause. F

equip. E. Oh wow. I'm not going to remember any of that. I'm not going to remember any of that. Nemat hot sun. Okay. So, this menu is very hard. It's not um very readable. There's not a lot of contrast. So, everything looks really bright and hot. And so, and also selecting is very um it's not obvious that something's selected. It needs to flash white and open immediately as opposed to a slow animation. It needs to go and flash white, turn white, turn white. Okay, but let's hit new game.

What? Okay. Q is select. Make it space or enter. I love how this game looks. I really do. It's very nostalgic. Very pretty. That's great. Great artwork. Oh, I wish that was seamless, but that's okay. Nimat, are you going to the market? You know, it could be dangerous for him. The boy? I would have said the boy. It'll only take a moment. He should stay with me. Do you want to leave Laamos with his father? Give me a sound there. And And flashing is good. Flashing is good. So I would

make that that Yes. doing this. Make it obvious that it's selected. And give me a or a staying here, father. I'll go to the market for a chalice of life. Oh, come come come back soon, mama. I will. Just stay with your father. I'll be back before you even notice. She's got a booty. Look at that. Wait. Take this, mama. The kn of Isis. I feel safe when I have it with me. It will protect you. You can give it back once you return. Thank you. I'll be back soon. I promise. That's a hilarious animation. Look at that.

She's wearing a see-through dress. Going to market. I love how she has no feet. I love the art style. It just feels so um human cuz there there's little flaws here and there. It's just oddlooking, but in a great way. I love it. Okay, I could sprint. I wish there was a sprint and like a really nice jump animation and stuff, but maybe that's not what this is about. Akenatan, the pharaoh who is changing everything. Whose is changing everything? The pharaoh who who is changing everything. The one who closed the temples. The one who made everyone to surrender their altars and forget who they are. This music's great. I wish there was some parallaxing, meaning the background elements move

slower. Okay, you making fish pool again. The net is full of fish. It might be full. Oh, it might be full. But look, most of them are rotten. Rotten again. Look at that. I love that those cows. The woman drops some into the basket. Sets others aside. We won't be able to sell this ones. The same thing happened yesterday. Look at these animations. These are great. This game is interesting. I'm I'm very interested. We got a carcass. Another ox. The third this week. Animals are dying without explanation. And the vultures arrive before the smell. So, it's odd that I can't walk past that. There's no reason why that's true. Put a wall there, a tree there, a rock

or something. There's no reason. It's just confusing. It's not an Asian accent. It's uh it's Egyptian, obviously. That's a cool reflection. There's my hubby. Sorry, guys. They're just going on a walk. Look, they're playing something. You playing chess? Okay. People of Egypt, the dusk. What? People of Egypt, the disc watches. Your labor, your tributes. Everything is counted. He barely smiles. The new era doesn't ask only for faith. It asks for

obedience. Okay. I love the the the vibe I'm getting. I I I love games that just feel totally fresh and new and don't really have I' I've never seen an art style like this. People of Memphis, by Pharaoh's decree, men with hands and strength are obligated to build the new city. Ackatan Acatan Ackatan. Ackatan. Those who disobey will be judged by the one true God, Aiden. Oh my goodness. So, nothing's really happened. I'm interested though. I think it'd be great if something interesting would happen. I'm interested in the the music and the the vibes and the art. Got some weird pixels over there on the right side, top right side of the screen, but other than that, I'm fine.

I wouldn't let me do all that exploration if I'm being completely honest with the developer. Just make me go to this guy and let's ride. It's very hot today, don't you think? Whoa. What? What? Oh no, we got a lot going on here. Okay, there we go. It's very hot today, don't you think? Days are not as they used to be. It feels like the sun is angry. And that wouldn't surprise me. The city and its new rules, nothing is going to be the same. We must be loyal to our gods. Careful. If they hear you, they'll hunt

you. Okay. Okay. Let's get out of here. It's very hot today, don't you think? Okay, let's go. Come on. Oh, cow with a really awesome animation. I love it. The ox lets out a deep and chew slowly, indifferent, yet its eyes follow you a second too long. Oh my goodness. He's calm as if nothing has happened or as if what happened is normal. What? What are we talking about? This art's great. I don't really want to talk to everybody. I just kind of want to get to where I need to go. That's a ton of artwork. It really is.

The merchant bows his head. My lady, what do you seek? A chalice of life? Yes, my lady. With careful hands he takes a plain chalice. It's not a fine one, but it's clean. It will do. How much? A fair price. His voice dropped slightly. Today it's better not to argue over anything, my lady. I understand. Here you are. May your path be light. Thank you. I got myself a life chalice. Oh no. What? Who's that guy? Oh.

What? Okay. So, I need to run from him. We got a weird some weird normal mapping going on. I don't love the normal mapping if I'm being honest. This is so interesting. We got to get out of here, man. Hurry. Someone is following me. You're lucky I was just about to set sail without you. Where is everyone? What happened? I don't know. A few hours ago, everything was fine until the day broke. A few hours ago, I I don't get it. My family My family is on the other side. Well, you must hurry. There is no safe place out here.

Wow. Uh, no. By the way, this is made in GDAU. Yeah, the normal mapping is not working for me. I don't know why we've got normal mapping. We've got a zombie chasing us. We've got weird chairs knocked over. Oh no, he's crawling. Where's my hubby? Get me in there. Hey, this is great. I must hurry and find them. I just hope they're fine. I will need a weapon and I must get to my father's cop first. What? This is great. I'm very interested. I love it when a game holds my hand and guides me through step by step through the story. This is great. Cool. My father was the most respected

general in Memphis. They say no one wielded the copish with such strength and wisdom as he did. Neat. If the goddess weighs my heart today, tell her I tried to be better than I was. NO, NO, NO. You killed HIM. WHY? WHAT ARE YOU?
I'm a ton. I'm the disc.
You handed him to the do it without judgment, without the weighing, without his name. My word is enough. I am the balance. Oh my goodness. It's turnbased. What is

this game is so interesting. Isn't that cool? Music. Let's go. Choose which body part you want to attack. How How do I do it? Oh, this is great. So, I'm getting Undertale vibes. Get that eye stomach. Every time you attack, one or more QTE, prompts will appear. Buttons can vary between In this tutorial, the QTE will always be W Y. What?

This is great music. Nice. Hey, we got some pretty cool animations. During the enemy turn, you'll see their attack. I'm so fascinated by this game. Okay, we've got to move on to the next game, though. I don't have all day. Man, that was great. Nat, it it certainly has its flaws. There's there's a lot about this game that feels very like very indie and very f someone's first game. Uh but it's great. It's it's it's just got a very unique voice. I'm really impressed. Seriously, great job to the developer. Um I felt really interested what I was playing. That was so cool. Uh okay, you ready to move on to the next? The last game, guys. Last game is called Explorite. Before we do that, one final shout out. If you want to join full-time gamedev, which is my massive course. It teaches everything I've learned in the last decade of turning

demos into paychecks. I've done it three times. I've gone full-time on three separate occasions. I say this all the time. These are my two games. And then this is my third game, Twisted Tower. So, I know a thing or two about getting published, uh, you know, making Kickstarter campaigns work or just selling games to platforms like Apple or hitting the Steamfront page or, you know, actually making money on my games. So, click the link below, check it out, and you're going to learn a ton about marketing your game, how to work with publishers, how to make a game in GDAU, Unity, or Unreal. You also get my 2D and 3D art programs completely free. The 3D art program is brand spanking new. You also get a meeting with me for an hour where I can answer any questions you have. Okay, let's go. Explore looks amazing.

Oh, we got ourselves a game that has some polish. Nope. Come on. Let me hover over. So, it's keyboard only, which is fine. It's probably g uh gamepad recommended. That's good music. But let I want a breakdown. Come on, let's go. Give me a breakdown. Nope. Okay, so far it looks good. I like the menu. I I wish I could use my mouse. I was assigned by the GSO's Global Space Organization to escort a research team to planet LT461. Apparently, the origin, let me try a better voice. Apparently, the origin of recurring electromagnetic pulse waves affecting Earth for some

time. Oh, Jay is advanced. Why? Okay. Our convoy consisted of a science vessel, a battle cruiser, and my ship. Nearing the end of our journey, the battle cruiser suffered a malfunction, and had to head to a nearby nearby asteroid belt for repairs. It was decided that research vessel, the research vessel and my ship would continue the mission. When we arrived at LT461, we quickly set up camp. I explored the surrounding area and everything seemed fine. So, I decided to head back and check on the battle cruiser's repairs. Nice. This is great. Halfway there, GSO command contacted me and asked me to return to the planet to

investigate a distress call from the research team. So, I turned around and headed back to LT461. When I arrived at the planet for the second time, my ship's navigation system malfunctioned. I tried insuccessfully to fix whatever was affecting it. Inevitably, though, my ship crashed. So far so good. I'm I'm really uh interested. I like the art. I like the the cut scene was cool. I want cool music to start playing. My ship destroyed. There's nothing I could do right now. Meanwhile, I'll search the area. That's a weird dialogue. Meanwhile, what? That's okay. I'll search the area to find out what happened to the research team. They should be nearby somewhere. Somewhere

nearby. What? They should be somewhere nearby. Let's look around. How do I jump? Controls are odd. Um, I think it's a game pad game, but I cannot jump. Let's go to our Man, the controls are odd. Um, I would say jump is K. Okay, so this is some kind of clever K. The sling is I. I get it. L. Okay. V is shoot. N is shoot. I can't. There's no way I'm going to remember this.

Good character controller. This looks great. Feel like the camera's a little close. But maybe that's just me. Log entry 7. Be careful with the green geysers. Mike nearly got melted on one of those. Trying to remember how to jump. Okay, it's K. Sorry, my son has my game pad downstairs. He he he likes to play Minecraft, so I don't have my game pad with me right now. It's wildly complicated. I The controls are going to ruin it for me if I'm being honest. I'm going to go get my game pad. I'll be right back.

Oh, it feels so much better. Okay, so I don't know why the keyboard controls

were what they were, but this is much better. So, just a a quick note with a platformer like this, it the controller, by the way, the character controller feels really good. Um, I would just zoom the camera out if it were me. I would zoom it out. And I would also make the platforms a little bit more obvious to stand on. They're they're a little t like that right there isn't great. You want the player to know exactly where they're going to fall to, but it's not terrible. You're going to have to teach me how to I'm not sure what to do. Let's see if I

can uh if I need to get like a weapon or something. Did I miss something? Wow. What's this? Hi there. I'm a sensient or I'm a I'm a sensient sentient or inorganic life form. A companion AI if you will. My designation is roz 341713. Hiro. Um Rob. I'll call you Rob if you don't mind. My name is Sai. I'm a human from planet Earth. Why are you here? Nice to meet you, Sai. I'm not sure how I ended up here, but I need to get back to the main frame at the AI tower. Will

you help me? If you show me the way, I'll help you as much as I can. Great. Let me interface with you then. AI companion, press X to attack. Hey, that's cool. Oh, I didn't expect Oh, I didn't expect interfering with a human to feel like this. It's quite cozy in here. I'm sorry, but I'll only be able to attack you, contact you from your wristband. I hope that's okay. No problem, Rob. Let's start looking for my colleagues. Colleagues, my scanners detected some unusual organic activity. a while ago. That may be where they are. Well, let's find out. This is great. UI is awesome. Art's awesome. Voice acting's incredible.

Great dialogue boxes. Oh, it's Hollow Night, which is totally fine. Oh, that felt good. Good job. Ooh, nice. Sound was a little off. I'd redo that sound. I'd speed up that a little bit. It's a little slow. Yeah, that sound needs to be adjusted. I'd be careful

that it's just feeling a little too much like Hollow Knight if I'm being honest. So that first enemy should not I mean I understand that that is the basic enemy type for this kind of game. But it's just feeling a little too Metroid V a little too Hollow Knighty just a tad bit and I'm wondering if we could redo that enemy design cuz that enemy looked basically exactly like a Hollow Knight enemy. I'll show you. So if we get back to that enemy. Yeah. Right there. I'd be really careful. Do we agree in the chat or is this just Thomas? Do we agree with in the chat that the that that enemy needs to be redone and redesigned? Yes or no? Yes, redo. No, it's fine. Yes, redo. No, it's fine.

That's a great death animation. Yeah. Okay, developer, if you're in the chat, you need to redo that. It looks too much like Hollite. I'm sorry. Everything else looks great. Make Make it like a a a glass a rounded glass dome with like bubbles in it and it there's like a a brain inside of it or something. And when you hit it, it's like glass. My game's feeling awesome so far. Data pad with the structural information of the service. Ooh, it feels good. Can I drop down? I can. Yay. I would considering I would consider if I was the developer

putting a big fat sprite or quad behind the ground layer and making it just a very faint blue to separate the ground from the background. Cuz right now everything seems like it's smashed together on one plane. Create more depth so that I can see the ground better and know what I'm about to jump on. This right here is not obvious. And you really want it to be obvious. Okay. I love the dust though. That looks good. Yeah. If it if it were me, I would come up with a better melee animation as well, cuz that it's just like I'm just seeing Hollow Knight everywhere. And we don't we don't need we don't need to do that, you know. We can we can change it up. We can make a a punch animation

and it's like a forward hit, right? We can do something like that. We can do a um uh that's all I could think of. Good. That's great. That's great. And good sounds. Oh, make those make those sound a little bit more more more clingy and uh like coins and and have a have an explosion sound when they come out. But that felt very Hollow Knighty as well. Um, if it were me, I would make it so that the coins don't fly out and bounce. I would try and separate it from Hollow Knight and I would have them come out like floating orbs, like spores, and

they'd be floating around and you have to go and run and go collect them all and they fly to you. No, I mean if you do a laser gun then suddenly the game play is completely different. You want to do a melee weapon because that's what the the whole level design is built around the melee weapon. So game is awesome, graphics are awesome, music, sound, everything is awesome. I think developer your lowest hanging fruit here, your lowest hanging fruit are two things. First, add some kind of layer to separate the background from the foreground. I'm going to try and do it in Photoshop to show you what I mean. And then number two, number two is I would pull away from the Hollow Knight stuff. You don't need it. You don't need a scarab that looks exactly the same. You don't need a slash animation that looks exactly the same. You don't need

the coins popping out like that that's exactly the same. You don't need that. You can come up with something else. It's super easy. Just come up with something that looks different and you're okay. But all