Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 053

No. Okay. You don't look very comfortable. Hey guys, come on in. We're going to play some games today. We're going to play three games. Uh I kind of choose lately I kind of choose more spooky games. Um the older I get, the more I enjoy a dark, grim game. I like to make those kind of games and I like to play those kind of games. So, we're going to play some more darker grim games today. But the goal is what I say this every time. The goal is to crash and destroy and just obliterate your dreams when I play your games. Obviously, that's sarcasm. My goal is to bring joy and peace and happiness to every developer that submits their games. If you want to submit your game, go to twitter.com or x.com/toomasbrushdev. And you can submit your games whenever I do a call to submissions, which is lately this week, pretty much every day.

Okay, come on in, guys. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Um, we're going to play some games today. And truthfully, the goal is to offer constructive criticism because at the end of the day, I want developers to not suffer like they're about to suffer in the next hour on launch day. I want to I want to help resolve issues that developers are going to have with their games in this live stream as opposed to when they launch their games. Okay, so we're going to play some games. We're going to play some demos. Really quick, I want to say huge, huge thank you. I promised I would do this. A huge huge thank you to Ignaz, Lucas, Juan, Sebastian, Zack, Jose, Jean, Oscar, and then I I said these names yesterday. Um, welcome, welcome, welcome to Fulltime GameDev. By the way, guys, if you want to get a shout out in tomorrow's live stream. And if you want to join the summer sale enrollment for Full-Time GameDev, click the link below. It's 50% off right now. And you're also going to get my 2D art program, totally free. My 3D art program, which is brand spanking new. We just updated it about

two weeks ago, so it's brand spanking new. That's completely free, but only for this sale. And then you're also going to get my YouTube course which teaches you how to do YouTube for your games which is a huge godsend lately for me and for a lot of developers who have YouTube channels because you could build an audience around your game. This is super valuable in the hyperco competitive uh ocean of Steam games that are released every year. If you want to learn how to get a publisher, if you want to learn how people like me get funding to make their games full-time. And then my third game is called uh Twisted Tower, and I'm going to we're going to talk about that in a second. U but Twisted Tower was published by 3D Realms. I went full-time with just a demo for that as well. I teach that in the course, okay? Um it's 50% off. And look, if you don't believe me and you don't you don't trust me. I totally get it. I wouldn't trust me either. I don't trust anyone with strikingly handsome looks and charisma. And you shouldn't

either. Instead, you should trust reviews um that are hand handpicked reviews by Thomas Brush on his website. No, but these are students who actually went full-time with the help of the course, which is really really cool. And by the way, if you're a student, let me know in the chat what you think about the program. Uh but feel free to check it out. This sale comes once every season. This is my biggest one I've done this year. Um so check it out. You got 12 days left. I think there's like 75 slots left. Um, so be sure to check it out. Okay, let's go ahead and jump into the first game and this is actually a bonus game. Okay, so before we play some games, this is a bonus game. Okay, and this we're going to review. What we're going to review is the Steam page first. Okay, goal of these streams is to offer feedback. Whether it's marketing, whether it's game design, art, development, offer feedback to developers. Okay, so this first game here

is called, you guessed it, Twisted Tower. Okay, so we're going to offer not not constructive criticism because frankly I'm not going to criticize myself. The reason I can't criticize myself right now is because I just finished all this stuff. I just updated the Steam page and I've pretty much feel like I fixed all of the issues that I had in the game or in the in the Steam page. But in all honesty, instead of critiquing it because like I said, I just can't because I've already cleaned up everything I'm critical of. I'm going to give you reasoning for why I did certain things on this Steam page. And by the way, this just updated today along with its release date, which is August 18th. Um, so it's coming out two months or I'm sorry, a month, a month in like 10 days. So, I'm going to talk through why I made decisions with this Steam page and then we're going to jump into the three games. Okay? And by the way, if you want to wish list Twisted Tower, uh, type in Twisted Tower on Google and then click wish list. Okay. So, first things first,

when it comes to cover art, now I'm not going to pretend to be perfect. Um, but I am going to pretend or believe that I have some some kind of credibility here. Um, first things first, first things first. When it comes to your cover art, the goal is, and it's hard to do, but the goal is to translate your Trinity hook in your cover art. Who knows what a Trinity hook is? Who knows? Who knows what a Trinity hook is? Can anybody tell me what a Trinity hook is? And this is something that I I like to um tout because I made it up. I made it up for me. It helps me. Um and it's mainly a marketing tool, although it can be used to pretty much dictate every decision you make for your game. Okay. So, who knows what the Trinity Hook is? Does anyone know in the chat? And we're going to talk about this. This is related to your Steam pages, guys.

What I'm about to talk about. This is not me just this is this is not me touting my game. What am I going to get? Maybe 10 15 wish lists from this live stream. You know that that's not why I'm doing this. I'm doing this because it's top of mind and I want to tell you why I made the decisions I made. Okay. So, the trinity hook is nope. Not narrative, atmosphere, and gameplay. Nope. The trinity hook is your story hook. Okay. It's your mechanical hook, okay? And it's your um visual hook. And a hook is also called a USP. It's a unique selling point. It's something that catches people's attention. Okay? Some games do it really, really well and it's easy for them to do it. Some games it's tough to do, right? Twisted Tower is kind of in the middle. Twisted Towers Trinity hook is visuals are basically Bioshock meets Willy Wonka. Okay, that's the visual hook. And

frankly, that's probably the primary hook. That's the one that's actually probably going to work for this game. Knock on wood. Fingers crossed. The second hook, the gameplay hook, it doesn't exist. And that's something that for my next game I want to try and do better. And that's okay. Hey, not every game needs all three hooks. Okay, the gameplay hook is it's a first person shooter in story hook. Bioshock meets Willy Wonka. Visual hook. Bioshock meets Willy Wonka. [snorts] So the the the the gameplay hook is not really a hook, okay? But it's there, which is climb a tower in a first-person shooter, okay? With like wacky toyish guns. And that's what you see there. you see him holding his Tommy gun. Okay. Then finally, uh the story hook needs to be hopefully present in your your cover art as well. In this case, it's uh something you can

kind of gather. It's like, okay, my girlfriend is getting taken by some mascots. It looks like Disney World kind of with some with some carnival flare. So maybe it's about like a kidnapping of this girl in an older time. Great. Corrupted Disney World girl gets kidnapped. That's the story. So those three things, the goal is those three things should be present in your capsule. That's my opinion. That's my theory. Now, you might be thinking, well, Resident Evil doesn't do it. And a lot of AAA games don't because they've got these IPs. Okay? So, like they've got the Resident Evil IP. All you got to do is C re and you know it's Resident Evil. Other games other games um they might have to do this more prominently because nobody knows the IP. So, the goal is to try and showcase the genre, the mechanics, the story, the visual hook in

one capsule. Okay. All right. Next up is the description. Next up is the description. in the description, you want to do the same thing. Okay, you want to try except with with one one quick caveat. You kind of want to throw in the genre in there as well. Okay, so story hook, genre, visual hook. Don't do that. Okay, you don't really want to do the visual hook in here. So, I I I may have misspoke. You want to do your mechanical hook and your story hook here alongside your genre and sort of put those three things in there, right? Blast your way. Okay, so it's it's a shooter. Blast your way through an abandoned 1950s theme park crawling with fairy tale mascots, twisted puzzles, and deadly traps. Okay, so genre genre story

story. Uncover the dark secrets of your past as you race to the top to win back the love of your life. Super simple, super short. Some games do this terribly. Like this game called Never Song. Have you heard of this game? I I haven't even updated the uh This is my game, by the way. This is from 2020. What the heck is this? Help Little Pete hacking cl hacken slash his way through a beautifully haunting coma. Handdrawn action adventure. We don't really need to see that. It's all over the place. We don't need to include that. through a dreamy world filled with fleshy monsters, insane grown-ups, and sad children looking for their mommies. It's It's way too abstract, and it's not clear on what the hook is. And neither is this in my opinion. There's nothing about a coma here. What I should have done is I should have named this song, this game about a coma, number one, because never song makes no sense. But number two, I should have had his like face on one side and then he's got his eyes closed. And then I should have shown like a dream world over here. That's what I should have done. Okay,

now let's watch the trailer really quick and then we'll move on to the first game. The trailer is supposed to do two things in my opinion. Number one, it should capture attention immediately in the first 5 seconds. Okay. Um, sorry, I haven't even read the chat yet. We good? Okay, good, good, good. Um, the first thing a trailer should do is it should capture attention immediately. Okay, a lot of your trailers, um, and I've seen a lot of y'all's trailers because I play these games all the time, they start so slow. Haunted Mountain Games: Fade In, Fade Out. I've been making this game since I was in high school. I'm about to go to college.

Fade out. Character wakes up. A shooter. He grabs his gun about. OH MY WORD. SPEED IT UP. GO. Let's go. What are you talking about? So, what you want to do is in the first 5 seconds, capture attention. Try and capture the hook, the visual hook, the story hook as quick as you can and some kind of motivation to play the game. Okay, so let's go ahead and watch this. And by the way, the way that I made this trailer was my buddy Quinton, he wrote Danny Elfman style music and I said it needs to start with 10 seconds of action, drop down to story, and then go back up to action. and then climax. And I said, "You have a minute." So, watch how he does that. Bam. Capture attention. Drop down. Story moment. Bam. Back up to action. And then cut. So,

let's watch it. And I want to show you guys the flow. It's not perfect. I don't pretend that this is going to go viral, but I think it does the job. Ready? Okay. story.
Get me out of here.
She says, "Get me out of here." Now, destination, right? Side note, when you have a song that has a a set rhythm, cut to the beata,

the gun shooting with the beat, right? So, you want to do all of that to the beat of the song. It's a It's a pretty quick hack and it makes it easy to edit your trailer. There is no pretense. There's no delay. There's no, "Hey, what about this? And what do you think about this UI?" And hey, here's my story. No. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 50 seconds. Okay, I'm done taking a [ __ ] I'm gonna put my phone away. I just wish listed the game. Same thing for for your games. You want to just quit like build the trailer for people who are sitting on the toilet. That's

the rule. All right. So, what do we think? Okay. Well, the first frames of the elevator are a bit too long. I agree with you. However, the goal with this is, and this is a this is what um Gavin taught me at two star. He he made Chuchu Charles with your trailer, you try and you try and give some kind of progress or destination. So, you take the player from one point to another point. You're guiding them. Okay, where are we going? What are we doing? And so, that's why that the elevator is there. It's saying, "Okay, we're going up a tower and the levels are dispersed between each elevator floor." Okay. Um, screenshots, this is a big one. Um, when it comes to screenshots, you want to showcase as much of the game, the game play, like variety as you can. So, exploration, arriving at the tower, looking around, exploring the mysterious environments, creepy toyish enemies and cool toyish guns,

interactables to learn about the story, in this case, tape players, destinations, and various biomes, various mechanics that make the game interesting or puzzling, right? interesting enemy designs, fun mechanical um devices in the game like roller coasters, more enemy types, more enemy types and different biomes, and then the elevator. I think the elevator is central to the game. I put it towards the end of the screenshots because I don't think it was that important, but the elevator helps me know like, okay, this game is about going up and down this tower. One of my favorite enemies, upgrades. Right, that's the goal with the Steam page. The Steam page is the goal is visual, story, mechanics, visual, story, mechanics, visual, story, mechanics, genre, genre,

genre, genre, genre, so that players know exactly what they're getting and they need to realize it immediately. All right, let's go ahead and jump into the first game. Okay. I think your game needs a Hitchcock style intro of you turning. That's great. Turning to the camera in your chair and explaining the game concepts. Well, hello there. My name is Thomas Brush. I'm the creator of a game called Twister Tower. And I've been working on this game for five years. It's not without its stresses. In fact, I have a gray hair to In fact, I have a gray hair to prove it to you. So, I want to invite you into the tower. Come with me. It's not for the faint of heart.

So, this g this game's coming um coming out in August 18th, so in a month. So, what am I doing streaming? Well, for for those of you who are curious, one of the reasons I find time to stream right now is because every little bit of income at this point in the game's development helps every little bit. Um, I burned through the budget, the budget got exhausted, so I don't I don't have any more money from 3D Realms. It's gone. So, as I wrap up the last month of beta testing and fixing bugs, I have a sale event below for my course, which helps continue to pay the bills. So, burn through all of the [laughter] burn through all the publisher money. It's gone. So, now it's that final month of development. So, that's why I do these one of the reasons I do these live streams is they help pay the bills. So, huge thank you to all of you guys who do buy my courses. It means the world to

me. So, thank you so much. Okay, let's jump into the first game. Let's jump into the first game. Uh, the first game is going to be called Masquerade. Masquerade. You're poor. Oh no, says True Play Games. Yep, that's me. Every game developer, it burns through their money. It's just the way it goes. I'm excited about this game. Masquerade is apparently a free game and it's got like Romeo and Juliet vibes. I have no idea what this game is. So, let's just play it and see how it goes. Did I land on the price point? I did. I don't know what um why you would say UI is important in the screenshots. I don't I don't I don't know why that would be true. So, for some reason, it won't launch. It's running an install script,

so we might need to jump into the next game, which is Beacon of NA. Hey, the trailer looks great. I wish it wasn't coming out three days before my game, though. I'm not going to hold us a a hold a candle to your game. I'm sure your game's amazing. Um, Beacon of NA. You guys ready? So, the goal is to offer critique, constructive uh feedback here. Oh, that felt great. Oh, it's frozen. It felt great for like 5 seconds. Okay, I got two games that started. Oh my word. Masquerade looks awesome. So, my PC is frozen. Give me just a sec,

guys. This game is frozen. Hang tight. Be it of NA. We're going to end the task. I'm thirsty. Oh, I wish I had a diet coke. I wish I had a diet coke. Nope. Okay, Masquerade. Let's try and start that up again. I love classical music. Oh, too bad that it's not streaming. Well, we're going to have to see what's going on here. I'm going to scale it up for you guys and then go back and hopefully it's correct.

Nope. Hang on. We're having some problems today. Whoa. Let me just scale it up really big then. Sorry guys. Going to have to do it this way. Ready? Okay. How's that? Good. So, this game was free. OH. OH, THAT UI FEELS GOOD. What about keyboard? Oh, the keyboard even works. OH, THAT WAS A GREAT SOUND. Are we ready? Artifact School of Digital Arts.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts.
I love Shakespeare so much. I don't even know what that meant. That just sounded so good. Check out this sound design. I got to double check something though, guys, really quick. Sounds good. Okay, sound is good. Juliet.
Juliet.
Oops. Well, we're just going to get playing. Sorry,
Juliet. Where? What is this?
This is great. It's on a stage.

[laughter] Look at him walk. Look, look, look, look. We got inverse kinematics on the feet. This is incredible. I could sprint. Oh, mama. Look at that run animation. Oh, I and then W. Juliet, are you in the castle? Dude, check out that spotlight. I'm just having fun walking. Game feel is great. Rock solid. I don't have any complaints. I find his run animation particularly obnoxious. [laughter] So, like here's here's his run animation, right?

And uh it'd be nicer if he was looking where he's going. So, like smoothing it up like this, right? And it would be cool if he looks at where he's going to be going, right? He looks at the door and then his head moves and looks at the the building, right? Anyway, let's keep playing. I love that UI. I love how the sound is even like it sounds like he's on a stage. it. The clapping. I love that.
Where are you, Juliet?
This is so cool. Look at the way his head is. Yeah, the running animation is the worst part. It's also a little dark here. Um Oh, that's so cool.

Oh, a new human already.
Who are you?
I'm the narrator and have been trapped here for eons. Pleasure to meet you.
Pleasure to meet you.
You're here? Then that must mean one other unlucky soul must be nearby.
Juliet, where is she?
That [laughter] might be it. Hello.
Try to use this wheel. It should help you get to her.
This is so fun. Wow. Cool. Oh my word. I love this game. This is everything I love about games.

It's beautiful.
My love. [laughter]
My love.
What? What happened to her?
I'm sorry, Romeo. As expected, she is like me. Nothing but a puppet.
A
She's a puppet.
This is great. Juliet, where are you?
You are not the first ones I've met here. for this theater.
Oh, that's great.
Place.
There is, however, a cure for her state.

Finish the play and she'll come back. It's twisted, but sadly such are the rules here. That's great. Let me check on the chat really quick. I can't see my screen here. There we go. Yeah, it's definitely made with love. This is amazing. Oh, this is so much fun. It's such a clever idea having it all on a stage. I love that. Look at the mannequins.

Oh, Romeo. Romeo. E. That's great, man. I live for games like this. [applause] Okay, now what? Oh, the moon. Wait. I love that. I am so jealous.

What? Oh, whoops. Ah. Great music.

I honestly don't have any complaints, guys. Usually I critique games, so I don't have any complaints. It's great. It's so simple. It knows exactly what it is. So cool. Bravo. Bravo. Yes.
You know, Romeo, I too tried to leave this place, though I never succeeded. I watched as the other lost souls all managed to escape. This time, I will join you all. Please, Romeo, will you help me escape? So, if there's anything that I would do differently and it was my game, I would make the voice actors British because, you know, I like British voice actors and I would make his voice more jokery. As you know, Romeo, I too have never left this place. Something like that. I love that kind of stuff.

Wait, what? What just happened? Oh, you got to wait for the stars. Okay, hold on. You got to rotate the stars. Oh, I have to do both. [applause] Oh, there she is.

Oh, odd. Why is the curtain closing? No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
[screaming and groaning]
This is great. What a phenomenal title. I love this game. Why is this free? Do they not like money as much as I do? Oh, it's third person now.
What is this place?
Oh, guys, I love this so much. This is everything I love about games. I just love stuff like this. It makes me so happy.

Okay, well that's all we have time for for this game. Wow, wasn't that cool? What do you guys think? Let me pull up the chat here. Um, sorry, the the resolution was really bad or it was causing my other monitor to not work. Um, but uh I wasn't able to read the chat. What did you guys think about that game? I got to do some research here really quick.
[snorts]
So, that game was called Masquerade. And Masquerade, for some reason, is free. And I got to figure it out. Why was it free? And it's on H.IO. It has a 4.8 out of five. Very positive. 97% but only 95 user reviews. Um, why would someone give this a negative review if it was free? Let's take a look. Free to play. Who made this game? Artifacts.

Oh, it must be short. Okay. 30 minute game. Got it. Okay. So, we must have almost been done. It's a concept game. Oh my goodness. Wasn't that cool? All right. Let's jump into the next game. And just remember, if you're just joining us and you want to check out full-time gamedev, please check it out. I'll give you a shout out in tomorrow's live stream, just like I've done here. Um, you're going to learn everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games and getting my indie games published, getting funding from publishers from Kickstarter, getting revenue from Steam. All of that stuff you're going to learn on top of actually making a 2D 3D game, 2D or 3D game in Unity, GDO, or Unreal. You also get my 2D and 3D art programs completely free. Okie dokie. Was that Ludo? Ludo, are you are you the uh developer?

Ludo, what's your name? Let's give Ludo the floor. [snorts] Ludo, that was unbelievably good. Uh the two things that I would change is I would get the character. He looks so punchable. That mean he's like Romeo or Juliet, where are you? I want to save you. That's how he comes across in my head. I want to punch his jaw. And the way he runs, it's not working for me. And then also the voice acting. Uh, I feel like it was a little generic for a game that looked so stylized. So, man, if you took if you took that idea [snorts] and scaled it into a $15 game, that'd be so cool. [sighs] [laughter]

A cat says, "I got I just got here. Now I got to see who this punchable guy is." Um, [laughter] okay. Next game. Uh, next game is called Twisted Tower. I'm just kidding. I need to set my screen to the right size now. Twisted Tower. I love the new cover art. It looks so good. And I I did it. I Well, I had to get 3D models um from my artist and then I rigged them up into different positions and then colorized them and tweaked them and did paint overs and Photoshop. It was so much fun. Hunted within the Metro. This is the next game. I feel like we've played this game. Um, but we're gonna play it anyway and see what happens. Congratulations, Dev. That was incredible. One of the best games I've ever played on stream. Wow. So much

talent. I like the menu. I think the UI is rough. I think let me show you guys what I think about this UI and how I would I would go about it differently. One of the reasons why UI is so important is because UI UI tells you if the assets are custom. Now, you never know for sure. You never know for sure. And not all assets have to be custom, but when the UI is very inongruent, it's a big red flag. And that red flag says, "Okay, this game uses a bunch of random assets because well, the UI looks random, right?" So like this right here does not match this. Okay? And it does not match this and does not match this. So, we've got like four different UI styles all in one

go. So, what I would do is I would go the Half-Life route with this one. The game's art looks like HalfLife. So, I would make the UI look like HalfLife. Okay. So, what I would do is something very clean. Let the art speak for itself. Even the logo for hunted within the metro is not working for me. So, we're going to use something like Monoserat. And I would do the metro and then hunted within. Is that what it's called? Hunted within the metro. Okay, got it. Hunted within the metro. Uh, I would do it really clean and simple. Something like Montaserat. I like Montaserat. I would use the same orange as everything. Actually, let's do this red. That's a sweet red. Okay, we can use white here, but not full white. Let's use like the bluish white. Okay, I

would do that. I would make sure that this is matching. Okay, so this color here, I would make sure that that matches that red. Don't underestimate the value of stylized color. Stylization, aka limitation. They're kind of one and the same often. Okay, a little bit of an outer glow here. Okay, just like that. Maybe a little bit brighter. Um, the goal here is to help the developer realize that that menu is actually hurting the game. Plenty of room here. And then let's go to play options. Quit. Okay, these are going to be smaller. Same white color here. Okay, these are going to be set to light. Okay, just like that. The highlight effect could be like maybe a square

like this. So if you're hovering over, you'd get like a red square like this and you would match it to the exact um width of the play button that something like that.
[sighs]
Let's see here. These we could probably do standard width. Um, and I think we could actually get away with bold. And then we would maybe make this red and then the highlight underneath would be a white or something. Let's try that. And then you can add a little bit of a glow to the text. Now, let's matchy matchy our color. And I think we do need some padding here. So like that. Do a color overlay of that bluish white. So just pick your brand colors and stick with them, you know. Um

hunted within the metro. We're going to make this um bigger and then this is smaller. Okay. I don't like how white that is. So we might need to do something like that. There we go. And um what was the other thing? Oh, the the um the version number V11 blah blah blah. And we'll make the V the white color. And then just put it down here. Tiny tiny. This to me looks very professional. The artwork speaks for itself, right? We're not trying to to do anything except just give the player a nice view of the artwork. And the UI

can be unobtrusive. So, this is what I would do. for the UI. Super clean. Super clean. Whereas what we've got here and even the the cursor, it's like, you know, everything is all over the place stylistically for our UI. Lots going on. When in reality, it could be as simple as this Photoshop image that I have, right? It could be as simple as this right here. And that took five seconds. And it looks in my opinion a hundred times better. And if the like I want to show you guys a really cool trick. If you're ever like, "Well, I wish there was just a little bit more so that it didn't look like it was just text." What you could do is do a big fat blur like this. Look at this. Watch. Now this looks this looks cheap. Watch this.

If I merge those layers together, mask out all of it. The way to make it look not cheap is to fade in only portions of it. So like this. See, you can also, this is one of my favorite things to do. You can also go into the text here, rasterize it. And if I select here and then do this, delete that. The same is true with this. Delete that. And then I'm going to do a color overlay of white. Okay. Like this. Watch. If you do this and then and then and then um go to overlay, set it to overlay, you can do the same sort of trick, right? So there's certain portions of it that look really shiny.

gonna do um see if we can do this like that. Yeah, there we go. So, you can do that if you want. Something like that. Anyway, let's jump into the game. Another issue with my streaming. Okay, we're going to have to scale this up. scale up the screen size again, unfortunately. All right, ready? This should work. Okay, there we go. Let's Let's go ahead and hit play here.

Hell, sorry. Yeah, our UI is our weakest point in this game right now. Lots of weird UI choices. Check your notepad board. by pressing tab. That's cool. Find your way out. Character controller feels good. I would make sure that we put some soft particles on those particles so they're not clipping into the wall. Hey, there's keys right outside my cell.
[panting]

Nice game looks good. I like it. It feels good, too. Nice. Yeah, I'd say that the UI is really hurting this game. I think it really brings the game down. It makes the game feel cheaper than it is. I need to be able to get a an effect when I hit the wall. [cough] Nope. If if you give me a melee weapon, I need to start beating stuff. And as of now, the only thing I can break are these boxes. I would make that the the box explode into a thousand pieces. That would be really fun. Right now, it sort of just collapses on itself. And I would make the sound not in two pieces. It's right now it's [gasps]

I would just have it. I got gunpowder. And I got a flashlight. What if I miss that? I might miss that. So basically what we need to do there is we need to have um the flashlight like right here obviously and you collect it automatically. You need to force its collection. Nice. This feels good. What's the story? I'd love to know what the story is. I don't know why I'm here, who I am, or what the motivation is. If you I mean I guess I missed the uh cut scene so that's probably my fault actually. Objective updated. Check your board. How do I open it again? Open the main gate then follow the tunnels.

I see you. [groaning]
That's good. Where's my gun? I'm getting all these bullets. So, make sure you give me the gun before you give me ammo. That's usually a good rule to follow. Um,
yeah.
Got you. [groaning]
It feels pretty good. Yeah. Something about the com combat doesn't feel perfect and I don't know what it is.

Okay. So, with the gun animation, you want to make sure it pops back like this. So, if I'm holding the gun, right? And usually you want to have two hands because you don't ever hold a gun just like this unless it's like golden eye in 1994 or what was it? 95. Hold the gun like this. really fast, right? A lot of indie games, the the pistol when it when it recoils, it's never fast enough. So, that's odd. So, like this is what's happening, right? Right. Hold on. I know you can't see. Hang on. Um, so it, you know, a lot of what this, uh, game comes down to is UI and some

animation stuff. Um, like the animation feels kind of all fairly cheap. Like, let me show you the gun animation. Do you guys see why that's weird? It's not fast enough and it's going at the wrong angle. It needs to be [cough] [clears throat] so up and then do this. Okay. So, one of the things animators can do, professional animators do all the time is they actually focus on the the the the animation after the the most important animation. So, this is the most important one, right? Bam. Right? But really what you're focused on is this. So it's fingers move, wobble. Right now it's there's no relaxation

that occurs after the recoil. Does that make sense? Okay, let's keep playing. So far it feels pretty good though. Okay, I don't remember what I did there, but that's okay. Let's keep playing. So, that light is not great. Uh, I would put this light over the door. Right. Mechanal object required. Okay.

Some reason the sprint. Oh, I have stamina. Nice. That feels good. Ooh, cool. That's fun. Nice. I love this. I didn't know I had a shotgun. No, game's definitely not bad. Game's good. It's There's just some UI decisions and animations that are just odd. Um, apparently I had a shotgun, but I can't select it. I I'm not sure what that was.

So, I can't remember what I did in here. Oh, got scraps. This is cool. So, we've got like survival horror uh stuff going on. Nice. I just got to figure out what to do. Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I was thinking about the visuals and the UI. Scraps. Got some scraps. Baby, I got a mechanical object. I can throw knives. Nice. So, that jump animation's odd as well. Uh what you want to do is is it wouldn't really be an animation. I mean, you might wobble a little bit, but

you'll have the the weapon go up slowly as you're falling. Right. And you would do that with a rotation algorithm uh for the weapons, which is what I do in my first person shooters. So, yeah, I just don't know what's going on. And and maybe I should have listened to the the uh cut scene. So, I feel like I'm hitting them, but nothing's happening. Yeah, definitely increase the uh like why can't I hit it?

Well, that's cool. Kind of slug looking thing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, I think overall we got to move on to the next game, but overall I think that the game is is has solid bones. I think that it's the animation, the UI, and potentially the setup with the story that are problematic. Although, I did miss the cut scene. There's part of me that believes that your your your game story should tell itself in the game world in the first five minutes, even without the cut scene. Um,

that's just because people are gonna skip the cut scene and if they skip the cut scene, they might lose everything, you know. It's fine. Um, it it's fine. It's not It just felt It felt rigid. I think it was because of the anim. It just felt stiff. And I think it might have been because of the animation. Um, okay. Okay. Next game. And by the way, while I launch this game, one final reminder here. Well, second to last reminder, check out Fulltime GameDev below, which is my massive course, which teaches you everything that I've learned in the last decade of making indie games, including obviously how to develop games, right? 2D games, 3D games. I'm making a third uh my third commercial release right here. This is a 3D game called Twisted Tower. but also how to get funding, how to how to take a demo and and and turn it into a fully

funded project that you can work full-time on. And that's with publishers, that's with Kickstarter, that's getting wish list, that's hitting the Steamfront page, all that marketing stuff. So, it's development, it's marketing, and I'm also going to throw in my 2D and 3D art programs completely free. Um, but only for this summer sale, which is 13 more days. Okay, let's go ahead and jump into the next game. We played Hunted Within. We played Masquerade. And then, by the way, at the end of this stream, we're going to do a vote on our favorite game. This game is called Beacon of NA. Thomas, is your fourth game 2D or 3D? I don't think I'm ever going to go back to 2D. I I believe, yeah, you could save you could salvage that game for sure and make it make it feel a lot better. Beacon of NA. Press any key to start. Oh, nice menu. I would speed that up. Okay. The classic indie games when you hover over it's

[screaming] every indie that starts g starts making games struggles with this. They always always it's [gasps] [snorts] no it needs to be it needs to be fast fast and reactive. It feels so much better. Okay. Um, there we go. It's not fast enough. It needs to be faster. And keyboard doesn't work. Are you sure you want to start a new Are you sure you want to start a new game? Better sound there. There are save stations at each base. Okay.
Machines tasked with terraforming the desert world of NA rebelled against

their creators.
The world's settlers were forced into a war with them.
Yeah.
Planetary beacon disabled. All communications with the outside world.
This is awesome. lost. Exile was the only choice and time which transforms everything.
Nice
was our ally and our execution.
Oh, that's great writing.
Some years later, though Rust has claimed them, they still wander together.
Nice.
And we agonize day after day. In a world without options.
Great writing.
Our fate hangs by a single thread. It's time to get the beacon of native back.

Show me the title on screen. Get do one big climax there. Go. Right. Who is this? Ghost creative. Is this your game or was that your previous game we just played? Oh, the cab is under attack. Defend it. Who? Who is that? Is that a Oh, hello. Can I use game pad? The defense tower is offline.

I'm pressing space. Hello. Is my stream frozen? What just happened? So, it's frozen. And And it also Did this game have trouble starting up or was it the previous one? I just want to be careful there. So, it froze. Ghost creative. Was Is this Are you the creator of this game? Let's see if it's Ghost Creative. Yeah, it is. Okay. It goes creative. We're going to give you the your uh the respect you deserve. It might have been with the controller, but we'll we'll try again. See if this game Does it have gamepad support? It does. Thank god. So, goes creative. I would make this I would really speed these up just a little bit. They feel great. And I would maybe even highlight

them with a background of white. Just a little flash. Cool. We'll skip the the cut scene and keep playing. When the machines tasked with terraforming the desert.
Okay. It'd be great if that A had a little fill circle. The camp is under attack. Defend it. Okay. Yay. Good. Good job. X to shoot. I would remove the reverb from that shoot sound. All of a sudden, it's removed. Why is that? We don't need that much reverb. The defense is offline. The blue the blue cores needed to reactivate the auxiliary

generator. Uh, wait. The blue cores needed to reactivate the auxiliary generator are located in the underground storage. I would wait for that death animation to occur before doing that text. This feels great. Is it possible to make it a little bit more moody? But then again, I I just feel like the foreground elements don't match the background elements. Auxiliary generator offline requires a blue energy core for reactivation. So, I'm going to assume that the pressing and holding to shoot is some kind of genre mechanic that I'm not aware of. I don't love it. I wish I could just press X and he goes instead of this click and hold thing. But then again, maybe that's a a Day Night Cycle. This is awesome. Maybe

that's just a a genre mechanic that I don't fully understand. What What What game is this most similar to? Ghost Creative. So, that was weird. It looked like it was saying move the left joystick forward when it was pressed down. So, you need to, in my opinion, you need to have the the L push in. A little animation cuz that looks like it's up and down, but it didn't work when I pressed up and down last time. Let me show you. Oh, great. Daylight cycle. Okay. No, that worked. So, have it show down, right? Not the up. The up was is confusing because I was pressing up originally. So have it show the up arrow when I need to press up, right? And then the down arrow when I need to press

down. Uh something regarding your uh background elements there. They're they're lit whereas everything else is not. So something about that mid the background element of those mountains even in the day cycle are kind of distracting from the foreground and the background. it feels like they're not ma mixing blending well with the with the with the atmosphere. So, I would consider trying to blend that that um that mountain back there. Blend it with the sky better because it's kind of throwing me off. But, let's go down. The art looks amazing. Atmosphere is awesome. UI is incredible. Pixel art's incredible. Feels amazing. I haven't been very positive when in fact I I love this. I love what I see. This is incredible. I'm pressing A. Nothing happens. So, just be careful to get rid of that press A to interact

thing. Yeah, I would get rid of that. I don't know why that's there when this is there. Right. Have it. I would have this appear quicker. Right. Just instant appear with a sound. That That fade didn't feel very good. It feels It feels heavy and it shouldn't. Right. For the past 3 years, those of us who dared to return to the city have seen the robots becoming increasingly active, patrolling the streets or gathering in large numbers in specific zones. Didn't Can we get a little bit of a crispier sound there? It didn't take long before they started coming out. At first, small isolated groups exploring the outskirts. Now, after so long, they move in full patrols. We've seen them for over a year on the roads and valleys, in the ruins of old shelters. We don't know if they're looking for something or if they're simply decided it's time to end

what's little, what little is left. For months now, some of the shelters we used to trade with no longer exist. Walls torn down, doors smashed, dried blood among the rubble. I have a bad feeling about this. A few days ago, I saw a group of them roaming nearby. We must not engage them, even if they're few and move slowly. Attacking will only attract the rest. We'll have to ration our energy if we want a chance to defend ourselves when the worst comes. Writing is great. Did you guys have a like higher out or contract writer? The writing is really good. It really is. Uh feels very good. Um this is incredibly well done. The just those few few tiny tweaks that I've mentioned can can really go a long way. I think I don't love how the highlights behind things.

That feels weird. Like the it's behind that shelf, but the object is in front of the shelf. Let's Let's take a look at this. I would have that be more reactive. So, I've noticed this a couple times in this game where things move slower than they should, like animations after pressing a button. So, that should be likeing, [snorts] right? Move up. Flash gone. It should be really quick and snappy. Same with the menus, right? Same with opening up this. It should be right when I when I go up this. It should be like everything should be much snappier. Initiate initializing synchronization.

System update complete. Imminent danger. There's no time. Gather all the resources you can from the chests. And don't forget the cores to reactivate the power grid. Thank you. Where are they? There are different types of I wish her mouth was when she's talking. There are different types of ammunition in these crates. There are four types of energy energy cells you can use as ammo for your weapons. Regular energy cells. Robots hit take moderate. What? Robots hit take moderate. Just say robots take moderate damage. Polarizing energy cells. Robots hit. Robots hit. Oh, I see what you're saying. Robots hit take moderate damage. Robots hit will be stunned for a few seconds. So, I have a stunning and then a regular. Okay. I don't love teaching this way. Uh, I I'm not gonna remember all this. And that's just the way it goes with

Thomas. I'm not going to I won't remember. And that's just me. That felt pretty good. Yeah, I would I I think that's fine. What we got there? So, these are my different colors. I just don't know what they mean. I can't remember. So, I would I would say that feels really good, though. I love that. Um, I would say call it out, you know, like put put a little Why why not make those icons look like what they are, you know? Um, but uh yeah, I don't know what those are. And it's cuz it it's because I knew that even if I read it, I wouldn't remember it. I just know me. Not sure what those are, but okay. That was cool.

Cool. I think I I think I got the energy cells right. I love the vibe and the mood. This game is awesome. Seriously, we have power now. The defense tower should be operational. Now, build a barricade in front to strengthen our defenses. Hurry up. I wish that when I pressed X, it played a sound. And I think it did there, but in between each set of of dialogue, I don't think it did. So, let's go ahead and repair this. Press Y to open the action menu. Press LT or through RT to navigate action menu. Press A to confirm. What is that? I don't know what these mean. I would

assume that's repair, upgrade, and then recycle. I don't know what recycle means, but Oh my, this is so cool. Build mode 22. Whoops. Do I not have enough? And I need three. What? Whoa. H uh I'm not sure. 22

up three. What does that mean? Oh, I could build stuff. drone station, defense tower, energy tower, or barricade. I don't know what happened. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that is either. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong here? I feel like there's a opportunity to teach me a little bit better here.

Not sure what to do because I have 22 gears. And it says 22 slash3. I think you're supposed to repair it. Yeah. Why would I be given this opportunity? The only thing you can build is a barricade. I know. And I'm holding it and it's not doing it. Do I not have enough? And you need only three. Is that what you said? Hang on. I'm not quite sure. I have 22 and it's cost me three. Hold to build. I'm pressing A and holding A, but nothing's happening.

The orange growing light. Really? Hold A. I did. It's not doing anything. Build in the light. I am You can walk while in building mode. Oh, okay. Let's do a vote because I know that I'm really stupid. Let's do a vote.

Yes, it makes sense. No, that did not make sense. Yes, it made sense. No, it did not make sense. Cuz I'm not going to rely on me cuz I'm an idiot. There we go. We got ourselves a barricade. Nice. No, it did not make sense. That's from Sehon. Or yes, it makes sense. No, it did not make sense. This is for the developer to know if this is clear. Fontto says it made sense to me. Uh Resi says, "Definitely needs more guidance." Not entirely. No, it could be better. It didn't make sense to me. The There could be some indicator you need to move it.

Not really. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. A little arrow could help. I just didn't know you could move while in build mode, you know, because of that overlay. Very cool. Guys, I'm so sorry, but I'm going to have to get the vote going here um because I have to I have to hop off and I have a I have a meeting with um somebody. Um but we're going to go ahead and uh wrap up here and vote. We're just going to vote by by words today just because I can't set up the poll. I got to run. Um, let's vote on our favorite game. Type Masquerade if Masquerade was your

favorite. Type Hunted Within if Hunted Within was your favorite. And type Beacon of NA ne if that was your favorite. So, hunted within or masquerade or beacon of nata. Okay. Masquerade. Masquerade. Masquerade. Masquerade. Ghost creative. Your game was awesome. It's It's those tiny little tweaks, the teaching stuff and the UI. It was awesome. Seriously, it's very good and I didn't give it enough time, honestly. Um, but really great game. You should be very proud. Seriously, I was I was very impressed. There's just little tiny things that were confusing. And these are things that are easily resolved with play testing. I These are the same same things that I

struggle with when I'm making a game. And I'm like, I thought that was obvious. I would I just put an up and down arrow for the elevator. What's the big deal? And it's like those kind of things can really confuse a player. And so play testing helps a lot with that. All right. Okay, guys. If you want a shout out in tomorrow's live stream like these students did, feel free to check out Fulltime GameDev below. 50% off. You got 12 days left. Look, if you're on the fence about this, at least take a look at the reviews of students who actually went full-time with the help of this course. They really truly did, which is just so cool. Whether it's getting a publisher, whether it's getting getting a publisher to to to make your game and you get a publisher with just a demo, or whether it's getting funded on Kickstarter, I've done all of this. I can teach you how to do it, but I can also teach you how to make a great game in in 2D or 3D in Unity, GDAU, or Unreal. And hey, I'll also throw in my 2D and 3D art programs completely free. If it sounds like a comprehensive course of building an indie game studio from your bedroom, that's what it is, right? Um, so check it out below. I think it's

awesome. I love this course. I think is really valuable. I think it's going to help you a ton. Now's the time to enroll because it's 50% off. You're going to get my 2D 3D art programs completely free and my YouTube course um completely free as well. And I'll give you a shout out in tomorrow's live stream. Hey, that was a lot of fun, guys. Um loved loved the games that I played today. Loved Masquerade uh in particular because that game is just sort of up my alley in terms of my style. Um but uh the Beacon game was really really good too. had a great time with the other game as well. Um, so keep it up guys. Keep up the good hard work. Don't be discouraged when you get feedback like you got today. That's the whole point of play testing. Play testing is not to get, "Yay, the game is great." Play testing is, "Hey, these things need to be tweaked so that one day when you do launch the game, we don't have these these roadblocks." Right? That's the whole goal.