Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 057

Welcome, Malcol. We're going to play two games today and offer constructive criticism. These are games you submitted at x.com/thomasbrushdev. Before we get started, I want to say huge thank you to Julian, Mahed, Caesar, Jefferson, Fluff, Daniel, Adrian, Keith, and David. Welcome to Fulltime GameDev. And by the way, if you want to get a shout out in tomorrow's live stream, check out the link below for Fulltime GameDev. The summer sale is on. You got six days left to get 50% off full-time gamedev, which is my massive course course which teaches pretty much everything I've learned in the last decade, including how to find a publisher, right? With just de a demo. These two games were published. Armor or this is Serenity Forge, this is Armor Games, although they Serenity Forge did the Switch version, but Armor Games did all the other versions. And then also my game called Twisted Tower, which is published by 3D Realms. So, if you want to learn how to go full-time with just a demo by

pitching your game to publishers or doing a Kickstarter campaign, I've done that as well, or just self-publishing and hitting the Steamfront page and getting press coverage and streamers to play your game, this course is for you as well. You also get to learn how to get a 2D or a 3D game done. And also, I'll throw in my 2D and 3D art programs completely free, but only for this sale event. Don't take it from me, though. If I strike you as someone who's untrustworthy, I get it. I don't trust YouTubers either. So, at least look at the reviews from my students who went full-time with the help of the course. So, the link is below. You got seven days left to get 50% off. This is the massivest massivest sale I've done this year. So, check it out below. Okay, let's jump right in. Mr. Jason Montgomery, come on in. First game is called Spring Me Up. Spring Me Up. Let's go. [snorts] I'm

doing well. Shadow Master Tug. I'm doing good. Okay. [sighs] Congrats on building Twisted Tower all by yourself, Thomas. Yeah, I I I made a post today about how Twisted Tower is a team effort. All right. So, left click, hold, drag down, compress spring, release to jump. Left click, hold, drag down. This way, and we'll go to the right. Okay. More compression, higher jump. left click and hold drag sideways and he'll jump that way.

So, I think overall it feels pretty good. I kind of wish that maybe there was an arrow shown or something. I also don't know why the resolution is so low. There we go. So that's good. Hey, this feels great. Menu feels really good. H I don't I don't love the I don't love the traversal. It doesn't feel great. I'm not sure why. [snorts] Nice.

So, how do I get up there? H I think I go over here. Yeah. Something about the the rotation of him is throwing me off. It doesn't feel right. Something doesn't feel right about the the rotation of the player as I'm pulling in one direction. And I kind of feel like he should lean as I have him pulled down. But it feels pretty good. It's not perfect, but it feels pretty good. Oh, that giant yellow arrow right there. Yeah, I think a tension sound would be great. All right, let's see.

There we go. Oh, come on. Okay, so far so good. Come on. No. Oh, man. I think it's a good It's an interesting traversal meth method. Um, it's I don't know if it's my favorite compared to um a difficult game about climbing or uh I can't remember what it's called. The bucket game with the with the stick. Okay, let's see if we can balance a little bit this way. Okay, here we go.

All right, here we go. You guys ready?
[laughter]
It's a little slippery, but that's okay. Getting over it. Yeah. Come on. Okay. Yeah, I think we do need a spring sound. We need some kind of rank.

Am I made to play rage games? Is that what I love? No, probably not. It's not my cup of tea. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. What do you guys think? What do we think? Do we love this game? [laughter] Deathcloud game says, "I can feel my cortisol rising." Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll We'll get across. We'll get across.

All right. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's It's definitely one of those games where you have to kind of feel it, you know? Got to practice it. Stop. Sorry. Yeah, a little bit of a would be really nice. So apparently you can like you can click and sort of spam it. I'm getting frustrated. Sorry guys.

You know me. I love games about springmen. I'm at the very freaking beginning of the game. No. Okay. Okay. So, I want to be able to know where I'm going now because now I'm terrified. No, no.

Come on. Come on. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Okay. Yes. I'm actually having a a pretty good time now that I'm kind of into the mechanic.

No, no, no. No, no, no, no. Okay. [sighs] Okay. I can't play that. All right. Moving forward for the next game, ladies and gentlemen. This game is called Flick.

Moving forward, ladies and gentlemen, this game is called Flick. This game is called Flick. That feels good. That feels really good. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good. E is hold. Oh, hold E. Okay, I feel really dizzy. Whoa. Oh, that's kind of cool.

That's fun. I like that concept. Torn note. Broke it, you little bastard. How could you? How could you? What would our savior say if he sold this this sacriigious act? We would be banished, shamed, excommunicated. Fix this. Fix it or you're never leaving this closet. Oh my goodness. I'm a little boy. Mama. Mama. What's that say?

MB, MB11, MB10. So, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Uh, okay. E wood strip. Okay. I got a wood strip.

So, overall, the game feels good. I don't love the camera. It's not my favorite. Uh, I wish that the field of view wasn't so strange. The the the stretching of the camera, the fisheye lens, is really annoying. Um, that feels better. But I feel like I'm flying really high. I'm like super tall. Okay, what do I do? I got a piece of chalk. I got a wood beam. Okay.

I don't like that you hold Eye. That's odd to me. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Y why? Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Why? Why? Why? Okay. A little E appeared there. Okay. I don't know what that piece of wood is. What was that? Yeah. So, I'm a little I'm just I'm a little I'm a little bored. Not quite sure what is going on.

It it it feels like there's like no rhyme or reason I don't know what that is. Okay, we're going to pay attention here. See, the problem is I could pick up that piece of wood, but I can't like pick up anything else. So, it's it just seems it's like one of those linear tropes where you can only interact with the very few

things that the the developer wants you to interact with and it just feels very linear with this. Does anyone have any ideas? You need to pick up the second wooden stick. Pick up the second wooden stick on the boxes. Is there a stick somewhere on the wooden boxes? Where? What? Where? There's a wooden stick. What? Okay, that's really not great. I I don't love that design. I feel like that's that was way too confusing. Mommy loves you.

H. Does anyone understand kind of what's going on? There is another wood on the box. So, there's But what what what are these wooden sticks we're collecting? Got a nail. Okay. You also were confused. Dominion.

Yeah. Not a lot of it is intuitive. That's fun. Some creepy art. Wrenches. A hammer. I wish E on this you could just press it once. the the the hold is kind of odd to me.

Hey Kev the dev, how are you? Is this your game? I'm not quite sure what the that is. So, we put a cross on the door to protect us. That's cool. That's awesome. Kev the dev. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Everybody say hello to Kev the Dev. Come on in. All right, let's go through the door.

Okay, Kev the dev. I feel like we need to increase the brightness just a little bit. Let's Let's do it this way. It's a little bit better. But you can see that it's kind of blowing out here. That's cuz I just don't think there's enough light in general. [snorts] You can see that it's kind of I think it looks a little washed out there. Sorry, I could be wrong, but let's keep uh going here. Okay, good. So far, it feels pretty good, Kevin. I think that the that intro was a little a little weak. I loved the idea of the switching the light on and off, but it got just kind of repetitive and I didn't fully understand what to look for. It just felt kind of random. So, I wonder if you could simplify it, shorten it.

It's a cool gimmick, but I don't think we need to spend that much time on it. Yeah, I just can't see anything. So, I would I would brighten it up a little bit. It's always good to maybe even put a subtle light source on the player as they move through a dark scene just so they can barely like maybe fill in the shadows a little bit. Okay, we got a light here. That's good.

So, it's a game about turning on and off lights. I think that is interesting. I like that. I wish it was more reactive though when I turn on lights and stuff. Um, the clicking and holding or the pressing E and holding is kind of odd to me. I just wish it was right. Let's try this.

[music]
It does not sleep. It does not blink. It watches everything you think it does. Not sleep. It does not. It watches everything. Okay, cool. [music] Okay. [clears throat] I feel super tall. I feel really tall. like I feel like I'm flying. So, a couple things here. I don't know

who I am, why I'm here, uh what the goal is, what the problem is, what the potential solution is. I don't know why I should be scared. I'm not sure like what the threat is or the motive. So, those are those are things to keep in mind, Mr. Kev the dev to to to generate a patience in me as a player. I need to have some kind of goal. Um I don't believe that you can just be like super abstract and creepy um in and of itself. I think you have to throw in some elements that make me care about the character and care about what's going on. Um, attach toy.

What does attach toy mean? I don't love how the camera noise is so intense. I don't see why we need it at all. Like I when I'm standing, I'm not like this. So, I would I would remove the the noise of the camera. I don't see the value in it. It's It makes this kind of stuff really hard. The the reticle is turning red sometimes, but then other times it doesn't. So, I'm not sure what that is. Okay, there it goes. It turned red there. Not sure how to do that. Kevin, you got any tips for me, bud? I would make that a little bit more user friendly. Thomas, did you try the flashlight that

the game gives you? Is there a flashlight somewhere? I'm not sure what to do. And I'm also not sure why things change when the lights flicker on and off. There's there it's hard for me to like parse why that's occurring. Um, it's a cool it's a definitely a cool gimmick, but I'm I'm still a little confused by it. Okay.

So, let's see here. We're I would say 15 minutes, 20 minutes into game play. I haven't really had any jump scares. I don't really know what's going on. I don't really know what the the motive is of the of the the player. So, these are just important things to keep in mind. Okay. So, I can look at the teddy bear. Not sure what for. Like a pentagram or something on him. Okay.

So, it's a story mechanic that's explained later. The lights. Okay. Yeah. So, it's not that we we want to uh unload on the player every mystery of the game right away, but I think it's always a good idea to give the player some kind of motive and a reason to keep playing. Some little thing, some mystery that needs to be solved, some desire to help this character. But right now, I don't have that. In fact, am I a woman? Am I a man? Am I old? Am I young? I don't know. I don't know any of that. Everything Everything is a mystery. So, unfortunately, what that means is I I'm I as far as I'm concerned, I'm playing as a lamp, a a a mannequin. Like everything everything to me is kind of useless or meaningless because there's no exposition.

And so, I would just say a little bit of exposition would go a long way here. So, I'm not sure what to do here. Kev Kevin, attach toy. I'm pressing E. Attached to what? Kevin, what what what do we do here, bud? The scribbles on the wall are supposed to decipher clues as to what to do. So, basically, we've got puzzle box rooms to kind of figure out what to do.

[gasps] I would say make it a little less complicated at the beginning, a little a little more straightforward. Reward the player as they go from room to room. I think it's always a good idea to make the first part of the core game loop easy enough to understand. Um, so that once they get to like room four, it's more like this where it's obtuse and you really have to sit and think. But I haven't really been fully taught yet a puzzle necessarily as much as just looking for items and collecting them. So I'm not really sure what to do. Flick that main light until you see the note on the floor. I love the idea of the environment changing

with every light. I think that's that's really cool. It's a cool gimmick. I think it's just a little confusing right now. Okay, we have a note on the floor. Mommy told me I can't make shadow puppets with my toys anymore. She said I was twisting their souls. All I have left are these boring shapes. They aren't as fun as the other toys, but at least they still fit in my race cars. And shapes don't have souls. Okay. I don't know what that sound is. That scratching sound. Now what, Kevin?

H I'm not sure. Try harder to get the cars to go around the loop. I'm trying. They're not going. They just say stuck. What? Kev says, "Flick both lights and you'll find shapes to pick up and you can pop them into the cars.

Yeah, I would say I would say that it's it's a little too difficult to to parse and figure out how to do this, Kevin. Not going to lie. I feel like it's a little or a lot confusing. Okay, we have shapes. You said look for shapes. H.

So, I'm not I'm not sure what you mean by Okay. E. So, but this is the problem. The problem is is that I don't know what can be collected and what can't be. It's it's like [clears throat] it yes, it is a puzzle game and that's awesome. It's a great idea for a puzzle game. However, the problem is is that certain things can be picked up and certain things can't. And so it really is a game of just pointing your mouse at things right now. Um, and I think I think that's problematic for a puzzle game because, you know, I'm I basically just get frustrated because I don't know what to look for. I just have to sort of move my mouse around and wait for things to be picked up. Okay, so I picked it up, right? I picked up a ring and that triggers I guess it triggers some new

new part of the level. But what's that E mean? It said E. H. How do I open my inventory? Compare the note in the ring.

The E is supposed to be a collectible in your inventory. Nope, it's not that one. What's this? Wait, what? Why could I grab that one? But I can't grab that one. All right. So, we've got a circle, a triangle, and like another circle on the inside. Aim at the car and press E to attach the circle.

Okay. So, I don't know why that sound plays. Okay. So, That isn't that is not intuitive to me. Let's let let's get a vote in the the comments. Was that intuitive? So, what what do I do here? I'm making shadows. Maybe it's just odd that I can't go around. I can only go forward and back. What?

Okay, I see the shadow. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to match it to, though. And also, there's like a line I need to get. Huh. Kev, what do I do? Make the shape.

Um, place him towards the center. Switch the two toys on the cars and outline the eye. What? I have to switch them. Okay, that was fun. There we go, Kevin. I like that.

Good. What is that? What is it? Cool. Now it's like a totally different room. So Kevin, I think overall, man, I think that the I like the idea and the concept. I'm just I feel like there's a lot of things there that are just real confusing. If I were you, what I would do is I would play test the crap out of this with like 40 people and like get everyone to give you tiny little details about like every small thing that confuses them. I understand it's a puzzle game, but even puzzle games have rules and hints and things that are that you can pick up and things that you can't. Things that are interactable, things that you can't interact with. And right now it just feels kind of random. It feels like

that. Okay, that you could pick that up. Sure, why not? Okay, but there was two other shapes on the wall that I couldn't pick up. So, there's rules that are being design rules that are being broken randomly. And so, it makes it hard to create a puzzle game when nothing's predictable. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's It needs to be in deep play test. We need we need a lot of this needs to be refactored and cleaned up because I am so baffled by a lot of this.

Well, no, it's not. I'm not saying the puzzle game needs to be easy. I'm saying the a puzzle game should feel the way a puzzle game should feel is it should feel like you solved something as opposed to it fell into your lap right now. A lot of this stuff feels like it's just falling into my lap. I should feel like, oh, I need to move that over there and okay, and I'm going to move that over there and oh, I get it. And then I solve it. That rush of feeling like I'm smart, right? And right now it's it just feels like there's I don't really know what the rules are and I don't know what's what can be interacted with and what can't be interacted with. And the problem with that is if I don't know what the rules are and if I don't know what the pieces of the puzzle are, I'm not going to feel like I solved it. And therefore the

whole rush of solving a puzzle is removed. The reward of solving a puzzle should be something scary. I mean, the reward of solving a puzzle is often that you solved the puzzle. That that's that's a huge part of it. And if you don't know what the puzzle was, you're not going to be able to feel the reward of solving the puzzle. Like if I didn't know uh like for example a Rubik's cube. If a Rubik's cube didn't become a cube,

but it became just a a a giant mess, but that was the solution, a giant mess, it wouldn't be rewarding. I need to know what I'm aiming towards for it to be a solid puzzle. And right now, I'm like, what did I just solve? Art feels great. Sound feels great. Music feels great. Ambience, not music, but ambience feels good. Um, but I'm not sure what I'm solving. Lighting is good. Yeah. [sighs] [gasps] Wait, what? Pop the light into the lamp above the

door on the dark side. This Did I get a bulb? What? I got a bulb. I don't remember getting a bulb. Do you guys remember getting a bulb? I don't remember getting a bulb. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. Oh, that was great. See, Kevin, I love that. Way to go. That was so scary. Good job, buddy. That felt great. I Yeah, I just don't remember getting a bulb.

Yeah. And here's the thing, Kevin. It's like a lot of this doesn't have to do with redesigning the game. It doesn't have to do with redoing the levels. It's just teaching, teaching, teaching. It's UI. It's sound. It's tiny little details and also clearly established rules about the game play that are taught to the player. So, for example, I don't really know what turning the light on and off is doing. It feels random. But if that rule was clearly defined to me that it it cycles through is this what it's doing? It's cycling through different states of reality.

I think yeah, I think if Kevin wasn't in the chat, we would probably have quit because and Kevin, it's not because it's a bad game. It's that it's just difficult to figure out because not there's not a lot of a lot of context clues about what's going on and what to do. Like I would have never known to to to put that light in the light because I didn't know that I didn't know I had a bulb, but I also didn't know I could put bulbs in lamps. What? See, I didn't know that I could take bulbs out of lamps.

Yeah, I would just I would do a ton of play testing um and just test it out with people in the same room with you and go through every little detail that I've had frustrations with here and resolve it. Um, a lot of this has to do with resolving or or understanding the rules of the game. And if the if the rules aren't clear to the player, at least tell them with UI um or highlights or have things highlighted or something. Effectively, it is a puzzle game, right? And so, we want the player to have to figure it out. But right now, it feels so abstract and difficult to follow. Um, so that was great, man. I think overall I think overall it's it's a solid game. I love the idea. It's just not fully realized yet, I think, because the rules are just not clear and it's just a

little bit confusing. So, I would definitely um do do plenty of play testing for that game. All right, guys. That's all I've got time for today, unfortunately. Um, be sure to check out Fulltime GameDev if you want to join the summer sale. You got six days left. You're going to get 50% off my massive program which teaches you everything I've learned in the last decade of finding publishers. Right? These are my two games that got published. And that allowed me to go full-time and finish these games. I'm also published for my third commercial release which is called Twisted Tower. It's on this Steam Deck here. Let's see if I can get it running here. Um, actually I'm currently playing Order of the Sinking Star, but you're also going to look you're also going to get my 3D art program, my 2D art program completely free, but only this is my third commercial release right here. Um, but only for the next seven days or six days. You're going to get my 2D art program, my 3D

art program, which is completely brand new, my my 3D art program is. And look, if you don't believe me, I totally get it. at least read the reviews of students who were helped by this course. All right, guys. I love you. Take it easy.