Let's Review Your Games — Ep. 060

that you've created, that you made. And the goal is to provide feedback, any solid feedback, any potential negative feedback, constructive criticism, so that what the developers who submitted their games, and by the way, you can submit your games at twitter.com or x.comomasbrushdev. The developers who submitted their games, we're going to play their games, they don't launch a 1.0 with, well, frankly, the negative feedback they're probably going to get today. And by negative, I just mean stuff that maybe we didn't like, right? And that includes you. That includes me. Any feedback we have, we're going to play a couple games today. Super duper excited. Hey, I wanted to say a huge, huge thank you to Jacob, Justin, Dylan, Omar, Satwan, AJ, Clayton, Alexander, Joshua, Eric, Tim, Julio. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Fulltime GameDev. Guys, I have listen I have extended this sale for real for real

by seven hours. Okay? And that's because I was planning on doing a live stream today and I wanted to let you guys know about this. I haven't been able to get to the live stream. I finally got to the live stream and realized I had you had 30 minutes left. So, for those of you that are stragglers who are thinking, "Maybe I do want to enroll in this thing. Maybe I do want to join for the summer sale." You got 7 hours left to join Fulltime GameDev. If you want to learn from somebody who Well, hold on. Let me go get it for you. If you want to learn from somebody who's made actual indie titles, that includes my game Neverong, my game Pinstripe. Both of these games, by the way, were funded on Kickstarter, they were also funded by um publishers. If you want to get funded or published with just a demo and go full-time with just a demo, then you're going to learn from somebody who's done that. And by the way, I'm on my third commercial release here. I'm actually working on it. That's what I've been

working on all day. This game is called Twisted Tower. It's actually running really good right now. It's running really, really good. And I'm excited. I'm so excited to to show you it. Oh, guys, I've been working on the menus. Oh, they feel so good today. Hold on one sec. Let me let me pull this up. I redid the options menu here. Let's see. It's so juicy now. Everything's nice and crisp and clean. Oh, it feels so good. But if you want to learn from someone who's actually making indie games right now, you're going to get 50% off the course for the next seven hours. Like I said, I extended it for you. 2D art and 3D art, free courses included in the summer sale. And then I'll also throw in my YouTube course. And also bonus, if you want to meet me, hourlong meeting with me and a few other developers in a private setting, a private video call where I can answer your questions and

get to know you and meet you. Okay? If you don't trust me, you don't believe me, that's totally fine. at least read the reviews on the website, see if it's something you're interested in. These are students who went full-time with the help of the course. Right? So, not only you going to learn how to make a game in Unity, GDO, or Unreal, but you're also going to learn how to get published. Let me close my blinds. How to get published, how to get funded, how to do all that cool stuff. Let's go ahead and jump into Steam and get started. Guys, we are getting crazy lighting here. Hang on. One sec. There we go. Is that better, guys? All right. So, let's jump inside of Unity or not Unity, Steam, and get started with our first first game. And by the way, if you're a student in the programs, let me know what you think about the programs

in the chat. This game's called The Voodoo Soldier. I'm excited about this game because it has it it just I you know, the art style is not the greatest art style, but it it's interesting to me. It looks really interesting. Let's listen to this music and see if it's if it recovers because it's not great. I don't know. I don't know. It's not It's not my favorite. It's kind of kind of repetitive. What's that toy under the couch? That's

my kids. They come in here and play. [snorts] That's a one of those marble tracks.
Yeah, I'll get it for you.
Okay. Do you remember these? These are so fun. Jeb, come. Ty, you want to play with this? What is it? Okay. Yeah, the music is is not great. Um, I would I would I would get different music. We'll talk about it in a sec. That felt good, though. I loved that. I love this art style. It just feels so human. It feels like it's not AI, and I love that. I love when I see an art style that clearly is not AI. It makes me so happy. Look at these characters.

Wow, those are some wild characters. Okay, let's go ahead and click start here. Oh, give me a better sound than that. Somewhere in the middle of the ocean. We're almost there. [panting] Now, remember your mission. We need to save the princess from that island. Here it is. The the island. Duke Sam, get your weapons ready. Samba, we're counting on you. Watch out. There's a big rock in front of our boat. Brace yourselves. We're going to crash. I want to tell you guys something. With as cheesy as that intro that we just had,

this is way more effective than a lot of the unchees intros that a lot of games I've played have. What have I said? What did I just say? I'm sorry. I'm listening to see if my kids are going to run here because I can hear them outside my door
badly. Okay, I'm hurt badly. This feels better. That intro fel feels better than most of the games I play that try and do some kind of abstract intro. You hurt. You need to heal. Look how fast I can run.
Voodoo medicine. Take the voodoo staff. I love how fast I can run. [laughter] Oh man, this game is kind of funny to me. Now, I'll be honest. I feel like I'm ginormous. I would increase the size of these. I

feel like I'm like 20 feet tall. Hey, if I jump, um, don't keep the the animation moving. So, just check if jumping is false, then we can actually play the animation. This music is wild. It's It's uh It's not great music, but it makes me laugh. Oh, come on. Let me break those. What? No, you got to let me break a box. If you put a box there, I need to be able to break it. Here we go. The gray cave. He gave what we lack. Cool, cool, cool, cool. He gives what we lack. Oh, that's cool. I love that. That's kind of cool. I like this uh reading mechanic.

This is fun. He gives what we lack. What are they talking about? Some guys in robes started chanting [music] and the guy who I thought dead just got back on his feet. But his body looks weak. If he gets near me, a few bullets from my handgun should make his body crumble like a cookie. I love this. Wait, what was that? How do I use it? Oh no. I'm not sure what that does, but it's I guess Bioshocky. You could channel the power of your voodoo staff into your weapon and use right click. Wait. Oh, left click to shoot. Shooting cost you some of your health points. So, that's how I charge my weapon.

I'm not sure. I do like this art style. It's very unique. I think it's solid. The wall in front of you looks pretty weak. Wait, you should be able to shoot through walls with your weapon. That didn't feel good. That didn't feel good. I I I don't love that. Uh how do you make it feel good? You make it look like it's made out of I mean stone. I I don't love that. I would do um like wooden planks that are cracked and when you hit it, it needs to go and it needs to flash white. Right. Hot take. Bioshock isn't that good. Ducks behind cover as bullets come flying. There are parts of Bioshock that I don't love. I'll be honest with you. My

favorite thing about Bioshock [music] is the tone, the story, the music, the atmosphere. I don't I don't personally love the gunplay. Nice. That felt good, guys. Seriously, this game has a cheesy vibe to it. It's kind of cliche. It's odd. It's an odd game, but it's better than most of the games I play on the stream if I'm being honest because well, it feels good. It feels good. And we talk about that a lot. We talked about in the previous stream yesterday or yesterday's stream we talked about it how most indie titles they just don't they can't get the feel right.
You know, this is quick, it's fast, it's punchy. Um, it's easy to understand. It's easy to pick up.
The learning curve isn't ridiculous.
We kind of get started right away. Um,

I would definitely give me a checkpoint there. Wasted tons of ammo there. I don't know what this does. Give me some voodoo. Whoa, I just crouched for some reason. Like, do you see how everything has a reaction? By the way, let's talk about it after I get shot here. Um, it's very reactive, right? So, the game might be cheesy. The game might not have the best graphics. The music kind of sucks if I'm honest, but the the the game is reactive. Watch this. When I when I shoot An enemy clearly gets hit. There's no question, right? When I shoot, it's instantaneous. There's no weird animation trying to be

clever. I think one of the biggest issues with game developers is they try they're trying to be clever. I'm just going to assume that does something I need it to do, but I'm not sure. I would make the reticle turn red when I'm highlighted over an enemy. So, just have a a constant ray cast that's checking if [music] I'm pointing at an enemy and have it turn red when I shoot. Also, developer, if you can [music] have a little reticle flash of like maybe yellow I I do it with my game, yellow sort of yellow crosshair that quickly pulses in when I make when I get a shot and then when I get a head shot, maybe a little arrow or something. [clears throat] Hold up the staff plus shoot. What does that do? I'm not sure what that does. If that does anything, you need to change the color of my bullets and you need to change the color of my gun or something.

This feels great. Go get the princess. I love I love a trophy. Excuse me, I'm burping over here. I love a trophy story. They make me so happy. Wow. Yeah, the art is I will I will say it doesn't look great, but it definitely has a vibe. It doesn't feel like AI. It doesn't feel like asset flips, and it makes me happy. It makes me smile. It makes me filled with joy. Get out of here. There we go. So yeah, if you're going to give me bonus power while I shoot, um, you need to make sure that I can feel it with a [music] cool sound. So I need to hear a a different sound when I shoot. Come on. I I I literally have it right there. I can see it in my bar. I'm going to die. [snorts]

I love the speed of the movement. Yeah, I feel like I mean it's not it's not a great game, but it's solid. It does what it's supposed to. It makes me laugh.
It's interesting. Um it's frankly I think if the developer had money, like let's say a $200,000 budget, and had an art contractor, had a music contractor, had some play testers, had a publisher. I think they could pull off a a solid title. I would release this one though. Just release it. Get it out there. Learn from what you've the mistakes you've made. And I think this developer actually has a good head on their shoulders. Honestly, and it's hard probably for you to understand why I'm saying that because a lot of you are probably thinking the music isn't great though and and the art isn't great though.

It's one thing to look at a game. It's another thing to play it. And when you play this game, it just feels like 10 times better than um a lot of games I play on this stream. And it's because of the feel. Leiaurus Voodoo Fitness. Classic 1990s stuff like that. When you're a 10year-old, you're like, "Oh, close the door. Mom and dad are coming upstairs. But this Yeah, this feels very classic. And I I want to I what I also love about this game is I like the progression. Um I don't I feel like I'm going somewhere. I feel like I'm making progress. And that's a that's a good thing. Seriously, that's something it's just like these basic things that so many indie games just cannot get right.

I think this game would might end up with like mostly positive. Now, if it's like two bucks, it might end up with very positive, especially if the game progresses well and has interesting weapons and enemies. Yeah, it might because it's it's just it feels good. I I'm going to keep coming back to feeling. It just feels good. Everything's being telegraphed properly. Everything's readable. Everything makes sense. It's cohesive. The music is, as bad as it is, it makes me laugh. I love this. That's great. [snorts] What What is this? So, for some reason, these the I think the developers using the sprite shader for those doors. They should just just use a a lit shader and use use um because it the fog is not interacting with it and it looks odd.

I don't think the voodoo staff is for healing. Please tell me I got a checkpoint. Uh developer, you should probably put some big pillars around so that I can dodge bullets better. Oh, they're throwing slime or something. Okay, let's go. I I really want to heal. How do I Okay, that healed me. Is that all it is? Oh, it's just a healer. Then why is my health red but the voodoo is green? That's kind of odd. I'm not sure what that does. So I if if I was the developer, I would clarify that. I'm sure it makes sense from the design perspective. I just don't understand it. I'm getting so much nostalgia playing this game. Let's see if I could just run past the enemies. I can. So, we should probably create lockdowns. So, here's how a lockdown would work.

Okay, couple things for the developer. These are important. Two very important tips that I've learned making a first-person shooter. If I walk into a environment, let's say this is the level and I walk into the level, if you have really fast movement and you can easily dodge enemies, the first thing we want to do is create lockdowns. Just a simple trigger where if I enter right here, actually, I'm so sorry. If I if I uh enter right Yes. If I enter right here, behind me, a gate closes. And you don't even have to show it necessarily. You don't have to lock the camera or lock the player. All you got to do is kill all the enemies and then this door will unlock. Right now, if it's confusing for the player because what might happen is they might see this locked door, kill all the enemies, and

they're like, "But but that door is locked, so I'm not going to go back there." But the truth is is that it did get unlocked. We just didn't show the player. So, you might want to show the player like once like, "Hey, this is this is how this works. you got to kill all the enemies and then it unlocks. [snorts] Another option is um but the problem with this is that the player can see all of these enemies and so they could pick off the enemies from the doorway and that's a big problem too. That's a big design flaw with a lot of first-person shooters that are indie titles including my own. And so the solution there, and I learned this from a former id, I think it's former ID, Chad, Chad Enes. Chad En is one of the design um consultants on Twisted Tower. What he taught me is that once the player gets here, then you lock it down or you spawn enemies. They go, they come from here, they come from here, they come from here, they come from here. But you have to get here and trigger it

first. And that's kind of a Doom uh Doom mechanic. All right, here we go. Whoa. Did I get turned around? I think I got turned around. What's this? Whoa. Whoa. What is that?
Woohoo. I'm flying. Yeah. So yeah, I could just sort of fly through the whole level, which is a big problem. This is a major design flaw.
What the hell is this place? [laughter] I love this. This is great.
But yeah, this is a major design flaw. So, we need to be we need to figure out a way and I just mentioned two ways to force the player to engage.

Half of the fun of a game is the challenge, right? And now I'm just completely I don't care anymore. Right? Look at me. I don't care anymore. That's a big problem. So, the developer needs to solve this ASAP because I do not care about this game. anymore. That's how devastating um a design flow like that is. Okay, so that needs to be resolved. I I bet you I can do this for the whole game.
Halloween land. [laughter] Hey, make that fog the same color as the sky.
Where's the music?
Yeah. So, Overall, I'm I think the game is actually pretty solid. I And I know that sounds odd to a lot of you because it it doesn't look solid, but there's a lot

that's being done right there. Um, but the major the major design flaw is that I can just run through everything. So developer create a trigger system that locks the player into a zone, forces them to fight, [snorts] and then once the fight is done, they get a key, they can unlock the door, or the door just auto unlocks, right? I think it's great. I think it's a silly uh I think it's a silly title. I don't think the developers should take it seriously. I think they should just release it with that fix in mind. Please God with that fix in mind. Okay guys, I got to run to the gym. That is going to be the last stream this week. I am done streaming, but I will give you a shout out tomorrow on Twitter. If you enroll, because I know that I can't give you a shout out during a live

stream, but if you enroll in Fulltime GameDev, which is my massive course, I'll give you a shout out tomorrow on Twitter. Check it out. I've added seven hours to today's um sale just because I knew I was going to do a live stream for you guys. Guys, this is an awesome course. It really is. It's huge. It's massive. You can go at your own pace. It's a great resource to have for your indie game journey. It includes well how to get published right like I've done also how to get funded on Kickstarter also how to sign deals with publishers like I've done and obviously how to make indie games in Unity GDAU or Unreal this is Unity by the way okay you get also going to get 2D art pro 3D art pro completely free YouTube gamedev completely free this is the last stream so click the link below after this this big sale event's over. This is the time if you're on the fence. And I get it. You're probably thinking,

"I don't want to do this right now. I I don't want to risk buying some course." I totally get that. So that's why there's a 30-day money back guarantee. No questions asked. Okay? Just shoot an email to my assistant. Boom. You got a refund. No questions asked. 30 days. And also read the reviews here of students who actually went full-time with the help of the course. And that's all I've got to say, guys. Okay, guys. That was a sprint. That was a sprint of streaming this week and last week. I've had a blast streaming with you guys for the last two weeks. But I got to be honest with you. I got to be honest with you. Up until the launch of Twisted Tower, which is August 18th, and again, this is Twisted Tower here. up until the launch of Twisted Tower. I gotta tell you, I don't think I'm gonna be streaming much more. Okay, I've got to work on

this game and finish it. So, I'm probably not going to see you guys for a month and I might not see you after that. even if Twisted Tower goes really really well and I got to port it to other consoles. I don't know if I'm going to be uh hanging out much on streams. So, this is my last big stream, guys. Um content is going to be uploaded onto YouTube much more infrequently in the coming 30 days. So, there's not going to be much content. So, I'm going to go dark for a little bit, go quiet for a little bit. Um, I might upload a sponsored video here and there just to to help pay the bills, but other than that, guys, I'm sprinting to get to August 18th. I love you guys so so much. Going to lock in here. That's right. Gonna lock in. Going to go get a run in. Go to going to go work out. And then I'm going to lock in. Um, what do they say? Lock the front door. I'll do a launch day stream. What am I

talking about? I'm gonna Sorry. I'm gonna do I'm gonna do streams about the game. I'm just not gonna be able to stream y'all's games. I'm not gonna be doing podcast episodes. I will be doing uploads. I'm so sorry. I'm being dramatic here. I'm going to be doing uploads about the game. Okay. So, I've got a ton of songs that I'm going to be uploading for the game. Um, I've got uh quick devlogs where I'm talking about the game. Um, but when it comes to podcast episodes, when it comes to streams, not that much. Okay. But basically, my point is I'm locking in with Twisted Tower. [laughter] Yeah. But yeah, we'll be doing we'll be doing stuff about the game for sure. Um, God bless you guys. I love you. I think that's