Let's Play YOUR GAMES from a Dev's Perspective

hey hey this video is brought to you by Squarespace thanks Squarespace yay Hey Wow hi my name is Thomas brush I am NOT the creator of this game I'm so used to saying I'm the creator of I'm not the creator of this game I'm the creator of a game called never song and also a game called pinstripe today we're gonna play a game called hashtag funtime and the reason why I like this game the reason why I'm excited about it is number one it's a great game but number two it's actually from a subscriber to this channel so one of you guys actually made a game and you release it on Steam so Bravo that's amazing so first and foremost guys leave a comment below encouraging the creator of this game and his name is Brandon Brandon really great game man congratulations just be sure guys to remember that we want to encourage Brandon so if you have any compliments or critiques make sure they're constructive and leave them in the comments below guys be sure to LIKE subscribe and also click the link below

if you want to check out full time game dev where people like Brandon people like you guys can actually learn how to make games I'm gonna let you guys know when that course is live but for the time being you can sign up for a notification when the course is live so let's go ahead and play Brandon's game hashtag fun time okay guys before we get started this video is brought to you by Squarespace believe it or not I've been wanting Squarespace as a sponsor for so long mainly because Squarespace is awesome I've been using Squarespace for I think six years both my websites Thomas brush calm and at most games calm where I host my games in my portfolio my resume all that cool stuff is hosted on Squarespace it was created with Squarespace Squarespace is cool because you can look amazing you can have custom designs and pretty much do anything you need to do for your business or your own

personal brand all with Squarespace and you don't have to know how to code so if you guys are interested in creating a website with Squarespace click the link below Squarespace comm slash Thomas brush and use the promo code thomas brush for 10% off yay yay I love Squarespace I really do thank Squarespace right challenge mode first off Brandon I love the menu here the glow effect I can assume that is actually a camera effect or a post-processing effect for those of you guys who don't know inside of unity there's something called post-processing and it's just a simple effect so I can imagine that Brandon's menu system is actually really clean there's no glowing but the moment you turn on the glow effect everything glows and it makes it look like more more of an arcade more of a geometry Wars look all right so let's just go ahead and start on the first level I've played this game a little bit and I have some

critique for it but I wanted to formulate that critique a little bit so I played a little bit of it and so we're gonna start on the first level here so I see here it's kind of like Angry Birds we need to get three stars that's in 45 seconds so let's see if we can do it okay a little critique here Brandon and this is some critique that I've formulated while playing the game before we started recording I'd love to see instead of you telling us that I'd love for you to show us that so maybe at the top left you could pinpoint pause the game so set time scale to zero and just say hey this is your current upgrade because I don't want to have to look around for it while I'm playing but that's just a tiny critique okay so the space bar + enter usually do something my keyboard is broken again [Music] okay enter does it alright so it'd be cool spacebar could actually progress me let's go right main Thomas you get at this game that's

because I've been playing it for a little bit before recording okay not so good there yeah I lied all right go go go all right good good good good good get the health I could just blast through there who cares all right we got three stars we give a Bravo to Thomas in the comments okay a little critique here Brandon restart is space and next level is return I think a lot of gamers like me we're gonna just smash the keyboard as fast as we can we're not gonna be reading stuff so what I would do is make sure that people don't restart the level by just smashing space because that's intuitively that's what I'm gonna press so instead I think our or escape or something like that because I'm using a keyboard would be really great because we want people to intentionally restart the level to fundamentals score as many points as possible upon taking damage

your multiplier resets to one point oh okay yeah I like the on-screen directions there for shooting whoa Thomas come on man I love that spawn effect that's really cool really great graphics the particle effects are awesome the squares I love how the squares move in the grid I could assume you set this grid up with code so some kind of array so that's really cool Bravo to you Brandon for that and I love how they press down in the z-axis or maybe that's the y-axis I assume it's the y-axis a little critique it would be great if the the ship could point in the direction of the mouse as opposed to pointing in the direction of the movement because it's really hard to see that arrow now I understand that if it's a twin stick shooter most people are gonna probably play on a controller but I'm playing on a mouse and keyboard and so it would be helpful if for those of us who are playing with a

mouse and keyboard man I suck I make games I don't really play them I'll be honest with you guys okay but not bad here I'm almost at three stars once we're at three stars we'll just I guess maybe give up a little bit on this level now this is great it feels like fly if I was about to say flash geometry wars the reason I was gonna say that is because I made a game called flash geometry wars and it's on Newgrounds comm very similar to geometry wars but this game feels like geometry wars as well and brain has done an incredible job replicating that feeling so good job Brandon three stars I love it next level and I love that effect I'm assuming that's a vortex effect or what's it called it's like it's a I know it's a post-processing effect in unity but it's really cool I love it okay Brandon I love this mechanic this is the coolest mechanic guys basically we need to match the color of the lasers and flames to avoid damage the problem Brandon and I

played this before I I've been I started streaming and I got really frustrated and I raged quit the game and I thought to myself I'm not gonna upload this video because I can't even get past this level the reason why it was frustrating is it has nothing to do with the mechanic it has everything to do with the instructions so on this screen there's nothing that tells me how to do this and I had to look on the menu on the controls and we set our color with one two three and four I didn't know that so I'm glad that I checked the instructions after I restarted so maybe in a future steam release right down here you can put change colors with your numpad or something like that alright let's go one two but I see what you did here whoa whoa whoa whoa that's really cool I like that a lot oh man that's a really cool mechanic dude oh crap suck one okay

that's three I love this mechanic I absolutely love it the only problem again is just to keep the instructions man I suck so hard but that is a cool mechanic Brandon you should be really proud what do you guys think leave a comment to encourage Brandon that's really really cool I love it but it also stresses me out so we're just gonna move forward I'll take one star how do I do a color color trail that's the question at hand again Brandon maybe some instructions could really help here so clarity and instructions would be great but we can always go and take a look at the options go to controls yellow is it boost cycle colors oh you can use your scroll wheel yeah this I feel like you need to just show these instructions at the beginning of certain levels okay so cycle colors bomb and then spaces boost maybe that's what I needed to do oh I see very cool Brandon

I love this I love it dude there we go let's kill you you effort come on come on yeah you think you're so smart lock you in there we go that's awesome I love these this just starting with a very simplistic mechanic like color and then extending it I think that's really cool and Brandon's smart the reason why Brandon is smart is because he understands he's probably got a very limited budget as an indie developer and what a limited budget meet forces you to do is take a small mechanic like color for example and then extend extend extend and that means you don't have to write too much new code and you see even even Studios like Nintendo will do this they'll take a very simplistic mechanic and extend extend extend and exhausted until they run out of ideas as a team that's a very effective economical way

to make games but it's also really fun for the player players actually like that simplicity so its budget-friendly and also just fun for the player these kind of reaction games or what do you call them instinct game to know the name and so what are they called I can't remember they're called something where you it's timed it's like how fast I can do something I suck at all this stuff that's why I don't really do let's place some bad at games and I'm not good at knowing how to talk while I play games I know words I had the best words if you guys want click the link in the description and support Brandon I think I think Brandon should be really proud of what he's made here I appreciate that infinite health Brandon you're very nice guy cuz you knew you knew deep down I needed it didn't you okay I'm quitting now I'm kidding let's keep going this is fun you only have three bombs per level use them wisely score as many points see the

problem is I need I'd love to see the controls how do I use a bomb there he goes okay no that's great right there down here it's right click so that's awesome I'm confused as to why those instructions weren't on certain levels when it was describing color alright this feels great I love it the particle again the particle effects are really great alright our target is ten thousand so we're almost there you know what's funny is when you first start playing these games you feel like one they're too hard and then two you feel like my ship moves too fast but once you sort of play them and get used to them you realize oh the developer knew what he was doing Brandon knew exactly what he was doing one of the I guess positives of these kinds of arcade games is that once the player figures things out they've invested energy and time into it and they become obsessed but the negative is people who don't have that kind of I guess predisposition

towards arcade games they'll play the game for five minutes then quit because they just feel like it's too hard I guess that's why you know Atari games were so popular back in the day because there were so few games to actually play so it kind of forced the player to be invested in the game now because there's so many games out there you have to get the players attention immediately and so that might be a tiny critique of this game and that is maybe started out a little bit easier for the player because again maybe 20 30 percent of your audience or more is going to be a lot like me and maybe not like how challenging it is right off the bat so maybe maybe it's not necessarily about the challenge maybe it's about the reward maybe you could I was about to say crates like reward crates man I think I'm turning

into a capitalist Pig what but maybe something at the end of a level reward the player with an upgrade or something like that maybe it's maybe it's purely just a value add maybe allow them to change the color of their ship well that's a mechanic maybe change the visual of their ship or make an icon or name their ship or something to reward them for I guess pushing through that struggle of the first couple levels so that's maybe another critique as well again if this game was made in the 80s I think that it would be totally fine to have it as challenging as it is but people are less patient in the year of 2020 that's for sure all right we're gonna do another level so let's go to level 9 here oh my goodness looks like World War 3 here ok the encounter reach the end as quickly as possible your ship is invulnerable while boosting hey now ok so what is the end I don't

know what the end is oh it's gonna be a maze cool friendship that's free hey Brandon did you mean to make that like a pun it'd be cool if it was friend dot ship or friend spaceship so I'm invulnerable while I boost I see so it's a it's a time boost okay so how do I reach the end what's the end I kind of wish the shooting sound was a little bit louder I know it can get annoying but I can barely even hear it I don't know maybe it's the music's too loud but that's not that's a very minor critique I can imagine it's very frustrating watching me play okay so I need to shoot these okay the red I can't shoot duh Thomas come on sorry guys they're not playing with a joystick that's why I suck here that's one of the many reasons why I suck for those who don't know I had three older brothers growing up and they always played games I didn't play the games that's why my games are story driven that's where my mind connects with things I really really suck I'm at the

point now where I'm getting kind of embarrassed and it makes me want to stop this stream because of how embarrassing how embarrassed I am so we're gonna do that but overall dude I give you a great review for this game I think it's awesome I think you did a really good job I'm gonna give you an eight out of ten the reason why is because of the lack of instruction when it comes to controls that is my primary reason why I'm gonna give you an 8 out of 10 I definitely gonna recommend people support you and play this game so guys click the link in the description leave a comment subscribe and also leave a like this was really really great and honestly man I think you should be really proud so round of applause for hashtag fun time it was a really hashtag fun time enjoyed it a lot arcade games aren't really my thing but I can imagine this would be really fun for so many players out there so congratulations you you've released a good game I'll talk to

you guys later [Music]