My intern's first game is JUST A DOLLAR. Too low or too high? Let's find out.

hey guys how's it going my name is thomas brush and i make indie games for a living but today is not about me it's actually about one of my good friends and a former intern and his name is adam smith adam helped me out with a pinstripe port while he was a student in college and he's just been so helpful to me and so i wanted to kind of return the favor and play his first commercial release guys and it's called lost caves and the cool thing about this game is when i play like um a friend's game or an interns game i'm like yeah yeah i'll help you out um but it's not the best game but this game is awesome it's a really really fun game it's it's a simplistic snes nes type game and i love that i love that nostalgia the music is incredible the graphics are really old school and it makes me happy the coolest part about this game guys is it's 99 cents on steam

i mean what on earth that's like less than the price of a mcdouble which make doubles totally worth the price i love big doubles but i like this game more so let's let's go ahead and play this game and guys adam is in the chat right now so let's go ahead and ask adam as many questions as you possibly can just spam the chat with questions like in a good way ask adam as many questions as possible and guys if you don't have 99 cents today that's fine uh you can wishlist the game just remember guys adam is just like you guys he's working to try and make this indie game dream a reality and he's worked really hard so show some support using the link in the description and i'm sure that would mean a lot to adam okay let's go ahead and play i love that transition

very nice adam i love this classic feel this is so great alrighty new game i played a little bit it was awesome you know you're playing a good game when you start start out dropping down a little shoot just like hollow knight you guys know i love hollow knight so right off the bat adam that's the best way to start a game okay i love i love it when games start out really quiet and you're like what's going on there's no music only the wealthy may pass okay well i'm not wealthy i have zero coins let's see here it's a treasure a simple round ruby it has a beveled extrusion in the center it's partially transparent

but you can see a red reflection of yourself staring back at you okay we got ourselves 10 gold i think oh i love that sound where did you get that sound adam can you answer in the chat where did you get that sound man that's awesome oh this is great adam did you write this music this is really really good man it's awesome oh i feel like i'm a kid again oh man look at all these doors i want to open them okay let's go to this uh shepherd's hook thingy let's go yes very good music adam this is great oh man so i'm getting some hollow knight vibes here this is great

very similar sort of descent okay okay let's go let's go to the right here okay got some coins here 500 very nice very good introduction here adam it feels very classic the way that this game is starting out teaching us the rules whoa buddy whoa die that was awesome the movement feels really good actually i like it nice adam was this built in unity you've probably already answered that question but i think it's unity but i love the

pixelation that's that's one of the biggest questions i've got for pixel games because i've never made a pixel game how how do you make things so like this axe how do you keep it pixelated like that i don't know how how that's done oh that's really good game feel really good gameplay feel is that punchy feel it makes you feel like you're in the game particle effects are great adam this is really good man really good oh that feels great oh i love game feel you do you did a good job buddy oh and i guess i should disclose adam gave me this game for free um i guess that's important to disclose um and it's important to disclose that this is a favor i think that's important so i am playing the game as a favor because adam's helped me out with so much that said he's not paying me or anything

so i can give my honest opinion here this is really fun i could sit on like man i want this on switch i could sit on my nintendo switch and just play a game like this all night that feels so good good job dude very good give me those coins from a game design perspective so far the teaching and the mechanics being taught in this game is really good oh very good adam like i said teaching us um bringing the camera down to focus on something we need very good adam oh this is so fun you know what's funny with these kind of games at first i'm like the controls are a little too tight for me i wish they were smoother or faster but then you realize you're really thankful that they're tight the same was

true with hollow knight you really want them to be tight because the movement needs to be precise otherwise it's really unfair so i don't have a downward swipe i don't think oh okay hey that's cool there we go okay very cool adam did you just give me a diamond drink thank you thank you so much buddy uh i'm kind of scared let's see okay okay adam just did a very simplistic game design role uh right there did anyone notice that so we went to the right for a little bit you know if he had put nothing over here he would have broken like the first major rule of game design which is you always reward the player for exploring so he over here all he had to do was put 10 coins

and suddenly this whole area right here on this screen right here has value otherwise the player would have felt cheated obviously very simplistic rule but it's amazing how quickly and how often that's broken by so many indie developers all right we got ourselves some coins okay let's go down here wait i want to see what's up here can i get this yeah i love that see here yeah part of the reason why i love this so much guys it just reminds me of being a kid these classic games oh come on jerk nope okay that's great thank you for

putting those signs there adam okay so let's see if i can look down can i okay i can't look down so i'm just gonna trust that those signs are telling me not to go down there okay yeah okay so let's see here where do i go have i already been over here what's this okay i came through there you have a map [Music] okay i went over there sorry guys i'm really bad at these metroidvania type games i like them i just suck at them i went over here

okay sorry guys let me see i'm just want to get my bearings okay i haven't been down here oh yes i have okay cool okay got some coins got a ton of coins which is great um wait what happened i get so lost my wife will tell you i am terrible at directions when i'm driving because i have terrible memory i have such bad memory but y'all can just ask adam questions in the chat and by the way guys if you're watching this on a replay you can still hopefully i'm gonna try and make it so that you can see all of the questions in the live uh there we go okay in the chat replay so you can learn a lot from adam honestly there's a

lot to learn from the guy who made this game because anyone who knows how to do good game feel automatically on my list should be listened to because game feel is like half of what a game uh half of the value of a game all right so where am i going okay i've been over here i went got some coins i went over here i went over here i went down here i went down here i went up there let's just double check oh i think i found all the coins i think i know what

i'm doing okay let's go back through the door yeah we'll go back to the door [Music] i love this music adam put this on spotify please i would love to listen to this while i'm programming it's really good all right let's go everybody knows that when a door opens it should sound like a fart at least that's what that's what nes games taught us they always sound like a fart you lack the required wealth what do i need hang on what's going on [Music] let's explore oh okay so i've got a red i don't know what that is a shepherd's

hook yeah that's good adam i'm proud of you man i don't know uh if i'm annoying anyone in the audience with how much i like adam but uh it just makes me happy when people who worked really hard actually make a good game oh that felt good that's so great man oh yes oh i love secrets okay let's go find some secrets oh so here's another rule that adam did

right stop the music sometimes because it it's it changes your emotional state and you don't get bored it also builds some suspense so i can imagine the reason you stop the music right now is because you're going to give me something really special that's what i thought 1500 see that's called building suspense adam you're smart man let's go you effort i already killed you okay whoo give me them gold coins give me them coins what's the name of this guy i think you told me his name is michael is his name michael for some reason

that's funny to me i'm gonna play this uh soundtrack when i work out oh things just got a little complicated here okay hey what's that oh thomas what are you thinking adam you trixie and that's why you want tight controls right there guys look at the color shift we went from brown to blue it just i don't know it just that's another way to reward the player just change the visuals hey check this out

whoa cool i like this puzzle the person who would really like this game is my brother my older brother loves these kind of games he would probably make a game like this oh thomas what are you thinking i'm not so smart guys but i know what love is all right thomas yeah my wife would love this game too i should have let her play it i'm so bad at games okay okay here we go [Music] [Music]

thomas all right you better reward me that's what i thought give me that gold goblet i love how um you know we could have just got coins but uh adam just changed the sprite to a goblet or a necklace or a ring or something it's just really cool those simple details are really important i think just to give some variation to the game okay what's going on here okay we're good whoa whoa is that a gopher get out of here i love that [Music] i kind of feel bad killing them they didn't do anything wrong

although i will say adam i would i wish um maybe in an update can you add level names i would love if you name the levels uh that would be really cool die okay there's another way to reward the player right there just give him a really good easy kill so i'm listening to the melodies here of this music because you guys know i write music for my games and this is this this music could seriously be uh whoa whoa whoa wait what

uh it could be um i don't know the band but played with like violins and pianos and stuff in an orchestra it'd be really good really good get out of here gopher oh my goodness at the bottom of the screen it's bad news i don't i don't know if i want to go down there get out of here a shrine eh what is that adam whoa i just did something

i think i just saved the game i don't think i've saved the game the entire time i've been playing how long have i been playing yeah for the past 20 minutes i don't think i've saved that's cool what did i just get this is great so you can just observe all your treasure and i don't think it does anything um but that's not the point this is world building right here how impractical this sword's blade is made of gold [Laughter] one hit and that's it the cross guards uh is also the cross guards is also made of some kind of red stone hardly anything durable it's probably a decorative sword this is great i love world building and you know with indie games especially

doing text world building like that it's it's cheap i'm not cheap it's uh that's not a good word it's it's uh efficient because look you got one person making this game by the way this game was made by one person obviously and so you've got to figure out a way to build do some world building without breaking your budget and your back let's go oh man okay oh no no crap all right whatever i want to slide i wish i could slide hey what's this oh man i just thought about

uh i made a tile-based game once and it was it was exhausting so i can't imagine okay what whoa dude [Laughter] whoa this level is massive and just a reminder guys come on uh just reminder guys link is in the description to wishlist the game or just buy it honestly here's the thing it's already 99 cents so i'd consider getting it guys it's really fun and you're supporting game developers which is always a good idea

they need all the support they can get i'm not a completionist here guys so i'm just gonna get these oh yes i love breaking pots okay i don't remember what i did here oh you you you whack it that could be a little bit more evident that i have to hit it with my sword okay but that's cool okay we saved the game oh come on hey what's down here all right so he's trying to ejaculate i'm sorry spray his green on me okay here we go okay here we go here we go

[Music] hey that was your logo adam wasn't it let's take a look what a strange material for as a boomerang if that's even what this is you're not quite sure though it's some emerald chevron i think that's your logo isn't it adam the angle is too acute to be a boomerang but it does look like an a yeah that's your logo i love it that's great get out of here get out of here also there's a link to adam's youtube channel below if you guys want to subscribe to adam and follow his progress as a game developer

oh yeah i wanted to go up here all right let's see i wanted to these testicles get it right on the epididymis there okay what's down here again this giant trampoline right okay so i can't do anything i mean we do get to observe a gopher rave so that's pretty cool okay let's go over here

[Music] okay so i've been up here i think yeah i've been up here i bet you there's a map and i just don't know how to use it is there a map i just took a screenshot i think okay i don't think there's a map let's see show blood nice color blind very good let's take a look at the color blind settings i didn't see a difference but i think it's because i'm not color blind oh treasure chest

let's go back up there oh nice i love that effect just launching the player okay let's see here we're launching the enemies and then blowing them up there we go so i think i got enough coins maybe yeah i think i can go back i mean i i did a lot of exploring here so i think that's the loop collect treasure to open up gates i mean is does that mean i think that's the level of completion well then i gotta do more you know i gotta do whoa hey yes i love surprises get out of here buddy you think you're

so cool okay i don't think i can kill it i'm gonna die i'm gonna die there we go okay so i haven't been over there oh my goodness adam this level's huge buddy you know i was just thinking like five minutes ago i was like this is a little too easy well what you just did there is you predicted um player psychology which is the moment i thought it was too easy you made it harder and that's great man ouch ouch

yes that's great so it's just slowly surprising the player and this is what's cool about making games is basically you have to predict what the majority of players are going to be feeling at a certain moment and that's when you go okay about 20 minutes into the game people are gonna feel bored so you throw a surprise at them so it's it's really honestly game development is about understanding he just stretched that's awesome that's great what a good surprise and that that proves my point which is you really need to understand uh when the player is getting bored and surprising them with new things so it's you're basically a psychologist

what are these what is that [Music] giving them gemstones [Music] oh come on so i guess i need a new ability there or something there is so much to explore let's see if i have enough to enter a new uh gate

let's try okay i still have a red shepherd's hook so i don't think i beat that level which is fine i'm not mad it's okay so this is our little central hub obviously okay all right so i got a lot i think i got i think i'm halfway through this level let's see what the there's a little indicator here okay man i'm probably gonna play this again maybe uh well i know i'm gonna play it again even if i but what i'm saying is i might stream it again because it's

addicting it's really addicting adam this was great man we're at 30 minutes though and i don't want to i don't think i want to upload a video longer than 30 minutes so dude adam good job buddy proud of you um hopefully you guys enjoyed this stream i know i don't usually stream games um so thanks for watching and thanks for asking questions to adam um again link in the description for the price of a mcdonald's burger to get a great game and to support game developer um and also if you want to check out his youtube channel or follow him on social links below again guys it's called lost caves talk to you later bye