Shotgun Cop Man: demo analysis

all right here I am playing shotgun cop it's this game from Steam nextfest and I'm going to play it I've already played through the whole thing I beat it I do these uh every next Fest because I look for Trends and demos and cool things that people are doing I also like to answer the question how long should I make my demo so we're going to take a look at this okay so um the reason I played this game it's a platformer um but the cool reason I did this because of this bonus campaigns I'll get to that in a second all right um but anyway um you can't see my face I just it's late okay so here's the first thing um it's got this Overworld map and let's count how many levels they have cuz people always ask me how much how much should I play how much how much levels do I how many levels okay 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 I

just realized that 44 this is all uh post demo uh so I think it was like 35 if you if you count that so after this reason I beat everything they gave me it gave me a little a little warning afterwards it was like oh you got to beat the game U that's it but that's how much of this game is so let's see if every world has one two three four five 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 okay every every world has about 17 18 levels let's see how many worlds there are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 so there's about 170 levels and they give you 30 so what is that uh that's like 20% it's like 20% of the levels they give you 20% that's that's typical 30 20% something like that don't tell me the math it's if I messed up the math it's just it's hard to it's hard to commentate and math at the same time so

I'm going to give you a quick look at this game now here's the thing this music is way too cool for me um it I'm going to turn off the music cuz it is I'll be honest folks it's it feels like I'm at a club and when I'm at a club I just get a headache like instantly like I have one vodka cranberry and then the thumping music in the background and just trying to talk to somebody like hey let's hang out let's let's do it hey how was your week did you have a good week and the music is so loud it just hurts my head and I get a headache and this music it feels like I'm playing this game at a club and it just it just hurts my head and they've got this shotgun sound that's really loud I'm going to turn that down too it's just so loud folks it is so this game is so loud I'm going to turn it down to 50% it's just the music gives me a headache it it just really does and I don't care if you call me an old man I'm an old man but man

this music is just like aay just give me something peaceful all right so basically I I just talked right through what what you got to do here's the deal um what you do is you can aim with your right stick and walk with your left and the cool thing is you have two guns this big one shoot jumps you really high and then you have a little one that just jumps you a little bit high this uh the classic tutorial here where they just say pistol jump right it's just like they just give you the controls I think this a very smart tutorial I think people over tutorial their games especially for demos so I think they did a real smart job but the coolest thing here that I've never seen them do it's this little ghost animation of this little guy doing his little ghost walk that is really cool I've never seen that in a tutorial it's like I could totally see see it's hard to explain the fact that you just jump with your gun but if you watch this little ghost animation doing it that's it they're really only like two or three levels that show this ghost animation but so this is basically

the game you get three shotgun shots and then like eight eight or so of those little pistol shots see the pistol shots can't go that very high but the the shotgun can do all this so that's what we're that's what we're dealing with so I'm not going to go into it I'm not going to play this game but there's spikes it's it's classic platformer stuff um it's clever and then you got to get your heart whatever see gives you that heart thing I beat this game well what they gave you you know I I beat Beat it I'm not I'm not afraid to brag um it was it was it was cool again the music was just it just gave me a headache it just felt like it was like two vodka cranberries deep and I was just going to have a hangover tomorrow it just it just gave me those kind of Vibes and it was like oh let me tell you I'm a lightweight so two vodka cranberries is like more than enough um this is it it's I mean it's it is Juicy as I'll get out oh let me show what happens when it dies this is the coolest thing um see like little jumps

you'd want to hit the spike so you use the little gun I'm gonna die here watch what happens when you die what oh it's only in the main thing let me go back to a real level um this is like the training Mission so the first world is training let's see first world is training this is the real thing so let me show you what happens in dice this is the cool thing about this game I'm going to go um the other cool thing with this game is it's like handdrawn but it's also pixel art oh also look you know it's a devolver game because look he flicks you off and he says the f word that's how you know it's a devolver again they're like so cool guys they don't play the by the normal rules as devolver look at that that is devolver right there man yeah all right um anyway so it's Satan and you do this stuff um let me die because it's kind of cool wait wait shoot me wait

oh I think I turned off all the audio so he has a really weird like he has like a craftwork calculator voice and he's got this weird face it's cool uh what what he's just kind of mouthing something anyway that's cool that's the cool look of it and it's by the same I think it's the same company I don't know the same designer that did uh Pedro something Pedro what's that game my friend Pedro so he's got a Cool vibe um it's it's cool it's it's a cool game and like the devil uses the FW so it's like you know edgy um but it's cool it's a cool game um I like this the shotgun thing um but again I beat it I did all this um now um you know it's platformer so it's not going to one thing that I think is cool is um well let's see if I can do this I'll show you when you beat the game there's several ways you can beat it all right

see he dies okay wait let me just let me beat it I I really I seriously I I know what I'm doing here but um see it gives you three modes like kill all speedrun no damage those are a lot of people say oh I'm doing a platform I know the medium play time isn't very high but I'm going to add like speedrun and all this stuff these rarely add much to the game this is just a game design thing in my experience there's a very slim percentage it's like 0.5% who will minmax this but who will try and get all the achievements for every level and do it it's cool it's cool for them but in my experience it sign doesn't significantly add play time because a lot of people say oh I'm making a speedrun game because it'll encourage Mastery it just they just don't so if you're like oh man well devolver did it let's do it the other thing I saw that is a classic thing people who make Platformers say oh I'm going to increase my medium Play Time by adding see that custom campaign like a level Builder I I am still stats-wise I am unconvinced by

level Builders I just don't see um most people making level Builders they just they just don't increase medium play time that's that um I'm not here to bag on the game I thought it was pretty cool but it's it's typical things but here's the thing this is the reason I picked this game and decided to cover it on YouTube bonus campaigns um steam nextfest one and two this is this is the cool thing that you could steal I don't know how much it's going to help um but what they're doing is every day of next fter every once in a while they're doing bonus campaign missions they do five and they're just little little tricky levels that um um that you can play through they're they're really sure I'll just play through this one I'm just playing a no kill run oops and then you like

ah come on little heart so I beat so they're short they're like they they don't take very long it's five extra missions to the day and what they're trying to do is encourage people to come back and play the New Missions which increases um concurrent user counts which boosts them in the ratings now for a platformer game like I said concurrent play time is a very big problem for most Platformers because people either get stuck this game's pretty hard I beat it I beat every single level let me tell you I beat every single level um so by the very nature of being a platformer you're going to have low concurrent times you just will but if you're making a different type of game let's say you're making some crafty building game think of ways that you could add more content maybe unlock different tools throughout nextfest or you add different biomes throughout nextfest something for these games that are high medium playtime games games that aren't Platformers that'll have a much higher long um concurrent user count I bet it

would be much more valuable I don't think this game's going to pull it off with this type of content which is again I like this game and I I think it's cool Satan gives you the finger yeah um but just the nature of Platformers they just don't have that strong medium play time people play through them and then they kind of um leave um so that's that and then um another thing that uh I think is cool this is it's not unique every game does this but you have the wish list game right there you click it and they did the overlay so when you click this let's see if this shows up yeah it does see how it shows the overlay that's a smart way to do it what it does is it use the Steamworks API to call the overlay and that what that does is it guarantees that you're logged in so that your wish list counts sometimes you can open a browser window and usually when you open a browser window you're not logged in so then that's just an extra step people have to take so they did the smart thing there by using the wish list game button the other thing I don't I took a screenshot of it I can't find it right now but what I did when you beat

all the regular missions for the demo all 35 I think I counted you get a screen that says that's it those are all the levels be sure to wish list that's a that's a good ending thing um there's one other thing when you hit quit it just quits the game it does not give you that popup that says hey don't forget to uh wish list or something like that that's another one that I found actually has the highest conversion rate is the quit screen um go wish list button so that one's got the best I've I've seen um I know friends who've done UTM tracking for the main menu sorry it's late that's why I'm not doing video uh the quit screen and the endgame screen and the quit screen always had the highest conversion rate for clicking the wish list button so it's kind of a missed opportunity to hit the quit pop up do a little popup that says don't forget to wish list and then there's a wish list button or an exit button really good conversion right okay on that um I'm going to I am going to look at the steam page because I think it's good to look at steam Pages um here it is is now this

is a devolver game and I every Indie falls in love with devolver I think they're kind of a little overrated I'm gonna say it I'm just gonna say it um here's a couple reasons why okay devolve this one thing I really look they got the the Satan that yells at you use the FW what a cool Satan um when you click devolver digital it goes to their screen which is good that's that's the way it should be um VA lift Arrow that's how you do back okay um let's see oh that's weird um I think they took off their demo page um but anyway let me get let me get to this point so devolver when you click their name it gets there but watch this dead toast entertainment they set up the wrong Page dead toast really should have this here here's my friend Pedro this their other game watch this dead toast you got to set up your creator pages now because this is devolver I bet

devolver created their page it's like come on devolver this is basic stuff I tell the the beginning developers always set up your creator page I I don't know why devolver didn't set up their creator page the other thing that gets me mad ah they fixed it they did not have this thing they must have known I was going to yell at them about it see um you can when you create this stuff you should put this stuff right here I swear They just added this um and then the other thing is um see um they did all this this stuff here uh which is saying oh we've got um this game the the cool thing about this game is well I wouldn't say necess say cool the game's actually pretty new they just announced the game and they went into straight into nextfest which makes me think well it say to be announced I don't know when they're going to release but it seems pretty tight I think they kicked off with neck Fest it's just not the best strategy devolver but they have

about 4,000 wish lists I'd say based on this number of followers but if I look at it click on their their steam DB Page look at this they they announced the game they launched the steam page February 22nd that's tight that's really tight um if you look at their um concurrent user count well this is um you don't get this I have to go back to there I think they they got rid of the demo page P shotgun cop there it is demo page here's the demo page here's the demo page see look at this reviewed it 81 it's all right see alltime Peak 34 concurrent users that's not a lot that really isn't and this is what I'm saying like even if you have a big publisher with an experienced Dev making Platformers who made my friend Pedro which is a hit platformer um Platformers are just hard to get concurrent

users um this is a steamdb plugin to tell you concurrent users it's just hard to get them keep in mind 34 we're we're going to go back and look at a different game but this is why adding speedrun and stuff to your game just doesn't increase it devs always hope that it does and it just it doesn't um 81 reviews let's see what people are saying I think they're mostly positive all this positive stuff and it's a good game it's just you don't see the reviews of people like oh it's a platformer they just don't leave reviews they don't even play it and that's that's the market that's the current market let let me show you comparison so what was it it was like 81 was it 81 or is it 43 what was the median 34 was the um concurrent user count let's look at a different game um top of the charts type of game um charts um top demos and we'll look at a game that I think usually has like this game this has probably got a good high concurrent user count look at

there 8.99 this crafty building game where you have to like I haven't play this one it's on my list I think it's like a tower defense City Builder SL slash these type of games have very long player counts $88.99 this is why this game's a top demo is because they just move up the charts and I think that's what's hurting um shotgun man this is just so hard the music gives me a headache I bet gives other people headaches it's just just it's so hard so intense that you just don't want to play it very long and so the steam algorithms just don't promote it as much as something where it's like a little bit more restful more strategy you can take it at a slower pace and you get to this so that's just how Steam Works um that's what it is and this is where I was um looking at this stuff let me go back a little bit um but that's um that's steam I don't know why I wasn't going back let me go back to it shotgun cop

man cop man let's go to that demo page see this is the demo page where I was talking this is what I was looking at see I think I'm pretty sure de demo Pages can do those links they didn't add the devolver thing to the demo page but I think you just do a check mark to say I want a separate demo page so maybe demo Pages can't do that separate thing so that's my bad they're doing fine with that because on the main page they do have the more from devolver but again they didn't set the Creator page for this poor Studio devolver always loves at least devolver didn't redirect the traffic to them I always see devolver do that like when you click on the developers name it leads to the publisher not the developers page if I was a publisher I wouldn't do that that just seems kind of I don't know it's using your power for them but anyway that's um that's one of the games on Steam nextfest I'm going playing these demos all week just to kind of give you tips I post most of these most of my demo Let's Plays go on my premium site which is game marketing idea which is just a collection of videos on this one

I'm just uploading to YouTube cuz I don't know it's steam nextfest it's a good time it's a good time to just show people free stuff so this is a free thing so enjoy thank you so much for watching bye