Pro Game Designer PLAYS My Game (I was scared)

hey what's up guys so this video is going to be pretty fun as some of you know i'm friends with oliver joyce the creator and game designer and programmer of the long-running and popular swords and sandals franchise so i thought i'd invite oliver over to my house for an early alpha test of blood and mead and just get an idea of what he thinks about it and just kind of let him play and just see what kind of things come up so it's going to be really insightful for not just myself but hopefully those of you in the community who are also working on your own projects so without further ado let's go all right we're off all right alpha okay so um yeah given us the test build everything is work in progress but first thought would be like animate the tile screen somehow even if it's just layered have um just slowly floating up and down and maybe you know a couple of particles behind him maybe this thing kind of like um shining a little bit that kind of thing just because the static tile screen um doesn't have as much impact yeah for sure yeah okay and that font is a little too aerial yeah oh so that worked okay cool i don't know what was under that instantly like this is really nice love love the blurred grass in the foreground little particle effects the background a couple layers of parallax there nice little animation in between left and right movement and the footsteps are kind of cool it may like as the game goes on it may be the footsteps are slightly too loud but jump feels good too responsive like you can jump there get back to there that's cool i like that it's sort of like a non-vocal introduction and so you've worked out each jump is basically like that's a two platformer one length two lengths that's kind of good yeah i mean feel free to comment if the jump because i've been tweaking the job height a little bit and maybe i need to be a bit more graceful so if i do just one jump without holding it i can't make that and if i hold it i can so if i do one jump that's okay that's fine [Music] [Music] subtle effects i'm really just starting to notice now flowers extra attack oh yeah so you could if you wanted to disable the attacks until then except to make it more of a surprise but doesn't really matter [Music] you could if you wanted to add a um [Laughter] yeah i didn't mean to do it but it ended up being fun okay so you can push things first all right let's listen what happens if you push them at the end don't do it okay so call it i like the little black bars that come up but i might if i was doing that i would maybe hide the um yeah yeah so they're not doubling off yeah um scroll looks a little bit cliche the actual scroll um the font is cooler is that a different font yeah there's a font there's a few font mismatches i like the little symbols yeah but that font in the dialog box is that's locked down that one is yeah well because of blank card i would almost go with that for almost everything i could yeah like some of the some of the dialogue i don't like this see i'm kind of tempted to not even have any of this whole scene at all to be honest i mean it's just teaching you how to play i guess but also it's kind of holding you back from the game a little bit i mean but we got through that in about 30 seconds yeah it's still something in the booth [Music] it's unnecessary that's my best ah cool okay so the map is open anywhere but like it'll be locked to these first areas so yeah this is official first level this whole map will get customary done by our artist oh okay so it'll be like a beautiful um you know what i mean yeah and maybe some clouds going over there yeah yeah we'll get like a custom artwork so it's first level here we go all right really nice bloom in the background looks cool the wind effects you can stick the uniform off the boat [Music] ah cool i like having that [Music] so i i actually kind of even though this place a little video i kind of like that it's kind of gaming this listen this song is really good it's my favorite one of the art the pose is very expensive right so you can jump on your head i still i almost that still feels a little placeholder it's gonna go it's gonna be hard okay yeah the design is fine design is totally fine it just it just still feels yeah the sound effects are great that's been one of my favorite oh i'll try this big jump here yeah so that was a hold the button down situation i like the little knock back [Music] and you've got the throwing weapon as well that you can oh yeah you can use interchange [Music] less damage uh i like everything you kind of go past here has that little you know tweens i'd almost if you could make the um slimes a little transparent oh yeah yeah the the hit is called the little white flash you originally had a red flash i thought i did i changed it to the one that's good because not everything is got blood sometimes you might point here exactly it just looks a bit more premium as well i found yeah it seems to have no problem on the movies so that's a checkpoint yeah even if the first time it says [Music] checkpoint nice little flickering light there on the torch oh no is that why i hurt you [Music] ah he's tough down to your last two yeah nice so hopefully you're enjoying this guys if you like what you see or you'd like to be involved in the journey of this game please do drop a wishlist on steam i'd very much appreciate it this is sort of like the passion project of my life i've never put this much time and effort into any coding slash game project this is like a monumental effort on my part so i'll be very um happy to have you guys part of that journey with me and kind of seeing me through to a launch so please do drop a wish list um yeah you can kind of you can do that yeah yeah which one yeah you should be able to have yeah so in the beginning you have to work out well i can't do that drop attack not all the same so if you see that crack in the wall you know ah you can just walk through it ah sweet particles [Music] if if there was a way to kind of fade that in and out that would be cool oh yeah as opposed to animating them on the wall yeah man i had it like that oh okay there were some graphical issues so i just ended up putting the whole yeah it doesn't matter it's just like i i yeah it's exactly what i had to begin with but yeah nice level oh cool i like the little ones so hopefully you get a tunica oh yeah so you've got your clothes back yeah so i hadn't i hadn't noticed that that was just probably not paying attention [Music] yeah yeah you're right it does knock the back a bit but well the problem is they're stuck up against each other yeah well he can jump on it the combat feels fun it does it does have a so i noticed we got the camera does move around sort of uh intuitively as well so yeah so there's something on boarding here but i will go through it wait wait so drink that yeah ah there'll be onboarding game that i haven't gotten okay there's like a charge now so if you press down the two big buttons it turns on [Music] okay that's my own fault i should have used that was there a tutorial said that yeah you just left that sign ah you know what i just completely come on uh is this because you're busy talking yeah this is a oh [Music] oh yeah that's cool some people might do it somewhere in case you didn't do it and now you can yeah it looks off that because you can't get past that otherwise [Music] but you've only got a limited time to do this right so you can get hold on you don't have a oh cheers what i might do with that is i would have figured it out but you could have been every now and then have a little a couple of particle like um you know yeah stars appear yeah i thought about that that's cool so i can do that from now on yeah you can always do right i've used it now what i might have is if you don't have any rage units and you try to do that maybe you get a different sound effect oh yeah like it tries everything that's a good point [Music] [Music] it's cool like there's just a text in the game but not that much it's nice what for breaking so if you hold l and r b there'll be some onboarding if you hold rb so the top one oh yeah you can change your throwing weapon um so if you press but i haven't to be honest you can try it out if you wanted this press triangle uh oh sorry why oh okay so it's got a short up oh no so it's got a shorter throw distance but they're limited you see seven six five ah yeah um but it doesn't matter because they're not working right now like they work but they're not doing anything different than the normal arthritis i like the um i like the way the camera fans over tonight something has happened i had some issues with music in this build where the wrong music tracks were triggering for the wrong environments it was a bit disappointing because um you know having the wrong music playing like an underground theme playing for like an overworld theme it kind of detracts from the mood you're trying to set in one of the environments but yeah keep that in mind that there's a lot of like problems and stuff that yeah the levels feel fun you know this good good balance of combat yeah actually i like the combat it's fun combat mixed with like some platforming yeah but it's not something you feel like you have to race through [Music] so should i go left so multiple oh that's tricky wait for it don't rush it because you're very low yeah you have to go pretty far back if you let's go off yeah okay that's fine because if you're you're near the end oh good ah i'm gonna ruin [Music] yeah that's right i like the little rain um things that they land on there and they don't go underneath there which is nice you could um just for extra stuff you could even have an extra layer of rain in the foreground like this just sort of that's a great idea you know that's a very good observation oh well well so far it seems precise enough working all right yeah i'm having like any jump that i want i put a lot of time into like trying to get but here we go every jump that i want to do i see you forgot to do okay so i just you should i saw like a gift of this or something so this you have to hit them in the right just a bit of fun you know what i mean you can almost do it so if you hit it from this side it went in that direction uh maybe probably complicated too much yeah these are good things because eventually like through trial and error you get it yeah it's kind of it's nice it has a bit of spice to the game it makes you feel clever yeah you know like they did them and it's also they did them in uncharted and stuff like that to give the player a little bit of a break i find a lot of time when i'm sort of talking and and some observing stuff i'm basically playing badly yeah you know when you concentrate on something you kind of go oh yeah absolutely if i need to play absolutely this level better no the saturation everything's really good there's a nice level of i lowered it by 30 yeah it doesn't feel too colorful but it's a good kind of okay so it's moving down there in my opinion you can change the whole feel of the game if you saw the before version way too powerful i could even lower it even more even but it's pretty low already if if you wanted this to feel like a really gloomy section the clouds are a little too daylight i'm into like sunny days yeah good point treasure chest oh yeah so how do you get down so it's worth noting that the build that you see in this video is rather old in a sense where a lot of the problems and systems have already been fixed and overhauled you know i've introduced a whole new ui system much nicer much more premium i've overhauled the ai system enemies um a lot more responsive and they behave a bit more consistently and i'll be doing up some follow-up videos where i make before and after comparisons between this video and you know what i've done to fix it so if you like the sound of that drop a sub and keep an eye out for those videos and there'll be other weapons like uh fire bombs yeah um kind of like a dance that goes straight that may have a different um tactic but that's for later levels though and so fire bombs that you hit it and then it basically burns there and if they like it'll be good for the forest level and stuff like that even having certain weapons that are like certain enemies are more susceptible too what's up there ah oh yeah [Music] ah i don't know like we'll talk about the length of the level after but this is still one one they're generous levels it doesn't feel small so they can afford to be long but there's some considerations around our players wanting to quit and re um come back one thing with that snake that i had tonight just like this is like feature creep with it it's blood almost looks like acid so you almost feel like you should jump away from it when it when it sort of dies oh it might just make it rip then yeah it's not bad when you realize once that today so i oh okay yeah so you got there then hit that whoa throw it there all right oh you're nearly there only nearly there so i like [Music] [Music] one thing i was thinking of with that um charge up attack it'd almost be cool if it moved you forward a bit oh yeah um yeah like because what i wanted to do was like i wanted to use that charge attack and like sweeping towards getting into them yeah yeah i was gonna i was gonna ask your opinion about that like how to make it more impactful or meaningful because it means you can kind of like time it so they're coming towards me if as long as i'm charging up and doing that they will i know what you mean okay so this is the new level this is still okay because it's still all windy whoa nice thankfully uh yeah that was a cool a good boss fight oliver actually has his own youtube channel as well under whiskey barrel studios he releases a lot of very interesting game dev and game design related content and i think if you like my content you'll like his because we have a very similar way of looking at these kind of things so yeah go check him out whiskey barrel studios uh this this this this scene is highly in development this is one of the most oldest scenes of the game so that's cool i like that right he'll probably be dancing or moving or yeah yeah yeah banging his chest or something that sounds cool that's called that scroll and there's effects when he comes in it's going to tidy it up we're going to make it yeah and even just having like a nice sort of like star thing behind them so and you see the font like this is one of the old fonts but you know i try to okay so here's the thing i try to replace that font in the top left with that dialogue font it doesn't doesn't work it doesn't that's the font there that's the same dialogue yeah it just looked like i've got times new roman up there you know yeah so but what do you first of all what do you think about this font it it it's pretty gamey like it makes the game feel more more casual game not in a bad way but like like it's cartooning us it's more cartoony yeah and it's fun but do you ever have that on the same screen as the other one well they never really this font was um a lot more prevalent in early versions it was the logo font and other things um less so now but it's on like yeah because you almost need a heading font and like a dialogue right yeah yeah exactly so that area i just did how many levels is that that was three sub levels um you almost like it felt like three levels but it also felt pretty connected you could almost have like that windy coast and then like a little name underneath like windy coast um you know smuggler's bay as it sort of begins because it kind of like sort of reinforces sort of like this is all still a windy coast but um it's a new level right you could have you know windy coast one windows 2 that's kind of boring but i quite like that um [Music] thing that came up but i was almost expecting it every time i went to a new area not to say just you know different level but just have like a sub-level kind of thing right okay so i hope you found this video interesting and it's been insightful for perhaps you and your own game making process please do give the video a like and i'll see you in the next video bye you

Channel: Lost Relic Games

Views: 73,379

Keywords: game dev, game design, learn game dev, indie dev motivation, indie dev, play test, tips for beginner game devs, lost relic games, john stejskal, advice, game dev tips, game development, how to make games, Blood and mead, game development beginner, game development college, how to make first indie game, how to learn game dev, tips for beginner game dev, tips for starting game dev, starting first indie game, how much money game dev, swords and sandals, oliver joyce

Id: 8UWVzrEgS60

Length: 22min 44sec (1364 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 07 2021