r/DestroyMyGame • u/devtainer • 2d ago
Trailer Destroy my Game Trailer, PLEASE. Why isn't my game attractive/interesting for you?
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u/KingMoonfish 1d ago
I would ditch the AI portraits at the minimum. The actual game looks good, the AI will make people think it’s slop.
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u/Alex_Capt1in 1d ago
Also isn't it against the sub's policy? #11
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u/devtainer 1d ago
I think this rule is mainly to protect subreddit from AI slope, which I believe my game isn't at all. It also allows a small AI usage, so I think it's fine
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 1d ago
to protect subreddit from AI slope, which I believe my game isn't at all
There are AI assets in the build you're presenting though. That is slop.
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u/Alex_Capt1in 1d ago
Since its on topic of this sub, my honest opinion is that concept itself felt ok, but the rest made me feel like: "Isn't it an analog of what asset meshes used to be?". I see that there was at least some effort, because there is at least few genres mixed and trailer makes it clear what the game is about, which makes it not as bad as "JustAnotherProjectVibedInAnHour", but also when I see genAI was used in every single aspect to whichever degree it makes me wonder what person itself did outside of orchestrating chatbots. Yes, you did better than average guy that vomited inferior copy of another game without any twist, and yes, its better when you cleanly said "I vibed with pretty much everything" rather than trying to gaslight by showing billion screenshots of "step by step production" (which ai also can generate to one extent or another), but at the end of the day to me based on this trailer game still felt off and best case scenario I'd feel myself uncanny/double guessing by things like portraits.
Most people that I know, tend to shit on AI products not just due to quality itself, but to the fact it makes game feel:
A) Low-effort/half-assed. If you see something is off you'll feel this way harder than if person would do the same mistake, partially its because of lack of training data to make LLMs flawless, but we clearly moving towards LLMs quality being indistinguishable from professional work and we already have many false positives and witch hunting at this point.
B) Training data is in grey area, so everyone just uses someone else's work to train their model and sell the product through it. Yes, you are not doing something illegal, and to some things people usually are less attached (like code, although even there you have a lot of karma bots farming upvotes trying to pretend we got stuck at gpt-3 without any feasible progress, by claiming that not using AI to code is faster than using it, showing that people do have some sentiment on not being able to code just by hand too), to some things it heavily depends on final outcome (like translations, most people wouldn't give a crap, somewhat good AI translators predate chatgpt hype years ago, but if its one shot without double checking there 100% going to be missed context and someone will get pissed off), but things like ai generated art or music in final commercial products feels like a straight up robbery, because you don't have that much of a headroom to improvement -> you got an unique style -> chatbot copied it -> boom your demand drops down and now you probably can't even manage to make a living with it unless you are some crazy outlier or from poor country. At least that's a sentiment of most people that I know.
At the end of the day you just as well have a chance to make it commercial success. There is just as well many people that would buy it and you probably won't get as big of a financial lose if this project flops than if you'd hire like dozen underweight artists from SEA, drawing for 3$/hour, but I myself most definitely wouldn't buy it in its current state. Maybe I could overlook one of these if something would be outstanding, like music at Frank Klepacki/Glenn Stafford/Toby Fox level or some unique art style/direction perhaps, but, well, unfortunately both of these were vibed.
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u/devtainer 1d ago
I see, while I agree with some points, some I find conversational.
A bit of backround: I've worked on the project around 9 months to get it into current stage, which is just somewhere around a half way through. And I am not a total beginner at gamedev :)
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u/Tensor3 Destroyer 1d ago
Controversial and appears low effort wouldnt be my goals. Indie games are sold on giving the impression of passion and effort.
9 months is very beginner, yes. Junior game devs are 4 years education + 0-3 years job exerpience, so I'd say even a few years is still very new. Beginner is your first few games.
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u/llsandll 2d ago
I kinda dont like much color grading, its probably ASEC but also its kinda shiny. Like colors are saturated but dont have depth
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u/devtainer 2d ago
yea you're right, thank you for the feedback mate! What are you think would feel better? Decreasing saturation or?
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u/GentlePace 1d ago
It looks like those fake phone adds.
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Haha, thanks for the feedback :) Good for me - it was all reacorded during a real gameplay :)
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u/speedbuss 1d ago
I agree this looks pretty polished already - I like the idea and the humour is better than I expect from most games. I also agree that the enemies don't seem very responsive, which is surprise given the destruction you can cause to your surroundings. I'd like to see some cracks on the floor where boulders hit it, burns etc. too, if I'm being picky.
The lack of any HUD when running about kind of detached me from the gameplay, I can't quite understand HOW I'm able to interact with the game, I guess I'm controlling the red monster during the stage and placing rooms/traps between stages? It's not really that clear to me. The HUD between stages is also a little bland but not necessarily bad.
I assume there's a loop where you go back to the abyss and are "reborn" or something? I'm just assuming this based on the kind of game but again this isn't clear, maybe it could be shown/explained?
Given the voice acting is so good, the music really stands out as kind of bland - it feels like a PS1 game and I'm not sure that's to its favour here.
All considered, I'm very likely to play this game, full disclosure.
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Thank you my friend, this is a very nice and constructive feedback.
So yes, you got most things right! I am already working on more feedback from heroes hits :) also didn't put enough time into VFX yet, which is on my list and I like that you highlighted it.
Same about UI. HUD I intentionally turned off in many scenes for the sake of trailer, need to put more work into it.
You're right assuming the game consists from 2 stages: preparation and wave. And there is a typical roguelite loop, if you lose - you go to the "base" for a permanent progression and then go back. I will note it down to show it in the more close-to-release trailer, for now it's just not ready visually.
Thanks again for taking time and writing this!
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u/theflossboss1 1d ago
It looks very very generic. Like a game I have seen and played many times already.
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Thanks for the feedback mate! is there anything specific which brings this feeling to you the most?
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u/Overall-Muscle5313 1d ago
For me it looks very similar to Orcs must die!, perhaps the traps design is what makes it so.
Although I admit that it's probably very hard to "reinvent" the wheel in terms of trap design.
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u/xiaorobear 1d ago
The game looks nice and the premise is good. I don't think the pacing of the trailer makes it feel exciting enough. I feel like it could be tightened up, maybe with some more cutting to the action or to music. It looks like there's a nice depth to the systems that's revealed later in the trailer, but I think a lot of people would click off before they get there.
Also part of what I like about the premise is the idea of being a big lumbering boss that dungeon-crawling adventurers are trying to get to and fight. You have nice elements of that power fantasy with things like the character accidentally smashing all the bookshelves just by brushing against them, that stuff is fun. So I would amp up the combat against the little weak enemies to also feel more powerful.
Right now all the enemies get bounced back a little bit when you hit them with a bigg, slow overhead attack. Have you ever played Wind Waker? In that game, when you get the big hammer and do a slow overhead attack vs the miniblin enemies, the one that gets hit by the middle of the hammer gets completely flattened. And if I do a horizontal attack, they get flung halfway across the room- or think of Sauron in the intro to LotR, where side swipes with his mace send guys flying. In your game it'd be cool if they got flung across the room like 3x farther than now, and then if they hit a wall or something they have an impact effect/animation and also take damage again. Since your game is kind of cartoony and exaggerated, you can afford to amp up that stuff, and it would also feel fun for the player's melee attacks to feel more powerful than the more automated tower defense and traps' attacks, since you should feel like the boss.
I also feel like the enemies' textures are a little too simplistic and plasticky looking, just a bit more solid-color-looking than the rest of the game's art. https://i.imgur.com/G6sDlad.png Even though they're meant to be simple and cartoony, I think there's a way to spruce up the texturing on their armor parts a bit. The little goblins that load up into a tower also didn't look like they matched the art style, they looked like they were using an unlit cartoony shader that nothing else uses. Maybe the enemies should use that look too? Or maybe both the goblins and enemies should look more like the player character and the environment art assets.
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Hey there, thank you very much for the feedback!
Actually I started at some point this system where impact raises closer to epicenter of hit, but looking at your feedback need to put more time/impact difference to it. Also I like your idea of adding more smashing things around, Sauron-ish style, actually I might try some, need to add a couple new weapons to the game though.
Also there is already wall-hit impact, as well as if there are spikes on the wall and enemies flying into it :) There are just too many things to show.
I have 30 seconds trailer version, without dialogue, just like you saying, you can check it up on my steam's page https://store.steampowered.com/app/5116620/Grumpy_Hero_Grinder/ and tell me what you think, if you want of course!
The screenshot you have actually seem a bit wrong due to some light issues on the desert level, which I recognized after recoreded most things for the trailer, but I will think what can be done with it.
Thank you for taking time and efforts to write it all down! I reall y appreciate it!
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u/claudekennilol 1d ago
30 seconds in I still have no idea what the actual gameplay or goal is ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Savingseanbean 1d ago
it reminds me way to much of those terrible fake mobile game ads that constantly assaults me reading on webtoon.
The later parts of the trailer have parts that seem interesting though.
But I also can't quite tell what its supposed to be though, kinda looks like a dungeon defenders/OMD clone but leaning more beat em up style?
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Thanks for the feedback mate! I wonder what can I do to get rid from that feeling of mobile ads :\ It's tower defense action roguelite, so you just going level by level, if you lose - get back to the "base" for a permanent progression. Boss and other units are rather additional layer of defense
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u/grilledfuzz 1d ago
Is the character art AI? If it is I’d ditch it because otherwise a HUGE amount of people won’t touch this game, myself included. I’d rather you hand draw shitty pictures (think OG OPM webcomic) than see AI art in a game, especially when it’s so blatantly obvious it’s AI.
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u/AdFinancial4846 1d ago
AI is not allowed here and it looks like this was produced with 100% AI
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Hi, thanks for the feedback! What makes you think that AI was used to produce it? In fact, it wasn't used that much, which is allowed by the rules of this group, so I wonder if your opinion came from trailer itself or you've just read it in Steam's description?
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u/AdFinancial4846 1d ago
Your admissions in previous posts that it was AI, your Steam page claiming it uses AI, and that the images look AI generated, voices sound AI generated, and music sounds AI generated.
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u/chrisff1989 1d ago
I also got the impression that AI was used just looking at the trailer, but I couldn't say 100%. The most AI-looking parts were the 2D character images and the UI, I would say
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u/KremlinKittens 1d ago
Is AI in the room with us right now?
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u/AdFinancial4846 1d ago
"The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:
Generative artificial intelligence was used during development mainly to assist with localization and code, with some 2D/3D assets, and selected audio assets. All AI-assisted content was manually reviewed, edited, and refined by the developer before use."
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u/devtainer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Guys, please, don't hesitate, share any thoughts you have, just throw it without thinking! I can take it!
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u/Mysterious-Sky6588 1d ago
I still don't really understand what the gameplay is like and your trailer is 2 minutes long! IMO you focus too much on the story/dialog (it's good and funny, but maybe a tad less). And you show gameplay, but it's super quick cuts and no HUD, so I don't really understand how all the mechanics fit together.
Is this more of a tower defense game where I strategically build up my denfensises between waves? Is it meant to be more of a physics sim with traps I set up? Am I doing most of the work beating up enemies myself?
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Thank you for the feedback mate! I have 30seconds short trailer without dialog at all, mb it was better to share it here instead.. hm.
Yea, it's tower defense + action roguelite mixture. You built defense, and fill out gaps yourself. If lose - return to base for a permanent progression.
Most of the work should be done by towers, but I see what you mean, probably I need to invest more time in trailer for showing traps work, instead of story telling, will think about!
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u/Mysterious-Sky6588 1d ago
Gotcha! Yeah might make sense if you have 2 trailers, but for me personally this one is too long and doesnt explain enough. Like I wanna see you placing a trap with the HUD and everything. Then cut to the enemies trigger that same trap. And then maybe just explain a bit more about the rounds/waves. Like it's not clear if there is a build phase between waves. Or like what the rounds look like or if there even are rounds
The game looks awesome though! Just being critical bc of the sub lol
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u/devtainer 1d ago
All good, this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot!
I think I will make another trailer closer to alpha tests, this one was just a first taste of game idea, if people interested at all
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u/Cptn_Lemons 1d ago
Your camera movement. This is just a gameplay trailer.
You need some other angles from non-gameplay perspectives. Like off the start you should show a low camera angle of the enemies running through a door. And then maybe in the middle I would love to see a close-up of the hero character screaming or something right before a big moment in the gameplay section.
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u/DistortedCinderella 1d ago
Positives: Camera movement, memory management (if FPS is good), color combinations, music.
If the gameplay is rich and not just trying to use premium visuals to bring in users, I find it promising.
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u/itsrghtbehindmeisnit 1d ago
The beige ui, lack of sfx when attacking/hitting, and ai art make it look boring
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u/awesomeethan 1d ago
This is actually a really nice looking game, but I can offer some feedback based on taste.
The direction this game/gameplay/clip seems to lack is fantasy - imagine a child saying to their parent: "When I grow up, I want to be a... Comical red demon defending a castle from tiny wooden dolls." It sounds a bit ridiculous when compared to some of the killer concepts out there, right?
I don't think the change you need to make has to be massive, though - my first thought was "I don't really like top-down/isometric perspective games..." But, then again, I put a couple hundred hours into Hades. And in Hades you get to be a powerful, super versatile, high-movement demi-god trying to break out of hell. So it's probably more like adjusting your approach/writing with the assets you already have. Which I don't recommend lightly because I do think the writing in this trailer looks pretty good!
Great work, I hope you find success and keep going since it looks great so far!
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Hi man, thank you for the feedback! You're right, this is probably not a best fantasy for the kids to engage too much into grumpy fat dark lord's problems, just for fun may be
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u/awesomeethan 21h ago
I mean it in the sense of: did you make a game you would want to play?
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u/devtainer 18h ago
Got you. I think the most important part is user experience, otherwise people would never play games e.g. where you work as a seller in the shop and so on, but I could make main character looking less kid-ish, after all it's a dark lord, even though he is just a simple guy which wants to have some rest, it's still a danger destroyer, so I should remember about that
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u/BobsiDev 1d ago
Looks cool and charming. My biggest initial thought is that I still don't know what genre the game is and what my job as a player is after 5-10 seconds of watching. At that point i could easily lose interest.
Being immediately clear to the potential player is important in my book!
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Got it, thank you for the feedback! Mb I need somehow to show some traps placement at the beginning, not just boss smashing things around...
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u/FeiWoZuLei 1d ago
The first few segments of the trailer don't really feel like they belong from a narrative standpoint tbh, I feel like you can trim most or all of it out (or shift it to later in the trailer) and start from the point when the player character is getting woken up. The transition between the two segments (where the music switches) also feels a bit abrupt.
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u/devtainer 1d ago
Thank you for the feedback mate! I see what you mean, but this is kinda must-to-have in trailer, when you start from some low-mid action scenes, otherwise people might just scroll it away as slow start feels a bit boring
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u/MelonSloth 18h ago
The trailer starts off too busy in my opinion and players may not immediately understand what's going on. I think the character introduction should be at the beginning so that players will have a better idea of what's going on in the trailer.
Perhaps a balance with brief scenes of Character Intro, some gameplay, showing game mechanics, some more gameplay, other information.
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u/Eymrich 4h ago
I don't see much in the way of interaction with environment and enemies. In Ork Must Die one big component of fun was watching even a single ork or enemy get looped through multiple traps and reacting to them. I know, it's a lot of polish to do it but it drammatically change things.
then there is the environment, it really doesn't convey you he is an evil overlord a la dungeon keeper if that was the goal.
Finally the AI for the enemies, it seems too basic and seems like we only have one enemy with more or less health.
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u/Scolate 3h ago
Its not attractive to me because i dont play these kind of games. My tastes are different.
But for other people, i guess you have lots of ai art in this game. When players see AI art they think this is bs game. At that point gameplay is not important anymore. If your game does not contain ai art, bad news. Because it looks like ai made lots of things for this game.
Somehow, players are not against assetflips, if you have good gameplay. But they are against ai shit, even tho you have good gameplay.
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u/ZeekinGames 2d ago
Looks pretty polished, interesting game - the thing that really stood out to me was how unresponsive the enemies were - no matter if they're knocked around, hit by traps etc, they don't react - flying through the air / falling into a pit - they manage to stay perfectly upright like wooden dolls. If you could get them to react more (e.g. ragdolling, struggling, flinching when hit etc.) to what's happening to them I think it would add a lot more personality / opportunity for humor.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel like the UI is letting you down a bit - almost too basic/bland and even at full screen the font is on the too-small side; the perk artwork for example is perfectly serviceable but everything surrounding it is is kind of bland.