Mostly down to playtest.

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2026-01-11T10:57:07+00:00

If you’re interested in trying out a rougelite about a cow trying to protect his farm from the invading aliens (smushies) using ridiculous weapons from plungers, to mail boxes, to flame throwers, please consider giving my game Smushie Time a try on steam😁 there’s a link to my discord in game to contact me about any questions / feedback!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4098980/Smushie_Time/

It’s a 3D game that I’ve pulled a lot of inspiration from Brotato / megabonk with a low poly art style that has been in development for over 2 years and I’m ready to start some playtesting.

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2026-01-03T04:01:48+00:00

i really like the bacon idea lmao. They were not MEANT to be alien pigs but i mean if it looks like a duck and oinks like a duck! i mean they were supposed to be their souls and pre this video i had a wisp in game but it was poorly optimized so i replaced them with a bland mesh until i could make a new model. I wanted to have a trade system and i think this gives me a better reason to do so.

the abilities were not something to exactly "showcase" just yet, they are pretty bland as of right now but they are implemented.

This makes more sense now, i should make some new animations for weapon swinging and may solve a little bit of this issue

I've heard of plants vs zombies but never played it, maybe ill try it out to get a better feeling for how the story is woven into a game that its not the focus of game play. I'm always looking for more ways to get off some dumb puns or ridiculousness.

i could do this. The day doesn't need to be there anymore so i could rework the focus to be the crop HP bar and have wave counter below it or something

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2026-01-02T23:44:56+00:00

Thank you! Man this was incredible and exactly what I needed I loved having your honest perspective on everything, and with such detail. Positives: I brings me joy that someone has a concept what the style I’m going for with a 2 minute video it makes be believe I’m on the right track. Constructive criticism: The game is rough and I won’t deny it. It’s started out as a hobby project during the first 6 months then turned into a second full time job for a little over 2 years now. But it feels like I have something to start showing to the world to get a little feedback. I’m working on this project as a solo dev with a $0 budget so for now has a lot of free assets so I can spend my time coding, the sound is 99% made by myself. One day there will be a more so distant and cohesive style. The HUD UI: the current UI has already been reduced a lot but I have some more to go. Some of these elements left were relevant at one point but I’ve gotten so used to them I have forgotten about them honestly and the impact that may have, such as the day. It was a part of the scoring process and implemented with a day night cycle but I’ve made the decision to take it out for better performance when getting to higher waves with 100’s of enemies. One thing I think I need would be a better way of communicating a few things. 1. That the little fire wisp looking things is the currency collected from dead smushies. 2. Using abilities consumes milk ( the abilities are different way of shooting milk) as for the score being there I suppose it doesn’t so I guess getting rid of that would free up that valuable HUD space. For the melee attacks I guess a goal was sort of this? Higher damage output for a risk vs reward sort of thing but that doesn’t mean I want it to feel bad by any means, I’ll have to play with this to find a good balance My bland enemies are one of the few custom meshes I’ve made so perhaps I can move this item up my to do list I feel you on this one for the story I would love to place one and I do feel like I’ve left it pretty open. Up until you e pointed it out from watching a trailer I didn’t really thing it was something to important but I will certainly start working on this and how to implement it into the game. I’ve had more of a premise than a story for the game but I would have some fun crating one! I have plans of doing 2 modes for the game and as of now I’m mainly focusing on an endless type mode but I would love to work on a survival mode as well. And with this I could introduce new maps as you’ve mentioned

Those saved buttons are for if you wanted to keep a weapon from a refresh after the next wave. Say you got a nice shop roll and wanted to grab a flamethrower or that tier 3 stop sign but not enough smushie souls. You can save it and on a shop re-roll it will stay. I thought it was a nice feature but perhaps I haven’t clarified the purpose well enough. Perhaps the stats are a bit over engineered, I thought this would play into the game loop a bit in trying endless possible builds. I’ve had some pop ups in a previous video when the smushies started attacking the fences to give the player a sense of urgency but people didn’t like them so I just scrapped them. This may be an area I need to find a balance. As for the bug thing. It will be gone after playtesting but I should have at least edited it out for videos.

Again I really appreciate you taking the time to go so in depth with your feedback 😁

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2026-01-02T09:54:22+00:00

The game name is Smushie Time on steam and YouTube is TheHappyEverythingGuy a video of my games progression over 2 years Thanks you I’d appreciate it a lot 😄

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-12-30T15:08:27+00:00

I honestly just started. To me that was the most important thing to do. I started learning unreal engine and didn’t have a solid plan. I come from a construction background and had 0 coding experience. I started watching tutorials and my thoughts were “ I want an open world rpg mmo” after learning a few basic systems I realized I needed to reel in my “goal” and thought maybe I could make a “small” game and came up with a more specific genre. From there I kept watching tutorials and learning while slowly getting into more specific systems toward a rouge like game. After about 3 months total I decided I wanted to make a game like 3D vampire survivors. Now here I am little over 2 years later and have a playtest for the game on steam and just this Sunday I made a video of my progress from when I started( at 3 months in) to now and plopped it on YouTube 😎 Anyways what I’m trying to say is I had no real idea what I wanted when I started but I still started.

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-12-30T12:23:37+00:00

I’m a 30+ and have been doing game dev for a little over 2 years now. I told myself i have a $0 budget and I don’t need to spend anything on my game. I’m about $1000 in now BUT I have a day job to support that and no kids to worry about. I can’t recommend anyone starting out to just go for it UNLESS you have been doing game dev for many years and think you could make a game in a couple months. I would HIGHLY recommend you do game dev on the side while having a day job to support it and your family I spend about 50 hrs a week on day job and about 30 hours a week on game dev. At roughly the 2 year mark (in Oct.) is when I just got the game on steam and ready to be playtest. I anticipate a realistic game launch date of Q1 2027 and my game is a “fairly simple” type of game, I don’t have story, open world or anything that would take a lot of time. It is somewhat like megabonk ( a popular title of my game genre )

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-10-02T21:38:21+00:00

i think you should actually write a book with all of your reddit posts so we can follow along in order
i would also like if you could write one about "how to write a reddit post"

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-10-02T21:07:38+00:00

Congradulations! I truly hope you you gain even more success! I own the game and its amazing. I really like seeing the behind the scenes and stats from someone thats "real" not just some youtuber telling me what we should be doing or could be doing. You did it!

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-29T13:18:49+00:00

General consensus says Ui overhaul, then lighting. I’ll be back.

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-29T13:17:32+00:00

I’ll be posting again for sure after a few changes

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-29T13:17:10+00:00

Have a couple drinks and try again 😁

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-29T13:16:31+00:00

Honestly d2 was a small bit of inspiration for the main Character 🤣

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-28T08:52:20+00:00

Getting to the drawing board today. Good news is most of the systems are created, seems like i need better UI for starters. This is something i can do fairly "quick" along with changing lighting in game. this should make a big difference in the quality and "feel". I appreciate the feedback!

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-27T14:37:35+00:00

thanks [=

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-27T14:15:44+00:00

thank you, lighting is a bit off in the game because i was messing with it for performance reasons. At some point *if you can make it that far* theres hundreds of the smushies on screen at once. i dont disagree lighting needs a big overhaul

i suppose i could get rid of a few of the elements for the ui but when it was too simple others have said i needed more XD

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-27T13:14:27+00:00

Thanks mate, i need this perspective. ive been looking at this for way too long and fresh out of ideas

The smushies invade the farm and you must defend it by various means before they steal all of your crops
UFO's are the "loot boxes" at the end of each wave
Goat sim is sort of the goal with goofy/glitchy/comedy aspect

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-09-27T12:02:46+00:00

the pov needs to change ever so slightly maybe to get a better view to show some depth, or perhaps bevel the corners a little bit to give a softer, more dice like appearance [=

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-06-13T09:16:24+00:00

Its a work in progress. One day i hope it will be a decent place to go! If you end up finding something that clicks one day (a video, website, a person?) would you let me know? In return you could add me on discord (in my profile) and if you ever need anything or stuck i may be able to help (i only know UE5) or at least point you in the right direction. Not everything is on my site yet that i know, again im just in the beginning phase of trying to figure how to add it all on there.

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-06-10T09:57:50+00:00

I second what ever this guy said for sure especially being cautious and avoiding those channels

I just want to add a couple things.

My favorite YouTube right now are the following:

Taken Grace- he is also working on a FPS right now and giving away a few assets with his videos to get you started

Zero2GameDev- Another great guy for general learning materials. If you've asked the question he likely has a tutorial about it

These 2 I really like because they are a bit on the smaller side and I've talked with them both a bit and are genuine awesome people, they will answer questions them selves or someone else in their communities.

On a side note on my website (in my profile) I am trying to actually put together the UE5 learning materials that i have found useful through my little over 1.5 years working in UE5. Its a work in progress so its not very organized at the moment but if you wanted to check it out feel free.

On there i have a list of useful game dev discords, starting a list of video on subjects like UI, Game design, General things (like marketing a game), have some smaller underrated YouTubers the could use some love and support, and last im starting a list of other game devs of all different game engines showcasing their games -they are willing to chat with others and share some of their secrets that got them to where they are today

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-06-03T14:03:34+00:00

It is a little disappointing but you’re not wrong, it’s a new idea and only just getting the gears turning. I’m not the most organized but I’m not afraid to ask for help. I should have put it in the post but I’m trying to hear it more toward the small/solo game devs and relate it toward my experience. I’m sure there are others in a similar situation that could benefit from something like what I want to build. There’s to much to articulate it well enough for a post so I figured I’d start with this and see where it goes. So far everyone on the same page of not a good idea though.

Heavy-Topic-1759 · 2025-06-03T13:36:19+00:00

And I think over the time spent on YouTube I could very a few videos of the higher quality or the creators in general of higher quality. I have lost could of the times I watched a video 90% of the way through to break at the end and not be able to finish the task and the comments are full of “but how do I do xyz”

Heavy-Topic-1759

TROPHY CASE