How To Fail At First Person Shooter Games 

Don't forget about stamina that runs out after 2 seconds of running because that's what playing as an experienced, heavily trained soldier is supposed to be like.

Not enough battle passes. In fact I want a battle pass that gives me a new artindi video every time I level up.

Remember to make the guns feel unsatisfying to use. Enemies should not have any reaction to being shot, not even a stagger.

"It's just a 2d game but you play it in the first person" and I immediately said doom

Don't forget to make the guns either have so little "umph" to them it feels like spitting at enemies or so much of it you explode the players headset

I love the skit at the end where you explain how every FPS should be poor quality rendition of Call of Duty campaign and all of sudden *ULTRAKILL jumpscare*

Also, add enemies with hitscan attacks to the FPS while meeting all the following criteria: 1. The player does not have any movement or other abilities to avoid or deflect the hitscan attack. 2. These enemies have perfect player tracking, or at least good enough tracking to hit the player at random times, no matter what the player does. 3. These enemies cannot be killed before they fire, and do not have any flinching mechanics to reset the time before they fire. 4. The level design does not allow breaking line of sight from those enemies, and also ensures you encounter a lot of them at the same time.

Remember you don't have more than 2 weapons for each category, you don't want players to feel like they have something like "variety" Also make sure that only one weapon in the whole game is good and the other ones are dogs**t but make that op gun avaiable from the start and the other ones would require a lot of grind and effort just to make players dissapointed

Other good bad advice: - make sure that a headshot deals a morbillion damage, while hitting any other body part is a viable option only when your opponent is afk. Also, when the win is determined not by the skill or strategy, but by who sees who first, make the respawn take as much of your time as possible. - add tons of guns, make one better than all of them in everything and lock it behind grinding, paywall, gambling, or all 3 of those. And also, as someone mentioned, INVISIBLE WALLS. Seriously, in a game where half of the classes can rocketjump or doublejump and in one mode everyone get a grappling hook, i can't just explore the map? There are loads of houses, if their roofs weren't blocked by the invisible walls, they alone would have more playing space than the original map.

Alternatively, spend your entire time focusing on the weapon customization system. ... Game? Uh, no, we don't hunt with this gun.

I don’t play shooters all that often, but it really does feel like the vast majority of them really are the exact same game. Like it’s crazy to me that someone would put that much effort into making a game and give it literally ZERO unique features that make it stand out

Noted. I should keep working on my game

That really gave me a whole new perspective

You forgot the themes, a fps can only be : - a military conflict simulator - a sci-fi fight against alien - a post apocalypse survival (usually with zombies or russian/american atomic era) - a survival horror (usually a walking simulator) - a doom clone It is strictly forbidden to create an fps that wouldn't belong to any of thoses themes

Don't forget to make the player model a bean and *never ever* change it

I loooove the intro joke. So good

Ok but an FPS game where you play as a dalek and your goal is to exterminate sounds pretty lit

so this is how valorant was made

Some more tips to fail at making FPS games: 1.Guns need ammo! So you need to ammo counter. However, either give the players so little ammo that they're afraid to use their guns in fear they're going to run out when they really need it, or just add ammo packs everywhere so the ammo counter is just a formality. Never be like Doom Eternal where ammo counter is low so you pay attention to it, but easily replenishable so you're not afraid to use your guns. Or never be like Ultrakill where the ammo is infinite and there are cooldowns instead. 2. Make sure that the enemies have either so much health compared to the variety of their attacks that they're just damage sponges. Or die so quickly that they never get a chance to attack you, or demonstrate all their attacks. 3. Add platforming sections without adding various movement options. Coyote time? Sorry but we're not making a platformer! Air control? No! We're going for realism even if you're jumping between floating islands. 4. Add invisible walls and death zones everywhere. The fancier your movement options are, the more invisible walls and death zones you should add. Bonus points if the game includes secrets that are harder to reach than those invisible walls. After all, we need all these things you can look at but never reach. 5. Never add a separate volume slider for weapon sounds. Your sounds of your weapons must either drown out the music or be so pathetically weak that they sound like they all have a silencer. That especially includes explosion sounds. 6. When adding reloading mechanics, ensure that reloading is not an action during you feel tense and helpless. Ensure that it's just there to waste your time, making the players want to reload every time they fire even a single bullet after an encounter.

the biggest way is to fail making a first person shooter is accidentally making a third person shooter

This whole series can be summarized to "throw the story in the trash and don't add too much stuff, focus on like two or three mechanics and make them PERFECT"

First Person Failure lol

2:58 "oh crap a slideshow of low poly fps or doom clones"

haha guns go brrrrr

I’m gonna make a game based off this

Intructions unclear. I accidentally created Ultrakill.

Also, the A.I. should just be glorified Roombas that couldn't win a fight against Stormtroopers.

Here's some more great tips to help you fail at FPS development! 1 - Don't try to find a unique idea or undercompetitive niche. Just make the same "We have DOOM at home" or "Titanfall clone" indie FPS that every other indie FPS developer is making right now! Surely your game being yet-another cookie-cutter lookalike in a sea of borderline identical games will make it not only be recognized and appreciated by a dedicated fanbase, but sell VERY well! 2 - It doesn't matter what kind of gameplay style or movement system your game has, make the enemies hitscanners! Surely an FPS game where every mechanic is designed to encourage you to be out in the open and strafing around enemies will benefit greatly from hitscanners everywhere! (Ahem, Serious Sam 3. Ahem, ahem.) 3 - Story? Pfft, who plays an FPS for the story? Make it some generic variation of "Totally-not-demons-but-definitely-demons are invading" or "generic badguys are doing generically bad things." Your "story" should just be the barebones explanation for why the bad guys are bad. Don't bother explaining the player character's role in this, why they're going through these different levels, what their motivations are, nor explain the greater plot that the events of the game might affect, etc. This will definitely make a player invested and wish to continue past the first level! 4 - Sell your game as being this "Super gory retro FPS" when the "gore" is just giant red particles that cover the screen! Surely a game where you need to, idk, *see* what enemies you're up against and react quickly with the appropriate weapon won't be harmed by taking away your vision when you so much as sneeze on an enemy! (Ahem, Prodeus. Ahem, ahem.) Bonus points; this will ruin your gamefeel by making enemies feel like waterballoons full of red paint that pop with the slightest touch, rather than durable, dangerous enemies! 5 - Weapon balance? Pfft. Either you have the 4 barebones weapon archetypes mentioned in the video, or you have WAY too many weapons, with like 20 assault rifles that all behave more or less exactly the same, but they end up annoying the player because they can't find ammo for any of them due to the chances of running into the same weapon twice being astronomically small! (Bonus points if 2 weapons that are technically identical, like "Assault Rifle" and "Assault Rifle with Grenade Launcher", don't share ammo because of technical limitations! This will surely not annoy your player to no end!) Or just copy DOOM's weapon roster 1:1, duh. Something something "reinvent the wheel." 6 - Bullet sponges. Need I say more? Everyone loves wailing damage on an enemy that shows zero reaction to being hit, with no indicator if damage is even being dealt! 7 - Level design? What do you mean? You walk from point A to B down a corridor clicking on heads as you go. Don't bother making interesting level layouts that give a player options to tackle an enemy encounter, mix things up with scripted events/setpieces, or offer alternative routes that may offer an entirely new option to defeat the enemies ahead, like a vehicle or rare weapon/powerup. Make it a corridor, or make it a maze that feels confusing and pointless. Those are your options.

It was such a suspense and then... ULTRAKILL MENTIONED YEAH!!!!!!

2:33 To be fair, most indie games choose simpler graphics for good reason. It takes a lot of money, time, and energy to make anything remotely resembling 2020 DOOM or Halo

too much right here. when i see mods putting "realistic" weapons in doom my eyeballs roll so far backwards that i can see my own brain. I miss when people would make cool fantasy weapons. Remember the ASMD shockrifle from unreal? That is the single best gun ever made. I don't care what you say, it's impossible to convince me otherwise. And no one even tries to do something in that vein anymore... for the most part.

You have to remember that sprint is a must even if your maps are not made for it

0:19 ah, so THAT'S what you're doing everytime you're off screen during the intro segment... I see...

“just a worse version of call of duty” it seems activision has beat everyone to it 10 times over

Machine gun that’s so inaccurate that it can hit behind you is now an idea I have… a horribly cruel idea.

Don't forget the pistol has to do -1 damage

What's your favorite fps game? (no mainstream answers)

360 no scope the over scope

How to fail at FPS game: 1. Make an mil-sim as they are clearly not over-saturated by games like Squad, Arma, Post Scriptum, OHD etc. 2. Make it slow as possible, add stamina meter that depletes after 2 sec and requires drinking water after each 5 sec to run farther 2 meters 3. Add insane recoil, shaking and flinching weapons when aiming ironsights as realistically soldiers can't stably hold guns especially when moving 4. Make ultra-realistic graphic, shadows and foliage so you can't distinguish or see an enemy at all, made RTX 4090 as minimum requirement as majority of players already used the newest GPUs 5. Place respawn points and objective areas at least 2 km away and set 2 min respawn delay, to incentive players to not die and when they get killed by sniper it's their skill issue 6. Make it online only and don't let players host their own servers, make sure that players can only use your own server that will not die after a year since your game will for be populated by tens of thousands of newcomers 7. Don't forget to about making fake realistic gameplay footage with fake interactivity and fake UI 8. Add Lootboxes, Skins, Microtransactions and Battle passes. Don't forget about setting price tag as 69,99$

With the weapon selection, the first firearm you acquire is ALWAYS a pistol. Or a pistol-like equivalent.

Tbf, most indie FPS are either low poly or doom clones because as an indie you straight up don't have the toolset to make good looking realistic graphics, so you gotta go for stylized graphics. Stylized graphics also help stand out from the competiton (when done properly).

To be fair, a SMG that literally hits everything around you with it's wild spray could actually be really unique.

i just so happen to be working on an fps right now, so now i'll know exactly how to fail at it! thanks artindi!

Might be slightly outdated already because all the weaker indie FPS games I've played lately have just been worse Ultrakill with no new ideas. Good video though!

i can confirm that the reason why most indie FPS games are low poly is because developers are very lazy

Waited for this episode to be made lol There being two types of fps art styles that indie devs choose is so true haha

0:12 I loved how since it's a FPS video the intro also became FPS-like or first person

2:34 This is because graphics that are realistic or hand-drawn are really hard or expensive to do. Or both.

Good video, but hating on low poly/digitized sprites felt a bit harsh, like, its a fun and fitting aesthetic, nothing wrong with doing it and it doesnt make you uncreative or lame, look at ultrakill

Don't forget to give the player a whole 4 bullets before they have to get more ammo, because we don't want to have too much action.

you keep dropping gems on genres i love and have an fps in my game dev list

I'd like to think that the watermelon at 0:58 is a reference to the game made in that recent chris and jack sketch

Your game jam video was really helpful for me, I feel like this is my best game jam so far, thanks

If your game uses a lower poly style, make sure there’s a lot of open areas primarily for the combat. Once cleared, they, combined with the simplistic and repetitive graphics and poor lighting, should serve no other purpose than for the player to waste time looking for the next hallway in a mostly linear progression. Even better if there are room or even buildings that contain like, one enemy or health pickup.

I never thought of portal from the perspective that its a first person shooter. Not to say its wrong, but yeah, I just wanted to say I like how you pointed that out! Your videos are cool by the way, I have started experimenting with game development recently, and I am glad I found your channel! Keep it up!

If I ever make a shooter, I'm just gonna make quake basically

This was a lot of fun! Thank you for sharing this delightful bit of goodness :)

1:39 I would actually play a FPS with an UI like that if the game is designed around that lol.

If I ever feel like the game I'm making is to similar to the one I was inspired by, still it's very close, I remember that every month or so, 3 multiplayer online pvp shooters come out that all play the same, and I feel better.

Overwatch as a study case o how to fail at online multiplayer

I just want to give ny appreciation for the indie FPS Trepang2. While it was more of a fruit salad of different concepts that didn't all hit the mark, it let me dual wield incendiary shotguns and for that alone it will always live close to my heart.

Oddly enough this unironically helped me. It reminded me that verticality is quite important

2:37 the reason for that is because A) people have a lot of nostalgia for low-poly/doom-esque graphics and B) as a single person, or even a small group, it’s way easier to make pixelated sprites and/or low-poly models than it is to go for photorealism (at least if you want it to look good).

Remember: every person who plays the game will be thinking exactly like you so there's no need for tutorials or highlighting which way to go or even a keybind option - they know how to edit the files, don't waste your time.

funnily enough i was inspired by the Bloons TD FPS Fan game to make my own just with zombies... im still figuring out movement, but i have some ideas for cool maps, they arent all going to be flat, also my ui is just going to be the essentials (a crosshair, a health bar, a mini map, and an ammo counter), although funny you mentioned snipers and assault rifles being identical, because in mine the assault rifle is just going to be an upgrade to the sniper making it shoot faster. another thing about the weapon variety section is that in my game is not going to have a shotgun and a machine gun (yet), but instead im going to add a pistol and a flamethrower.

Your content is the best, thank you so much for existing!

1:19 wait, maze gunner is a good idea! 2:36 wait, that's just marathon

“Compete with Pubg” well that dated this video

forgot to mention to do it in any other engine but Unreal, since Unreal is already set up and contains all the essential mechanics you need to make a shooter of any kind. Much bigger chance of failure if you use Unity since you have to make everything from scratch, or better yet make your own engine, because by reinventing wheel you can make all sorts of mistakes you wouldnt make otherwise 👍

Nice to see some appreciation for Prey at the end, with a clip if the player transforming into a mounted turret XD.

You must also not forget to make your game in Unreal Engine (because it's the future), and use the most basic model and Unreal default lighting. I mean that's what every successful AA game sequel do, it's sure to work. Orc Must Die 3, Payday 3, Killing Floor 3, all great games (there's way more, but i'm sure you get what i mean)

sir i am a british orphan i love your videos and i am going to die from cold weather pretty soon could you please make a "how to fail at ui" video sir please🪳

Woaa you stepped up with those visuals :o

Remember, it's illegal to consider removing the sniper rifle. They're iconic, which means that including them should be more important than making sure they actually suit how you design maps. Same goes for shotguns.

Ah, the triumphant return of the UI from the How To Fail At Tutorials video.

The Bulletstorm demo always comes to mind... BLOODY SCREEN so real

Nice video man

I mean... there are fully 3d indie FPS ... And there's a very good reason none of them are remembered unless they are outliers (they suck massively and are a combination of what you said, if not worse).

you should do one about card strategy games, great series btw

What if I want to do a Serious Sam style shooter?

nice to see that you're also kinda jaded with indie games becoming more and more copy/paste lol i really need more portal games, man.....

Prey and Metal: Hellsinger appreciation? And a good, humourous video? Liked and forwarded to my game developer friend.

you know Ive been trying to get into indie development, not exactly an fps but its complicated, but i swear this video was just gonna describe the concept im trying to make, but no it literally just says dont copy the mainstream games do something neat and creative so I feel a lot more confident about my plans now.

It's good that we have somebody to arbitrary lord over people's choices using their platform where they don't have to discuss their ideas.

Fps games are the last things i would make but i am still interested

That slideshow at the end caught me off guard lol

You forgot the part where the best way to fail at making a fps that's team based is by making a set number of classes that each have their own role in the team that need to be followed for success. And then have those classes chosen before they can communicate with their team or see what they are choosing either.

Don’t forget to make every weapon hitscan, if you add grenades it can only be a basic frag, and the only gamemodes are TDM, KOTH and CTF

The intro is amazing

"You wanna make csgo" my brither in christ ive never played any cs game i was thinking something like fo4 gun play

Are there any non obvious ways to fail at copy pasting your favorite childhood game?

Well, id imagine making several dozens of high polygonal models by yourself or with a small team is a tad bit more difficult than low poly or sprites BUT I DONT KNOW

If you want to add more than 4 guns, be sure to add 20 different guns that all basically do the same thing

It's also really important that you spend 99% of your dev time focused on making the gun shooting feel like the latest cod game including copying the animation style 1:1 and having an extensive customization system (That no one will use). AI? Level design? Uhhhh just forget about those! Just focus ENTIRELY on the shooting because that is the only thing players care about and absolutely nothing else will matter! Surely there will be no issue focusing on exclusively this.

Loved that outro lol

Another example of failing, make sure when you have a gun, the gun should lose all accurate after the first bullet so automatics become less viable. Especially when the weapon's intention is meant for medium to possibly far ranges in a prone or atleast using the bipod, the medium machine guns are to be hipfired when you smell the enemy's breath.

you forgot about adding 20 hitscan rifles that only differ in spread, damage and speed. making ttk so low that most weapons need just a few shots to kill and giving 30+ ammo mag to every single one. copying mechanics just because they were in a popular games (doesn't matter if the game is 20 years old or if the mechanic is bad for your game). AND ALWAYS MAKE MISTAKE TF2 DID WITH SNIPER

The random stable diffusion ai generation window at the end sent me

I want a battle pass where each level is another battle pass

i loved the first person intro, i hope you make how to fail a rhythm game