In this tutorial series, we’re building a fully functional third-person tactical shooter in Unreal Engine 5 — completely Blueprint-based, with no coding required. Whether you’re a beginner or just new to game development
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/tutorials/OZqM/how-to-create-a-tactical-shooter-game-in-unreal-engine
If you’re walking people through creating a tactical shooter… Starting with all the energy being focused on the elements you have seems a bit… naive? It’s like you’re going from multiple directions back and forth, and it feels like it might be disorganized. Now with software engineering and project management, organization is very, very, very important.
Here’s an analogy: you’re building a wooden shed. You hammer the nails in your 2x4s and paint them a very specific red color that you paid top dollar for, before you’ve even laid the concrete foundation, drawn up even a basic blueprint, measured everything twice, etc. Oh wait, what are those support beams for? And great, now I have a 2x4 stuck to my shin and I’m covered in wet paint.
Don’t get me wrong - you’ve made some nice videos and it’s pretty neat stuff for beginners. However, I’m on a mission as of late, to lovingly nudge and criticize (productively, not maliciously) all the content creators that keep pumping these videos out that are, what I call “toys”, or tech demos. Viewers can garner some knowledge and skills from them if they know what to look for, but they are also being thrown on a path that lacks direction and best-practice.
A lot of these videos get people fired up, but perhaps also instills a false narrative on what actually goes into developing a game from A-to-Z. The videos always allude that what viewers will be learning is “how to make X” or “how to make Y”. Many times they are shown just that X or Y bit, but leave out the connecting tissue that is important. Even more often, if X or Y were utilized in a more fleshed out game project, performance and compatibility issues arise. It’s not often you see creators with a test-bed project that puts their X or Y toy through its paces (apparently that’s too hard and an unrealistic expectation, when it should be the low bar).
Another good example here, are all the landscape videos: “MAKE a 50,000^2 KM Map IN Unreal Engine!!!”. Okay, I’m being dramatic there to get a tangible point across. So those videos show the same thing we’ve seen dozens of times before, but the only thing they deliver is making a large, unoptimized landscape that isn’t actually usable in a practical game project. It seems to be the only content those creators are capable of sharing, and it’s misleading many people in that area. The responses I’ve gotten when addressing this issue are typically:
“That video would be too long, no one would watch it”
“You seem experienced, why don’t YOU make the video?”
“Shut up nerd, give me your lunch money!”
It seems nobody wants to be responsible for their lack of best-practices and even putting the slightest amount of disclaimer in their content, noting that the resulting terrain they show off (don’t get me started on clickbait thumbnails) won’t be optimal for real-time use. This behavior is becoming the norm, and people on the experienced side of the curtain should really start pushing back a bit to correct course.
The results of this type of thing can be damaging to budding developers - I’ve seen it happen plenty of times where a beginner wants to run before they walk, and that moment where they can have their expectations softened a bit and put in line with reality can be missed. They hit the point where - holy smokes - there is a lot of boring work that needs to be done. Research, documentation, testing, endless tedium… They quit.
Had they been prepared for the realities while they were still full of excitement, odds are they would push through and finish their first dinky little game. Their next iteration would see them improving because they’ve experienced the full cycle of a project and know what to expect, what to do better next round, so on and so forth.
Now that I’ve rambled on, back to your specific series you’re producing: while I haven’t dove in to every episode, what I noticed right from the start, was a lack of preamble concerning project organization and planning. You note that it might seem a bit overwhelming, but really it seems a bit lacking on the important bits. Even a mention that those tasks are important for game projects would have been a powerful seed to plant in the mind of a newcomer. You scratch the surface, and perhaps that is enough to meet your end goal with the series.
So far (5 episodes) things have covered creating a project, an empty level, and a character with basic locomotion and a weapon attached. Roughly 1 hour 40 minutes for that, which is great actually - you went into more detail to help beginners that many do. The main thing I want to deliver feedback on, is concern that there will be a “painted into a corner” scenario. All my rambling earlier captures the core ideals with best-practice and practical projects.
Is the result of this series going to be a “toy” or tech demo, with savvy viewers picking up that they are walking down a “just make it work” path? Or will you be doubling back to inform your viewers there is a lot more that needs to happen to make a maintainable, functioning game?
Right. I know all this might sound negative - my intention is to be critical and sharp, not hurt feelings or poo-poo your work just for the sake of it. I think you’ve done a good job, and people will definitely learn some bits and bobs. I can definitely see some people getting started because of your videos, and that alone is good stuff!
I’d just like to see more creators of this type of content take even a few moments to set expectations, point beginners toward the boring stuff they most certainly need to know about, etc. Disclaimers, honesty, so on and so forth. A big lack of that nowadays, and humans should… I dunno, stop skirting around it, being clever with their deceit. If someone is going to teach how to make a “toy”, title the video as such. If they’re going to share a boring, long-winded video on how to set up the foundation of a project, title and describe it as such. People want those specific things! Sadly, beginners that walk into a video series and get invested, might not know they aren’t learning the proper approaches or, worse, learning bad habits altogether.
Again, my intentions are good with all my old man speak (alas, intent doesn’t always equal effect). I applaud your efforts and hope you keep up the good work. Hopefully my feedback and critiques impart some motivation, and you don’t take it negatively. I personally always welcome in-depth criticism; at the very least it shows someone was paying attention 
You have a lot of videos on your channel and it seems like you might just be experienced enough to touch on the topics many creators either won’t, or can’t (save for Epic themselves, and a handful of the technical channels). I think you’d draw in a larger audience if you targeted some of the “boring” stuff. I run into a lot of beginners that have a lot of questions about “mysterious” topics that veterans hide like a precious treasure they don’t want stolen. A lot of beginners don’t even know what questions to ask.
Finally, speaking of questions, I have one: is all the b-roll throughout the series the final result of your tutorials, or is that some other game/project?