Developer Turns Deceptive Mobile Ad into Real Rail Shooter

We've all seen those horrible ads for mobile games that don't even turn out to be what they advertise: roll a ball along a tiny platform, walk in sky-high heels through obstacles, and other bizarre stuff you can now also "enjoy" in narrative TikTok videos.

Well, now the can matches the insides in developer TJOshvechkin's new project – a simple Unity-powered rail shooter where you destroy red blobs and multiply your soldiers by crossing specific lines.

The creator admits that the gameplay is not that fun and "way too easy," so if you were tempted to try one of those deceptive games, you now know what to expect.

"The trailers are designed to be played badly, so that you will angrily think 'I can do better than that!' And then download it and play it," explained Redditor DVXC.

"Oh well, at the very least, it was a nice little project to get back into game dev/programming," TJOshvechkin replied.

He also mentioned that the cloning in the video was "just straight-up instantiating prefabs whenever a gate with a positive number is touched. This seems to cause a performance hit when it’s >100 units spawning. Since posting, I’ve updated it to use object pooling which is better but still not perfect with huge numbers."

He is not the first to try this, of course. If you search for "fake ad real game," you'll find plenty of material; if not to play, then to watch.

Still, I'm always open to such experiments, especially if they lead to something new one day. Follow TJOshvechkin for more and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.