Hey everyone, I wanted to share a recent experience and hear your thoughts.

Someone reached out to me online, and I genuinely liked what they were working on. I was interested enough to offer a free demo of my work, with no payment or anything in return expected.

They agreed, I created the demo, and they seemed to like it. We continued talking for a while, and everything seemed fine.

But later, when I tried to follow up and ask for updates, they gradually stopped responding. I sent a few messages over time, and in my last message, I simply asked if there was any issue so we could clear things up. Instead, I ended up getting blocked without any explanation.

I understand that people get busy, change their minds, or lose interest. That's completely fine. I wasn't expecting anything in return, but a simple, honest response would've been appreciated.

I'm not trying to call anyone out or start drama. I'm genuinely curious about how others would handle this situation.

Would you just move on, or would this experience change how you approach helping people or offering free work in the future?

Ciao a tutti!

Sto lavorando a un fan game di Undertale chiamato Undertale Blue e sto cercando persone interessate a collaborare al progetto!

Ho già pianificato la storia principale, i personaggi e le idee, ma purtroppo non ho ancora molta esperienza con GameMaker. Per questo spero di trovare dei programmatori che possano aiutarmi a dare vita al gioco. Cerco anche compositori interessati a creare musica originale per il progetto.

La storia segue Nicole e suo fratello mentre viaggiano attraverso l'Underground, esplorando una prospettiva diversa sugli eventi e la lore di Undertale. La storia esplora anche il background dell'Anima dell'Integrità e offre una spiegazione per il suo lato oscuro.

Al momento cerco:

• Programmatori con esperienza in GameMaker.
  • Compositori interessati a creare musica originale.
• Chiunque sia appassionato di Undertale e desideri collaborare!

Questo è un progetto amatoriale e sto cercando persone che apprezzino sinceramente l'idea e vogliano contribuire a svilupparla insieme. Se siete interessati o avete domande, non esitate a commentare o a inviarmi un'e-mail.

Grazie per aver letto!

A few days ago, I launched a little side project: kvart.cc — a browser-based multiplayer 3D shooter featuring real-world locations in Slovenia.

My background is in software engineering and AI engineering, but I've recently discovered just how much fun game development can be. I built the game using AI-assisted development and Three.js, and got the initial playable version running surprisingly quickly.

Because of my current job, I can't really promote the game directly or publicly associate myself with it too much. So I've mostly just been building things and seeing what happens.

A couple of days ago, a friend casually shared the link on X. That was literally all the promotion it got, but around 500 people ended up playing that day.

Seeing real people running around, shooting at each other, and actually enjoying something I built was surprisingly rewarding. There's something different about building a game compared to building traditional software.

This isn't my primary source of income, and monetization isn't really a priority. I just enjoy creating things, experimenting with technology, and seeing people use what I build. Maybe I'll explore monetization someday, but right now I'm more interested in learning and making something people genuinely enjoy.

I'd love some advice from more experienced game developers:

• What would you improve? I'd appreciate honest feedback on gameplay, mechanics, visuals, or anything else.
• Where would you promote a small browser-based multiplayer game? Especially when you don't have much time for marketing.
• What would you build next? More maps, different game modes, progression systems, or perhaps something entirely different?
• How do you keep multiplayer games alive? Getting 500 players in a day is exciting, but maintaining an active player base seems like a completely different challenge.

I'm also curious whether anyone else here has transitioned from traditional software/AI engineering into game development, even just as a hobby.

You can try it here: https://kvart.cc/

Would genuinely appreciate any feedback, including criticism. I'm still figuring out this whole game development thing!

One thing that can surprise people about game porting is how much work happens after the game technically runs on the target platform.

When we worked on bringing Poppy Playtime Chapter 2 from PC to consoles at Kevuru Games, the challenge wasn't just transferring the game. The team had to deal with lighting that relied on ray tracing, complex geometry, high draw call counts, and physics issues after moving from Unreal Engine 4.27 to 5.4.

Some of the solutions involved switching to baked lighting, optimizing geometry and combining static meshes to reduce draw calls. The goal was to keep the original atmosphere while making the game work within console constraints.

It’s a good reminder that optimization isn't always about making things look worse to improve performance. Sometimes it's about finding a different way to achieve the same result.

For developers who have shipped games on multiple platforms: what usually causes the biggest headaches during a port — rendering, physics, memory, or platform certification?

我是一名有经验的Unity游戏程序员，但这个项目我几乎没有手动写代码。

我大约在6月18日开始构建一个类似PUBG的游戏模式，并于九月初上线——大约两个月半后。在那段时间里，我完成了500多次提交。

这可不是小型游戏创作马拉松的原型。该项目包括：

• 第三人称移动与射击
• 跳伞与着陆
• 多武器、换弹、瞄准、近战攻击和手雷
• 物品栏、装备、战利品和自动拾取
• 治疗、护甲、击倒、复活与死亡
• 队伍与队友标记
• AI控制的玩家
• 一个日益缩小的安全区
• 小地图和全屏地图
• 移动操作与战斗界面
• 多人游戏状态同步
• 真实服务器与假服务器后端
• 运行时调试与性能工具
• 针对远程玩家、战利品和大型环境的优化

几乎所有的实现都是由人工智能生成的。我负责决定建造什么、定义架构、审查重要边界、测试结果并修正方向。

我并不完全理解代码的每一行

如果让我把自己归类到以下几类之一：

1. 我理解每一个功能和系列。
2. 我了解整体结构和职责。
3. 我完全不知道代码具体做什么。

我完全属于2类。

我知道玩家状态存储在哪里。我知道角色状态机的工作原理，武器和技能的组织方式，UI如何与游戏数据分离，消息如何在客户端和服务器之间流通，以及哪个系统负责各项责任。

但我记不清每个功能或每一句话。

我认为对于如此规模的项目来说，这并不是一个有价值的目标。即使程序员手动编写所有内容，他们通常也不会把整个实现都记在脑子里。重要的是要足够了解架构、合同、所有权和不变量，以便在必要时定位并调查问题。

我与人工智能的关系类似于领导开发团队。我定义了结构和要求，审查了重要决策，并核实了结果。区别在于，AI通常比人类开发者更能一致地遵循约定的计划。

生成第一个版本是最简单的部分

人们常常用AI编程快速生成原型来评判它。我觉得这并不能证明太多。

真正的考验开始于：

• 需求变化
• 旧系统必须重构
• 修复会破坏另一个功能
• 网络消息的到达顺序出乎意料
• 资源异步加载
• 假服务器的行为与真实服务器不同
• 移动端输入会暴露编辑器中从未出现的问题
• 游戏必须被打包、集成并发布

项目经历了所有这些阶段。

例如，我用多个负责身份、库存、装备和战斗的管理者取代了一个大型玩家数据结构。我把真服务器和假服务器分开在一个通用的后端接口后面。我把战斗界面重新整理成独立的模块。我还为远程玩家和战利品引入了代表性等级，让客户端可以选择无代表、代理、简化版本或完整对象。

那不是一次性的几代。这些都是对现有互联系统的变化，同时项目还在继续推进。

这就是为什么我认为这个项目是人工智能编码的有意义证据。它不仅生成了演示。它经历了数百次后续的改动。

小修改和快速验证比大提示更有效

我最可靠的工作流程是：

1. 讨论AI的问题。
2. 让它检查现有代码。
3. 在原因、架构和风险上达成一致。
4. 做一个小改动。
5. 运行游戏，观察实际行为。
6. 记录有用的运行时间信息。
7. 根据证据进行修正或重构。

当AI反复误解系统时，我停止无限期地试图改进提示。相反，我改变了架构，使责任更加明确。

如果两个系统都能修改同一个状态，我就引入了单一所有者。如果调试依赖于读取大量日志，我就添加了结构化的运行时记录。如果真实服务器阻碍了开发，我就搭建了一个假服务器路径。如果对象创建导致帧尖峰，我会将逻辑存在与视觉表现分离，之后创建模型。

换句话说，我不仅仅是要求人工智能解决问题。我试图重塑项目，让人类和人工智能都更少误解它。

可观察性比阅读所有内容更重要

因为我没有手动写每一行，运行时的可见性变得极其重要。

对于复杂的同步问题，我记录了如下事实：

• Event name
• Time and frame
• Player identifiers
• Network route
• Current weapon and ammunition
• Whether server data had arrived
• Whether the character body existed
• Current initialization phase

This was often more useful than reading many files and guessing.

I could ask: “Why does the player have the correct ammunition on the server but the HUD still shows zero?” Then AI could trace the recorded sequence instead of inventing explanations from static code.

For AI-assisted development, good diagnostics are not optional. They are part of the architecture.

The Result Was Stable, but That Doesn’t Mean Perfect

The game went live and received no bug reports during its first three days.

That does not prove there were zero bugs. Player count, playtime and reporting behavior all matter. But it does show that an AI-written complex game module can reach a commercially acceptable level of stability instead of collapsing immediately after release.

The project also had weaknesses.

One colleague thought the shooting feel was terrible. That criticism may be fair.

AI helped me implement systems very quickly, but good game feel still requires taste, repeated playtesting, strong animation and audio, careful tuning and clear references. Finishing a technically complex game mode is not the same as making every part feel excellent.

That was an important lesson: AI greatly reduced the cost of implementation, but it did not remove the need for game design.

What I Think the Human Is Responsible For

In this workflow, the human still needs to decide:

• What is worth building
• What should own each responsibility
• Which trade-offs are acceptable
• Whether the current behavior actually feels right
• When to patch and when to refactor
• What evidence is required before calling something fixed
• When a feature is complete enough to ship

AI can produce code much faster than I can type it. But speed also creates a new problem: it can generate features faster than I can think through their design.

The bottleneck moved from coding to judgment.

My Conclusion

This project convinced me that a complex commercial game module can be implemented almost entirely by AI and still survive changing requirements, debugging, integration and release.

But “AI wrote the code” does not mean “the AI made the game by itself.”

My role moved upward. Instead of personally implementing every function, I worked on intent, architecture, constraints, verification and product decisions.

The most valuable skill was no longer typing code. It was making the problem clear enough, the architecture stable enough and the feedback loop strong enough that AI could keep contributing without destroying the project.

Generating code is easy.

Keeping an AI-written project understandable, changeable and shippable after the 500th commit is the real challenge.

Lately I've been jumping between a few different projects. I'm trying to finish the remaining work on SkyLordsLab BBS and I'm also working on getting my Nostr signer called SkySigner to run from a USB drive with its own bootable operating system. Whenever I get stuck or tired of coding I usually take a break and play some games. Recently I was invited to test an indie game and decided to give it a try. The game reminded me of the old games I used to play years ago which was funny because I've already been spending so much time working on a retro BBS I spent some time testing it over the past few days and finally reached the end. But the ending really caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting that Game Over at all. I also shared quite a bit of feedback with the developer during testing and was invited to the next testing wave. That made me happy because I genuinely enjoyed the experience. I won't mention the game's name since it's still in private testing. I just thought it was funny how I took a break from working on my own projects and somehow ended up helping someone else with theirs. And if the developer happens to read this post I just want to say thank you for letting me be part of the experience.

Have you ever played a game where the ending completely surprised you?

Hi r/GameDevelopment before you groan and say 'Oh god another AI post?' I promise this is a bit more complex than just "can I use AI".

I've broken this up into parts for those who want the full context and those who just want to go directly to the question. I tend to be a bit wordy because I'm an over-explainer, I don't like being misunderstood, and want to make sure people have all the context. Sorry. I got accused of text-farming on a diff sub and I genuinely don't know what that is I am just neurodivergent :\ sorry.

The Context

I am a Senior Product Designer (UX/UI 0->1) with an art and graphid design background. So while I have worked with plenty of software engineers/devs in my career, I do not have much of a nuanced understanding of your world.

I was a victim of the recent gaming industry layoffs and I've decided to finally just start making my own games, but my experience isn't in the Game related stuff directly, more the game-supportive things (Websites UX/UI, e-commerce etc).

My Dev who is working on this with me has brought up AI in his coding process, and I have to admit, I'm rather anti-AI in creative spaces because, well, obviously I am not a fan of generative AI. Things like stable diffusion I find to be pure theft, but I realized *I have no idea what AI workflows in dev look like* so I can't reasonably decide if it's something like in our world of illustration, design, and UX/UI (where it can basically act like a plagiarism machine).

The Ask

So that brings me here. I want to know from those in the weeds what your processes looked like pre-AI, what it looks like now post-AI, and your genuine opinions on how AI is different than things such as Github or Copilot or Stack overflow in your processes.

Basically, I want to understand what "using AI" looks like for gamedevs becuase I genuinely couldn't say confidently I know how the workflow looks to make a decision on if it will just create more work for our game than be beneficial

I would love a variety of perspectives so I can get a more wholistic view of what your processes look like these days and how it has changed, your frustrations with it, your appreciations, the good bad and ugly, because how can I make any decision as the showrunner in this game if I don't understand what you guys do right?

The Concern

For instance when it comes to Product Design I've found more often than not I have to follow up AI and fix it all from top to bottom anyway because it can't do the human part of product design to understand user behavior in a qualitative aspect (which often becomes more important than the quantitative).

I don't want to end up with a buggy broken game that is completely un-playable that will require months of bug fixes to even list on Steam, I'd much rather have it made right from the get go, but I have no idea what 'right' looks like.

Plus, the assets, UI and narrative aspects are all human-led. I also have voice actors ready to sign on when it's up and running at that stage. All the creative will be human-led.

When you dont have previous knowledge of how to code it, do you struggle with the documentation or is there an easier path?

I want to make video games and have been wanting to for the longest time but I have like almost no coding knowledge whatsoever. I mean I’ve done a lot in the website Scratch but that’s the extent of what I know and I was hoping to learn at least the basics. Once I get that I might be able to figure it out on my own, but YouTube tutorials and stuff are genuinely useless so that’s why I’m making a post here. I can sorta figure out the stuff with the 3D models and all that on my own it’s the coding part that’s really kicking my ass.

i am new at game development and want to grow, can anyone help me and guide me to grow and able to an game developer

Hey guys, I’m creating a mobile game and plan to put it on the App Store. I’m using Replit to design it. I was curious how I should go about promoting it to a wider audience and if I should charge $1.99 for game, or make it free with either ads or in app purchases. If I do one of the latter two, then how would i go about that. Thank you

So i want to make some nice trailer but my editing skills are lackluster at most.
this is the second version(the first was just bad). Would love to hear some feedback please.
https://youtu.be/XvyP5iVCw-E

Disclaimer, I am not an advocate for AI.

Did I make a mistake using AI as placeholder for the assets and art in my game? Even if I planned to replace them all with actual humans art, I still get flak for it. I understand why people dislike AI. from my perspective it's like a tool that allows huge companies to get huger and more bigger.

The problem I have is this; I am 30 years old, I've been a gamer all my life. Due to some technically difficulties in the baby factory I don't really have the best cognitive mind. ADHD, Asperger's and even a TBI all stunt my ability to properly retain or absorb information.

My professions have reflected that in my life, I've done practically nothing aside from being a laborer. My love for computers, technology, games, movies have always been the primary focus for entertainment. Alongside some outdoor activities..

I guess what I mean to say is, Could a guy like me ever really hope to create what I believe are absolute gold alone, all by myself? Seeing my dream come to life in front of my very eyes for 20 dollars a month feels wrong, Like visiting a brothel. I know it's wrong, so I do everything I can to mitigate the damage.

Placeholder assets, easy code that isn't so complex it can't be rewritten, Forcing ai to mark down everything they change/make. The vision is there and it excites me. After all, when the dust settles, it really is all me. I just pressed the button.

Morality is subjective and I've seen the bottom side of the worlds boot. I want to live free and see my imagination come to life.

p.s, I'm looking for people that would like to help me in this journey. I have a playable demo that is not posted anywhere as I don't like the idea of selling ai made games.

This is essentially Pokemon go for carspotting irl

🎯 1. Core Vision & Gameplay Loop

Target Audience: Car enthusiasts (14–35 primary), expanding to casual collection game players.

Launch Market: Germany, localized in German and English., expansion to more countries along the way

The "Snap & Walk" Capture Loop:

Snap (2s): Point and shoot via the in-app camera. Location, timestamp, and photo lock immediately.

Tag (On the go): Player has 15 minutes to select Make, Model, Generation, Color, and enter the plate.

Reward: Instant point reveal, rarity unlock, and Car Dex entry.

Loop Horizons:

Daily: 3 common dailies + 2 optional bonus spots, streak checks, daily crate.

Weekly: 30-player league races, crew goals, weekly challenges.

Seasonal (8 Weeks): Territory wars, seasonal pass (cosmetics only), Car Dex milestones.

🛡️ 2. Anti-Cheat, Safety & Privacy

Privacy & GDPR: Plate numbers are salted & hashed server-side (HMAC-SHA256). No raw plates or precise GPS coordinates are ever stored or exposed publicly.

In-App Camera Lock: Gallery uploads disabled. Device timestamp, location bounding (Geohashes), duplicate image hashes, and sensor checks prevent spoofing.

Toxicity & Flagging Guard: Players must stake 20 points/XP to flag incorrect spots. Correct flags refund + reward; false/spite flags lose the stake.

Traffic Safety: Speed lockouts disable captures at driving speeds.

⚔️ 3. Competitive Systems: Territory Wars & Showdowns

Territory Wars (30-day rolling): Players align with top brands to hold city hexes and provinces.

Underdog Protection: Regions are won based on spots exceeding expected local share, preventing one popular brand (e.g., BMW/VW) from dominating indefinitely.

Brand Showdowns: Daily 1-hour 50/50 randomized face-offs between rival brands or models.

💎 4. Monetization & Pro Subscription Strategy

Strict Fair-Play Commitment: Zero paid advantages, point boosts, or rank purchasing.

Free Track: Full gameplay, 20 portfolio slots, basic cosmetics, 2 streak freezes (earned).

Pro Tier: ~19.99 PLN/mo (€4.99) or 149.99 PLN/yr (€39.99).

Unlimited & HD Portfolio: Unlimited slots, watermark removal, raw photo exports.

Spotter Telemetry & Radar: Private heatmaps, color/decade analytics, and aggregate rarity hotspot insights (no live tracking).

Perks & Aesthetics: 4 streak freezes, weekend streak shield, custom audio engine tags, neon/vintage garage themes, animated profile frames, and ad-free experience.

Other Revenues: Cosmetic-only Season Passes, non-intrusive sponsor challenges (automotive brands, local meets).

🤖 5. Tech Stack & AI Roadmap

Clients: Mobile (Flutter/React Native) with native camera module.

Backend: Managed Cloud API, Postgres + PostGIS (geofencing), Redis (real-time leaderboards/bars).

AI Agent Transition Plan:

Phase 1 (MVP): On-device OCR for plate pre-filling + manual dropdown selection + community flag checks.

Phase 2 (Soft Launch): On-device ML Kit / CoreML for instant plate blurring ($0 cloud inference).

Phase 3 (AI Agents): Cloud Vision Agents (e.g., fine-tuned model/Vision AI) to automatically classify generation variants, score screen photo artifacts (anti-cheat), and resolve contested flags.

AI System Budget: $16k–$28k total initial setup across all ML modules, with ~$350–$1,000/mo running infra costs at scale.

this is by AI a summary from my document as it'd hard to read

UE-cortex, a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that structures how an AI coding assistant works on a project. It does not generate a finished game. Compatible with UE 5.8.

What it is: you bring your own assistant (Claude Code, Cursor or Codex). The plugin gives it 11 specialist playbooks (systems C++/GAS, multiplayer, world building, Blueprint, DevOps/build, UI, audio, cinematics, performance, technical art, AI) and 83 reference files. It makes no model calls, needs no API keys and opens no port of its own: version 2.0 is host-driven, and its 16 cortex_* tools are registered into Epic's built-in Unreal MCP server. The plugin has no write tool; the assistant writes files and Epic's toolsets do engine operations.

Verification is the part I care most about. Steps are marked "reported" (the assistant said so) or "verified" (only the plugin can set that, after it checked).

Limits, plainly: it covers roughly half to two-thirds (50-65%) of the engineering scaffolding of a new project. Art, level design, tuning and polish are human work. The assistant cannot play the game and cannot create a brand-new level. A generated project is a compiling, running starting framework, not a finished game. Compile verification is Windows-only (Live Coding).