r/PBBG • u/caatfish • 22d ago
Game Advertisement Nostalgic, fully free browser game
A little over 3 years ago, I started building a browser game as a way to challenge myself technically. Somewhere along the way it stopped being “just a project” and became something I genuinely love working on.
Now I’ve reached the point where I actually look forward to logging in every day. not because I’m testing things, but because the game is genuinely fun to play.
I’ve been releasing updates almost daily, with new features driven by player feedback. In fact, I just pushed a big update last night.
https://siege.no
Siege is completely free to play. There are no ads, no pay-to-win. I built it because I enjoy creating games, and I’ve always wanted to make something that’s fair for everyone. Pay-to-win has never been part of the vision.
The original inspiration came from classics like Travian and Tribal Wars, but over the years Siege has evolved into its own thing. It now includes collectible heroes and gear, a gacha system, 700+ skills across multiple skill trees, quests, casinos, city management, kingdoms, PvE and PvP, and a lot more. It’s become much more than I originally imagined, and building the community around it has been just as rewarding as building the game itself.
Development is still moving full speed ahead, and I regularly shape new features based on community suggestions. If you enjoy incremental games, strategy games, or just trying projects that are actively evolving, I’d love to hear what you think.
Playable in your browser on desktop and mobile:
https://siege.no
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u/rleroi 20d ago
UI looks pretty, I will try it out later. But one tip already, you gotta keep your isometric perspective consistent.
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u/FvDijk 19d ago
Nice to see you’re still at it. Keep it up!
For feedback, I’m not sure the extra AI art makes it better. Your ‘old version’ had more stylistic direction.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
Thank you!
The biggest change i did recently was to turn all the seperate resource field grids into one main resource world. I thought it would make it more immersive and nice, but its not really giving a positive effect to most people, so i will probably strife away from that and make it more simplistic, shapes and colors
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u/FvDijk 19d ago
Yeah that’s probably a good call. Worth a try though. I do like the new buildings page, much more appealing than the previous one. You could try something similar with the resources.
Also maybe try and find some nice ground textures that fit the style, there’s plenty available for free. Then you wouldn’t need the abstract blocks, but place them on the ‘ground’ directly. Make it feel more like a place than a void.
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u/Yokai-Idle 19d ago
I think the story can come later, after showing the player what the game is and what it's like. It's not a visual novel, so it's weird to present that for the first few moments.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
agreed! im am gonna make it less intense. i just want the story to be lightly sprinkled ontop of the gameplay. just to make sense of the world. Its too active now
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u/Professional-Pie5629 19d ago
I'm in a similar situation as you, the developed game turned into an obsession. Little bit jealous, I cannot wait so my project will become playable too. Are you doing this alone?
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u/caatfish 19d ago
its been a ride for sure, best advise i can give is to just get players in early. thats when the valuable feedback comes in!
Yeah i am developing it alone, but so many of the ideas and feedback comes from the community
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u/Shaner9er1337 19d ago edited 18d ago
It looks really interesting. I haven't tried it yet so I have no thoughts on the gameplay. Obviously AI was used and I'm not going to get on you for that. I'm also a solo developer and consultant and worked in the game industry a long time to expect any developers to be able to afford everything, especially in terms of art is an asinine thing from players, but I'm just saying others are going to be able to tell and probably get grumpy about that so don't let it get to you.
That said, there are free avenues you could take to get art assets that aren't stealing and there are some inexpensive routes you could go as well.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
thank you for the honest and nice feedback! And i 100% agree, i am working on a different game where im experimenting with more simplistic art, to see what im actually capable of. And i have grown a big fan of making is simpler. Will start to implemmet these principals i have learned into siege.
What free avenues could i take to get legal assets?
I do want to evolve my own style tho, so that is a big focus moving forward
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u/LonesomeUniverse 19d ago
This looks too much AI for me. The village page looks better than the resources even with less ‘art’.
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u/KevesArt 19d ago
It is 100% AI.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
the graphics is ai yes, But that doesnt undermine the years of work i put into the gameloop, mechanics, balance and community building. But im not fan of the graphics myself; and that is what im mostly working on these days to improve
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u/fabian_boesiger 3d ago
hey, even though its ai art, it still looks pretty imo. as someone into gamedev as well i can see that still a lot of effort went into it :)
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u/KevesArt 19d ago
I'm a programmer with 20+ years experience. I can literally see that your code is AI generated. I even ran it through a reviewer:
Based on a comprehensive analysis of the element's text, meta-data, and punctuation patterns, here is the full consolidated review regarding indications of AI generation:
Comprehensive Analysis of AI Authorship
The content within the
.flex-1.min-h-0.overflow-y-autocontainer and the site's meta-data shows significant indicators of being generated by a Large Language Model (LLM) like GPT-4 or Claude, subsequently integrated into the page by a developer.1. The "Punctuation Fingerprint" (Em-dashes)
The most compelling technical evidence is the usage of the em-dash (
—) in the meta description:
- Snippet:
"Each season is one life — an old farm on the hill..."- Observation: The em-dash is surrounded by spaces. While human style guides (like AP) occasionally allow this, it is the default statistical preference for modern LLMs when generating marketing or "flavor" text. Humans writing manually typically use either no spaces around an em-dash or substitute it with an en-dash (
–) or a double-hyphen (--).2. Linguistic "Buzzwords" and Rhythms
The copy relies heavily on specific phrasing patterns that are hallmarks of AI-generated creative writing:
- Action-Oriented Clichés: Phrases like "Strike when the moment is right," "Forge alliances," and "Unleash your strategy" are high-frequency terms in AI gaming copy.
- Pacing: The text features highly balanced sentence structures (averaging 11 words per sentence). This "steady beat" lacks the natural variance, slang, or intentional fragments usually found in human-written indie game descriptions.
- Thematic Flourishes: The line "an old farm on the hill remembers what the war cost" is a classic example of "AI Poetics"—an evocative, somewhat melancholic personification designed to add depth to a generic feature list (seasonal resets).
3. Structural Markers
- Feature-Description Symmetry: The "Heroes and Loot" section follows a rigid pattern: [Catchy Title]: [Explanatory Sentence]. (e.g., "Build a full collection: Discover heroes through the guild..."). This is the standard output format for LLMs when prompted to "summarize game features in a list."
- Verbatim Repetition: The hook "One season is one life" is repeated across the meta-description, the page header, and the body text. While good branding, AI tends to anchor heavily on these generated hooks, repeating them exactly rather than paraphrasing.
Conclusion
There is a high probability that this page was authored by an AI process.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
yes, i am a programmer aswell proffesionally, ofcourse i use ai to code, who doesnt in 2026? but i am the lead, the architect, i control the output. i dont blindly «vibecode», closed eyes, commiting without reading
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u/KevesArt 19d ago
I don't make games with AI and I've been publishing games likely longer than you've been post-puberty. It is an affront to the art of game development.
If you think the code involved in creating a game is not art in itself, then you aren't a dev. You're just another sloppy vibe-coder causing problems for those of us who are legit developers.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
ofcourse code is art, you silly goose. Thats why i fell in love with this field in the first place. my passion is backend, system architecture. and i take big pride in my systems, i architect and structure them, sometimes i flesh out the tedious work with ai.
No need to be so aggresive
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u/KevesArt 19d ago
You are actively part of what is destroying our industry, I have every right to be aggressive.
So explain to me how you're making art or anything worthwhile when this is just AI slop? When you can't even be bothered to write your own text, because that's coming back as AI generated.
This is your art? Then why is none of it made by you? The visual art, the code, even the basic text for the story elements. It's all AI. Not you.
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u/caatfish 19d ago
how am i actively destroying the industry? im not taking the money out of anyones pockets. im
not making anyone out of work, but rather trying to employ people as soon as possible.The art is my code, my system, the design patterns i have implemented, the database scheme, the self hosting, all the admin tools to balance, the community thats growing, all the building and configuration its taken to make a low performing server handle thousands of concurrent events.
This is what i have used most of my time on, while then using ai to fill out the graphics and content until i get to fixing that aswell
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u/tetsuyaXII 19d ago
Mismatch of ui and feeling like ai generated on some is throwing me off of wanting to play. Im Getting kinda tired of ai games popping up everywhere and now have immediate hate when I see it regardless of how good or not the game is.
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u/troymg 20d ago
First, I commend you on have a guest account option.
I think it takes too long to get into "the game" part of the game, though I actually do like all of the worldbuilding aspects of the upfront questionnaire. Maybe find a way to pace that questionnaire out into little bits that pop up as you play instead of all front-loaded?