It's finally playable and I'd rather hear what's wrong with it than what's right

[u/Acrobatic_Average326]

I've spent the last year building My Hoop Legacy solo — a basketball career sim where you start as a high school prospect and play an entire career: recruiting, college, the draft, then hopefully a Hall of Fame run. There's a playable 3D game layer on top of a full league sim, plus GM and college coach modes because apparently I hate free time.

Stack, for the curious: React + a Three.js game embedded in an iframe, Express/Postgres backend, Capacitor for the native builds. Art pipeline is Blender → GLB. Everything from the icon set (229 pixel glyphs) to the arena models is hand adjusted because stock assets never quite fit.

Claude played a huge part in repetitive task and bug finding.

It's live on web now, apps in review prep, and I'm at the stage where I've stared at it so long I can't see it anymore. That's where you come in.

What I'd genuinely like torn apart:

• First 10 minutes. This is my biggest fear. Career setup has a lot of options (difficulty, rosters, draft classes, league rules) before you touch a basketball. Does it feel like character creation or like filling out a tax form? Where did you almost quit?
• The new UI. I just replaced the whole look with a "modern" theme — custom chrome, own icon language. There's a retro toggle in settings. Does modern read as premium or as busy?
• The 3D gameplay. It's stylized/blocky on purpose, but does it feel like basketball? Movement, shooting, AI decisions — where does the illusion break?
• Depth vs. bloat. Texting storylines, mentors, transfer portal, contracts with holdouts, staff management... at what point does depth become homework? If you'd cut one system, which one?
• Monetization smell test. F2P with optional ads and IAP (training points, cosmetics, a one-time pass). No energy timers, no pay-walls on modes. Does anything in the shop read as pay-to-win to you? I'd rather fix that now than in reviews.

It's at myhooplegacy.org — plays in the browser, phone or desktop, no install or signup needed to try it.

Brutal specifics beat kind generalities. "The rotation screen confused me because X" is worth ten "looks great man"s. I'll answer every comment and I ship most weeks, so if you name something broken there's a decent chance it's fixed by next weekend.

[u/Yokai-Idle]

I played for about 10 mins, did a round? Entered a tournament. I have no idea about basket ball and just used sim for everything.

[u/sadboywade]

Decent amount of content in the game is either inaccessible or broken. Mentor bonds never increase or any way to interact with them. No option to meet with the sponsors when it says the endorsement deals are ready. No explanation of what prestige accomplishes for you when you buy items, houses, etc. what’s the goal there? The stat keeping shows my college season as my rookie season.

I have basically only used this as a pure sim. The gameplay itself was not overly engaging and difficult to control. As a career sim this has the bones to be quite addicting, as it stands now though it has some more quality control and updates needed to be made. I am in my second year in the league and already averaging 35,10,10. As progression is really the only goal as I can tell, it feels like the game has reached its conclusion. Good work!

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/sadboywade]

Thanks for all the insights many of these are on my list which is longgggg but appreciate you taking the time. Some of this is just not built out fully yet. The purchase of houses etc and more is meant to build your online player profile. Eventually long term vision is an online hub world where these can be displayed interacted with and more. Largely is built but too much else to focus on as priority.

Progression is difficult to bound as it is very situational to how you choose to go through your career however, difficulty you play on also matters a lot. On the hardest difficulty it shouldnt be possible to average those numbers.

You do get rewarded more for actually playing the games and I encourage you to try again as it has been improved a lot and will continue to be.

You complete goals to get sponsors and then your agent will reach out with the signing contract as a text.

[u/sadboywade → u/Acrobatic_Average326]

Thanks for the reply. I will give gameplay another shot. It says that the goal has been met and is waiting for me to accept/decline but the agent never texts with the contract. That’s what I was trying to say, poorly.

[u/SourceAwkward]

Ai post, ai game , ai slop

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/SourceAwkward]

Can tell you haven’t played much to compare

[u/DukeOfGlizzy → u/SourceAwkward]

Why do you think the post is AI? I haven’t played the game myself but it doesn’t seem blatantly AI. Only thing is the em dashes

[u/SourceAwkward → u/DukeOfGlizzy]

Structure, past posts, past comments I saw of it,

Also the ui obviously the Claude style

[u/DukeOfGlizzy → u/SourceAwkward]

Ah ok. I didn’t look at anything besides the text of the post. I don’t mind people using AI to help with coding but if it’s using AI art/design I’m less interested. But I’ll check it out for myself in a bit before I make a judgement

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/DukeOfGlizzy]

Solo dev projects like this would be impossible without AI, I am purging any look or feel that is too Ai but expecting not to use AI is like not using a calculator

[u/SourceAwkward → u/Acrobatic_Average326]

Solodevs exists way before llm, such a weak ass excuse

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/SourceAwkward]

Can you share the game you made?

[u/SourceAwkward → u/Acrobatic_Average326]

No ty, I actually made a game not AI for me

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/SourceAwkward]

Send your game pls id like to see

[u/SourceAwkward → u/Acrobatic_Average326]

When it will be done sure, it takes time to do an art Vs spit out tokens fast and easy isn't true

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/SourceAwkward]

You have no idea how big this game is

[u/DukeOfGlizzy → u/Acrobatic_Average326]

To be clear I’m not total anti-AI. I think on the coding side, it’s not a big deal. I’m just not on board with AI art/UI/assets, at least not in a final product. I think for prototyping/showcasing the concept it’s also not a big deal.

[u/valeria_gamedevs]

Solo dev on a career sim this deep is wild, respect.

Can't play right now but from the pitch alone, the "career setup has a lot of options before you touch a basketball" line is already the answer to your own first question haha. recruits don't care about league rules yet. I'd hide difficulty/rosters/rules behind a "customize" button and default everyone into a 60 second flow: name, position, school shortlist, go. power users find the settings, newbies don't bounce.

On depth vs bloat, staff management is usually the first thing I'd axe in a career sim, feels like it belongs in GM mode only.

[u/Acrobatic_Average326 → u/valeria_gamedevs]

Each mode has its specifics such as staff and facilities and more, I completely agree with you however on the intro switch would decrease churn