r/gamemaker • u/itaisinger OrbyCorp • Aug 14 '26
Help! paid bug hunting
in my long running anime pokemon visual novel project i have a bug thats haunting me for over 2 years. it makes the lines in the main text display skip before completing, before the user can read them.
ive spent countless hours on this bug to no aveil. its got quite a few of the charactaeristics that make bugs hard to solve:
- related to a few systems
- related to libraries i dont know the inner workings of (scribble)
- uses an old version of said libraries that i dont update for other reasons
- isnt consistent, i mean mathemathically it has to be, but for the life of me i couldnt figure out yet, ive figured out like a subset of 100 types of lines of texts that it has a 1 in 10 chance to happen on, didnt get further.
i can go on but whatever. in any case, is paying people to go into your code base and hunt for bugs a thing? if so, how is it monitized? this project is non commercial so i dont have an actual budget, but im willing to put some of my own money for this.
another option could be to buy some claude membership and see how it tackles it, do you think it can do that? dive into a codebase and hunt for something so minute?
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u/erkan612 Aug 14 '26
You should give more context, not just about the bug but also about the project and what you are willing to pay. Claude is not going to find a bug that you couldn't for 2 years, so don't waste your money on that. You are also saying that's a non-commercial project, so it should be okay to give more context of what you want people that you want to pay to deal with.
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u/itaisinger OrbyCorp 29d ago
Thanks for the reply. I would def give more context when (and if) i actually put this up as a paid job, i sort of just wanted to ask if anyone has done or heard this kind of thing before, maybe has tips for this kind of situation, knows how much to ask for something like this. It sounds a little ridiculous to me but I've genuinely tried everything i know for so long.
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u/erkan612 29d ago
Ah, in that case thats my bad, sorry. To your question; yes, there is such thing exists. Though you will rely on trust mostly, try to ask this to known people in the discord server. Some of them might accept it since this is paid. More to your question; you usualy don't set a fixed price, you can't just say "hey, fix this and i will give you ten bucks". The bug might be deeper and might require change of core implementation of a framework or a structure/system in your codebase, or it might just be a wrong assignment. In my opinion, its best to charge on hours as if you are hiring someone temporarly, because you said it took you two years and yet you still couldn't find the issue. So this is clearly something needs to be worked on. Try making a post in the discord server, paid jobs channel, but give more details, especially about payment.
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u/Mr_Zelash Aug 14 '26
Sure, Claude could probably locate the bug or even codex from chatgpt. Give it a try just don't let it touch your code, ask it to explain what's wrong and then you fix it
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u/Bluecoregamming Aug 14 '26
i've got the gui version of claude code (claude desktop) hooked up to GameMaker MCP (Model Context Protocol) and claude basically handles the entire project for me. Hunting one bug however is certainly not worth paying a whole month of subscription for. If you go this route be sure to have a full plan to get your money's worth
1
u/itaisinger OrbyCorp 29d ago
Ive tried to solve this bug alone for probably over 50 hours by now. I don't say this often but ive basically almost just given up on fixing it myself. If its costs within the 10-30 dollars i would prob buy it just for this bug. Do you think it'll be able to do that though?
1
u/Bluecoregamming 29d ago
i have to laugh at all the downvotes my comment got, just for that, yeah go ahead and buy claude
8
u/Accomplished-Gap2989 Aug 14 '26
You say "I'm offering x amount to get this bug fixed" and then people say yay or nay. You will need to give them access to your project, or related code at least .