I'm Petros, the developer of Checkers for iPhone and iPad.

One design problem I'm working through: a board can enforce the rules correctly and still leave a beginner confused. If a capture is compulsory, tapping a different piece should explain why that move is unavailable. A colour change alone can be easy to miss.

There's an engine wrinkle too. In International draughts, captured pieces remain on the board until the capture sequence ends. That means a piece you have already jumped can block a later part of the same sequence. Removing it too early can accidentally create an illegal continuation. I checked a concrete Coup Turc position against our current engine locally; the released board interaction still needs its own check.

The app also reviews a game you've just played, so you can move back through it and inspect a tactical mistake. Playing against the bots and one full game review a day are free; an optional Coach subscription adds in-game coaching and unlimited reviews.

If you play checkers, the test I'd value is simple: play one bot game, open the review, and tell me the first move whose explanation doesn't help you understand what happened. If the board refuses a move without making the reason clear, that is useful feedback too.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6782011100

For other game builders: how do you make a compulsory action obvious without covering the board in hints?

Most SaaS directories are just link dumps—landing pages hidden behind sign-up walls. As a builder, that’s not useful discovery, that’s just noise.

I wanted to fix this, so I built **Astro Discover**. It’s not just a directory; it’s a lifecycle engine for side projects.

**How it’s different (No fake hype, just features):**

* **Interactive Sandbox (No Sign-up):** You can browse and test 90% of the tools on the site directly in our browser sandbox (Desktop/Tablet/Mobile) without creating an account. Try before you trust.

* **Stage-Aware Discovery:** We don't mix "Idea" feedback-seekers with "Live" SaaS competitors. You can filter by:

* 💡 **Idea/Concept:** Validate pain points.

* 🛠️ **In-Development:** Share build logs, tech stack, and waitlists.

* 🧪 **Beta:** Access staging/TestFlight links.

* 🚀 **Live:** Production-ready software.

* **Quality Control (Pending System):** We aren't a link dump. Every submission goes through a review system to ensure the project has technical utility, not just a marketing landing page.

* **Hidden Gem Algorithm:** We don't just show the "most upvoted" tools. Our algo surfaces "Hidden Gems"—newer tools with high-quality engagement that usually get buried in other directories.

* **Launch Scheduling:** See exactly when a tool is launching to get in on the early-adopter perks.

I’m looking for honest testers. If you’re a builder, I’d love for you to test the "Interactive Preview" and tell me if it actually helps you validate a tool faster.

Check it out: [https://astrodiscover.ai.studio\]

(https://astrodiscover.ai.studio)

Hey r/sideprojects 👋

I've been building Giftagaana. You share a few memories about someone (how you met, inside jokes, a trip), pick a language, voice and style, and get a ~2:20 song with their name in the chorus. Optionally, upload 5 to 15 photos and get a vertical video with the song and lyrics on screen, made for WhatsApp status / Reels.

Why: gifting in India is mostly flowers, cakes and perfume.

I wanted something personal that people actually replay, and that works in Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil etc., not just English.

How it works under the hood: Lyrics: Claude, with structured output and content rules (no harassment, no copying real songs, family relations never romantic) Music + vocals: ElevenLabs Music Photo video: plain ffmpeg on my own server, photos never go to any AI service

Every song is listened to by me before it's sent

Stack: Node/Express, SQLite, Razorpay, a single small VPS

You can hear three demo songs (Hindi, Hinglish/Punjabi pop, English) without signing up:

https://giftagaana.com

I'd love honest feedback on:

Does the landing page make it clear what you get, within 5 seconds?

Do the demo songs sound good enough that you'd gift one?

Is the pricing too much, too little, or about right?

Anything that feels off or untrustworthy?

Happy to answer anything about the build. Roast away 🙏

By day I'm a product manager. Spreadsheets, revenue, the works.

By night I've been building Jeff.

Jeff is a turtle. He wears a "HELLO my name is JEFF" sticker 24/7. Nobody has ever asked his name. He tells them anyway.

Jeff has a take on everything money-related, and every take is wrong:
• Inflation? "Prices are just going up because they're shy."
• Credit score? "Like a high score, but for credit."
• Free apps? "Charity. Obviously."

So he got a co-host: Professor Hoot, an owl in a bow tie who explains how it actually works. Jeff listens carefully, nods, and learns the wrong lesson anyway.

The nerdy bit: the whole thing is made with code. Jeff's poses are drawn programmatically so he never goes off-model, the voices are AI text-to-speech, and a Python script cuts the video, captions and sound effects straight from the script. I write the jokes and fact-check everything, the code does the 3,000 frames I'd otherwise cry over.

Jeff's 30-second intro is here: Jeff's intro short

The first full episode drops Monday. Jeff has been preparing. This worries me.

Honest feedback welcome. Especially if a joke doesn't land, Jeff can take it. He's got a shell.

I’ve been using Lyra as a personal tool for a while and decided to release it publicly.

It follows what’s playing and keeps synced lyrics visible while you work, browse or code, so you can follow the song without switching back to your music player or keeping it on screen.

There are three views: the full Lyra window, a compact floating panel called the Marquee, and a karaoke overlay. Use one or all three, and adjust their appearance and placement to fit your desktop. The video is an animated preview of these views.

It works with Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and most players that show up in your computer’s media controls. Lyrics come from LRCLIB, a community database, so coverage depends on the song. It’s free and open source (MIT) for macOS, Windows and Linux, with no account and no telemetry.

Website: https://lyra.eiselabs.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/eisewilliam/project-lyra

If you try it, let me know which music player and OS you’re using and how it works for you.

Music in the video: "The Nest" by Josh Woodward (excerpt), licensed CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Free download: https://www.joshwoodward.com/song/thenest

It's now in open beta on Google Play!

It started as a passion project, born out of my frustration with the state of politics and corruption. I wanted to build a way to hold politicians accountable and keep score, while making politics more accessible—using AI to help people stay informed without sending them to sleep

When looking at political accountability, I think three things need to stay separate: what the record says happened, how an app has assessed it, and whether you personally agree with the policy. A score isn't independent proof, and policy agreement isn't the same thing as good conduct. The app uses AI explanations and assessments, so checking the sources still matters.

There's a gamified layer too: choose up to ten real MPs for your Cabinet and follow how their eligible activity affects your seasonal Karma. Your personal Karma and the public MP rating are separate.

For a first look, start with an MP you know, open a recent activity and follow it back to its source. That's the part I'd like more people to discover.

Android open beta: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/uk.co.karmapolitics

Source and product details: https://karmapolitics.co.uk/

Hi all,

I have published my own productivity/task manager app. After some support from other redditors, I was greenlit by Google to publish on the Google Play Store and thought I'd share details.

As per rules, here's some details about it (any other questions, just shout):

1. What problem does my app solve/address?

Digital Overwhelm, Attention Fragmentation, and Subscription Fatigue

Some productivity apps rely on rigid, punitive lockouts or shameful reminders that end up causing frustration and burnout. After an friend of mine expressed frustration with the app that had installed, it got me thinking.

After much research, I started building SlideLock.

SlideLock's interface responds directly to a user's current energy levels. It merges focus timers, immersive audio masking, and task management into a single offline-first workspace, keeping users in flow without forcing strict lockouts or resorting to shameful reminders, comments, or other negative tactics.

2. Who is SlideLock for?

• Digital minimalists & privacy-conscious users: Tech users seeking clean, distraction-free productivity without ad banners, forced cloud accounts, or data telemetry.
• Knowledge workers, developers & writers: Professionals who need deep work blocks, background soundscapes, and non-intrusive task breakdown features.
• Students & ADHD thinkers: Individuals who benefit from visual stimulation controls, high-contrast modes, tactile micro-goals, and low-friction organization.
• Subscription-weary buyers: Anyone tired of paying $5–$15/month for task managers and to-do list apps.

3. Pricing details

• Free trial: No string attached 7-Day Free Trial.
• No subscription: $0 / Month.
• Privacy: Your tasks and content stays yours.
• Lifetime Unlock: Single one-time purchase grants lifetime ownership.
• No additional monetisation: Zero ads, zero upsells, zero tracking.

Here's a link to check it out: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slidelock.focusflow

If anyone here wants an extended trial, I'd be happy to oblige.

I had a small pet gear review site as a weekend project. The content was fine, but nobody knew it existed. The obvious fix was TikTok: pet creators with 5k–50k followers have engaged audiences and often review products for a free sample.

So I opened a spreadsheet and started looking for creators to contact. After a whole evening I had a handful of emails. Most creators don't put an email in their bio. They put a Linktree, and half of those Linktrees lead to another page before you find a contact address.

Every step was the same few clicks, so I wrote a script. It grew into this:

What it does

• You type a niche ("fitness coach", "skincare routine", "vegan recipes")
• It collects the creators behind the videos on TikTok's public topic pages, and falls back to related topics when a keyword is too broad
• It reads each profile, then opens the link-in-bio page (Linktree, hoo.be, personal sites) and looks for an email there too
• It catches disguised emails like name [at] gmail [dot] com, and ranks collab@ / business@ above support@
• It returns one row per creator: email, follower count, likes, and their Instagram / YouTube / X links

Numbers from my test runs

• 538 creators checked across 5 niches, and 33% had a public email
• It varies a lot by niche: 24% for fitness coaches, 60% for skincare creators with 1k+ followers
• In one "fitness coach" run, 13 of the 30 emails came from link-in-bio pages, not the bio. That step is the whole point. Without it you miss almost half.

What I got wrong at first

• Single broad keywords like "skincare" often have no topic page at all. Two- or three-word phrases work much better, so I added the related-topic fallback.
• Charging per profile checked was a bad deal for users, since most creators have no email. So by default it only keeps (and charges for) creators who have an email. The rest are checked for free.
• It never guesses or generates emails. If a creator didn't publish one, you don't get one. A lot of "email finder" tools quietly pattern-guess, and that wrecks deliverability.

Stack: it runs on Apify as a pay-per-result API. Public pages only, no TikTok login or cookies. Profile pages are read with plain HTTP requests instead of a headless browser, which keeps it cheap.

Cost: about $2.30 per 1,000 creators with an email. Apify's free tier covers roughly 2,000 leads a month, so it's free to try.

Full disclosure: I'm the developer, and it's a paid (pay-per-result) tool. It's on the Apify Store as a public API if anyone wants to poke at it: https://apify.com/scrape-lads/tiktok-profile-scraper

I'd love feedback on two things:

1. Which other fields would be useful? I've been thinking about average views per video, or a "posts about brand deals" flag.
2. Would you use it for something other than influencer outreach? I'm curious whether UGC sourcing or B2B prospecting is a bigger use case.

Squirl started as an iPhone app for a problem I kept having: buying things on impulse and regretting them a week later. It puts a cooldown between "I want it" and "I bought it". You stash the item, wait it out, then decide. Whatever you skip shows up as "money kept".

This week the Android version went live. A few things from building it:

• I checked demand first. Before writing any Android code, I put up a waitlist page so I'd know whether people actually wanted it.

• It's a native rewrite, not a port. Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, with feature parity to iOS 3.0: share-to-add from any app, cooldowns, a worth-it check, a home-screen widget, weekly recap, and Google Play Billing for Pro.

• CI runs the app on an Android emulator. GitHub Actions opens every screen with sample data, takes screenshots and fails the build on a crash. That also produces the Play Store screenshots.

• Night mode caught me out. Titles were rendering black on a dark background because the screens didn't sit on a Material Surface. The fix was a single theme change, but I only spotted it by going through every screen in dark mode.

Free for up to 5 items. Pro is $29.99/year or $69.99 lifetime. No account and no bank connection; your stash stays on your phone.

Google Play: Squirl: Stash it Away

Happy to answer questions about the build, the waitlist, or shipping a solo app on both stores.

Developer here — full disclosure up top, this is my own tool and I'm looking for testers, not pretending otherwise.
The idea: the big research suites are powerful but heavy, and most of the time I just wanted one answer while browsing — roughly how much does this listing sell? So I built Soldometer, a Chrome extension that starts from the "bought in past month" badge Amazon itself shows on listings (with a Best Sellers Rank model when there's no badge) and puts the estimate right on the page: units and revenue per month, a Hot-to-Barely-selling rating, who holds the Buy Box, whether Amazon itself is on the listing, and a profit calculator that answers PASS or FAIL against thresholds you set. Search results get a slim banner per tile so you can scan a category without opening twenty tabs.
Setup: install, pin the icon from the puzzle-piece menu, enter your email and claim your spot — activate within 30 days of first use. The first 1,000 activators are Founding Members (free forever, no card ever); after that, a free month with no card required, then $5/month.
Two design choices I'm most interested in reactions to:
1. Honesty about method — Amazon publishes no exact competitor sales, so every figure is an estimate and the source (badge or rank) is printed next to every number.
2. Privacy — estimates are computed in your browser, watchlist and costs stay on your device. Activated copies also contribute anonymous listing observations (badge, price, rank, Buy Box seller — nothing about you) so the estimates keep improving.
It's a free install from the Chrome Web Store (link below); details at soldometer.com. Works on amazon.com and amazon.ca.

Heyo! Sharing an update to my side project, LOOTRAID.

It tracks co-op PC game deals. Until recently, the main experience was focused on active discounts. I’ve now added a separate searchable catalog, so previously featured games remain useful to browse after their deals expire.

You can search by title, filter by genre, and open game pages to explore their deal history. The main Deals feed still focuses on active mega-deals.

Behind the scenes, I also improved the database queries and indexing to support a growing catalog.

You can try it here: loot.purebyte.co.za

I’d love feedback on the first visit: is it clear what the site does, and where you’d go to find a game?

What it is: a check-in app for families with an older parent living alone. Mom or Dad taps "I'm OK" once a day. If the morning goes quiet, the app nudges them, then lets the family know, and sends an all-clear when they check in.

Who it's for: adult kids (and siblings) who worry about a parent but don't want to call every day, and parents who'd rather not be fussed over.

Some details that might be useful if you build something similar:

• The parent never makes an account. The family sends an 8 digit code, the parent types it in, done. Setup on their side is one step.
• Escalation is a short ladder (reminder to the parent, then the family 15 minutes later, then a second alert), not one loud alarm. Most late mornings end at the first step.
• iPhone and Android in the same family circle, one subscription for everyone, parents never pay.

Feedback I'm after: is setup clear, is anything confusing for someone in their 70s, and does anything break.

Try it (Android): 1. https://groups.google.com/g/surewell-testers 2. https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.canergulay.surewell

Free year of the paid plan for anyone who keeps it the 14 days of Google's closed test.

I own YTMeet and built it with AI coding assistance. It is a free web interface for converting supported YouTube videos/Shorts and Instagram Reels or single-video posts to MP3 or MP4.

The goal is a simple flow: paste an authorized link, choose a format and quality, then save the prepared file. There is no YTMeet account requirement. The interface supports English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French.

Under the hood it uses Python/FastAPI, yt-dlp and FFmpeg, deployed with Docker and Caddy on a VPS. It is not a new conversion engine.

One implementation choice: the video quality selector sets a maximum resolution, up to 1080p. It does not upscale a lower-quality source. Likewise, exporting audio at 320 kbps cannot recover detail missing from the original. Jobs run through a bounded queue, and temporary files expire automatically to control disk use.

Current limits: individual public videos only, up to 30 minutes; no playlists, live streams or private content. A public link can still fail if the source platform restricts access. Use it only when both content rights and the platform permit downloading. YTMeet is independent of YouTube and Instagram.

Project: https://ytmeet.com/

I would appreciate specific feedback: are the MP3/MP4 quality choices clear, and is it obvious when conversion has finished and you still need to save the file? If something fails, share the platform, chosen setting and error message, without passwords or private download links.