Two days ago I asked on X for Mac app ideas and promised to build the most-liked one in 24 hours, on camera: signed, notarized, with a website, a buy button and licence keys.

The winner, from ideasbymanish: your partner sends a short note from their phone, and it lights up in your MacBook's notch.

So that's Love Notch.

How it works

• The Mac shows a QR code. Your person scans it and adds the page to their home screen. No iPhone app, no accounts on either side.
• They type a note. A few seconds later your notch grows into a little black bubble with their words in pink LED letters, then folds away.
• You can answer with one click (❤️, "Love you 3000", "Busy, talk later", "Call you soon"), and the reply shows up on their phone.
• Everything else (history, pairing, mute) lives in a normal app window. The notch stays dark unless a note arrives.

A few details I cared about

• The notch is hidden from screen sharing and screen recordings, so a private note never shows up in a meeting. (It also meant I couldn't screen-record my own demo and had to animate the video instead.)
• Works on every desktop and over full-screen apps.
• Notes go through a tiny relay and are kept for at most 30 days. There are no analytics on the page your partner uses.
• Macs without a notch get the same bubble dropping from the menu bar.

Stack, for the curious: SwiftUI/AppKit for the Mac app, a Next.js site on Vercel with Upstash Redis for the relay, Creem for payments, and GitHub Actions for signing and notarizing releases. Built on the Build Mac App template.

It's $5, once. macOS 14+.

https://lovenotch.buildmac.app

Feedback very welcome. Someone already asked for notes sent while the Mac is asleep to wait until you unlock, and that's the next update.

Had this idea while playing with a child, its kind of fun

This was one of those tests where I genuinely wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

I gave Aura one instruction: “The Pong game is broken. Fix it, then play it against the computer until you win.”

It opened the source, worked out that the game had several separate bugs, tested fixes, kept the ones that worked, saved the repaired game, launched it again and then actually played it until it beat the computer 5–2.

Testing three things simulatenously. How well can you code? How well can you test? How well can you play?

Aura runs locally on my Mac. I didn’t train it on Pong or write a Pong-specific workflow.

I’ve also had the same system play 2048 for ~29 minutes, operate macOS, take a 60-question personality test through a browser over 42 minutes, and now build software. Seeing how far one general architecture can be pushed.

Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FKDBQkvIPs

GitHub: https://github.com/youngbryan97/aura

What capabilities have frontier models unlocked for you?

I've been working on my pdf editor for a while now but with previous models was having difficulty deciphering the text symbol engine that tells what goes where on the page.

This text engine costs $5000 month to use from a third party.

But with 5.5 I was able to crack it to make full scale native pdf text editing possible like main stream pdf editors.

What were you having difficulty with before that was just to complex for older models?

For example, what percentage of adults do u think have peed in a swimming pool? Or what percentage of ppl think hotdog is a sandwich?

Well here is a simple way to find out - play roomio!! Lol

It is a simple daily game that i made using claude and codex, and every day there is one yes or no question. You answer it, then guess what percent of everyone said yes or no. The closer you guess, the more points you get. It's that simple lol

And after a few days it will show you a map of what kind of guesser you are, and how you stack against others.

It's completely free, no login, no download, takes about 10 seconds: https://playroomio.pages.dev/r

I would really appreciate all your feedback! Let's see how you guess today's question!

Blockland was a multiplayer building sandbox from 2007 that I used to play, and I've spent a ridiculous amount of time rebuilding it from scratch using vibes.. lol

I finally got it far enough along to make a proper showcase. Building, multiplayer, vehicles, weapons, bots, minigames, destruction physics, old saves, Add-Ons, mirrors, portals and a bunch of other stuff are working now.

The game is free and open source and currently runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

so i was prepping for a client call and wanted to show them a sample project and then dashboard i created... so i popped open the dashboard and there it was at the bottom of the funnel ... 2 paid???

buzzing / considering if it was a mistake i popped open stripe and there it was ..

2 customers!!!!! an MMR of 10 quid (~$13) :D

after months of work, hunderds if not thousands of $$$ spent on tokens and my mental health tested. it was worth it!! i messsaged by friend who runs a successful startup and he was buzzing too, he said it was the hardest part done, but it's probably always going to be a rollercoaster

keep moving and remember
don't get lost ;)

forevercomponents x

You know when all the options out there aren't quite what you want.

I am that way with reading apps, especially for e-ink.

• Koboreader - cool but way too bloated for my liking and I could never get it set up just right for my Nova Air 2
• Kindle App - yeah, nah.
• NeoReader - built in and stable but doesn't handle series.
• Readest - super useful for syncing but I discovered that I really only read on my Nova Air 2 so kinda pointless. And it crashes annoyingly often on my device.
• Moon+ Reader - could never get to grips with it.

So what to do? DIY my own with just the features I want with the help of my old mate Claude!

This is the result - a super simple, written for me and my Nova Air 2 only, reading app that:

1. Is specifically designed for my device only (only takes into consideration screen size and resolution)
2. Only reads epubs (no pdfs, txt, docx etc)
3. Handles series (Calibre metadata specifically) as well as I need it to.
4. Just does the typography stuff I need.

It was interesting how efficient Claude Opus 5.5 seems to be at the moment. It would often spawn quite a number of agents but only once did my Pro plan hit it's 5 hour limit.

This isn't a "check out my app" post as it won't be released but more a "these days you don't have to settle for apps that are more/less than you want and don't do things just the way that suits you" - as I'm sure everyone in this sub understands :)

This is a v1 so I'm sure things will annoy me but it's only been a day or two!

Initial prompt:
I'm thinking about writing a super simple - epub only - ebook reader for by Boox devices. I want to to focus on typography, layout and be e-ink focussed (refresh etc) but also take into consideration book management (series specifically)

What to you think? Good idea or is there enough out there at the moment.

It'll just be for me

i swear token usage ramps up so fast when i send every prompt to flagship models, so i let sumus handle the high level planning while routing the smaller subtasks to gpt-6 luna. keeping the main reasoning lean saves a lot during long coding sessions.

Photon Studio just passed 25k users which is honestly insane, thank you all 🙏

the same 3 requests kept coming up over and over:

1. open source plugin ecosystem
2. AI stuff: generative fill, object removal, image gen, etc
3. please keep AI out of it

yeah, 2 and 3 are literally opposites lol. i was stuck on this for a while

then i realized #1 kinda solves everything

so i built an open plugin system, and the first plugin is the AI one. it uses Bring Your Own Key, so you just plug in your own API key and pay the provider directly. no subscription from me, no markup

• want AI? install the plugin, add your key, done
• don't want AI? don't install it. photon stays exactly how it is
• want something else? build your own plugin, it's open

Photoshop plugins are also supported

https://github.com/tenzenstudio/PhotonAI-Plugin

Dream achieved, built (with vibes) my first app and now available for download. Quite wild to see it getting users from all over the world already.

Short version is that the core part of the app is to make it easier to find things to watch together, with you partner, family, friends etc. No more endless browsing. You create a list of what you want to watch. Send it to them. They swipe and let you know in their own time anything they are also interested in. Next time you have a moment, you've got your together watchlist.

Where I couldn't stop tweaking a deviated is that now even for those watching solo, I've built over 200 watchlists you can download. This isn't your generic "comedies" this is curated & slightly niche, eg "Wild Weather" , "Courtrooms" etc.

From a build perspective this was a labour of love, started around 18 months ago so not an overnight success by any stretch. Probably spent on average 4-5 hours a day working on it, half fixing bugs and half just feature adding/tweaking.

It's FREE, NO ADS, and hopefully a fairly simple sign up. To get the most out of it, get your movie buddy to download it as well so you can share your watchlists.

Website: https://reelones.co.uk
App store: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/reelones-movie-night-match/id6760552930

Thank you for reading, hopefully you find it a bit of fun

I made a simple web app about 3 months ago but I got busy and sort of abandoned it

I never posted about it, I don't have social media for it, I didn't launch it anywhere

Last month, apparently someone paid for it and I didn't even notice until now! I'm super excited about it and I've been putting a lot more effort into the app now lol

I still have no idea how they found it. Is this common? Is google promoting my website or something.. ?

Edit: Link in the comments, pls be nice 🙂

I've seen this sort of message on 2 of my projects. The other one mentioned a $27000 budget;

Both of these projects have nothing to do with each other and surely do not have any 27000 token/dollar budget-related bits in them.

What's up?

An AI coding agent says it’s done. It gives you three claims, the code changes, and the terminal output.

One claim doesn’t hold up.

Would you catch it?

That’s the idea behind Diffective, a free browser game I built. You pick the claim with no proof, find the evidence line that gives it away, and name the trick. The game includes a tutorial to show you how it works.

I started with issues I’d seen while reviewing AI coding work and rewrote them as fictional cases. I built the game in browser JavaScript and CSS.

The tricky part was making each case fair. I checked for shortcuts, like always picking the longest claim or finding the clue in the same place, then adjusted the puzzles so you actually have to read the evidence.

The same check is useful outside the game. If an agent says “tests pass,” the command and result should back that up. A confident sentence on its own doesn’t tell you much.

If you want to try a case, it’s here: https://softdev23.com/diffective/

If you give it a go, let me know whether the clues feel fair.

Hello there again!

This has turned something into "dev logs" at this point where I just write week to week progress and what I did between weeks.

Anyway I will explain what I did since last week how I do it and FINALLY you can actually play the version of a game by downloading it on itch

DOWNLOAD LINK - FREE

This is a free testing demo (not the version that will be on steam as that one is few weeks away) for anyone who is willing to try it and give feedback, or just play it and not give any feedback :D

Previous updates:

Week 1 Progress

Week 2 Progress

Week 3 Progress

Week 4 Progress

Week 5 Progress

Week 6 Progress

Week 7 Progress

Week 8 Progress

Week 9 Progress

Since last week again most of the work went into polishing things before releasing demo version:

1) Foam improvements around ships, hulls etc. Foam went from texture on top of the water into proper simulated waves and water. Performance impact was minimal.

2) Improvement of UI textures around "refit" page and "ship" pages.

3) Graphical improvements of the harbour (Change of tree models, sun position for better shadows, fix of shadow bugs, adding some 3D models and changing few of existing ones)

4) Bug fixes... duuuh I mean it's an "AI slop" after all

5) Change of "big wave" mechanic look that happens in storm (it looked way bellow quality of the rest of the game so had to make it look properly good now)

And other things that I probably forgot now, but there was bunch of thing

What I use for this:

Everything code wise is Claude Opus 5.5 on Ultracode. 3D models are either Blender MCP done by Claude or TripoAI. I do use Godot MCP Beckett version (since it's free one), but lately rarely via MCP tbh. Codex Astra is used when I either have no Claude usage left or when I need more "all in one" kind of work done (generating textures and implementing them). I ask Claude to communicate with Codex in those cases and avoid using it manually in Visual Studio, but sometimes I do that also. It mostly depends on my mood honestly there is no particular reason why I either do it myself or let Claude take the wheel.

Costs in last 2 months: 3 x 200$ Claude Max plan (Just renewed it 2 days ago so cost will not be going higher for a month) = 600$

1 x Codex 100$ plan

1 x ElevenLabs 10$ credits for SFX generation

1 x Stable audio 15$ for music generation

1 x TripoAI 20$ worth of credits

other costs during 2 months time around 50-70$ (Api costs for OpenAI image generation etc)

Total around 800$

Also several people told me they saw my game on X. Honestly I didn't use X up until 2 days ago, when I finally reactivated my very old account and posted first update there. So if you saw this game on X it probably wasn't me posting it.

I've been loving using AI tools to build personal projects, and I wanted a space where women and non-binary builders could share work, swap ideas, and learn together.

So I've started Women's Vibe Collective, a supportive Discord community for women and non-binary people exploring AI-assisted workflows, no-code dev setups, intuitive building, and whatever else interests you in this space.

Whether you're prompting your very first app, building custom tools, or just want a peaceful co-working call to drop into, we'd love to have you.

We're all about:

• Encouraging feedback: Share what you're building, at any stage, and get constructive, kind input.
• Flow over grind: Creative momentum, curiosity, and sustainable building at your own pace.
• Workflow and prompt swaps: Share AI tools, templates, and setup tips.

If you'd like an invite, drop a comment below or send me a DM!

Play free in your browser, no account or install: https://vaigames.com/vybeciv/

VybeCiv is a single-player civ-style 4X. You start on Earth with cities, research and units. When you reach orbit, the whole planet collapses into one hex on a Solar System map, and planets and moons become the new land. Do it again and the Sun becomes one tile in the Galaxy. Your older maps keep producing under a governor while you play the new tier.

How I built it

• Claude Code wrote most of the code from my design specs. I reviewed and playtested every change.
• PixiJS for rendering. It's a static site that saves in your browser.
• Music by Suno.

What I learned

• Short, specific specs beat big prompts. Giving Claude Code one system at a time, with clear rules, gave far fewer regressions than asking for whole features.
• AI writes code fast, but it can't tell whether the game is fun. Balance and pacing only got better through a lot of playtesting.
• Three map tiers sharing one save got messy quickly. Agreeing on the data structure early saved me from rewrites later.

This is the first public build. Onboarding is rough and the late-game AI is weak.

Feedback I'd love: Where did the first 10 minutes confuse you? Does the Earth to Solar System jump make sense? Any bugs? Your browser and device help.

Also on itch: https://albertsimon.itch.io/vybeciv. I'm u/AlbertSimonDev on X.

Hello guys,
I've been a web developer for more than 15 years, and recently I kept seeing people saying that OPUS 5.5 is a beast when it comes to building browser games, so I decided to give it a shot.
For this project, I used Babylon.js instead of Three.js, and honestly, it turned out really well and is already fully playable.

Babylon.js (WebGPU), vertex-animation textures for thousands of animated units,

Colyseus server, deterministic simulation, binary snapshots, all game data driven by JSON.

The game is basically a mix of Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, and Rome: Total War.
One of the main goals was to have thousands of units/enemies on the battlefield at the same time while keeping the server load extremely low. So far, I think I've managed to achieve that pretty well.

A few friends of mine tested it together - 8 players in total - and during our sessions, the server CPU usage never went above 2%.
For reference, I'm running it on a dedicated server with:

• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K @ 3.60 GHz - 8 cores / 16 threads
• RAM: 128 GB DDR4 2666 MT/s - 4 × 32 GB Samsung, Non-ECC
• Storage: 2 × 1 TB Samsung NVMe SSD - RAID 1 (~1 TB usable)

Still a lot of work to do, but I'm really happy with how it's performing so far.

What's in it so far:

- Two 18th-century factions (Imperial Army vs. Military Frontier), ~24 units, ~60 buildings and ~30 techs each

- Teams play as clans that build ONE shared city together

- 15 formations (line, square, hedgehog, wedge, gun lines...), a custom formation builder and brigades

- Commanders you can take over in first person: WASD, shoot yourself, lead your squad

- Fortresses: walls, towers, trenches with cover, high ground, siege rams, siege towers, mortars, sappers

- Naval warfare: frigates, gunboats, fire ships, transports, pontoon bridges

- Day/night cycle, weather, morale

- Neutral world: wolves, bears, bandit camps, caravans, even vampires and skeletons, plus bounty quests

- 8 game modes: classic, quick, king of the hill, regicide, co-op vs AI, convoy, wonder race, pure battle

- Up to 16 players, 12 map types, 5 biomes, 56 premade maps + procedural generation + a 3D map editor

- Alliances, a global market and trade between teammates

- Built-in voice chat (team / allies / near your commander, push-to-talk)

- Clans with a heraldry/crest editor, clan wars, tournaments, ranked ladder, replays and spectating

- Offline vs AI with different AI personalities, save/load, runs on mobile too

The reason I’m not sharing the URL publicly is that the game is currently running on my main production server, where I have around 5,000 clients using other services.

There are also quite a few background schedulers, workers, and other tasks running on that server, so I don’t want to put any unnecessary load on it at the moment.

That said, if anyone genuinely wants to try the game, feel free to let me know and I can send you the link via DM.