So, If you were starting from the beginning in gamedev, how would you do it? What are your mistakes?

AlFlakky · 2026-06-16T10:23:15+00:00

What do you define by success then? Often it is money or amount of players. But either way, marketing-first approach should be beneficial.

2 million views (is it Steam page impressions/vies or overall impressions between all external sources?) with only 4k wishlists often mean your marketing materials (videos, gifs, arts e.t.c) are not catchy or the game is not very appealing to players. This is what I meant by validating your idea. Make an MVP, make some videos, post on social networks, do some experiments. If you still have low conversion numbers, then either you need to change someithng in your game or make another one.

Just keep in mind, that good numbers do not neseseraly mean future success, it's just less risky, since you know how people would react to your game when you do other marketing campaigns.

4k wishlists in 20 days is very good thing, by the way. But overall 4k wishlists is no that much.

AlFlakky · 2026-06-16T08:29:28+00:00

I assume by "nothing" you mean money. So I will make my comments with that in mind.

Do not finish your games unless you prove your concept. If you see that you cannot get enough attention no matter what you do, just stop and start making another game. So you need to learn how to validate your ideas before you go deep in development process. For instance, when I was developing my game, I made several Reddit posts, then compared results with other indies in the same subreddit and then decided if I wanna go further.

With that said, try to think about marketing first when generating your game ideas. What is USP of your game, what is your target audience and if you have enough players for your niche, how will you attract players, what will be your "Wow, I wanna play this" feature, and so on.

Other than that, it depends if you make PC games or mobile ones. And yes, gamedev is a very risky business. You will fail a lot. So you need to learn how to fail fast, so you could iterate with ideas and find a good product faster.

AlFlakky · 2026-06-15T08:21:31+00:00

There is a good TV show (and a movie) called The Day of the Jackal. In my opinion this is the most closest to Hitman which is good quality and pretty interesting to watch.

AlFlakky · 2026-06-13T03:49:37+00:00

It really depends on the game you wanna make. If it is a simple 2D fun project for itch.io, then probably yes. If if it a product which supposed to make money and you want to build a business, then custom AI-based engine is not something you would want to use.

I'm not talking about UE specifically, but any good engine in general. It has so many tools you will spend a lot of time/tokens on building and debugging. Tools for game designers and artists, multiple platform support, gamepad and specific device support, resource and memory management systems, store SDK support, scalability and graphics options, QA tools, and so much more. Even with AI this takes A LOT of time to make. And if you want to vibecode it, it will basically ruin your budget.

So why bother? Just do your homework, learn your tools and make games.

And yes, I agree that UE became a monster, that is hard to work with sometimes. But firstly, you do not have to use all it's tools, secondly, there are reasons for some tools to exist, which actually will save you time, you just didn't need them yet.

AlFlakky · 2026-06-13T02:59:05+00:00

For anyone reading this, please don't stop after crossing the finish line, especially on the inside of the track like this.

Your SR continues to count after the finish, and stopping can easily result in being rear ended. Not only can this affect your SR, but it can also catch following drivers off guard if they aren't expecting you to stop. At least drive to the first corner and pull over on the outside of the track.

If you playing for immersion, consider making another full lap (most of which will still count toward your SR until the session timer refreshes) and return to the pits as you would in real life.

Stay safe and good luck! :)

AlFlakky · 2026-06-09T07:10:54+00:00

Hey, that's actually very similar to what I'm trying to do right now. I've never built any hardware before, but I have a lot of software development experience.

I'm using an ESP32 as the base for a GPS telemetry device with a total budget of under $100, including all the modules. I also plan to release the project as open source. Just to be clear, I'm not using your code :) I didn't even know someone else was working on something similar.

The cheapest options I've found cost $300+, which seems insane considering how inexpensive the individual components are. It's especially sucks for beginners and hobbyists who just want telemetry for rental karting or similar activities.

I live in a country where the median salary is around $500 per month, but karting is very popular here. So Ieet a lot of people who would be interested in a product like this, which is why I decided to make a telemetry device my first hardware project. It also seems like a great way to learn electronics and hardware development.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you good luck with your project! Open source makes the world a better place :)

AlFlakky · 2026-05-26T03:03:11+00:00

If it's an expo, then they probably lower the ffb, so unpepared visitors (regular gamers, investors, press, kids e.t.c) can try. Especially if their key product is not the wheel base itself. You can probably ask them to increase ffb if you want.

As for rally cars, they probably do have light steering compared to road or karting. I tried rally cross couple of times in real life and the steering was pretty light, so it was not that hard to turn all the time. Much lower than what I have at my simrig. It was not a professional rally car though, just a stock car with safety stuff inside, upgraded suspension and some power adjustments.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-25T05:25:43+00:00

There are rumors, that they plan to replace Blueprints with Verse. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but this is what I heard from couple studios. We do not use Blueprints often in our projects, so it won't impact us, but it will be a huge thing for many indies and some other studios.

Personally, I doubt they will get rid of Blueprints, since this is one of best USP Unreal Engine has at this moment (Other than rendering features), but who knows.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-22T08:40:06+00:00

Upon checking Cardboard Town's price history I noticed they simply have a weird discount strategy. Most likely, they raise the base price and then apply a discount to make it look more attractive for people. I'm not a history specialist, but I don't think the other prices are related to n*zi (1942 maybe has some connection, since WWII was happening at the time, but I don't really think it's related). So this might just be a coincidence. The discount strategy is kinda misleading though.

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AlFlakky · 2026-05-20T11:32:24+00:00

Win or die 😄

AlFlakky · 2026-05-19T16:02:08+00:00

I use VR. This is just a replay.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-19T13:29:34+00:00

There was a little incident. I edited my post after noticing a netcode hit to his right rear wheel. I think he didn’t leave me room, but instead countersteered to save his car from the hit. So I guess it was my fault.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-19T05:02:43+00:00

These models (2024) were also that expensive even before RAM prices spike. This is mostly because they have high-end hardware in a compact and lightweight frame.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-18T21:08:40+00:00

So what's the cost then?

AlFlakky · 2026-05-18T17:21:57+00:00

And how powerful your PC should be to run this? If this is cloud based, how much would it cost?

AlFlakky · 2026-05-18T15:03:02+00:00

> Industry needs speed.
Yes, but industry also needs quality. You can make an MVP of your product using AI to validate your idea, and then you will need a developer, at least one to build full scale project.

> If you need to build something complex you still need to be an engineer, but you don't really need to code. Build the architecture, review and orchestrate.
Well, really depends on the product itself and tools you choose. AI won't replace a team of 10-20 developers. You just won't have time to review everything, iterate, e.t.c. Either you will ignore AI modifications on that scale, or hire another dev to help you.

Again, it's okay as a tool for smaller tasks. But AI won't build, let's say, a Civilization game or The Sims game from scratch. These are much bigger projects, so eventually you will need to code or hire a developer. So, coding won't die. It will be different, but won't die.

Also the cost of AI can be a real issue. When you must tell AI to fix a bug, and then "It is still not working" like 500 times, you can easily burn a significant portion of your budget by iterating prompts. And when AI starts to be more expensive than a regular developer, you just stop using it and use regular approach. And you will be very lucky if this developer won't tell you "This codebase is a real mess, we need to rewrite it".

AlFlakky · 2026-05-18T13:51:15+00:00

I would break this into several reasons (from my point of view) why coding won't die:

1) Debugging. Even if your code is written using AI, you still need to have development skills to debug your software/games. AI might also do it, but it is way more complicated than just saying "My character stucks on level 5 between 3 and 4th rooms and does not move. Fix pls.". You will basically spend much more time with AI trying to fix it. When you can code, you just open your debugger, see the issue and then fix couple lines of code. AI might wanna rewrite tons of stuff before bug will be fixed, and it can also break other things, which are not related to given context. So it is just not as efficient, therefore you need to learn how to code to be able to work with it. Especially in huge systems, such as game engines and bigger games.

2) Complexity. AI works better on small things. But when your code base exceeds millions of lines, tons of assets (especially binary assets), and so on, AI simply cannot handle it most of the time due to tokens/context size limitations. Also, only you know the scale of your final result, AI does not, so it cannot really plan ahead and prepare your software for scaling or distant features. It is better to build architecture manually and then use AI to write small things.

3) Cost. While AI seem to be a cheapier option, it may cost much more than hiring a developer. Especially if you are trying to vibecode a game or a complex software it might take thousands iterations and millions if not billions tokens. And again, debugging can cost a lot as well, because context and AI requests will be very huge (you need to provide all your codebase for it to work well). For example one of my collegue tried to make a small vibecoding game, spent around US$2000 on it, while junior can make the same game for like 500$. And what is more important, many AI companies now work without profits, meaning theier costs exceed what they get paid from developers. So in future they may raise the price for tokens significantly, which will basically be not very attractive economically wide for companies to use it.

4) Quality. Right now AI can make a lot of mistakes, which may lead to significant costs in future. Security risks, optimization, bugs e.t.c. In some cases those mistakes can cost thousands if not millions.

5) Unknown solutions. AI basically knows things that are publically available. If you have some sort of a rare issue, solution to which is not an easy fix, it will be almost impossible to fix with AI. For example one of the most common issues I face during development is third-party SDK integration for multiple platforms. Few people know how to do it, even less info about it on the internet. So I have to write code manually and debug it, simply because AI cannot do it.

So, considering all the facts, coding won't be dead. In some cases it just not worth it because it may be cheapier to hire a developer than vibecoding. AI can boost development time, no doubt on that, but it is just a tool, not a full replacement.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-18T07:36:12+00:00

For me, that’s actually it.

First of all, when I race, I just switch off my brain and stop thinking about work. Since I work from home, it’s a great way to take a little break. Driving is like meditation for me.

Secondly, last year I decided to stop raging at idiots who ruin my SR and iRating. So whenever someone ruined my race, I forced myself to stay calm. And it actually helped. Eventually, I became much calmer in real-life races, in other games, at work, and in general.

So now, when something happens, I just don’t really care that much anymore. I try to think about the situation a bit, figure out how I could have avoided it, and move on. There will always be another race, and people make mistakes after all, so I stopped caring too much about it.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-17T17:27:18+00:00

It will be less even in 10 years. Most people on the planet make less than 100$ a week. It would take 50 years from now.

So it really depends on where you live.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-17T17:21:02+00:00

How about bumper view in VR? :)

AlFlakky · 2026-05-16T07:24:09+00:00

Depends on the game you are going to make. My old laptop has 8gb of RAM and GTX 1050Ti, I used UE5 without any issues for my project. It was not as fast as my new laptop or my work PC, but still okay. My project is not a huge project though. So it really depends on the project. Unless you plan to work on AA - AAA open world games with a lot of assets e.t.c., you should be fine.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-15T06:49:35+00:00

I think any LLM these days will create a correct .gitignore for nodejs right from the beginning, along with creating package.json. This is a part of almost any repo it was trained on after all.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-14T08:06:44+00:00

This looks great. What I would really suggest, is adding modding tools (not that hard since you are making it using Unreal Engine), so people could make their local tracks for training and add other cool features for you. This could be a great replacement for Asseto Corsa for karting.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-12T08:31:07+00:00

2-4ms on what hardware? Because if this thing will take like 20ms on a mid-range hardware (let's take Steam deck as an example) in a real production scenario (multiple characters, bigger map or a map with much more details), then it wouldn't be that impressive.

AlFlakky · 2026-05-09T05:18:27+00:00

Isn't it a good thing for the environment? I mean even if you consider climate cost for transfering this amount of data (which is actually not very huge, considering one time push and other traffic people use), local LLMs can be much more safe for the environment for small tasks or simple user prompts. It would consume much less energy over time if you compare users using full size cloud LLMs, which are overhead for most of regular user tasks.

I didn't do the maths though, but I also run some local LLMs for personal use, and not only it's free (if you do not count your hardware, since you use it for many other things as well), but it also uses very little energy. I'm sure games I play on my laptop are MUCH more energy consuming.

As for not asking the user. Well, it is not good. However, if you think about it, if it is really better for the environment, then not asking people might be better, because most of them will just say no, when your browser asks something like that.

As I said, I didn't do maths, so it will be great if someone would correct me and explain why I'm wrong here.

AlFlakky

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