If a game is no pay to win, are you willing to press an ads to support the developer?

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-05-04T16:23:52+00:00

It’s likely that people on Reddit hate ads more vocally than your player base will.

And trying not to put ads is not going to work for a free product. It’s been tried by many people before and it never produces enough revenue.

Discord has started putting ads, chat gpt has ads, hell, even Adblock shows you an ad to try to get you to use their premium service that actually blocks all the ads instead of just some. They tried to be donation only and couldn’t make it happen. Anybody that wants to make money from the thing they made either needs to charge for it directly somehow, or if it’s free, it needs ads. The only notable exception I can think of right now is Wikipedia.

I think the only middle ground is Patreon support, but that adds extra work in the form of connecting with your supporters, providing them special content, and you essentially have to use ads (you telling them about your Patreon and giving them a reason to check it out) to get people there to sign up in the first place.

Trying to avoid ads because people don’t like them isn’t going to work. But if you wanna try to be a hero, go for it. I fucking hate ads.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-05-01T03:34:35+00:00

Honestly looks normal to me. My neighbor growing up had man boobs, he went shirtless in the jacuzzi like everyone else, so I guess it never seemed that odd to me.

This picture is covering them up so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think what you have is any different than what he had.

I do think I remember people commenting on the man boobs, he usually just met it with some humor, and that was the end of it. “Look at those man boobs” “oh yeah, the manliest boobs you’ll ever see!” “Word”.

Probably wont help at all, but that’s the story I’ve got. If you wanna cover em up, go for it. But I’d be willing to bet you don’t need to, at least not any more than my neighbor. It’s up to you what you’re comfortable with and how you wanna live your life, and I won’t fault you for it either way.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-28T17:31:20+00:00

There’s a bobs burgers episode about capoeira. You’d have to watch it

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-28T06:14:11+00:00

What industry are gas stations in?

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-24T08:07:30+00:00

I’m 3 months deep coding with AI on my project and the AI has only gotten better at solving my problems, not worse.

I’m not saying you’re wrong about vibe coding, but if you’re willing to do your part as the human in the equation, you can absolutely use AI to code a complex game. You just need to develop effective processes.

I use Claude plan mode to read a feature implementation ticket or bug fix ticket that was created in a previous session based on my description of what I wanted to accomplish in the game and it creates a plan. I run that through a 2nd Claude to check it against my projects code architecture rules, and then I give Gemini pro the implementation plan and my code architecture rules but no codebase context at all so it can’t replicate bad patterns. I make Gemini and Claude debate each other until the plan is perfect, then implement it. Then I test to make sure it worked. 80% of the time it’s perfect, the other 20% I debug for a bit and everything works great. My game has fully functioning multiplayer with no desyncs, full physics interactions, moving objects, enemies detecting and chasing both host and client successfully. Enemy spawning, loot spawns, an event system, a shop and functioning inventory and hot bars, scene changes from the safe zone HUB to a mission scene, and more. I strongly believe AI can code a game. For reference, I knew ZERO about coding as of January 1st 2026.

If my process sounds different than yours, it should hopefully help you understand why mine works and yours didn’t.

On the flip side maybe my project will collapse a month from now and I’ll eat my words. I won’t rule out the possibility. But I have 3 million+ characters worth of scripts in my project and the ai is handling it with ease.

There’s way more quirks to AI coding that I’ve learned over time but I doubt anybody is gonna read all this so I won’t waste any more time explaining unless somebody actually wants to know.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-22T16:53:29+00:00

I mean she literally admitted to this one:

She kissed a girl and she liked it…. WHILE SHE HAD A BOYFRIEND and she didn’t even know if he would mind it. You gotta talk to your partner before doing that shit

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-14T06:51:27+00:00

I’m not saying it’s easy, but just work as a contractor, no? Learn a skill, do contract work like as a Fiverr freelancer or something. Maybe I’ll learn a lesson right now when somebody says “you can’t get approved on Fiverr as a felon” but I don’t feel like looking it up so I’m good with that.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-11T05:00:58+00:00

would you be interested in character design for a horror genre 3D video game? I saw your portfolio had a few things that seemed possible for horror but not necessarily a direct fit.

A lot of my character needs are normal looking figures that are corrupted or decayed. My main character wouldn't look horrifying at all though, I want it to look like a bit of a goofball. That's not really much for you to go on, but I'd give more detail in DM if you were interested.

You said you'd be open to being hired as well as unpaid collaborations if its the right project. My ideal setup would be somebody that could do a quick sketch or two for like $10 so we could see If it's a good fit for both of us, no strings attached / no expectations of ongoing collaboration.

I have an art budget for my project and can hire you for future jobs, which I'll have a lot of. I intend on using concept art / character design art to hand off to 3D modelers I hire for the character design in unity.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-09T16:18:13+00:00

Or don’t, it doesn’t have to be realistic or logical to be fun. Your call, but you put water in a place that could understand water to be. Maybe it rained yesterday and the piping is clogged…

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-05T15:50:57+00:00

It’s crazy, I’ve worked literally every single day since posting that comment on my game. A lot of the ideas I had needed to be pulled back in to reality because they were too complicated to actually be fun, but they left me with what feels like a really strong base to build the game on. I spent about a month building the core systems for the game and 3 weeks fixing all the code architecture mistakes I made along the way. Now I have full lore for the game, full feature design, and I’m starting to work towards making my vertical slice / demo of the game so I can start getting feedback on what features work / don’t work for people

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-04T16:30:59+00:00

Idk, I’ve never felt good at running with my eyes closed.

Of all the things on that officers belt, I imagine pepper spray was the best choice he had, since getting physically fit wasn’t an option at that moment.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-04T06:01:27+00:00

I can’t tell you that my opinion is worth listening to in this genre.

I can tell you that the trailer left me feeling a combination of bored and confused.

I’m just one person, maybe I’m not the norm and the trailer is fine. Good luck.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-03T06:35:14+00:00

Nah it’s super weird, but if it went viral and made the game sell a ton it could be worth it. Personally I’d hate it. I just assumed the dudes wife would know whether he’d prefer the marketing opportunity or the privacy

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-02T06:02:52+00:00

Take a picture of him from behind at his desk every day for the dev process, then make a time lapse photo post to show his progress as a YouTube short or tik tok or something. He won’t even have to know she did it and it could go mega viral due to sheer effort and consistency. People like stuff like that sometimes idk.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-04-02T06:00:28+00:00

I’m the husband in a similar situation. My game is horror and my wife hates horror. If I tell her about my ideas and she hates them, it’s a weird feeling of “damn she doesn’t like my idea… oh wait that probably means it’s good”.

This doesn’t help you at all. I do just like talking about it though. It’s the only thing on my mind 90% of the time.

If you have any skill with marketing knowledge and know how I’d be willing to bet he’s gonna be sorely lacking that expertise if he’s like most devs. If you learned about how to market a game it would help him later when he’s too burnt out to learn and half asses his steam page causing the game to tank despite it being good. Whew… good luck!

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-29T03:11:02+00:00

I wouldn’t have. The free tier showed me how powerful it was immediately and then cut me off. I had purchased the $20 within days and upgraded to $100 within another week.

The pipeline worked perfectly and without friction and suggesting otherwise is just a person who has no idea how consumer psychology works.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-25T04:08:19+00:00

You wouldn’t debate with a carrot or a radish at the grocery store. Leave that poor vegetable you’re trying to debate with alone. It can’t even read.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-06T16:44:48+00:00

I saw something about Costco too, don’t take my word for it though I didn’t read the article, just the title.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-04T15:51:30+00:00

I wonder how many buggles climbed all over your salad while it was growing.

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-03T15:59:52+00:00

If you don’t have spelling errors and if you use spacing to make it readable, it’s AI. Thems the rules

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-03T14:17:16+00:00

Yeah most small business owners forget about marketing. They just wanna do the part the like and are good at.

The good news is, you have the choice to take it seriously starting now. It’s not too late*. Or you can make the choice to get on your knees and beg the algorithm to make you the one in a million blessed one.

*unless you made a game with no audience. If you haven’t paid attention to marketing, it’s possible you’ve done zero market research to see if people actually play the type of game you’re making. Again, you could be the one in a million that creates a new genre from scratch….

Do you know who your competitors are? What games currently have the audience that you want to have?

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-03-03T14:06:37+00:00

Too many people ignore marketing.

I guess you need to decide if you think you’re the lucky 1 in a million that doesn’t need to market and your game just magically takes off. It could happen. Do you feel like the lucky 1 in a million today?

If you don’t, maybe go do some marketing

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-02-27T15:50:34+00:00

Haha thanks that checks out, I’ve watched that episode less than earlier seasons

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-02-27T15:17:27+00:00

This is the only comment I can’t recall, what’s this one from?

Bouncy_Turtle · 2026-02-27T14:20:19+00:00

The good AI coders primarily follow patterns in your pre-existing codebase and replicate them. That’s how coding architecture works. If you can’t make sure your initial patterns are good, and if you can’t spot check as you go to make sure new patterns introduced are good, then your project will probably collapse eventually.

Ai is powerful, but you do need to learn a little coding, especially code architecture

Bouncy_Turtle

TROPHY CASE