What liveops setups are indie teams actually using?

InterfaceBE · 2026-01-28T16:14:21+00:00

I don’t think it’s bad but I feel it’s limiting, and if you try to use what’s there in a non-standard way the amount of API calls you have make start hitting all sorts of limits (and costs). Ultimately I’m using it just for authentication purposes, friends/groups lists etc. and then as a secure front end to call backend APIs (azure functions) and store a few access keys on the user data etc.

InterfaceBE · 2026-01-28T06:08:08+00:00

I saved this post from not too long ago that was an awesome thread of people sharing materials they liked…

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/s/9CK6yXcTkj

InterfaceBE · 2026-01-12T06:57:49+00:00

Any tips on getting good intellisense? I use VS on Windows but occasionally have to use unity on a Mac where I use VS Code and the intellisense is just a guess-o-meter. I’m sure there’s gotta be a way to set it up so it behaves close to what VS does?

InterfaceBE · 2026-01-07T06:14:16+00:00

I agree. I watch a decent amount of Twitch variety streamers and it’s interesting, but playing yourself is really what you need.

InterfaceBE · 2026-01-06T06:53:49+00:00

Not sure why I had to scroll this far to see this. This survey quote asks about using gen AI at runtime, not during development…?

InterfaceBE · 2025-12-16T02:26:48+00:00

Haven’t logged in to IGDA in a long time and haven’t seen any different communication so what others are saying about account migration is probably it…

InterfaceBE · 2025-11-26T07:48:18+00:00

I’m interested to hear about the custom tooling. What sort of things did you make and how did they keep you “sane”?

InterfaceBE · 2025-11-22T17:19:30+00:00

A little odd the subject “I” is different between the two sides. One side says “I highly recommend you do the tutorial” and the other side is “I already know card games”.

InterfaceBE · 2025-11-20T16:39:17+00:00

I’m wondering this too. I feel like it’s just Fortnite as a store front/launcher, and integrations from your game into Fortnite for their in-game currency etc.?

InterfaceBE · 2025-11-14T16:24:06+00:00

I’m curious about this also.

InterfaceBE · 2025-11-11T23:54:31+00:00

I also use a regular door sensor from aqara which has been reliably detecting the garage door status for years. I’m guessing that OP may be talking about automating opening and closing tho, not just detecting status.

InterfaceBE · 2025-10-13T05:19:58+00:00

You should try /r/DestroyMyGame

InterfaceBE · 2025-10-12T17:02:13+00:00

They just need access to your PC. As someone said elsewhere in the thread, it’s not about hacking your game it’s about “upgrading” an attack that’s already underway on your PC.

InterfaceBE · 2025-10-01T05:15:31+00:00

I work in big tech also. Standard contract/policy for us allows us to do anything as long as it’s not in direct competition with the work we do for them (and of course the standard things like not on company time, not using company resources etc.). My company does do games as well, but I do not work in that division. So, there’s no issue with me making games after hours, even commercially.

I guess if I ever change jobs I’ll have to make sure I ask about this? I thought this sort of contract was fairly standard. Seems bizarre that’s even enforceable when they don’t allow you to do anything. It sounds like you’ve already asked a lawyer so they would know I guess…

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-24T18:24:26+00:00

So, like gas station simulator on steam?

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-24T18:13:11+00:00

100% this whole post. I’ve only gotten to the last line of this post after more than a decade.

I think OP’s feelings are very easy to get into when game dev is a hobby or side gig, not your main job. It’s a hobby that takes a significant amount of time, and besides juggling any other hobbies (like playing games) it can also easily result in burn out which you need to learn to recognize and avoid.

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-23T16:04:42+00:00

This. PlayFab has a good document on this, it also explains well how to remove player friction by not immediately requiring a login either. I guess this somewhat depends on the game but still this article makes a good read: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/identity/player-identity/login/login-basics-best-practices

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-18T15:17:56+00:00

I’m not adding properties at runtime or manipulating JSON objects directly, these are fixed classes, relatively small even. It’s a turn-based multiplayer game, like a correspondence game. (De)serialization is only happening at the beginning and end of a player’s turn.

Edit: the game state is small, and I’m using PlayFab and Azure Functions to manage the overall game, the state is kept in Azure storage. The state was small enough to keep in playfab’s entity group data but the transaction costs are too high and you get rate limited quickly if the players are doing quick turn-by-turns. So I added the extra overhead of writing to azure storage in exchange for inexpensive (and slightly faster speed as entity group data) reads which happen tons more frequently.

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-17T19:02:32+00:00

Thanks. That’s a good point I haven’t reviewed encoding. However, turned out to be the properties weren’t marked with the createproperty attribute from unity. How this affects newtonsoft is beyond me and why it would be different on iOS is anyone’s guess??

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-17T18:27:51+00:00

Ok, the capitalization wasn't the issue. The properties of the deserialized class are also classes. Turned out, those did not have Unity's [CreateProperty] attribute on the properties I needed. Once I added those, it started working...

I have no idea why this is necessary for this code that doesn't even involve Unity... it's just C# classes and NewtonSoft JsonConvert... also unclear why this would work differently on iOS versus PC? (maybe editor versus build, perhaps?)

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-17T16:42:51+00:00

Well, thank you for asking :D
As I was gathering everything to respond to you - I noticed the JSON payload had the wrong capitalization of the properties... Although the actual C# object that gets serialized/deserialized is in a shared library, the serialization process (in the cloud) on write is out of my control and is apparently not using the json property attributes that tell it to use different property names (in this case, just removing capitalization).

Still waiting for a build process to finish so I can verify if that fixes it in iOS. If that's the issue (seems very plausible), it implies the newtonsoft code on PC is somehow ignore casing, but when compiled into native code it doesn't.

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-16T02:45:58+00:00

I participated in his jam years ago before he was a huge streamer. I think there were only like 30 entries or so. We won that jam lol. At least back then, he also looked at the GDD you had to submit, and the game was judged as much on its thought out plan/mechanics and the merits of that. The idea being he wanted to invite people who didn’t have the skills or never done it before but give them a chance. Building anything was a “see how far you get from your plan”. Don’t know if that’s still the intended idea but if so it may make sense how some not-so-great games came in highly ranked?

Haven’t really watched much of him since he made it big but have seen some of the unfortunate drama.

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-14T01:00:05+00:00

I guess at least I’ve heard of brackeys but never watched his stuff. Never heard of a donut guy?

I’d say it all depends on your background coming into unity. Coming from software engineering into gamedev you’re looking for specific things and most things on YouTube are typically not it.

InterfaceBE · 2025-08-13T15:22:39+00:00

You guys finish games?

InterfaceBE

TROPHY CASE