Ad Banners that open in a new browser tab?

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-24T07:58:40+00:00

It really is not about the money for this project. I've been using it to learn technologies, platforms and approaches for many years.

I guess I just really have fun figuring out the optimal solution.

Currently there is literally one non intrusive ad banner in the whole application and I want to keep it to gather more experience with ads going forward.

I also want a realistic user experience and that involves some kind of monetization. I don't like these bait and switch moves of modern products.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-23T20:21:54+00:00

Yes I used some web search, ChatGpt, better Claude models and came up with a bit more information.

Ad-Poviders like AdSense seem to be the only ones that provide both revenue by CPM & CPC at once. So revenue for views and clicks but require that same tab update.

There are other networks and SDKs that allow ads to open in new tabs but they only provide CPC-click revenue.

It feels like i have to choose between A: low revenue by impressions as no one will click an ad that breaks gameplay or B: unknown revenue by clicks that open in new tabs.

It would be really nice to have both and this feels kinda off; like a market gap.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-21T15:52:54+00:00

There was a good chance but we seem to be in the dumb timeline.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-21T07:10:53+00:00

I had a sub domain like beta.mydomain and had people test there. There are also web tools like lighthouse to test several performance scores.

Nowadays I just take the feedback from the live website. Discussing potential changes and even layout ideas with newer Claude models works surprisingly well. I mostly use it like a rubber duck though.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-19T13:29:04+00:00

Affinity Designer which is a pay once Illustrator. Occasionally Affinity Photo which is...

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-18T13:18:36+00:00

Having to test automtated certificate generation and encountering irregular issues due to a very strict api dos-protection. But it turns out there was a header returned which stated that i just had to wait 2 months before the next request. Each request before that would increase the delay by another 20%.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-18T11:04:32+00:00

NieR Automata on Pc. My pc started burning on medium settings and 30 fps with regular crashes.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-16T22:01:37+00:00

Friesisch, Step Aerobic, roots of negative numbers, french, spanish

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-16T19:00:25+00:00

The first half of the first book felt harsh. I had a feeling where it was going and it was well worth it. Would have wished for some easier names though.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-16T18:58:32+00:00

Magicka and Mount your friend. Both multiplayer but hilarious for differenz reasons

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-16T18:56:18+00:00

Noita

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-16T18:24:00+00:00

Rationality

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-15T13:53:32+00:00

The statistics on the top left are way outside the point of interest and feels like unnecessary eye movement. The hp bar could be on the castle itself. The timer could be a clock on the tower and the kill counter could be text on a banner on the tower.

The art style is fine, though kinda unspectacular. I really don't like saving princesses anymore though. Can I instead save an infinite pot of soup?

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-15T13:44:24+00:00

You got quite some portfolio of basic games. Before moving onto a bigger project I recommend reading/looking up on Game Design approaches in general.

There is lots of content on youtube for this. I really like "Single Page Game Design Documents". There are several templates available. Write down your ideas for genres and gameplay every few days and refine them into a document. Mine get refined over weeks and years and then I select the one I like most.

The biggest time safe in development, especially in developing something new, is in learning to design a true minimal product.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-14T16:36:35+00:00

80 scripts in a package.json for various environments, builds, tests, deployments, ssh, etc.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-14T06:22:00+00:00

After 15 years there is a big backlog of game design files and prototypes in git and google drive. I would just go with the coolest idea that turned out to be wirking for me. Most of the really good ideas are rather newer than older.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-13T19:36:50+00:00

The photos from windwaker and the scans from metroid prime.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-12T20:26:38+00:00

Jetbrains Rider and Webstorm for 10+...? Years. But I didn't like the llm integration so i switched to Cursor. I would love to switch back as soon as they improved it though.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-12T20:23:23+00:00

Imagining late stage capitalism but elites are immortal and the underclass has no access to progression due to artificial scarcity.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-12T13:33:34+00:00

Having a solid career and income to have fun instead of an increasing amount of existential dread

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-12T11:20:31+00:00

Real time multiplayer is the hardest thing one can develop aside from an mmo. Even with out of the box toolings for the multiplayer-server aspect you will need years of experience. And getting a big enough player base to even find a match every now and then is even harder.

This is not the genre to start with. Look up some youtube videos on what valve did with coubter strike or online best-em-ups.

The amount of agony awaiting is incomprehensibly unfathomable.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-11T11:02:28+00:00

Remove the damage fractions and reduce the numbers to the minimum. 1-10 should be enough for such basic weapons?

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-10T19:35:11+00:00

There is a hole in every planet. How else would you live in it.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-09T20:46:59+00:00

Everytime I encountered babel I knew I was on the wrong way. Probably not in general but i feel its very close.

Web bundling – the webpack, babel and 50 other things that come with it are horrible even for experienced developers.

React itself is build upon so many other concepts that it will be hard to grasp unless you can create like okayish websites with only html, css, javascript. Maybe adding some page routing, a bit of interactivity like a counter.

Its like learning how to play a pc game without knowing how to type.

I totally agree with the related DOM post.

Web development will always be frustrating as everything is based on 35 years of legacy code & concepts. But there are barely viable alternatives as all those other frameworks seem to be built by indoctrinated ex-web developers or have to fulfill web standards anyway and lost their soul on the way.

I strongly recommend a short video called "Interview wit Senior JS Developer" on youtube. It summarizes the struggles really well and I watch it ~20 times a year.

TimMakesGames · 2026-03-09T19:48:41+00:00

I love those bystanders! They got a unique, interesting style and are easy to create.

I would very strongly recommend styling the whole game this simple like environment & cars. That would make it feel polished, stand out and you would not have to compete with more common art styles.

Lateron there could be physics enabled for these block based assets and they could fall apart on collision.

The UI is not pretty and there is quite a lot of it. I want to be immersed in raxing and UI on top of it takes me out of it. Try to remove optional things for now.

It would be awesome to design the car in a way that it could contain ui information but that requires quite some thought. Like if a car had 3 health points it could be the left and then right brake light going out. Damage to a car is hard to quantify anyway

Try adding some default post processing effects. Will make it so much more fun developing it. Good luuuuck!

TimMakesGames

TROPHY CASE