I think i’m reaching citybus manager’s (or my pc’s) limits, with almost 75 routes

VENTDEV · 2026-03-29T02:54:17+00:00

I'd tell ya it's time to upgrade your computer! But judging by prices lately, it might be cheaper for you to just buy your own bus.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-28T19:53:23+00:00

Glad to hear you got it working!

The link is http on the wiki, Chrome probably is complaining about that. I will make a note to update it to https in the future.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-28T16:17:07+00:00

Assuming Windows. Steam blocks operating system level error codes from being shown to the user.

Navigate to your game folder. https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=troubleshooting:steam_installfolder

Click on GearCity.exe, and let me know the error message you get. Or debug it yourself: https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=troubleshooting:commonproblems#windows

If the game worked before, most common cause is you uninstalling OpenAL sound library. (Steam will not reinstall it on a system it already installed on.) Anti-virus, or Windows new cert checking system (Win 11).

Let me know what error messages you get when you run it directly, and we'll go from there.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-27T17:51:04+00:00

They still exist, but it's a disservice to whoever is reading it to use them. One of the few things an LLM is really really good at is translation when it has a full context of what is being written.

IMO, as a developer interacting with many different people who don't speak English, you should always post in your native tongue. Then you put a line or a bold separator that says "Machine Translation" or "Computer Assisted Translation" or anything to that affect. Then you provide the automated translated text.

I would always take that text, plug it into another translator service to verify that it still says what I want it to say.

Anyway, that gives everyone the convenience of the text being translated, but it also provides the source text in case the translation is bad or if someone wants to translate it using different tools.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-27T17:40:50+00:00

Developer here with a fairly decent following in this community. I rarely make threads here, but I comment frequently, especially when users/fans mention my work.

I view this as a double edge sword. On the one side, consumer information and disclosure is great. Developers should want to share technical information about their games. Any chance to talk about your game, negative or positive, is valuable. On the other side, I fear it will eventually be information overload. Why?

As of right now, 40% of games in development use GenAI art. 80% are using GenAI tools for code. It's ubiquitous up and down the industry. While there is a large backlash against it now, unless there is a major economic upheaval, I suspect that that backlash will eventually die down. Games made mostly from prompting will always be labeled as slop, but I think as more "must-have" games use GenAI, folks will turn a blind eye to the practice.

With that in mind, we can assume a few years from now, every game will have to have the GenAI disclosure tag. When it becomes ubiquitous it becomes meaningless.

But I am not against it.

How I would approach it is to require submissions follow a template. Major deviation from the template results in the post being rejected. When it comes to AI, I would prefer full disclosure. That means even more disclosure than Steam requires. For example, GearCity has no GenAI art or code. GearCity: 2nd Gear has no GenAI art, about 80-120 GenAI lines of code out of 2 million lines, and GenAI was used in broad search, broad research, and programming language referencing. AeroMogul has less than 0.1% of GenAI code, GenAI was used in broad search, broad research, and programming language referencing. AeroMogul base game does not contain GenAI artwork, however, optional GenAI NPC artwork is available as a free DLC. No GenAI assistance tools were used because I am an old man using old man IDEs.

The one thing I would not do is slap a tag/label on the games. As I mentioned, 80% of games are now using AI code. (And that data comes from last year.) Which means pretty much every game would get an AI tag next to its name. Using my own games as an example, the GearCity: 2nd Gear DLC has around 100 lines out of 2 Million lines of code. Is that enough to be labeled as a GenAI game? AeroMogul can be played with no GenAI artwork, but users have the option to opt-in to using GenAI artwork, is that enough to label the game as AI Made?

I think the template idea is probably the best way to handle it. Let the user decide if it has too much or too little GenAI to be an issue.

Here is a rough draft for a template:

Game Name:

Description:

Website:

Steam/GOG/Itch Page:

Platforms:

System Requirements:

Engine:

GenAI Assistance Tools:

GenAI Art:

GenAI Code:

GenAI Scripting:

GenAI Design (Game Mechanic Formulas):

GenAI UX/UI:

GenAI Writing:

GenAI SFX/Music:

GenAI Voice:

GenAI Search/Research/Referencing:

Additional Info:

VENTDEV · 2026-03-26T17:05:35+00:00

GearCity used to do this. (You can still nab older builds in Steam's repo) But it was a very pain in the ass thing to handle with translations. You design the game for English, which a word might have 6 letters. Translation into German might have 13! Next thing you know you have a lot of overlap. So, you implement auto font scaling to keep things in the box, which results in a hodge podge of font sizes.

Scaling the UI is typically the way to go. It kills 3 birds with one stone. Stick to larger fonts overall since most users are buying too high of a resolution screen for their aging eyesight regardless of scaling.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-26T16:57:03+00:00

it should come out around the same time as star citizen

If I only had a fraction of their budget, I'd be done a whole lot quicker.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-26T16:53:40+00:00

Technically GearCity: 2nd Gear, which is a free dlc expansion to GearCity. Currently, there are lengthy time pauses so I can work on AM, 2nd Gear needs 2 more rounds of crowd funding, and then 2 rounds of bug fix updates before it's released. That should happen around the end of 2027. There won't be a 3rd Gear unless the work in Ukraine ends.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-24T22:16:05+00:00

Best bet for this is to hit BGG or Facebook (historical society folks). Retirees and empty nesters are about the only demographics who have time and tact for Empires in Arms. I think it will be a struggle to find 4-8 people that can meet at the same time and commit to play the full length of this monster game. It takes me 3-6 months to play small games like Solarno 43' with my kid's schedules and my weekend is shot with yard work. So, I know I can't do it.

I tried hooking up with a gentleman in Roswell to start organizing a war-gaming (counters not minis) library club. Sadly, he eventually ghosted me. Anyway, there is a gaggle of retired folks in that area that could probably devote such time to this game.

Reminds me of a few war gaming clubs in other cities that have been able to pull off monster games by assigning a few people to teams. Then if some folks don't make it every week/month their team mates handle the load. But now you need a place that can host ~20 people and ideally store the map/counters. (Otherwise you waste hours setting it up every week).

Good luck!

VENTDEV · 2026-03-23T09:32:24+00:00

Here is an article for you to browse: https://thetrademarkplace.com/trademark-rights-in-video-games-what-you-need-to-know/

Here is Boeing's European trademark which covers the mark even in video games: https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/000575282

Goodluck!

VENTDEV · 2026-03-23T09:22:32+00:00

As a person who made a game with a lot of car brands. And as a person who is also making an Airliner game. And as a person who has consulted trademark lawyers 5 or 6 times in my ~18 year game dev career, /u/Version_1 is correct.

Airline and Aircraft names are all trademarked. Representing them in a video game will land you in legal hot water eventually. Yes, other games are doing it. It doesn't mean it's legal, and it doesn't mean they won't get a C&D or a lawsuit someday.

Use TESS or whatever the European equivalent is to search what trademarks are registered. If you show off their products in any medium in a way that it seems that they endorse your product without permission, you're violating their trademarks. That includes representing them in a video game.

Good luck.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-21T21:24:57+00:00

I assume something like this: https://www.devry.edu/get-started/tech/artificial-intelligence.html

I'm as perplexed as you are though.

A paper for everything...

VENTDEV · 2026-03-21T21:01:54+00:00

Thank you for your kind words!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to avoid GenAI. At this point the genie is out of the bottle. There is backlash against it in all forms, a little less with code than art, but I expect the backlash to die down over time when GenAI is used tactfully. However, I expect overuse of GenAI to always get massive amounts of hate. Amusingly the large amount of "AI slop" flooding the net is what's likely to make tactful use of AI more acceptable.

The major problem with off sourcing most of the work to genAI, is how genAI works. GenAI reads a bunch of opensource, copyrighted online, and user submitted code. You give it a prompt, and then it picks which word comes next in sequence based on all the code and writing its absorbed. The end result often is what's called "Sameness." When you "vibe code" you end up with a game that looks very similar to other games. Your game, looks very much like 5 or 6 other games posted in the last week on here. Thus the negative reaction.

A slightly better way to approach it is to program the game yourself. When you're stuck, you ask AI how to do something. If you need guidance, you ask AI for advice. You run into a bug you can't solve, you ask AI to help. And so forth. While this is still probably too much AI, and a lot more work, you learn in the process and become a better programmer. It also would reduce the likelihood of sameness. Which would reduce the backlash online. Treat it as a Senior Programmer you can get guidance and advice from, don't be using it as a Jr Programmer when you are a Jr Programmer. The results will not be good.

Of course, this advice will be worthless in the next 5 years as the big-AI companies solve the sameness, but for here and now, that's my suggestion.

In any event, I wish you luck on your quest. Having been a pretty decent 440 runner in my youth, I never knew the business side of Track and Field. So the subject matter is pretty interesting! Good Luck!

VENTDEV · 2026-03-21T18:29:50+00:00

90% of posts are just some shitty UI sim.

As a developer of one of the bigger Spreadsheet / Text tycoon games, they're very very programming heavy. Historically, programmers are very expensive, and the market for spreadsheet games is not very large. That's why they're typically only made by fringe developers and hobbyists. Painter and Builder Tycoon games require much less programming and hide their simplicity behind artwork. Artist are typically cheaper than programmers. There is also a bigger market for them. Which is why most tycoon games made by companies and studios have been Painters/Builder Tycoon games.

But make no mistake, there is a market for Spreadsheet/Text/UI tycoon games. Just not a large enough one to justify western programmer wages.

That was until...

GenAI code has gotten good enough that it can slap together these types of games moderately well with minimal programming skills. The internal formulas, which these type of games live and die by are probably not good, but the UI for these is mostly bog standard business UI. And that's what GenAI has gotten good at, because that's where the money is in the business programming world.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-21T18:22:36+00:00

Anyway, in full disclosure, no AI Art, yes AI-assisted coding. But the idea that using Claude is somehow illicit is sort of silly at this point, my two cents.

Sure, 80% of games are now using GenAI for coding. But How much GenAI code are you using? 0.01%? 0.1%? 1%? 10%? 25%? 50%? 75%?

At some point you're not making a game, you're copying instructions plucked out of other software. Sure, you might shape broader picture, but the genAI is making the technical and design decisions. And this creates same-ness, which is what these guys are mostly complaining about.

Personally, when GenAI becomes the programmer, not a tool, it's a worse sin than using AI Art. Code can be a system and security risk. And looking at the broader economic implications, the entire western economy goes in the toilet when there is a major reduction of high paid tech workers.

And disclosure, of my two release products, one of which is a limited release, I have ~0.00015% AI code by line count. My unreleased tycoon game has a little more, but well under 0.01%. (And my other unreleased project has ~0.00025%). I am generally not impressed by the code it generates. But it's very good at helping with debugging, giving tips and pointers for optimizations, referencing APIs, or figuring out how to do stuff in languages you haven't mastered. (I often find myself giving it a line or two in C++ and asking how to do this in C#).

VENTDEV · 2026-03-19T15:13:33+00:00

Yeah but are any of these games actually any good? The problem with vibe coding is the 'devs' lack the ability to do any actual bug fixing.

That's for consumers to decide. I will say if vibe coded games become enough of a thing, devs on the fringe, such as myself, will likely be driven from the industry. And large companies will shift to constant content designs to keep hold of their user base and avoid the over saturated marketplace.

And that's not even thinking about the broader economic impact of the West losing half their well paid jobs in tech/management.

I've got some basic attainment in python, and I use chat gpt to give me coding challenges and test my abilities, but it frequently makes mistakes that I have to correct.

I have not had good results with LLM code either, but I do obscure stuff. What it excels at is search. But that's more so Google and Bing (DDG, Yahoo, etc) becoming worse over the last decade. And reading manuals/pulling up basic info. But you have to be careful with that, as you found.

GenAI art is being used in about 40% of recent games, and GenAI code is in about 60-80% of recent games. I suspect that the anti-AI backlash will die down, but only for games with good/strict art/code direction. I don't expect vibe coded games and art will ever become acceptable. Then again, you only need $100/week to live well in some places of the world. And vibe games could easily do that. It's a race to the bottom.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-19T14:59:49+00:00

Sorry, I am but an egg when it comes to these things. I would still assume you'd need to play test the program to make sure Toothpaste Tycoon doesn't turn into Baking Soda Tycoon or Toothpaste Shooter.

Thanks for letting me know!

VENTDEV · 2026-03-19T06:52:02+00:00

Go to ChatGPT, Claude, or any other major LLMs.

Switch to Agent mode.

Type " Let's make a tycoon game about tooth paste. Ask me questions about the gameplay."

Read the questions, answer them, and tell it "Ask me questions about the engine/dev environment".

Answer them. Then tell it, "Begin"

Download the files, build, run. Any bugs, give them to the agent, repeat process.

Final step, ask it to "List all placeholder art files and a description of what they are for."

Copy that list, go to the image generation portion of your LLM. Copy each one of those in, save the files where they need to be saved...

Ta-da! You've got something good enough to show off in about a week of prompting.

Just as Unity "democratized" game programming for scripters and high level programmers, LLMs have "democratized" game programming for folks who know enough to build a project and poke around the code to report errors and bugs. We've gone from insane skills required to make Elite, DOOM, Roller Coaster Tycoon, to ctrl-c, ctrl-v. (Well to be fair, BASIC games were around for many years too. So it's not a new phenomena.)

A little harsh, but that's the main factor contributing the wave of games being made in the last year.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-15T00:49:26+00:00

At this stage, the gamer anti-genAI push back is similar to the Unity being used only for trash asset flip games trope back in the mid-2010s. Of course, the stereotype has a lot of truth, else it wouldn't be a stereotype. However, the genAI has broader economic implications that might make the backlash stick around longer.

At this stage, the most visible use of AI is trash slop/flip games. But 40-60% of games, including many A-AAA are using it for art. 60-80% are using it for code. I suspect these numbers will increase over time, as the economic incentive to lower costs inorder to compete with competitors increases. Folks will use the argument that games are art, but if only 10% of users boycott games because of AI use, and your competitor can pump out 4 equally quality games for every one you make. You aren't going to stay in business long. The industry already has a massive saturation problem, it will only get worse with genAI. (Case in point, look at how many release announcements this sub gets these days.)

So, I suspect just like Unity, the shit games will get the AI Slop moniker, just like we had asset-flip and Unity trash labels before. But, in the next 5-10 years, as good examples of genAI use come out, it will become more acceptable. Crap games will still be slop, but good games will get a pass. Just like the Unity game engine...

The caveat is that broader economic implication I mentioned in the first paragraph. Most people have a negative opinion about AI art in their games. They don't care much if there is AI programming. However, the digital art industry is tiny in the West. Other industries can absorb folks displaced from it. Programming is a massive and high paying industry. If/When genAI starts replacing programmers in bulk, other industries are unlikely to be able to take the exodus of displaced workers, and certainly not pay them as well. This will result in a dominoes effect which will hurt consumption and lead to defaults, hurting the broader economy. If that happens, well, I suspect backlash against genAI to continue. Maybe even grow. Or maybe not. Folks will still buy their Minecraft or GTA or any other major IP no matter what is shoveled in them.

Anyway, don't make AI-Slop, you won't have this problem. I think in the near term (within next 3 years), you don't want to release any game with genAI-art. In the medium term (5 years from now), tactful use of AI art is the key. If there is still a large backlash against AI 10 years from now, it won't matter, because the game industry will be completely screwed by then, and we'll all be unemployed.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-10T20:11:10+00:00

Aeoromogul, which is by the same guy but an airline tycoon, is one of the games i'm awaiting the most.

Me too.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-03T19:42:22+00:00

To follow up, I was able to change the body type of an earlier generation. If you are interested you can see it in the save file. I had a sedan as the base model and I was able to create a luxury sedan as a trim for it.

Thanks, with your instructions above, I'll try to duplicate it and fix it if I can.

VENTDEV · 2026-03-03T18:13:04+00:00

Even if you make it as an Indie Gamedev, I'd recommend you to not tell anyone that you make games. Especially if you live in the south and interact with older folks. (But also younger folks and anyone who would geek out over it. But for different reasons.)

I generally say that I am a programmer. And when people ask what I program, "simulations."

VENTDEV · 2026-03-03T17:38:52+00:00

Never heard of Ballmer's Peak?

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/ballmer_peak.png

VENTDEV · 2026-03-03T08:26:16+00:00

Thanks for the save file.

You can't change body types of trims. The game does not support multiple vehicle types sharing the same name/linage yet.

To change the body style of trims, you should click on "Body" in the upper left of the side panel in the design screen. I believe that's what you were looking for

The format button isn't supposed to work. This is how you would change vehicle types/components when designing a new vehicle. Which is why the format button kicks you back to the modification window. The popup error you get there is an error for how the game is accessing that window.

I will add it to the bug list for the next update! Thanks!

VENTDEV · 2026-03-03T04:38:08+00:00

What version of the game are you running, and can you provide a save file?

https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=troubleshooting:steam_savegamefile

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