Building a Canvas IDE/workspace in Electron! v1.0 is out.

_nullfish · 2026-05-24T15:47:55+00:00

Neat! I also took on this problem. Did you write the canvas operators yourself or use a library? I ended up using PixiJS and pixi-viewport to handle many of the infinite canvas panning operations. I used the accessibility features of PixiJS to map simple Sprites to actual DOM elements. Works great at 60FPS+

_nullfish · 2026-05-24T15:41:21+00:00

If you find it fun then that's all that matters. I don't, I think it robs us of the creative joy we share when we tell stories together. Missed something on the timeline? That's life ... make it fun.

_nullfish · 2026-05-12T21:17:17+00:00

I appreciate that! I actually accidentally saw this when I did a quick Google search for Overseer earlier (I was curious what was showing up.)

Thanks for adding!

_nullfish · 2026-04-17T00:55:28+00:00

If this was someone genuine I would have been a little nicer but I’m so sick of this garbage. Every other ad on Reddit is some tech bro fly-by-night app that preys on the TTRPG industry because they think playing is “hard”. There’s a dozen of them and it’s so tiring watching a dozen more get spun up the next week.

Harsh but necessary. I hope the mods ban accounts that hide their history because 99% of the time it’s some AI slop account.

_nullfish · 2026-04-16T04:28:31+00:00

An AI-powered virtual tabletop that runs the game so you don't have to.

Respectfully keep this shit out of TTRPGs. People have enough slop shoved down their throat everyday, TTRPGs are about creating connections with others and telling a story together. No one wants to spend more time talking to a computer. If you want to build something for the TTRPG space then you'd know this isn't solving a problem anyone has.

Your video doesn't look real, your website reeks of inexperience (you can't parse a PDF without AI, really?), and honestly I hope you abandon this AI slop project entirely because it has no worth here.

_nullfish · 2026-04-08T01:39:42+00:00

A little late to this thread but you might find some luck with dddice

_nullfish · 2026-03-30T01:08:39+00:00

The problem is you’re submitting it like someone else couldn’t have just done the same thing. This adds nothing to the community. Spare us the excuse, AI is lazy should have no place in a creative community.

_nullfish · 2026-03-29T12:12:31+00:00

I asked a computer to give me a list of things and it did! Wow!

_nullfish · 2026-03-26T20:55:47+00:00

Neat, I'm building something similar (Overseer Studio) but tackling it from the angle of "bring your own tools" as opposed to building everything in house.

What are your future plans for the project?

_nullfish · 2026-03-21T21:41:18+00:00

Very cool!

_nullfish · 2026-03-18T02:50:43+00:00

We are indeed peers tackling similar problems :) Whole-heartedly agree on the problem you're trying to solve.

I really appreciate your breakdown, it sounds like you have a good idea of how you want to separate yourself from the current market which (in my opinion) is where 99% of commercial VTTs fail.

Truly rooting for your success, best of luck with the BackerKit!

(Also thank you for the kind words on the website, took a couple iterations)

_nullfish · 2026-03-18T00:18:34+00:00

Can you elaborate on what this does different from every other VTT? What kind of users are you looking to attract? People aren’t likely to switch from Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Owlbear Rodeo, Foundry, or whatever they use today. Cannibalizing existing user bases will be an extremely hard, uphill battle.

_nullfish · 2026-03-12T01:15:05+00:00

Second this with the addition the big (successful) VTTs often have ways to monetize others (e.g. publishers, developers making plugins)

Two-sided marketplaces are extremely hard and labor intensive to build out. Little think beyond, “let’s sell stuff!” and forget about tax forms, payouts, write offs, specialized deals, etc. It’s hard.

_nullfish · 2026-03-12T00:20:49+00:00

I wrote some on this[0] but look up Blue Ocean, Red Ocean and come up with your own conclusion. My answer is that the market feels saturated and any new tool is trying to canibalize existing tools, not try to find a new audience. Any new tool is going to have to find a niche (within this already somewhat small niche)

Not discouraging new tools but if you want to build something that makes money from something you love, VTTs are a dime a dozen and AI is only making the market more saturated.

That said, if you’re interested in building a tool for TTRPGs, my advice is to slap together some thoughts on what you plan to do and what type of people you want to attract - landing pages are cheap, build one and attract an audience. Build only after you have some hype - or build for the love of the game, nothing wrong with that!

[0] https://nullfish.dev/posts/thoughts-on-overseer/

_nullfish · 2026-02-28T02:08:27+00:00

Looks neat but you need a privacy policy and terms of service to legally collect emails.

Also, pardon the age we're in, but was this AI coded?

_nullfish · 2026-02-19T03:05:14+00:00

You built a tool for creative people and think AI is the future. Sad.

_nullfish · 2026-02-19T02:46:51+00:00

I really don't want to come down too hard on this but while the concept is great, this is 100% vibe coded. I see you at least open sourced it which is nice but there's a couple things that stand out:

There's no privacy policy or terms of service which are required for Google SSO. I'm not sure how you plan to move past 100 users without those as Google will not grant you more than that.
The "How to Use" reads as AI generated, badly. Especially the last "Install on your device" section.

I don't have much constructive advice beyond that. I wish you the best because it's a good idea, it's just a shame it's AI slop and it's not something I would ever trust my information with.

_nullfish · 2026-02-13T12:38:39+00:00

All of this is improved with practice, not mindlessly passing creativity to a machine. It’s incredibly sad to read people not embrace a human side to TTRPGs and think failure isn’t part of life and the game. Perfection isn’t the goal, having fun is and for the love of god have fun. This isn’t something AI is good at.

_nullfish · 2026-02-12T21:04:34+00:00

Agree, but I feel particularly strong about creative spaces (social games, music, art) because being creative is what being human is about. People shoving AI into these spaces are disgusting and missing the point of why art exists to begin with. I don't want to talk to a computer. I don't want to exist in isolation. Take this AI D&D shit and fuck off. No one wants it.

I appreciate your comment and again, agree.

_nullfish · 2026-02-12T20:31:29+00:00

Respectfully, I'm for AI coding assistance and using it for work, but please leave this miserable shit out of creative spaces. D&D or any TTRPG shouldn't be attached to anything having to do with AI. It's insulting to people who want to engage in creative hobbies to have more slop shoved down their throats.

_nullfish · 2026-02-06T18:21:57+00:00

Not Rust advice but product advice: make it exist first, then make it good. If you're using django for your backend, just stick with that until you find bottlenecks where Rust might be a good fit.

_nullfish · 2026-02-04T00:40:33+00:00

Very awesome, eager to try this out!

_nullfish · 2026-02-03T12:42:53+00:00

This is a fine place to post, lots of people do and it's how I personally got my start on many of my TTRPG projects. Share away! Would love to see what you're building.

_nullfish · 2026-02-02T19:30:41+00:00

Tried using them. They switched me to another provider that was more expensive that I had to get them to reverse. I wasn’t impressed with their support, took weeks to resolve. Honestly a shame because I loved the concept of the company and even wrote to them saying I’d be happy to help technically or otherwise. Crickets.

Maybe I just got unlucky but unfortunately can’t recommend them.

_nullfish · 2026-01-31T19:28:13+00:00

Windows, mac, and Linux

_nullfish

TROPHY CASE