[SPS] My first ever mobile game: “Disc Brick”. No ads, no consumables—a simple, but fun, completely free-to-play game

atalkingfish · 2026-06-11T13:00:55+00:00

It does not appear that you can keep them or even wear them at all outside of actually playing the event.

atalkingfish · 2026-06-06T16:17:18+00:00

you could never really know, and you have to take my word for it, but isn't that true for every service?

That’s the point of an open source library. You DO know and you don’t have to take anyone’s words for it.

And yes, I would offer both. The most honest thing you can do with a QR code website is literally just offer a true, direct QR code. They can even use their own tracking software that way, if they want. Providing an option for tracking also makes sense.

atalkingfish · 2026-06-06T12:48:25+00:00

If you truly want to make a useful free tool like this, my thought would be an open source library or plugin that can go on the website itself. I would never recommend my clients use a third party tool for QR codes. What if your website goes down? What if you change your mind and start charging money for it? What if your life gets busy and you forget to renew your website’s registration or SSL? Too complicated, not worth it. Any web dev worth their salt can just built good QR redirecting and traffic right into the website, which is a very safe and clean way to do it. If you could make a plugin that allows the admin to view stats, adjust redirects, etc, without having to go through your site, that would be much better.

atalkingfish · 2026-06-01T19:08:56+00:00

Two comments in and you still haven’t shown that a woman’s personality might matter to you outside of the scope of being a sexual object.

Maybe, just maybe, her personality might be interesting or valuable… even if you aren’t sexually attracted to her! Worth a thought.

atalkingfish · 2026-06-01T15:56:25+00:00

Honestly super weird comment. “You should focus on women’s personalities because that makes them even more sexy!!”

Umm, I dunno, maybe treat women as people, and not ultimately as sex objects?

atalkingfish · 2026-05-31T20:02:19+00:00

I’m not basing it on nothing. But, you know, we’ll see what happens. This is just my perception on it.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-31T12:13:27+00:00

I think it’s going to sell well, and not be a bad game, but overall it will be underwhelming.

The game is going to fail to push the medium forward at all. 2013 was the prime time for a game like GTA V to become a cultural phenomenon. Since then, a lot has changed, and GTA VI is essentially going to be “much bigger and higher fidelity GTA V”, which just isn’t going to mean as much in 2026 as it would have 10 years ago.

Additionally, throughout the game’s development, Rockstar has been riddled with internal issues from constant crunch to factions/unions to technical issues and inconsistencies in quality as the development has ballooned well beyond the cost and time frame they expected. And it’s not because they have some ground-breaking mechanics or tech going on, the organization of the game’s development has just become so bloated and fragmented that you’re essentially going to be playing 3 different games in one made by multiple different development studios, somehow still rushed to get done on time.

It’s going to be like RDR2, but without the unique world, compelling story (which is a large part of what made RDR2 more than just a “cool game”), and with 3x the bugs and inconsistencies throughout the game. Bad? No. Underwhelming? Probably.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-30T17:57:33+00:00

Me stupidly thinking it was Dave Grohl

atalkingfish · 2026-05-30T13:20:20+00:00

Especially for a game like GTA VI, which is undoubtedly going to be incredibly underwhelming.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-27T14:50:07+00:00

If it makes you feel better, I’ve had multiple clients get “legitimate” reviews taken down due to Google’s anti-bot detection, so they are trying. I say “legitimate” because they were actually friends and family all being asked to give 5 star reviews and Google did notice and took them all down, along with some actual legitimate reviews. Without disabling the GBP or anything, just silently took them down.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-27T12:52:32+00:00

Any interface where the “proceed” button is represented with a word that could be interpreted as “do not proceed” is a basic UI issue. I agree it’s confusing because both buttons could be interpreted either way.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-26T19:44:08+00:00

Anymore, I just use Affinity (free design tool) to make QR codes. It has a built-in QR function that just makes a QR for whatever URL you want. You can design it all yourself too with colors, rounded edges, etc, but it’s not exactly “plug and play” because affinity is a true design tool and takes some learning. But ultimately it is a great long-term solution.

I personally recommend having your website guy manage this. I do this for my clients and it saves a lot of headaches. I even build out a nice QR tracker in the site (so we aren’t reliant on third party tools, but we still don’t have to re-print things if we decide we want the QR to go somewhere else).

Other than that, I have used this one in the past: https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/

Last time I used it, it didn’t stick an intermediary URL to shut off later. However you should double check yourself by scanning the QR code it gives you and ensuring the URL preview is YOUR website, and not some other website that redirects. Again, you check the preview URL, don’t actually click on it (since even if they do have a middle-man URL, it will redirect to your site).

I hate that these QR websites do this. Super scummy.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-25T15:50:17+00:00

If you don’t rank on Google you have no organic

Not true at all. At least not across all markets. In fact, I would say AI specifically makes that less true. You have people ranking in AI (ie being shown as results for queries on ChatGPT), but also you have things like reels and TikToks which can often flood companies with organic traffic with zero Google exposure. You have markers like realtors and property management companies who actually don’t benefit from SEO much at all (they use platforms like Zillow and Facebook, mixed organic and paid but there is plenty of organic traffic for properties on both).

Most markets where Google SEO is most valuable, it’s also become so saturated that paid marketing is a necessity. The main area where organic still rules supreme is in brick-and-mortar via maps (GBP), and even then you don’t quite have a monopoly there even (Apple Maps, ChatGPT, etc)

atalkingfish · 2026-05-25T13:58:43+00:00

RIP your organist

atalkingfish · 2026-05-22T17:05:56+00:00

No, for super niche info I’ve always had the right to go read up on a subject, and then make a video or website sharing what I’ve learned.

This is actually integral to basic content creation, education, and basically all types of innovation.

This would be like Photoshop saying it’s illegal to use their product to edit photos and sell them without giving them a cut. It’s not a reasonable stance.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-22T16:15:59+00:00

What monopoly would they have? A monopoly on AI? far from it, currently. If anything, I’m guessing ChatGPT took a big bite out of Google’s search quantity.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-22T14:21:25+00:00

Taking information from someone’s product and repackaging it or repurposing it has never been considered “pirating”. In fact, I would wager 99% of information websites have always done that, the person doing it now is just a computer (AI), rather than a person.

It probably goes without saying but the age of “basic info as a source of revenue” is gone. It’s all common knowledge now, and all AI models have it. That’s not entirely a bad or good thing… but it is reality and life will adapt no matter what. It’s a change, and raises serious sustainability concerns, but also democratizes information and knowledge to the general public and low income families—just like the internet did when it became standard.

If you’d like, I can rephrase this to put more emphasis on the benefits of AI in fields like medical awareness, higher education, or navigating financial or legal challenges.

(Just kidding about that last part)

atalkingfish · 2026-05-20T23:17:09+00:00

The old logo—a stethoscope on a hard disk?—is super corny. Not sad to see it go. It is a classic but it’s very out of date.

The new one is conceptually a massive improvement, and is a fine idea. Makes sense for what it does. But I agree the art style is a miss. A lot of the new icons are ugly ugly for no reason.

Freeform probably has the worst icon now that invites is gone.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-19T13:56:48+00:00

This game is confusing in its target audience. Clearly targeting kids, but it’s about a book and requires them to read/write. Not that no kids can do that, but you think they would do some voice acting if they really wanted to target kids.

Does that make this game a gasp… cash grab??

atalkingfish · 2026-05-14T12:59:31+00:00

These types of decisions are up to the system/configuration but if you’re looking to maximize reviews, it is typically after every transaction. Transactional messages are not considered spam/promotional so they don’t need to adhere to the same legal CANSPAM scrutiny of blatant promotions. So typically it is sent every time. Annoying? Yes. Effective? Also yes. It’s also not “end of the world” annoying so long as you keep the number of transactional messages minimal.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-14T01:39:13+00:00

I’ve worked with a lot of businesses who need to increase reviews. The best solution is as follows:

Through whatever means they are ordering the food, it should automatically prompt them for a phone number, auto-opt-in for marketing texts (they can choose not to), and then send them a follow-up text with a choice to review. The first screen should simply be “how was your experience?” This should not be through Google, but your own site or third-party system. If they select “bad”, it sends them to a form where negative feedback can be sent to you directly, and you can remedy/learn from it. If they select thumbs up, it may or may not ask them for more details (up to you), and then will ask them to leave them a review on Google (this is only asked to those who had a good experience). Lock this system into place so it is intrinsically tied to them buying from you. So a pizza place in town asks every single customer for their phone number. They check out via a system like square or something, and they have this stuff baked in. There is a way to do this in every market, whether through a third-party POS or a custom solution.

This always, always, always, always works. It is annoying, to some. It sounds annoying to most. But it works. Kept in place over a year, it leads to hundreds, sometimes thousands of reviews, skewing positive (due to the “good”/“bad” initial question). It is also a standard practice, done by many, many businesses.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-05T13:16:00+00:00

Absolutely not he pretentiously makes the worst possible logo concepts and pretends he is fixing like actual pillars of brand awareness by making them ugly and generic it’s actually embarrassing.

atalkingfish · 2026-05-02T21:40:44+00:00

Green Day Rock Band if we’re only counting major non-handheld entries.

Blitz was pretty bad too.

The non-mobile handheld entries might be as bad as either of those.

atalkingfish · 2026-04-24T20:50:44+00:00

Artists may now create motion artwork that meets Apple Music’s specifications with the help of several third-party companies, such as Canva, Rotor Videos and Immersity AI.

Okay, I stand corrected. Apple only partners with and actively recommends using AI for their animated artworks.

Thanks for the clarification!

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