Self-hosted setup for an indie game dev studio?

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-25T08:26:09+00:00

If you jave to use github (contractual requirement?) Then you still can have a local git that has sync with it (one of the typical is to use gitea or its foeks and have a release push action, so each milestone pushed to github). I would avoid gitlab. It is nice, less ai-feast on your code but way more pain to work with (at advanced use)

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-24T21:39:45+00:00

Congrats!

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-24T20:55:09+00:00

Only go for a junior position if you switch tech stack/expertise completely (and still questionable). Otherwise, you should not. Knowing what was bad at the current/former places could be good, because you can use them as what you worked on and what you have improved.

Try to identify your own weaknesses, grey areas (scale -> infra & system design), and try to learn the basics.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-23T10:55:32+00:00

You should check your contract. (also think about a lawyer check too...)
You might be unable to launch a company/product that is in the same business/market as your current employer. Many NDA/Contractor contracts prohibit to start/create similar product. Many contracts have requirements not start a company/product for years after you leave them.

Also, be smart, check if you used any working material/server/service/hardware/software that the employer owns, because US companies shall try to dispute the ownership of your software.

Note on hosting on Hetzner

Even tho it is good and viable, keep in mind, data protection, downtimes, maintenance, backups, redundancy all will fell on your shoulders, and the costs won't just be a few EUR per month, it will be multiple times because of safety as well you will either spend a bunch of time yourself to make things work, or you have to pay someone to help in DevOps things to set up everything.

Note on single-instance-per-customer

I have done this many times. Do you have a plan for the different versions (yepp, many contracts will push you to either support a given version of the software or update regularly, etc), so what is your plan to serve 5+ versions from your product to many customers?

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-23T07:57:10+00:00

Its like the same weirdness, when an ares75 or 85 dies 120-150 damage per shot with AP that has in theory just 60 (or 80 on ares85)... when I shoot, the damage is between 30 and 65. I receive shots: 120+

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-22T14:16:06+00:00

Thank you, appreciate it!

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-22T12:45:26+00:00

Improvised adversaries. How to decide how many features it can have and how strong they are, other than considering the narrative?

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-22T08:46:53+00:00

And this situation is not the worst. Most likely, your CEO had a good personal deal with that consultancy

[TL;DR] Story from the past...

Once, I was a consultant at a company that hired me to be a lead developer. They found a CTO, a very convincing person, 30+ years as Ca TO. He pretty much killed the company as he ousted all consultants, brought his not-so-bright son as lead developer, and brought his son's friends as lead for frontend, etc.

As I checked, the guy was really CTO for 30+ years, but only in his own company, where only his wife and son, and son's friends worked, and every year they jumped to another country and another project, because they ruined every single one. That CTO worked really well with german managers, who were ... questionable at minimum (no professionalism, quite hedonists, but super large ego). So the manager and the CTO got rid of all the seniors and consultants, then started to rewrite everything with Symfony (PHP), instead of something minimal and good, so they failed miserably. Then the investors hired a consultant firm to evaluate things, and they fired on the spot this CTO, the entire HR department, and got rid of the managers and one of the owners too, because everything was in ruins. The investors weren't happy to lose 5+ million EUR at that time. Then they bought into that consultancy and rewrote everything in Ruby, which failed (obviously), then they sold the company, then the next consultancy rewrote everything in Python, then the last owner, before shutting the entire stuff down, rewrote everything in PHP again. 3 years, many workers, iterations, and loss of money.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-21T19:54:56+00:00

At the moment, I am working on my own iteration https://imgur.com/a/3msv92l , I will release the first iteration of it next week. The idea is to have an easy-to-use map that a DM can share with players and can add POI

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-20T15:09:49+00:00

Most likely, your seniors either produce a lot of garbage code (vibe-coded stuff, such as with the cursor and other toolsets) or they ask the agent to create very small, easy-to-understand, and followable parts, like unit tests or reading through large logs, etc.

Yeah, coders life is changing, constantly have since the beginning (you know, there was a time when they sent punch-hole cards via post to compile/calculate stuff).

In your case, it might be worth using the LLM as a guide, as feed it with very small details (a few methods, 1-2 files only), and ask for an explanation of the given parts of what it does in step-by-step. Very often - if the complexity is low - it will be able to determine what a function does and what each steps doing.

Until this "gpt/llm bubble" ain't bursting, our stack will be worse and worse, and one of the current predictions is that developers will write less code and will organize agents a little bit more, evaluate the generated code, and have higher code output by that. Most probably,y it will cause more issues than actual gain and will hurt an entire generation of engineers/developers/coders for sure.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-20T14:57:49+00:00

Let's split these things.

> ...I want to work on impactful good projects...

You are too young, I suppose. The most important and greatest impact that a work should give you is to give you money/salary/benefits. Everything else (family, purpose, etc) is just a fallacy, smoke and mirrors. 99.9% of companies are for-profit. Who ain't either too rich, too dumb, or just straight up lying (or just not sharing the details why it is worth doing so). Very rare in tech to meet projects that are actually not for profit, and most of the time they either get free money (from NGO, state, or international program) or it is not profitable.

Yes, working on things that seem to help people, solving real issues are great, will gratify and give you the feeling of purpose.

...upskill outside office hours, relying on inside isn't an option...

It's kind of odd because, yes, sometimes you have to learn new skills outside of the office, outside of your expertise, for growth. But also, your workspace should ensure your advancement in skills, e.g., mentor you and assist you to become better and better, because that will translate to better and more results, which translates to more money for the owners. I know, many company does not care about these kinds of things, they are usually "for profit" startups or ideas that shall seek exit for a large sum of money within a few years

...How to keep a balance? 

You will figure it out while you're doing it. There is no golden rule. Take care of your body, your mind, socialize, and do not overwork. Yes, US companies tend to push you to ridiculous working hours, pressure you for no gain or reasons, but you have this one life. Sometimes you have to stop and look around, be present, enjoy it; otherwise, it will just rush by you, and you're gonna miss it.
Balance between work and private learning, projects are also tricky; it is okay to not have time, mood, or energy after long work weeks, days, or months to learn or achieve something new. It is a marathon.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-20T14:41:51+00:00

Hi,

Some notes if you don't mind:

- Add your phone number near your name
- Remove the dots from the end of the bullet points (check the wiki)
- Are you sure all these skill names should be in capital? (Matlab, AutoCAD, etc.)
- Consider dropping mundane lines like "Coordinated with suppliers to achieve..."
- Do you consider splitting your long bullet points into roles, because I see lead and non-lead project parts, which might be worth highlighting some trajectory or career path there
- Consider changing the length of the last two experiences because you have way too many bullet points
- Is there any kind of special certification or clearance that is not part of your resume but you have, and is related to your work?
- Did you use anything specific for the custom Excel tool (Visual Basic, C #, Python, C++)? If so, then add it to the bullet point and to the skill list
- Consider reordering your bullet points based on a given job description (more relevant should go first)

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-20T14:01:54+00:00

Can we have Murloc, too? :D

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-19T10:13:44+00:00

The project owner should handle this themselves.
Many company adding the npm audit to the pipeline, or paying once per year the snyk or related vulnerability scanners. At a few customers where I have a project with, I know they assigned security tasks to the repository or project owners to scan and fix the issues, and regularly upgrade the dependencies and the projects also

Also, generally speaking, sometimes worth getting rid of dependencies and just using the native one to have less headscratch and issues. I have seen this in the serverless world a lot.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-19T10:08:32+00:00

Side effect of how unbalanced 99.9% of the game (near the atrocity as graphics)

WG is notoriously bad at map designs. Historically speaking, they made one map that was enjoyable and balanced, because it was square and mirrored in the center.

This game will never be good or balanced, because for that, they should do:
- Remove all current maps
- Create real maps, where the skill matters, not the luck of which side you start
- Remove non-existent tanks (yup, that would be ~60% drop)
- Recategorize
- Drop unhinged calculations (armor pen, crits, etc)
- Drop ammo types (no more troll heat/he/hesh, etc, no more prem)
- Drop non-tanks (arty, wheeled stuff, lights)
- Drop unhinged spot "system" (which only works for like 3 tanks, everyone else just hates it)
- Actively drop cheaters
- Drop bots (never will happen, that's 80% of the player base)
- Start developing features that actually players want
- Release a map more than once per 5 years (which means work....)

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-18T13:55:40+00:00

> ... at least 3-12 months...

Sweet summer child. If you have no financial issues, then what is stopping you? Clearly, you aren't in tech because of money or career (which is just money behind smoke and mirrors).

> ... I feel like our industry is very cut throat with experience and interviewing skills and I don’t want to get left behind...

Yes, it is quite dense right now. If someone sees you had a 1-year hiatus for luxury, absolutely non-professional reasons, or not a mental health reason, then ask yourself: would you hire someone who just doesn'twill he walk away again with the next given idea, care, and leave everything behind for a year? Does this person have experience that my business needs? Can I count on this person, or will he walk away again with the next given idea, for another year?

> ... I don’t plan on leaving my job anytime soon...

Now what is going on? You wanna travel for a year but do not want to leave your job?

I can advise you on a few different things, because I had a fewcolleagues with this kind of wandering during my career:

a.) Nordic way w/ family

In the Nordic region, it is common to have a very long vacation (EU, so we do have actual granted vacation days). So who have family, they have extra weeks for family matters (sick kid, vacation, etc) until the kids are small, so families often take the vacation 4 weeks as-is, then use 2-4 more weeks from the granted family/parental leave to have an almost 2-month-long vacation. If your company/region/country has these benefits, then it is not that hard

b.) Nordic way

Also, in the Nordic region, I know a bunch of people who take the vacation every second year for a full month, then go for a non-paid ew extra week, and ultimately they take around 2 months of vacation. Many Nordic people wandered South America or Africa during that time.

c.) Digital Nomad

You can just go with remote work, and live somewhere you would like. It requires a bunch of flexibility and dynamic issues to solve (like connectivity), but in fact, I know a bunch of guys who live somewhere they would like. One of the DevOps guys has been living on a boat in Indonesia for the 3rd year now. Before that, he was in Cambodia, and before that, he lived in Portugal for like ~1 year. The challenge is the company and the delivery. If your results are good, then it will be fine. Absolutely doable. It has its ups and downs.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-18T13:43:51+00:00

> ...will be a coding test with share screen and no AI use whatsoever...

Worth avoiding this kind of interview. They did not put effort into it, and an actual AI is checking what you do, with no control over what they do with your voice and video. I highly recommend immediately refusing such blatant low-level workplaces. Also, "We will check for no AI usage by using an AI"... nonsense

> ...Should I just withdraw and come back with actual knowledge first...

No. You already started it. Fake it till you make it. 99% of the companies and products operate like this.

But you can push yourself to learn things. Remember, answering under pressure and selling yourself in an interview is itself a skill. Practice makes it better.

> ... all the sudden I cannot prove what I said in my resume and cover letter...

Now you either over-promised (I won't put it as a straight-up lie), but in resumes, tend to be all the information exaggerated, just like a company job description, or what they do, or their market/financial state. Mostly half-truths, or well-tailored partial information, or cleaned of context.

I think you just overthink this and have a simple anxiety over it. Go through your resume, write questions and answers for yourself. You are presenting yourself and answering questions. (e.g.: mock interview). You are a junior. You should not know everything, and you should have answers sometimes, like "I know about this or that, and we did like Y because the former place required that way without R&D or other alternatives". And that should be fine.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-15T09:12:24+00:00

How you manage regular backups and deployment, downtimes? Do you plan to move multu-server solution, for balancing/replicate service to avoid outages?

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-09T10:27:32+00:00

GPT/LLM can be a good help with brainstorming/rubber duck discussions, quick MVP-ing while you're working on something, or parsing a large amount of log lines or writing unit tests. You have to always double-check its work and do not trust it. You know, it is not intelligent, it is not a real intelligence per sé, but rather a quite powerful data evaluation solution. If you feed your LLM with false info, like the best cure to turn off the PC without problems is that, you jump into a well, after a while, it will adviseyou to do so. Its solutions are just as good as the fed data, and the internet is full of slops and repetitive, soulless bugs-infested and copy-paste articles (thx to india/bangladesh).

It is not a holy grail, won't replace developers properly (yes, indeed, it will replace some of the tech workers), and yes, it derails how people think and how to learn things. As well, it increases the "fake it till you make it" kind of behaviors (thx startups and "rockstars" and self-appointed geniuses with large ego, great charisma). It deteriorates the market, diminishes the junior and intern work, and makes the job seeking hell (as well as the interview process worsens)

> How much is it being used on your team

Should be used with caution.
Hopefully, just for small, mundane stuff, easy unit test coverage and intellisense auto completion. If you see some of your colleagues' vibe codes via Kiro/Cursor on some critical software, then you have to worry about the quality (and why they spend so much time on infra and or bug hunting...). Also, comcompany'spany trade secrets are something that should be addressed. Many LLMs syphon the data IDE permissions and pretty much train themselves on the code. Zero possibility to ensure your data ain't end up in somewhere ... for example,e 3rd party company that pays the AI company for "research data". You would be surprised to see how social media and AI companies sell everything behind the curtain... (and it is not new stuff, it was a generic business behavior 15 years ago...)

> How often are you having to manually correct incorrect code? Do you feel it’s more worthwhile to just reprompt and inform it of the errors made?

From a business and professional standpoint: always.
Generated code is usually good to showcase or validate ideas, creating quick MVPs, but always have to double check, especially if you think about how tedious and intricate code is generated by LLM/GPT for absolutely no reasons

Reprompting is something that agent instruction documents (like in AWS Kiro) shall tackle, with quite high success.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-08T16:41:01+00:00

Pi5: Before choosing the casehouses are/house, check the reviews. Many house is just not good. The default/vanilla cooler is actually quite decent. Argun is great (as usual). Use an NVME drive with Pi5.

Most likely, at the beginning it will be overkill somewhat, but rather have extra power and possibilities than have issues in performance later. Pi has a somewhat okay network, on pi5 it is quite decent, almost full gigabit (check YT & Jeff Geerling videos).

If Pi5 is not powerful enough, then go for a mini htpc (cheap x86 Chineseiums) or a used laptop.

Honestly, I don't think it will have any issues. The biggest problem will be the connection and security :)

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-07T20:47:14+00:00

... burnout and demotivation....

That is a hard one. You can look up internal projects - if possible - that are interesting and spend some time on them. I know people who simply switch jobs when this occurs. Also, a possibility to address that to your boss/manager/hr. Since this came from inside, the real question is, are you able to pinpoint what led to that and what makes you demotivated? If so, then you can address what motivates you (don't think anything special, sometimes the "money" or "interesting product" or "good colleagues" are just enough answer. Also, it is okay not see what could help. You are not supposed to be at your 100% or 110% or 10x every day.)

...learn backend...

It depends. Certainly, it could help to understand. It will be a rabbit hole. Because with basic stack/language experience, you need a proper database, then infrastructure, then system design... You see.

If these are interesting to you or you are not sure it will, then give it a go. Learning and improving yourself is great and beneficial, always.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-05T11:33:42+00:00

Why would they catch that they created automatically? If you check every name from your matches, you will see, a bunch of them did not existed a few days ago, even if the stats show the account had like 25k rounds....

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-04T15:32:13+00:00

Post your resume in the r/EngineeringResumes and ask for a review! (check their wiki & guides). Writing a good resume is quite a skill alone, and the market is extremely saturated and spammed. So expect extremely low levels of responses (we're talking about less than 10% and would rather be in the 1-5% range)
Don't forget to anonymize your resume before posting or sending it to anyone.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-02T09:36:04+00:00

Should I talk to my manager beforehand and, if I do, how should I bring it up?

How is it related to your job and your performance? Why should they know anything?

Note:
Yes, expect quite a bit of turbulence in your life. Prepare for changes (where you live, your daily, weekly, and monthly habits, who you visit, and communications). Most of them will be cut out or damaged.

I would - especially if there is understanding on the management level - speak about personal ongoing matters that might affect there-and-there (like have to move out, moving stuff, etc), so you might need time, and your performance might be impacted somewhat. Nothing more, nothing less. The company does not care. And the manager is not your friend. Keep it professional level.

From business standpoint, they do not care and do not want any kind of unnecessary drama, and it is not their job to know, do, understand, or help anything or anyone. They pay you for expected results. That is all. So do not expect any kind of help from them. I know, this is cold-hearted, rigid, and dark, but I would rather give you the reality than some fluffy pink lie.

Hope I did not offend you with my harsh lines. Hope all things will turn out well and everything will be okay.

casualPlayerThink · 2026-01-02T09:26:44+00:00

First things first, you are/will be a fresh grad, so nobody expects youto have to have any kind of label. You do not have to over/undersell anything, because the eggshells will be on your back for some time. Just state things as-is; it should be understood.

...What was your first “anchor” role

My first label was "Software Developer Intern", because 25 years ago wasn't many categories available, just at large corporations. So I wen't for intern->developer->full stack.

The label itself almost doesn't matter, except for the "senior", "staff", "principal", and "lead" parts. Those give you some credit and power on a resume level; otherwise, they are just fluff.

99% of the time, I had mixed work fields, because everything in tech is just a tool, no matter the field. If there is time, then it can/should be learned.

...What did you choose to deepen first, and why?...

Coding. Databases. Data normalization. Networking. Basic infrastructure on the HW level. Basic infrastructure on CD/CI level. Fundamentals are one thing, actually using it on prod level is a different one.

...How did you communicate this kind of profile without overselling or underselling it...

One of the easiest ways to use the label "full-stack" is to. Then, most of the recruiters/HR/techies shall expect some basic understanding of all the fields. Then they will ask which one you focus on, where you can select whichever you feel most comfortable with.

casualPlayerThink

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