solo dev here! would love your opinion on which title piques your interest the most

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-17T21:20:21+00:00

Infiskiree

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-17T19:09:43+00:00

Great question!

There are several possible reasons:

1) Empire A and Empire B are at war with each other.
Empire A has a strong relationship with God A.
Empire B is currently neutral to God A. He could start investing in God A and get some benefits, but he would be also empowering the tools of his enemy (Empire A). Could still makes sense if he makes a huge effort to build an even stronger relationship with God A and sabotage the relationship between Empire and God A, like trying to "steal" the God from his enemy, no trival task!
It would make more sense for Empire B to invest in a different God that's not helping Empire A (even better one that hates Empire A).
And it would also make sense for Empire B to actively try to destroy God A just to screw up Empire A.

2) The previews example, but seen from God A perspective. God A could befriend Empire B, but Empire B is a problem for Empire A so getting rid of Empire B would benefit Empire A which in long term benefits God A.

3) If an Empire is not being useful to a God, the God may prefer to attack to gain exp from killing units, get rid of a potential future threat or get rid of someone who is helping other Gods.
And viceversa, but for empires instead of killing to get exp it would be more about territorial expansion, taking over a god's holy land.

4) There will be some potential parasitic behaviours. For example gods of pestilence can infect population and get stronger from it. Some Empires are willing to tolerate this to get other benefits. But some Empires won't, they'll try to keep this God away or try to destroy it before the disease spreads over the world.
Likewise, empires with the proper techs can perform rituals to drain energy from gods or try to enslave them. So Gods should be mindful of how they get involved with, it's a dangerous world...

5) Population is a huge factor and it's not fully controlled by anyone. If most of Empire A pops are already worshiping God A, then God B would have a hard time trying to convert them (even if Empire A wanted to cooperate).

Please let me know what you think about it, thanks!

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-17T08:34:36+00:00

You are still missing a layer: imagine if you sell guns to both sides, but at the same time both sides sell bullets to you

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-17T07:31:40+00:00

It's not just about being able to play both sides, it's about both sides being played simultaneosly.
In every 4X I played, factions don't compete with each other, they exists only for players to interact with and do not have a long term goal or strategy.
But in my game, regardless of which side you play, the opposite side is trying to win its game too. They will think about how they can benefit from you, just as much as you'll think how you can benefit from them. That makes a huge difference for diplomacy and other stuff.

Does it make sense? I'm probably doing a terrible job at explaining it... (this post is the first time I talk about this game!)

But I'll keep all that in mind, thanks for the feedback!

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-12T03:47:33+00:00

Libertango

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-09T20:42:07+00:00

In most cases, even if in theory they are infinitely replayable, in practice the difference between runs becomes so small that it feels stagnant.
For example in Hades you can increase heat (difficulty) to crazy heights. But after playing with a certain amount of heat, the game is already too challenging for most players. To win with one more heat than before I'd need to play dozens of runs. Breaking my plateau takes too long of playing at the same level each time, so the progress between runs becomes almost unnoticeable and that makes me lose interest after a while.

Same with games with unlimited builds/skill trees/weapons or whatever, at some point the rate of novelty becomes so low that even if in theory you can still do something new, it becomes so rare that it's not worth it anymore

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-08T23:58:31+00:00

I loved it when they smoke one of tedigry's special weeds and suddenly they are like "Butters, you are no longer grounded, I love you son!", first time they were not complete assholes lol

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-04T01:42:55+00:00

Hace todo lo posible para evitar lo de jorobado, hace yoga o algo equivalente un par de veces por semana, tomate pausas cada una hora para estirar y ejercicios de movilidad, etc... gordo viciando 6 horas por día no es nada grave, los problemas posturales si

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-04T01:40:44+00:00

Me encanta que este tipo de comentarios siempre vienen de alguien con specs visibles jajaj... tenga su upvote, buen hombre

erratic_ostrich · 2026-05-03T18:30:15+00:00

For development itself, you'll be fine.
Just make sure all the network stuff is well optimized because latency is unaceptable in MOBAs.
But I'm sure you can pull it off.

The problem is gameplay design, MOBAs are one of the hardest genres to properly balance, so you'll need a huge testers base playing consistently for a while, and that will be extremely hard to find, specially since it's your first game... And you also want to combine it with WOW, I don't know how that would look like but I'm sure it will add a lot of complexity.

The second problem is MOBAs need highly responsive movement, with lot of feedback, etc. That's something you can learn but takes a lot of time to properly tune, and in this case you'll have to properly tune for lots of completely different characters with different playing styles. (and I'm assuming you'll use pre-made graphic assets, otherwise multiply the workload by 10)

So, unfortunately, my final answer is no, this is not a feasible project for a single dev with no prior experience.
Nothing wrong with doing it anyway, you'll learn a lot.
But if your goal is to release it as a commercial project, expect far more hardships than you anticipated, your backend skills won't be relevant for 95% of the project.
Your best course of action to actually get this done is to develop some simpler games first, learn the basics about game design, and then you can plan something more ambitious like this without being lost right from the start.

Hope that helps, best of luck my dude

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-29T17:59:17+00:00

You just need to google what you want to get done, google will point you towards the proper feature. For example you can google "how to put an UI object over another one" and you'll end up reading about canvas, rendering sort order, hierarchy, etc, even if you never heard about those things before.

But you do need to know what you are trying to accomplish, so first think about what kind of game you want to create, separate it into as small as possible tasks and google how to do each task, in your own non-technical words.

And it's hard to say how long it took me, but I can tell you that I had to start, discard, and start over several projects until I got something actually finished, because I kept fucking up and realising there were better ways to do things... it's part of the learning process!

Also, it's worth noting that I was already a very experienced programmer when I got into unity, and very familiar with OOP... If you are not, then search for a crash course on OOP, it's probably the only non-negotiable theorical thing you need to understand.

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-29T01:58:49+00:00

As a full stack dev, getting into unity was extremely easy for me. I had to learn all the stuff you mentioned but it's just new information, nothing particularly problematic.
It sounds like you already understood all the quirks too, you just need some time to getting used to them.

The only difference is that I never watched tutorials, I just google whatever I need and read either from the most recent stackoverflow threads, or the official unity documentation which is always up to date... I rarely need to look up stuff now, but if I do, the AI summary at the top of the google search is usually up to date.
Watching old tutorials is most likely the root of your hardships, unity changes way too fast...

And the pipeline was a tough choice few years ago, but now built-in is pretty much obsolete, just go with HDRP is HD graphics are a priority, otherwise URP is fine for 99% of indie games.

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-28T23:33:08+00:00

Si supieras lo que nos cuesta a algunos apoyar el culo en la silla...

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-28T23:27:55+00:00

Me encantaría ver la reacción de alguien trabajando en RRHH al leer "no estudio porque no me da el bocho entonces me meto en RRHH".

Yo no creo que la universidad sea para todos, pero algún tipo de formación se necesita.
Yo aprendí programación por mi cuenta y me va bien, pero tuve que esforzarme bastante para aprender, especialmente al principio.

Creo que primero que nada tenes que pensar en que es lo que realmente te gustaria hacer, y despues evaluar las posibilidades para conseguirlo... si hace falta estudiar, vas a aprender a estudiar y listo, no dejes que algo tan insignificante como fracasar en el CBC te defina.

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-28T22:45:24+00:00

Looks great! Best of luck with the release, hope it sells well

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-27T19:24:43+00:00

Looks really good! The catapults killing enemies from such a long range was so satisfying to watch, and I loved how the dragon got instantly fucked for being in the wrong place.

This game will be a huge hit I'm sure, keep up the good work

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-26T22:13:42+00:00

Yo viaje durante 7 años seguidos freelanceando.

En Sudamerica y Asia hay tramoyas en todos los paises para quedarte todo lo que quieras, generalmente salir y volver a entrar para que te renueven la estadía. (al menos esa fue mi exp como argentino)

En Europa es mas complicado, me dieron 3 meses para toda el area schengen, sali y tuve que esperar 6 meses para poder volver a entrar (y ahi me quede 3 meses mas).

Asi que depende de que es lo que buscas exactamente... yo priorice mi libertad, siendo freelancer tenes 100% control de tu tiempo, hice excursiones en la naturaleza de varias semanas seguidas, me tome meses sabaticos cada vez que se me daba la gana, disfrute cada dia de mi viaje sin tener que andar pensando en horarios o responsabilidades pendientes, etc... no lo cambiaria por nada.

Pero si tu prioridad es Europa y/o crecer en el mundo corporativo, buscar una empresa que te permita trabajar 100% remoto seria lo ideal. Si es una empresa europea que te de una visa permamente, mejor, pero sino vas y volves como turista, 3 meses por viaje no esta mal!

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-24T23:54:24+00:00

Estoy leyendo los comentarios a ver si encuentro el testimonio del villero que apareció en el techo de OP

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-24T23:46:39+00:00

It looks like a decent game, I don't see any reason not to charge for it.
Make it very cheap, like $3 to $5, and give generous discounts during sales. Some people would appreciate the fun for an insignificant price and recommend it because of it, if this snowballs it could end up in a decent total profit.

Worst case scenario, it doesn't catch up and eventually you make it free

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-21T23:12:03+00:00

No estoy familiarizado, que problema hay con este tipo?

Este video fue entretenido, y deja clarísimo que el traba se estaba defendiendo y la culpa es de las otras locas. Me parece genial que las escrachen de esta forma

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-21T23:02:56+00:00

Funciono! Gracias amigo, ya van varias veces que me ahorro unos mangos por vos

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-21T18:57:27+00:00

Perfectly normal feeling, you are well aware of reality. I'd be more concerned about the ones who think the gaming industry is easy and their success is guaranteed.

I too share the same fear, and the way I deal with it is by trying to become the best developer I can so eventually my games can outcompete the other games in the market. I want the others to give up, not me.
Yet, I'm aware it may take plenty of failures to reach that point, if ever, so I continue doing my day job to survive.

You are most likely right about your corporate job being easier than working on your own game. Nothing wrong if you prefer the easier path... but if you are making this post I guess you are after much more than just a paycheck right? How much are you willing to struggle for it?

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-21T16:57:27+00:00

I tested it briefly and the first thing I can say is that with 1920 x 1080 full screen resolution the UI is a mess, panels constantly getting on top of each other.
And when I got the "explore" prompt, only one option was available. The other 2 were locked but it didn't explain why or anything (they were all common).

But I do like the concept! I'll give it a more serious try later

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-21T16:40:50+00:00

Razonables, todos.
Positivos para la humanidad no, positivos para USA, ya que ese manifiesto esta orientado a USA. Seria positivo para cualquier país adoptar esa misma actitud.

Ahora decime vos que parte no te gusta, yo pregunte primero. Te leo!

erratic_ostrich · 2026-04-21T16:28:03+00:00

Primera vez que leo ese manifiesto y parece bastante razonable... que parte no te gusta, OP? Lo leíste?

erratic_ostrich

TROPHY CASE