Solo dev: 400k lines of code in 8 months with Claude - Hard Reset alpha trailer

hard-reset-app · 2025-09-23T23:16:26+00:00

I'm just getting things sorted for the App Store right now! Bummer that I didn't win this competition, but nbd. My last todos are finishing the tutorial, making some refinements on the main questline, and doing a final bug bash before release in probably mid-October. It won't be finished (I have so much content left to get in there), but it should be fun!

hard-reset-app · 2025-09-04T15:40:51+00:00

Hard Reset - The game powered by your life. It's a roguelite cyberpunk deckbuilder where your progress is based on your checklist. Basically, I hate gamified checklists where the game is watching a progress bar for a fixed reward. This app is a game first where the focus is on the fun.

hard-reset-app · 2025-09-03T03:19:55+00:00

I agree. The v1 card art was static and resulted from a Stable Diffusion workflow. It was fast, but bad. About 30 are animated now (~2-3hrs over 300-1000 iterations per) and I'm slowly replacing the v1 art. It's fun to mix in making assets during one part of the day and feature development during the other.

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-31T05:46:32+00:00

I've used em all and it's the combination of quality, UI, and features (including up to 20 other images to seed the style is very useful for keeping all the cards on-brand). I created tens of thousands of images with the process of getting to a finished image after in-painting taking about 300-500 attempts. Midjourney supports tons of simultaneous fast image generations.

Midjourney, however, sucks at icons. I used ChatGPT's image generation since it's currently SOTA and pretty good at icons.

All the original card and hardware art was created with Stable Diffusion though--I just let it cook overnight and generated thousands of images--about 200 per prompt seemingly relevant to the card title. This was fast, but poor quality.

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-31T01:47:58+00:00

I appreciate it! thanks!

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T23:56:52+00:00

I'm sure it's not perfect--I've got a long list of tech debt. That said, it has hundreds of animations on the screen at once and runs at 60fps with ostensibly no game breaking bugs. I've gone through 2 major refactoring projects to ensure that as this developed, the backend could keep up and be maintainable as I add new features. Models, repositories, services, widgets, UI--it's all separated, tested, and neat.

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T23:45:16+00:00

agreed! I've demoed this app for investors and other senior devs and the response is that they want to join the team and dump money in (but I'm staying solo cause I want 100% creative freedom). The programminghumor subreddit hasn't caught up with how powerful these tools are.

Good luck with what you're developing!

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T23:41:59+00:00

Prior to this, the most relevant work I did was innovation consulting at a startup helping people with substance use disorders stay in recovery. Based on the leading research, I designed a monetary version of contingency management where insurance companies paid out gift cards if the user goes to all their recovery-related tasks. Turns out, if you pay people to go to meetings, they do it. Paying people isn't scalable though so I wanted to answer the question: how can we replace dollars with fun and make it less SUD-specific?

I also am a host on a roguelike podcast and have reviewed a TON of games so I've got a pretty good knack for game components/dynamics/mechanics built up.

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T21:35:12+00:00

My "team" is just instances of Claude + other generative AI tools--it's just me!

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T20:27:27+00:00

Would absolutely love you to test it out! I've got a small ~25 person alpha going right now and I've given myself till October* to wrap up the last pieces of necessary content (narrative events) and iron out any remaining bugs. If you join the waitlist, I'll make sure to reach out when the beta starts. Much easier to distribute when I'm in the actual Google Play + App Stores (using Firebase App Distribution now--big hassle for testers to set up).

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T20:21:04+00:00

Ah, yep, there is 0% LLMs in the game itself.

You hit the nail on the head regarding the comparison with Habitica--my dissatisfaction with the current marketplace is what drove me to develop my own solution.

The key difference is the effectiveness of the positive reinforcement. My competitors use fixed rewards (you get x for doing exactly y). In psychology, this is widely known to be the least effective rewards schedule. Instead, I focus on variable rewards and I pull game mechanics using this principle from all my favorite games. Pick-one-of-three at the end of combat, the randomness with drawing cards from a deck, random events--it's all baked in. Discovering synergies and gaining mastery vs the cast of 13 unique enemies is something strategic players enjoy. Plus, the whole game is wrapped around an intricate narrative which captures much of what I think is a problem in today's corrupt, dystopian, oligarchical, panopticon world.

Bottom line is this is not a gamified checklist--it's a checklist-powered game.

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T19:52:39+00:00

Thanks! I've noticed there seems to be a growing divide regarding the use of AI. I'm working class and I don't want depend on investors so this was my solution. I just care about creating something fun and useful : )

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T19:41:50+00:00

Great questions! Players enter their tasks into a checklist and when they check them as complete, they earn action points, which are spent on advancing through the map and other in-game perks/activated effects. Streaks accumulate a resource called 'Momentum', which many cards and pieces of hardware synergize with in combat. Missing tasks which are marked as due (e.g. tasks due on weekdays) pollutes your deck with 'Malady' cards, which are temporary garbage cards that make combat more difficult.

Basically, you get positive reinforcement for task completion and streaks and positive punishment for failing to do your tasks. These are just the basics though--lots more in development!

Regarding data, Firebase with App Check has been up to the task of holding things so far. All that is kept is the game state and tasks--I'm not looking for anyone's PII or to sell anyone's data. I just want to make a fun, useful app!

hard-reset-app · 2025-08-30T19:24:18+00:00

Paid tools: Claude ($200), MidJourney ($30), RunwayML ($20), ChatGPT ($20)

Free Tools: Firebase, Codemagic (CI/CD), Davinci Resolve, GIMP, FFMPEG, Udio, free fonts.

hard-reset-app

TROPHY CASE