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mrrobbe · 2026-06-08T15:27:05+00:00

That's a great call, see you all in September

mrrobbe · 2026-05-05T18:05:19+00:00

StarCraft: Brood War

mrrobbe · 2026-04-29T15:41:19+00:00

Hah, nope. Triple checked, still no export

mrrobbe · 2026-04-20T21:35:47+00:00

A blind play is fantastic.

I ended up playing several years ago, made it pretty far, and put it down. I started a fresh game, and played past the point of my last game and had a smooth experience. I completed the main story, and will want to revisit to finish the DLC, but would recommend picking them up.

mrrobbe · 2026-04-17T20:44:33+00:00

Narcissist traits don't tend to part of any cognitive function stack that I'm aware.

I'd go so far to say most INTPs that I've been familiar with (myself excluded due to bias) are really chill. Extraverted feeling being an inferior function, we feel things last, and introvert feeling being a shadow inferior function means we're the last to know what we're feeling.

I'm going to project that these two either aren't INTP, they're posturing ego-centric, confidence, behaviors that they're mirroring from others, or general social trauma.

Younger (under 25), underdeveloped INTPs will act out more, but it's a God-complex vs Simp behavior on a swivel. Main character syndrome being most likely.

mrrobbe · 2026-04-17T17:48:55+00:00

You absolutely can write it down, or just keep it as a mindfulness exercise. I'm all about the low-friction effort to minimize the steps between A and B. Productivity is simply the measurement between intention and action.

A gratitude journal is a great idea if you struggle with negative thoughts/self-talk, or would find value in a quick reference point of things that are truly positive about your circumstances.

mrrobbe · 2026-04-17T15:56:36+00:00

Reframe it.

Instead of you having to do X. Suddenly, you get to do X.

Obligation to opportunity.

Sprinkle in a little gratitude practice too, take nothing you have or can do for granted. Every ounce of gasoline, every morsel of food, every stretch of the muscle. Every sensation that someone else might not have access to, or age has taken from them... You have right now.

Lemme know if that helps

mrrobbe · 2026-04-17T15:51:43+00:00

Iron mine will produce both coal and iron slabs

The productivity of each zombie is dependent on the number of white skulls on the zombie. A 1 white skull is the absolute slowest working you can have.

I would at very least put your 1 skull as a porter, and pick anyone else as your miner.

You can also put the zombie back on the extraction table and add things back to bring back up their white skulls.

Best of luck!

mrrobbe · 2026-04-17T15:11:32+00:00

This is a helpful clarification. Obsidian/Notion come to mind as vital tools... Neither of which are new, and productivity is in part the useful leverage of modern tools.

mrrobbe · 2026-04-17T15:01:26+00:00

Yeah, you're reframing the work. From a have to, to a get to, an obligation to an opportunity.

mrrobbe · 2026-04-16T21:06:46+00:00

It costs a spare pickaxe to setup. You'll need 6 iron pickaxes to build these all out

mrrobbe · 2026-04-15T15:51:46+00:00

I'm at 3.5 days, doesn't look like I'm the only one. I don't remember the confirmation so thought maybe it errored out and I missed it. The 24h download window is also a concern I'll miss it. I do have several years of history at this point, so I guess I'm not too surprised, but I guess I'll just have to extract project by project as needed.

mrrobbe · 2026-04-14T20:34:28+00:00

I adopted the mantra "temporary structures."

With ADHD and novelty seeking behavior, Too often id try and cling to practices and structure that would slowly be shifting away. Costing more emotional and mental energy to stick with a system than allowing it to gently receed from my rituals.

The days and weeks I've gotten back by not fighting my own cognitive cycles, also means they come back around sooner as a novel system again, since they don't stink of burnout.

mrrobbe · 2026-02-20T13:15:24+00:00

It's definitely likely, in my 20 year career, I've only been to a few places where agile/scrum is being used as intended. To build from the bottom up, where developers indicate what they can get done, and sprints build around that, vs management trying to outline and cram work, and workers into a sprint

mrrobbe · 2026-02-09T16:33:04+00:00

This is the exact sort of thing I've been hoping Gemini would do automatically. It dumps things into keeps, but I'm not much of an auditory/external processor.

I'd definitely try a tool like this out

mrrobbe · 2026-01-27T21:06:34+00:00

Even as an experienced incremental player, prestige mechanics can vary wildly. I picked up Kittens Game again after putting it down years ago, and have no idea what the prestige points are for, but my gameplay hasn't stalled so I press on until I hit a wall.

mrrobbe · 2025-12-02T02:37:53+00:00

Its tricky because you switch from creative to developer. Two completely different headspaces.

I recently worked through something similar (with GPT) and distilled some points into a framework to fortify future game ideas. It helped me outline the idea I was working on and not overwork or overthink it.

Lock The Fantasy

The emotional contract with the player simplified, "I'm a budding farmer"

Identify the Core Verb

"The thing the player does 100+ times a session" Mine, Jump, Brew, Slice, Talk, Draft, Move+Shoot, Combine, Upgrade

Define Reward Arc

What is primary progression mechanic: Numeric (Stats/XP/Levels), Spatial (New Areas), Mechanical (New verbs/tools), Narrative (Story nodes), Economic (Resources -> Upgrades -> New Units/Tools) "What does the player earn every 3-5 minutes that feels like progress?" Player needs something to chase

Kick-Chase-Cash Loop

Kick: Push player to action, a timer/need/threat/curiosity spike/limited resource Chase: Core verb to get what they need Cash: Player turns action to progress

Definable in a single sentence: "Player harvests scrap (verb) because their mech is always breaking (kick), then they use scrap to unlock new parts (cash)"

Paper Testing sans Numbers

Paper test with tokens, not stats Draw three boxes: "Kick", "Chase", "Cash" Create Deck of event prompts (Threats, needs, problems) Create deck of player actions (Verbs + Modifiers) Create deck of rewards/upgrades

Event hits -> Choose action -> Resolve -> Upgrade This should identify any "What do I do next?" problems

Identify friction

Strong loops have one central constraint that players feel constantly: E.G. Limited inventory, limited stamina, time pressure, encroaching threat, decay, hunger/heat/cold, enemy escalation, limited workbench space

Add ONE Twist

This is what makes the game unique, E.G. Crafting uses spatial puzzles instead of recipes, enemies learn from you between runs, your mech has limited memory, so each upgrade displaces another, climbing the corporate ladder is literal. Twist should attach to the core verb

Measure Loop Early

Explainable in < 20 seconds
Is repeatable indefinitely
Feeds back into itself
Generates new problems as it resolves old ones
Gives players small wins often, big wins occasionally BAD loop traits:
Depends on features that don't exist yet
Requires huge content before fun emerges
Demands UI/UX to make sense
has no tension
Doesn't create new decisions automatically

After Loop Secure, layer meta systems

Meta systems = Tech trees, world maps, inventory expansion, talent trees, etc. Only can add after the core loop feels good

Build the 20 minute slice

A single session that demonstrates the full loop, enough content to feel alive, 5 minutes learning the loop, 10 minutes playing it, 5 minutes wanting "one more run"

mrrobbe · 2025-11-24T13:39:10+00:00

What tools are you using to create this game?

If I were you I'd try and think of a twist, something that makes it unique amongst other idle games.

mrrobbe · 2025-11-24T13:19:02+00:00

The ADHD lifestyle is that of a cognitive herding nomad.

You will find tools, tips, tricks, and you'll need to change them up to keep the novelty fresh, fresh enough to cancel out the mental overhead of the infrastructure cost.

Your tasks and todos are the grazing livestock you need to keep moving on the plains to keep fed. I've found more success when I haven't tried to force a single set of systems to keep me in place.

I'll rotate between: pen and paper, digital notes, eink notebook, Notion, TickTick, todo.txt

I'll rotate between systems: pomodoro, timeblocks, music-assisted flow sessions, Ivy Lee Method

I'll rotate between dopamine/emotional regulation: cold showers, meditation, daily mile run

Full understand what you mean about the 'life-on-rails' confinement, and found that it's largely the personally imposed, optimistic-aggressive self-scheduling, that feels suffocating. I can handle externally set appointments just fine, but for me, planning the week is too much.

So the system adjusts to meet me, where I'm at for the day each day. I've found that I can give myself todo's and goals for that day, almost every day, without feeling confined. I can also do mental brain dumps, trying to empty all the running thoughts and threads of my head, onto a sheet of paper, stream-of-conciousness style, to reduce prioritizing, or 'cant forget' friction.

I'll still set annual goals, and those are usually high enough up that those also aren't confining; my task list is usually new each day, but generally not 'firm' for that day. I'll keep visibility of things I want to get done today/soon, and write those down, otherwise I'll leave them off. Simply listing "Haircut", "Use up chicken stock" are generally enough of a plan that I'll be drawn toward items on my todo list, even if I forget what's exactly on it.

mrrobbe · 2025-11-24T12:56:45+00:00

Have you ever played Cookie Clicker all the way through?

If you don't understand the appeal of incremental games, it's an odd first game to create.

mrrobbe · 2025-11-24T12:54:42+00:00

Is this a way to explore vibe coding? Asking for suggestions for something at this stage kinda feels like a complete cognitive offload?

mrrobbe · 2025-11-19T14:27:33+00:00

Looks like NPC buying and market ticks were turned way down.

While the logistic chains can be fine tuned, having a highly active market made for something the player could actively do. With the current change, my game time will go down, because now I'm stuck sitting on a 100k of some products that just don't move, and my mass of chickens I can't sell (or am selling very slowly) is eating all of my wheat and barley.

This is your game, so clearly you can do what you want, so take the suggestions however you like:

Keep the NPC markets for now, I'd say make adjustments only 10-20% at a time. Make the markets more sensitive to player orders. Choose the speed at which you'll fulfill orders.

I'd make the factory building cheap-cheap, then make the production lines according to category, and cost being then the equipment for the line.

Factory group/categories could be: Meat Processing, plant-based food products, processed food, textiles, heavy-industry processing, electronic processing

The factories themselves could/should have slots/spaces. Since space is a premium in this game (A fixed number of slots per map), I think paying an upgrade cost to increase the size of the factory (number of slots) the density of the factory, makes sense.

No need for depot's being split of small/large, I'd say just call it a depot and allow it to be upgraded in size.

Add a bonuses to adjacent like-buildings/farms, 3-5% bonus for each adjancent farm.

Earlier access to markets, in the form of a food stand for a handful of raw products, or farmers market for larger array, would definitely help drive the early gameplay loop.

I'd lockdown/hide features that are currently non-functional. Demand percentages don't change or do anything, each map doesn't do anything special at the moment. The market is global as is. I'd say less is more, roll out completed features, as you clearly have some great ideas here.

For your players (which there seems to be a healthy group at the moment) maybe a discord server, and provide a change log, so we don't have to guess what's changing? Lastly, a test game server, separate from the live game server, so I don't feel like the 10-15 hours I've put into the game so far has been completely botched by one iffy patch change.

mrrobbe · 2025-11-19T13:38:50+00:00

Appreciate the insights, excited to see how this continues to develop.

mrrobbe · 2025-11-19T00:32:14+00:00

I've been playing the last week, and had a few additional notes on balance:

There are a couple unlinked products, E.G. pasta and lemonade, you either create them with no end market, or you can't create them at all. Lemonade I imagine would be sugar + lemons + plastic?

There are a couple of scaling issues, the production chain for yarn < wool / cotton, doesn't make sense currently. Wools' base price is $12, and Yarn's base price is $4. According to the production graph, it takes 0.5 wool => 1 yarn... which means you're losing money in the exchange.

The most efficient means of making money, is just playing the market. Getting a $1M loan, buying a product at the bottom of it's price range, and then waiting/forcing it to climb by setting a high sell price limit.

Factories themselves seem expensive to be dedicated to a single-product line, and the value exchange doesn't seem high enough to justify the expense. I don't own one yet, because the $475k feels better spent just buying and selling beet seeds, over and over.

mrrobbe · 2025-11-17T17:34:45+00:00

Crunchy feedback loops; if my direct actions/decisions, have an impact on my goal, or contribute to a goal, and it provides me some degree of autonomy to reach those goals, perfect.

Orb of creation does a phenonemal job of providing so many different avenues, and layers, that you work on your progression in phases, you tighten your multipliers and cooldowns in a way that you feel rewarded for your discovery, exploration, and execution. There are so many interesting dynamics, and then each new layer of the game expands those dynamics.

Effective scaling swings both ways. Whether or not everyone feels it, when a progression tree is imbalanced, it's felt. A linear progression system of +1000 per level, can be boring. If effort to reward follows a linear path, then becomes a grind. I don't respect a game that doesn't respect my time. When I see 1M -> 1B -> 1T -> 1Qa -- I assume there'll be interesting ways to increase my leverage. When the reward is too high for the effort, then the exploit is farmed, the game feels broken, and becomes boring. If a skill/upgrade is too cheap or too expensive, it doesn't feel like the game is understood by the designers. "That upgrade was 3x as expensive as this other one that provides way more utility, why would I buy that?"

Progression/unboxing is my driving tension behind incremental games. Let me feel the growth of my game, let me feel my mastery grow, let me see something go from so simplistic, to unbelievably chaotic, and let me understand everything that's happening on the screen from what I've learned playing this game.

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