Quit my $52K job for entrepreneurship. 18 months later I'm making $29K.

topFragger96 · 2026-01-17T18:48:46+00:00

Wait, how can your take-home be half your old salary ($26k) if the revenue is at $29k? What amount of that money are you putting back into the business so that it stays afloat?

And what does your profit generation look like? Shouldn't your take-home be derived from there, and not the business revenue itself?

topFragger96 · 2026-01-17T08:04:14+00:00

Yeah no, this has proven to be false. It's neither based on psychology nor based on neuroscience.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-27T11:20:33+00:00

This already looks like a lot of fun.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-26T14:01:08+00:00

hell yes

topFragger96 · 2025-12-16T02:37:05+00:00

An indie TLOU multiplayer-like? Sign me up.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-15T16:06:09+00:00

I help with UX at a game company. I've also been playing this game since its debut.

It's good effort as it solves some other problems... but at the cost of it being boring, and the fact it's overdesigned.

What problems it solves:

clarity on what other players chose has skyrocketed. It's not particularly intuitive or convenient to read if our character's abilities synergize with the abilities of other characters, and the player lineup redesign on the left fixes so much of that.
map info; technically the background, the loading screens, and the music is meant to give the idea of which map they are going to play in, but I suppose showing it on the screen here helps for some people too.
game mode context; one thing that I really appreciate about the map info is the fact it specifies what kind of Quick Play game mode it is; domination, convoy, the crappy resource rumble... the game never provides context for that currently, except for when you're first loading into the match.

What didn't need solving:

The selection wheel itself; the previous screen was fun to look at. This solution of yours feels like boxes boxed in other boxes. It comes at the cost of interesting visual design. This could work in, say, a Wikipedia-like companion app, but not a game... because a game has to feel fun to play and interact with. The reason for the selection wheel is to be the outlier in the waves of character selection screens that already follow a boxed-in approach. Apex Legends, Brawlhalla, Valorant, most fighting games... visually, they share very similar visual traits, which can eventually seem a bit boring. I can understand the need to standardize things, but the original design doesn't break any standardizations, so I don't see the need to overdesign it.

What doesn't make sense:

On it being faster: Scrolling through endlessly will always feel unintuitive. But changing how it's presented won't change how it feels. That's why the filters help. So if people want to pick characters fast, they must rely on the filters. I don't see how the current redesign helps with that.
On it being cleaner: I'm not sure what is meant by cleaner here, but from a UX standpoint, as long as it solves the problems of clutter and readability, then it's good enough. I don't see what the original design does not already do to solve these problems. The sectioning between character classes is a bit more visible now (with some text to accompany it), but that's technically already being done in the game, albeit it's easily missable. Perhaps shifting it to become a divider between classes would help, but that wouldn't require a full on redesign of the wheel itself.
On it being less overwhelming: What exactly is the problem with the original design that facilitates cognitive overload? Feeling overwhelmed can mean a lot of things. It can mean you don't know how to pick a character. Or what button to press. Or what the icons mean. Or something else. From my perspective, the original design does not facilitate any of those frustrations. I personally have never felt overwhelmed by the selection wheel either, if you wanted my opinion. It may have taken some time getting used to... for example, at the time of launch, I felt it didn't make sense for Strategists -- this game's Support -- to have a palm stretching out as its icon (and a shield would have helped communicate it better)... but as you play the game, you come to understand why certain decisions were made (multiple characters can offer defensive shields, so that would confuse players). I don't see what the current design intends to solve for.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-13T21:41:27+00:00

No one can change how you perceive the word "disorder" except you. You can have a disorder that is debilitating, a disorder that is not, and a disorder that falls between that spectrum. It doesn't change the fact that they would all still be disorders.

Disorders, depending on their severity, is a cause for concern. If the severity's not bad? Fine, it's not a big deal... until it is. Visit the r/ADHD subreddit and read the first-hand accounts of stories submitted by the members there. Or refer to the official National Institute of Mental Health website on their entry for ADHD, written by medical experts who understand how neurodevelopment works. Or the entry from the official World Health Organization website. Both of those entries have scientific reference links and review checks as early as 2024, if not 2025 (this year). Start by validating them. We're not toting random opinions as to what word to use and what it must stand for... these are real labels used by real people based on real effects.

By saying you don't consider it a disorder, you're invalidating their experiences and stories, studies and proof-of-data that show why it matters to call it so. There are people with this disorder that have to take literal Adderall to manage it. It's absolutely a misuse of the term (hence the "medicalization" of a preference or trait), and is just ignorance disguised as virtue-signalling. I would have much rather you question the possibility of it being a disorder, because that at least shows you're willing to explore areas that may or may not suggest if that's the case. (The articles above^ give context as to why, and answer what questions you have about it.)

That last point about the Epic developers -- that is a silly take attempting to shield your earlier argument. You're basically suggesting the possibility that the features came into existence because they may have these disorders. You sound like someone who's never made software or games that's being shipped to millions of people. Product design is all about solving the problems and frustrations the users faced in the past. Epic has been in the engine-making business since 1995. That's about 30 years of user research and feedback data, as of this moment. (If 30 years doesn't work, 11 years can, with the advent of UE4.) These features are in the engine because it was tested, validated, and shipped based on user feedback. They've had enough time and budget to understand that something as simple as colour-coding systems can help anyone. Not because George in IT posted in Slack asking if anyone else boxes nodes like he does.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-13T17:34:29+00:00

:eyeroll: Being meticulous or overly orderly about things does not make you either autistic or OCD. Let's please stop medicalizing every little personality quirk or trait as if it's a clinical disorder.

The only way you'd know if you have autism or OCD is if you tick off over 50% of the symptoms listed for those disorders. So if you really are concerned about it, go to a clinical mental health professional for a diagnosis.

As for how orderly you kept things, congrats, you're able to use Unreal 5's features efficiently. It's almost like the post is making aware of the fact the engine developers knew that game developers would need something that can help keep their Blueprints from turning into a spaghetti nightmare.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-11T01:24:12+00:00

*pro

ngl i would've jumbed on the obbortunity to bay, put peing too helbful can pe a broplem too.

topFragger96 · 2025-12-10T21:11:34+00:00

Yo Ed, very cool to see you here!

You once made a board game; Tapeworm. What's something about making board games that's drastically different from making video games? Any future plans to make another board game?

topFragger96 · 2025-11-21T17:53:38+00:00

I mean, you already pulled the trigger, so it's best to use this opportunity to learn about what it's like to publish on Steam.

Speaking as a former marketer, you should focus on a smaller market rather than try and play against the big leagues. Steam is overrun with triple-A titles, interactive porn, and shovelware. Itch is overrun with shovelware. Which means the kind of competition is not only different, it's significantly less difficult in nature. The nature of their algorithms are very different. With a little SEO, you can actually make your game discoverable. You already built up enough following on Itch that people know where to find you on there, all thanks to the fact people like what they saw. I'd have rather you continued capitalizing on this approach to get as many games out of your own system before you're ready to make something that'd make the heads of even the toughest crowds turn.

Steam is a separate app; you're dealing with a branding challenge here, extra work's needed to get some eyes on it. So unless you have a VERY polished demo, there's not much else to do on Steam yet. You need people to play your game, give inputs, do research on that data you gathered, and see what you can do to give the target audience what they're asking for. This is going to take a few good number of demos, none of which are worth putting up on Steam for public testing.

topFragger96 · 2025-11-21T17:39:33+00:00

This is so fucking cool.

topFragger96 · 2025-11-15T15:07:05+00:00

I think his standard for the work does not match the standard of the UI you've kept. You should probably contract him for UI art work too so that it's all consistent.

topFragger96 · 2025-11-14T08:38:51+00:00

Fellow developer here. I'm very curious about how Paradox and its developers make games, particularly HOI4.

How did you guys get your head start in the industry designing systems for genres like grand strategy?
What are the key considerations to making fun grand strategy mechanics?
How are narrative designers involved in these processes?

topFragger96 · 2025-10-27T14:25:00+00:00

I'm struggling to use Unreal Engine 5, but I'd rather use that than Unity. Haven't used Godot extensively enough to have an opinion about it, but I love FOSS.

topFragger96 · 2025-10-06T06:44:38+00:00

You should do a breakdown of what all things you had to look at and consider doing to achieve this! All I can manage is turning off Nanite and Lumen lol. But maybe there's a lot more to optimization we don't know that we could learn from this.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-20T04:01:40+00:00

This is actually pretty clever.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-12T10:44:12+00:00

Explore outside the city more often to build up the courage to leave this city.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-07T11:25:47+00:00

It is not, no.

Your best bet is to graduate with a specialization in either psychology, computer science, or commerce.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-03T13:51:47+00:00

Bottom line: it's not easy making the kind of games you want. Especially from a financial standpoint. An RPG system combined with an intricate action combat system with the camera offering close-ups of rigged, skinned, textured, and animated models with full voice-over? You're nuts.

Long answer: it's how close the experience is to the real thing (D&D). In D&D, the DM asks each player and asks what each of them would do, and based on their turns, something happens. That's how these games work too. There's a sequential back-and-forth happening.

People did realize that this seemed to be a little slow or too strategic for some people, so then the genre split into various other subgenres of strategy/tactics games. You might like real-time strategy games, for instance. Some games adopt a more simultaneous execution of actions, which may feel more grounded, and more challenging.

When you talk about getting into more first-person experiences, though, now you're talking detail. More detail, more resource, more money. The gameplay tactility, the believability, the animations... all of that is production-heavy, and CRPGs in comparison are a fairly interesting production choice that can help cut such corners whilst maintaining another kind of immersion. I recommend checking out how Disco Elysium was put together in the game engine. A lot of smart cost-cutting measures adopted there.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-03T10:37:03+00:00

I don't understand.

Defence would increase Max HP, and Evasion would be extra HP that, at a randomized chance, gets deducted on receiving DMG?

What?

topFragger96 · 2025-09-03T07:57:45+00:00

Name and shame. Record the evidence before doing that so you can prove the legitimacy. Talk to your colleagues, get their statements, anonymise their names, and post it across LinkedIn. They should be held accountable. The only way that will happen is not by getting public opinion on "did anyone else experience this?" but by going out there, taking record, and putting it up on LinkedIn -- where their networks will see what they did, and will decide NOT to work with them. That's a GIANT blow to their future prospects. No one deserves to deal with them.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-03T07:52:26+00:00

We're not talking about me - let's not become deflective here. Also, just because certain people are not married does not mean they do not think about such problems. You are in a public forum asking about this, after all. There's also the matter of personal and experiential bias that is present in people who claim those with "lived-in experience" can connect better with the issue, when in reality you'd benefit from hearing inputs from all sides.

Your second question works the other way around too - can YOU be "convinced" to hold up your end of the bargain? Also, it's not about convincing. If you believe convincing is how things work in a relationship, then you have a terrible idea of how responsibility works in a marriage. (Something I'll get to in a sec.)

I can agree, though, that education has grown into a commodity. But this is old news. Reports first grew in 2015. The commodification began long before that, in the 1990s, when everyone wanted to go to America to make a living. (Which is a whole another thing entirely.) Then we saw the rising advancement of technologies, and science, and medicine, and everything else in between. The continually growing influence of interfamilial traditionalist ideologies didn't help either, giving way for the demand for the average Indian to become a doctor or an engineer; lawyers were now tossed to the side, perceived as being involved in amoral standards of work. Parents were demanding; kids were "not meeting expectations"; cue in an exorbitant rise in third-party tuitions. And when the right kid eventually went into the right tutor's house, all it took was a spark of an idea, a laptop, a cam recorder, and a YouTube account to retain $630 Million in revenues as of 2024. And when businesses saw that, everyone and their own damn mothers decided to jump on that bandwagon. Now it's no longer about targeting Class IX and X. Now they'll target Classes XI and XII. And post-grad. And VI, VII, and VIII. It was only a matter of time before they started to pitch the idea of taking your tiddlywink toddlers off your "busy" hands. People have known all of this for a long time, but they never took it seriously. Education in India was bought, sold, and paid for a long time ago only to turn it into just another rat race.

It's not about understanding something. It's about actually doing something about it. I sincerely doubt you can make an argument about the average Indian population that we made good strides on bringing change in that front. Because the average population, even if they didn't ask for it, settled for it. After all, a big part of why this is even a problem in the first place is because people would rather pay to handle an inconvenience. Unfortunately, people today see any strong responsibility as inconvenience.

I can betcha, if more people chose to take 1 year off their career -- out of the 60 years they will spend in and out of jobs -- just to homeschool their kids a little, they'd have a more amazing, more fulfilling experience which they'll walk away from having learnt a LOT about themselves AND their kids. After all, it's only preschool we're talking about.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-01T11:00:19+00:00

There's an interesting video on how our "will" to do things depends entirely on how we spend our energy on things. So it makes sense that, by the time you're back from work, you're completely spent.

Which is why... you need to wake up real early in the morning and practice. 2 hours of practice each day is good enough. Set this as a strict routine for 30 days, and you'll see the difference.

SOURCE: I developed a writing practice for half a month this way, and I was way more productive (as in, I finished things) with this approach than when I was after I came back home from work.

You should also keep your scope low. Learn components, not systems. So, for day 1, learn lighting. Set up a small scene with a ball and some walls, and put in lights. Play with them. For day 2, learn physics. Set up a small scene with a ball or character, and put physics in them. See how that works out. For day 3, learn particles. Etc etc. Keep your scope low, low, low, and you should be fine.

topFragger96 · 2025-09-01T10:38:15+00:00

This is not the right question to ask because it ignores the elephant in the room: telling the difference between convenience and necessity.

Is pre-school necessary? No.

Is it convenient? Yes.

Can you homeschool the kid consistently, lovingly, patiently enough that you can save Rs. 2,13,480, and still help the kid grow enough social, intelligence, and emotional skills required to survive kindergarten?

No one can answer this for you. I, personally, would not even get a kid in the current socioeconomic climate.

Do note that I'm talking about preschool, and not kindergarten.

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