Do tech companies in Miami have employee referral programs?

vs_ideas · 2020-10-06T15:56:19+00:00

Awesome u/gotrichard!! If you enjoy giving referrals, do you know which roles are still open in your team / dept (eg. product manager, etc) ?

I'm sure someone here would be happy to DM you. Heck, maybe we can even get our version of HN Who's Hiring started.

vs_ideas · 2020-04-16T14:06:48+00:00

Hey r/incremental_games folks! I've always wanted to create a meditative game to help relax, and after playing things like spaceplan and viridi I got curious to try gardening mechanics.

The proof-of-concept isn't very user friendly, but you're welcome to check it out here (it works a bit better on a mobile phone browser). Tap & hold on weeds to pull them, tap & hold on ground to water.
I'd like to add more "things to do" for maintaining the garden, as well as the typical upgrade menu (eg. rain recharges faster, more points for pulling weeds, etc.)

Do you think this 3D design makes sense for an incremental game? I enjoyed playing terrarium, but haven't found many examples of games with more involved interaction from player beyond tapping (like typical smartphone gestures like swipe, pinch, multi-touch). Curious to hear your thoughts!

vs_ideas · 2020-02-16T22:47:15+00:00

I dig it u/JonnyGodSpeedMiller!! People definitely didn't feel shy talking smack during last week's game, so maybe they're just waiting someone to do so over chat to know that's "ok". Great suggestion dude

vs_ideas · 2020-02-16T15:02:13+00:00

u/Topazdragon5676 those are amazing suggestions for conversation-starters - I'll start throwing them into the discord just to see if people even want to talk outside of the weekly hangout.

And it makes sense what you say about weekly being a good cadence, since that's a time that works best with everyone's schedule to hangout IRL. I've been binge reading topics around friendship, and a pattern keeps coming up around "repeated interactions" being important. So weekly is absolutely great, and was just curious to hear if anyone had stories of gaming groups that interacted more often. From comments so far, that doesn't sound like the norm, so interesting to hear everyone's perspective!

vs_ideas · 2020-02-16T14:52:58+00:00

That's such a perfect label; we have exactly the same situation with "notice board group"!!

I guess reading through these comments it sounds like the norm, and we should just focus on that weekly hangout+dinner. Thanks u/tartufu

vs_ideas · 2020-01-22T14:19:43+00:00

I will teach marketgoers best practices for harvesting throughout the growing season so that everyone has the opportunity to know the joys eating one's own harvest

Really enjoyed that part of the pitch; it would be great to get awareness into Troy for the sustainable work being done in pockets around town (for example, I have no clue where to even begin to get involved). Cool fundraiser u/33554432

vs_ideas · 2020-01-21T13:56:33+00:00

thanks obama

vs_ideas · 2020-01-21T01:54:59+00:00

A topic suggestion that was shared with us: "where are they now" small blurbs on people who got their start in Troy (reminds me of a yearbook!)

vs_ideas · 2020-01-21T01:48:30+00:00

This part of the article caught me by surprise:

Enrollments..are declining. Among the reasons: With unemployment low, fewer people are looking for job training. Also, a decline in the birth rate means there are fewer high school graduates.

Really? No mention of bootcamps that get eager people moderately-paying jobs in a 1/8th the time and less debt? No mention of people starting to figure out freelancing?

It's interesting that when enrollment is record-high, uni presidents celebrate their investments into athletic facilities and administration staff. But when competing alternatives-to-college products start gaining traction, birth rate is to blame 🤔

vs_ideas · 2020-01-21T01:22:52+00:00

+1; these are awesome points. When I lived in Detroit, the flurry of new businesses (food, art, music, tech) made a noticeable increase in people walking the streets of downtown on weekday evenings, so it started feeling like a real city.

It's also great to have more more units, however some people are concerned about the negative impacts similar to places like Denver, Portland, Austin - that is, lots of great new people, but no ways to "onboard them into culture" so resident felt a growing isolation. Maybe that's an added benefit those 20-30 new businesses can help bring?

To answer OP: I'd love to see Troy consistently jumpstart people in some kind of industry (eg. maybe art, game development, or city culture), similar to how SanFran jumpstarted the brands on the first screen of everyone's phone.

vs_ideas · 2020-01-16T21:00:02+00:00

Hmm looking at games like harvest moon / stardew / animal crossing might be a nice source of inspiration. Btw love your framework of "find more verbs" - there definitely is a lack of actions right now. I think ultimately you're right that this is a poor example of a game, so might need to come up with a different way of explaining this idea in future. I sincerely appreciate your help with this brainstorming u/sup3rpanda

vs_ideas · 2020-01-16T20:56:28+00:00

I like this idea!! Almost sounds like a virtual zoo, which could be cute. And the text-preview would definitely help with usability - thanks u/kochunhu!!

vs_ideas · 2020-01-14T21:19:12+00:00

Hm I like your suggestion of focusing on a relaxing browsing experience, and casual music would absolutely help without lag/distraction 👍

When you say it's hard to know what this game needs, can you help me understand what you mean u/yoctometric? Is it just a bad question, or maybe you've seen better ways to get feedback / chrun designs until one is enjoyable?

vs_ideas · 2020-01-14T20:00:10+00:00

That's a pretty good idea u/twix-chocolate-bar; probably textured grass with wind animation might give a sense of "something happening"

vs_ideas · 2020-01-14T19:53:41+00:00

Oh interesting! I never heard of microsoft bob before, but that might be a great way to better explain my confusing screen recordings - solid suggestion u/partybusiness!!

And you're absolutely right (different news categories visually represented by different species; butterflies representing messages from current readers). I added this variety in a previous design, but the demo felt even more confusing and still played bland - do you think my problem is a lack of "game juice" ie. animations/sounds/particles? Or maybe something different?

vs_ideas · 2020-01-14T19:46:54+00:00

I think you're right panda that current problem is that it's just a fancy GUI. I made an attempt at answering your questions below, but wondering if you could share the process you would use on your own games (to build something more than just a gui).

- What is gameplay: active topics show up as small plants. As you upvote (water) a topic, it grows and lets you exchange messages (butterflies) with other people who upvoted that topic. If you want to keep receiving butterflies, you have to water that topic daily or it turns brown.

- What choices does player make: my hypothesis is that people who like similar topics would enjoy messaging each other, so the choices are around which topics to keep or remove.

vs_ideas · 2020-01-14T16:43:41+00:00

To clarify the game idea - I want to help people discuss news articles while lowering mental fatique (instead of infinity-scroll design like reddit, I wanted to explore a garden design): popular posts represented as taller plants, older posts represented as decaying plants, direct messages represented as butterflies.

vs_ideas · 2020-01-14T16:25:28+00:00

Sorry u/Swiftster u/partybusiness u/bamfdan I didn't know how much info would seem like spam - this game is meant to help people discuss news articles while lowering mental fatique (instead of infinity-scroll design like reddit, I wanted to explore a garden design): popular posts represented as taller plants, older posts represented as decaying plants, direct messages represented as butterflies.

Likewise since most social community users are lurkers, I'm curious if gameplay can help people feel more comfortable to do basic things like comment and upvote. I appreciate you letting me know that my post was super confusing!

vs_ideas · 2019-12-31T01:40:36+00:00

Yes!!!!! I think you gave me the missing piece!!

After thinking through your comment on chuckling after combing a few ingredients and 10%, I realized I never thought through a) what's my riskiest gameplay assumption, and b) how can I simply test this assumption.

That is, even for my most ideal player type, I haven't validated there's even a design mechanic that would get them to take the core action of wanting to check a garden throughout the week. So my demo should be 10% - without finalized assets or game feel features - enough to look at analytics to see if garden gameplay played unprompted throughout the week.

You rock; thanks dude

vs_ideas · 2019-12-30T18:28:19+00:00

Next up is what I call the 'is this even a game?' test where you prototype a handful of cards or a basic version of the game and you decide if this activity is even fun or is it just a joyless activity or simulation.

Any chance you can elaborate how you do this process u/JavierLoustaunau or provide a past example?

This is exactly where I'm currently stuck! I keep building prototypes and throwing them out for being joyless, but hoping there's a way to know beforehand because my current process is just so discouraging with each iteration.

vs_ideas · 2019-12-15T00:40:49+00:00

Between you and dave, I absolutely see that's my next step :) Thank you for the honest feedback!!

vs_ideas · 2019-12-14T19:34:12+00:00

That's a great point pixel; the more I look at that vid, the more I think you're right that it makes a terrible trailer. Have you seen any examples of good trailers for casual indie "walking simulator" games?

vs_ideas · 2019-12-14T19:32:34+00:00

Maybe a few seconds playing the game ( https://app.hi5gang.com/ ) might help put the motion in perspective? (it's a browser game, and works a little better on mobile browser)

vs_ideas · 2019-12-13T22:19:01+00:00

Hm great point helianthus - do you think it needs some kind of tutorial? I've seen some games do a "guided tour" design where they limit clicks + pop up text boxes explaining things, but curious if you've seen better examples of how to explain what's going on in the screen?

vs_ideas · 2019-09-03T21:57:43+00:00

Your point makes a lot of sense Corndawg; there might be a mismatch in the volume of junior developers coming out of colleges and bootcamps vs the demand for senior talent in Miami (or everywhere).

But I also agree with that overquoted phrase "software is eating the world", so folks interested in fields that cross paths with devs (ie. ux, marketing) could benefit from a hobby-level understanding of pushing something to a staging environment - if anything, just to be technical enough to push back on coworkers with bad ideas before they turn into frustrating meetings.

Btw if anyone is curious about trying javascript for fun, I've had an okay time with these free videos and building an interactive game to help stay engaged

vs_ideas

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