Something that generally works for most people, but you were an exception.

Something you were expecting to help, but it didn’t.

Something that promised a lot but failed to deliver.

Something that fell through.

Something you couldn’t get used to.

Could be an item, a piece of advice, a plan, a path, a relationship, etc.

Whatever it was, it didn’t work and that was significant.

What was it? Why do you think it didn’t work? How do you feel about it?

Greetings everyone. I'm currently in the process of getting a Computer Science degree for two primary reasons. 1.) Because I want to get a stable development job where I'm currently employed, but most importantly to me 2) Because I want to make video games and have the educational credentials to confidently do so.

I know I know, you don't need a computer science degree to create video games, and my program doesn't even teach game development. So I have a long journey ahead learning game dev alongside my program in my own time. Also I have no intentions of working at an actual game company.

So my question today is,

What is a game that you are dying to play, that nobody has made yet?

I'm trying to get some inspiration. It's hard to think about something that truly doesn't exist, because there's so many amazing games already. I'm genuinely curious.

If you're struggling like I am, feel free to list a game that's been made exactly once but no ones been able to reproduce it's genius.

I'll start,

I am DYING to play a factory builder game, but with ARPG gameplay. So Factorio / Dyson Sphere Program meets Diablo 4 & Path Of Exile. I just think this would create such a dopamine addicting game that would be impossible to pull away from if done right. My idea would be to have the factory be the loot crafting mechanic for progressively better armos, while the ARPG is what you use to get the materials needed to craft truly insane gear. Idk, if done right I think this could have legs.

In a moment of distraction, I fell for a phishing phone call and compromised my Google account. It took me 13 minutes to realize how catastrophically stupid I am and begin frantically changing passwords. I've run the official Google "secure your account" process probably 10 times (though 9 of those times there was nothing to do). I've checked all my financial info, changed passwords on all sorts of things. As far as I can tell, other than gaining access to my Gmail, I don't think anything else was compromised.

How boned am I? I've got 2FA on basically anything remotely important, and I've had decent password hygiene (although I do use the Google password manager, so that's probably comprimised). Is there something else I should do or be on the lookout for?

Title says most of it. Something has clicked for me in the past new months and I've unlocked a level of enjoyment cycling I never had before. I've always ridden by bike since I was young, but only recently have I started doing it for health and fitness, and pure enjoyment. I'm addicted to seeing just how far (and how high) I'm able to go! What really did it for me was my first ride with decent elevation. I've always driven past cyclists chugging their way up in the hills and never understood how they did it, and never thought I'd be able to. Well, all it took was trying it one day to realize that while difficult, it was totally attainable, and since then I've been hooked. This has prompted me to also start following pro cycling, which I've done on and off before, but this year I'm very much looking forward to the Tour de France.

Anyone else into this as a hobby (either doing or watching)? Anyone training for big upcoming rides, and if so what? I mostly just want to chat about what people's weekly rides look like!

Submit your response here!

• Direct link: https://survey.tildes.community/-/how-optimistic-are-you-about-the-future-9/
• This survey closes on June 21, 2026 at 10:00 UTC
• The results will be published on June 21 shortly after the survey has closed. I'll edit this topic and post a comment about it!

The current plans for questions that will be asked in the coming weeks are as follows:

Keeping it very simple this time around with some Likert scales! (TIL the name of these)

The person that originally submitted this question also mentioned doing this periodically (like every six months) so I figured for this first one I'd ask both how you feel about the future now and how you have felt in the past six months.

Please submit your ideas for questions here! Even if they've been submitted already by someone else. All input is valuable! You can view all submitted questions on this dashboard.

Thank you all for participating!

Now that we know everyone's favorites, I'd love to hear about games that are further down the list -- the ones that don't necessarily rise to the high heights of definitive favoritedom.

So, share your eleventh favorite game this time. You know, the one that doesn't quite make it into your top 10.

Feel free to share your top 10 if you like as well, but lead with your 11th, as those are the ones I'm interested in seeing highlighted.

My daughter (11) is doing a week long Python class, which is not using LLMs.

It got me thinking about how I learned to program in the pre-internet days (laboriously, from books), and then what a marvel it was when you could just search for information, especially for troubleshooting. But for her, the first answer in the Google search is going to be the AI summary, and most of her search tools are going to be AI tools.

I wonder if it would be possible to make an LLM that has a didactic/socratic mode. So if you said, "help me write a program to do madlibs" maybe it would give you a skeleton of a function, then prompt you to come to with a plan, then critique that plan. Or if you said, "I'm getting this error", it wouldn't just fix it, it would explain what the error means and nudge you towards the answer.

Thinking in a larger sense, it could have a rubric of important concepts, even tiers of understanding. It could be using the interactions to track the user's understanding, which could let it then tune how it answers future questions, or even be used to customize assignments.

I recognize that this is potentially replacing a teacher with a machine, which wouldn't be my goal. Good teachers are more holistic in their teaching than a machine is ever likely to be. But for people who don't have access to good teachers, or need more directed support than is available from a teacher, or just want to self study, it seems like it could be a valuable addition.

Until they solve the obsequiousness problem, it would be vulnerable to prompt hacking, so really more of a tool for someone who recognizes the value of learning over just being given the answer.

What do folks think about using such a tool? What would you want it to do, or not do?

Aside: I forgot until I reached the end of this post, but this is also (somewhat) the plot of The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrates Primer by Neal Stephenson.