IndieGamesCafe's recent activity
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
IndieGamesCafe Link ParentI mean by all means take your time man. Whenever, I can wait for months if needed, just DM me a note when you do so I can follow and engage. Like my head is full of this stuff after work cuz its...I mean by all means take your time man. Whenever, I can wait for months if needed, just DM me a note when you do so I can follow and engage. Like my head is full of this stuff after work cuz its my core passion project atm.
I'll add 1 last thing is that for great discussion, you definitely need people who want to type out great discussions and that's just not the current average Discord crowd. That said, there are quite a few UX things that can be done so that reading multiple posts and filtering can be more efficient and designed for a fast read experience. Replies should try to take up less space so one can read well multiple replies at the same time that means less pointless boilerplate, lines, or formatting. Anyway I will stop now cuz I can also go on and on.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
IndieGamesCafe Link ParentI wrote a long post on some of the UX decisions I'm making on my platform here on a reply to another person if you are interested. If you have time, I'd be very interested in what are some of the...I wrote a long post on some of the UX decisions I'm making on my platform here on a reply to another person if you are interested.
If you have time, I'd be very interested in what are some of the stuff "discourse" forum style does wrong or not optimal with respect to designing for long and high quality discussions.
Small note re adoption: obviously its gonna be extremely hard but I think a lot of people share this sentiment that they miss old forums so I have some hopes that in the long term if I find the right people I'll get exactly the forum users and not the twitter or tiktok users which I think works well.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
IndieGamesCafe (edited )Link ParentHappy to dive into it! Yea Discourse is really good, def heaps better than phpBB. Its main design is essentially threads -> replies. Threads are categorized. It has a client for both web and...Happy to dive into it! Yea Discourse is really good, def heaps better than phpBB. Its main design is essentially threads -> replies. Threads are categorized. It has a client for both web and mobile. What I'm building is closer to a Reddit so communities -> threads -> replies.
For me I'm building a desktop (web) only client so I can get away (or be more bold) about intention design choices that benefits a wider screen:
- Browse multiple community feeds, meaning threads of those communities on 1 page
- Browse 1 community feed and open multiple threads
Just my opinion here but I think certain tech also can drastically improve UX.
- Live comments/replies: this changes the dynamic a bit and can engage discussion. Of course the downside is that it can encourage too much discussion. Another cool thing is you can get live notifications and you just scroll down instead of refreshing the page for replies.
- Friends. I think most forum software aren't designed so that you can try and make friends. But to me, that's like the most important part of a forum. You meet people that you share common values, share some laughs and maybe make a real life friend across the world. So that's a system I want to integrate anywhere I see it. For example, if a comment comes in and its a friend, there is a nice "Friend" badge to the right of the user name.
- Signal e2e encryption is not trivial to do well in chat. Again its not really a typical UX item but for privacy oriented folks who wants to chat, this is a deal breaker. I don't think any forums have this, well any of the popular ones. For one this means that if you make a new friend and send them your email, me the server host cannot see your email. But not only that, every message is Double Ratchet encrypted. (Yes this was a massive massive scope creep by me lol)
Small things that matter. There are like so many of these that most forums new or old will never do cuz they are a business product, not someone's UX playground. These little things add up quick for UX delight.
- For example if you post 5 links each separated by a newliine, it'd be cool if the server auto resolves them into shorter links with favcons.
- If a thread has 7 URLs it'd be cool if without clicking into it, the user can see what sites its linking to.
I don't want to advertise or share any links cuz I'm not sure if its against the rules so if you are really interested send me a DM and I can show you the project.
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Comment on Four awful new privacy-eroding features from Meta in a month in ~tech
IndieGamesCafe Link ParentFor me and you, yes its not as attractive as giving up ALL your data lol but for most peope who don't know idk, seems like they have not flipped. Now, I do think sometimes the pendulum swings way...For me and you, yes its not as attractive as giving up ALL your data lol but for most peope who don't know idk, seems like they have not flipped.
Now, I do think sometimes the pendulum swings way too much the other way. A niche set of peopel are really into decentralized services believing that their data is not sold if a few individuals are hosting it. A centralized service doesn't have to sell one's data. I believe Tildes is a good example of that.
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Comment on Consequences of advertising and enshittification on the Internet in ~tech
IndieGamesCafe Link ParentI like this take and honestly I think unfortunately ads-based entertainment is vastly preferred over other choices. It's an inconvenient truth. I do think its quite possible to create alternative...I like this take and honestly I think unfortunately ads-based entertainment is vastly preferred over other choices. It's an inconvenient truth. I do think its quite possible to create alternative platforms like Tildes where the business model is completely different but that requires a lot of effort and people to keep an open mind to try them.
TL DR: these platforms have power because people love them so much that they don't mind ads. If one doesn't like it then gotta try to help people try alternatives and understand trade offs.
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Comment on Four awful new privacy-eroding features from Meta in a month in ~tech
IndieGamesCafe LinkMeh I think for any platform that makes money via ads, its pretty much impossible to assume they'll care about your privacy. On the other hand, convenience is a legit tradeoff. That's why most...Meh I think for any platform that makes money via ads, its pretty much impossible to assume they'll care about your privacy. On the other hand, convenience is a legit tradeoff. That's why most people are not on decentralized platforms. It doens't have to always be a binary choice. I use both type of platforms, talk to diff people, get interesting perspectives.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
IndieGamesCafe Link ParentI really like this take. I think it's definitely a combination of both. Re building: There's something really invigorating about building something to go up against billion dollar companies. I'm...I really like this take. I think it's definitely a combination of both.
Re building: There's something really invigorating about building something to go up against billion dollar companies. I'm learning a lot as I go to. The project's tech philosophy is to be as cutting edge as possible. (read: basically what I can come up with). Live comments, Signal protocol e2ee chat etc etc. I also have a slightly obsessive personality when it comes to UX and find it disheartening that with the advent of vibecoding, UX in general in web apps is degrading, not getting better so this project kinda feels that void for me as well.
Re socializing, I guess my take here is that I get more enjoyment if I'm creating software that helps to create communities rather than heavily participating in one. Could just be the engineer in me. I definitely don't see this as a way to find online friends, there's definitely better ways to do that as you pointed out.
Lastly, you're 100% right that its gonna take a long time before it catches on. I think anyone making a social platform must accept that, or else you'll be in depression pretty quickly lol. -
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
IndieGamesCafe LinkI really miss the old forums and the interesting discussions I had in them, that's actually what lead me here. I'm trying to build a 2026 version of that with the latest web tech. A simple way to...I really miss the old forums and the interesting discussions I had in them, that's actually what lead me here. I'm trying to build a 2026 version of that with the latest web tech. A simple way to think about it is I guess tildes philosophy + Discord UX but Reddit-ish format? Kinda a crazy project. The goal is to have small communities focused on gaming and tech. Desktop only so I can focus on creating the best desktop UX.
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Comment on Zig creator calls spade a spade, Anthropic blows smoke in ~comp
IndieGamesCafe LinkI think there's kinda two concepts that people really mix up. 1) Code quality 2) Selling out to "big tech". Andrew could be totally right on 1) but he was very aggressive on 2). But what does...I think there's kinda two concepts that people really mix up. 1) Code quality 2) Selling out to "big tech". Andrew could be totally right on 1) but he was very aggressive on 2). But what does "selling out" really mean? Its a lot of things. Most engineers or founders building their own app the goal is to make money, not some grand moral principles as much as we want that to be the case. So yea Jared probably (I say this because I would have to really look at all the code to judge) wrote some non performant code and used AI more than Andrew's standards (or the Zig community's standards) but at the end of the day its a pretty big moral question. Is any engineer working for Meta or Reddit "selling out" to big tech? There's not a yes or no answer. I wish these discussions were more nuanced instead of being so single dimensioned.
I checked out the examples and honestly love it as a web dev. I love to play indie games but don't got the skills to make one, maybe I should try with your engine or 3JS or at least start learning (got a few paid 3JS courses setting unactivated in email lmao).
Its kinda tricky cuz web games are not popular but like tech is tech and if the tech can be used to build a great game, aint nothing wrong with a browser game. You're probably doing this already but I would dig a bit deeper into which communities of web devs would be into making games using your engine and see what needs they have. I wish I knew cuz most web devs I see on X are just vibe coding SaaS stuff most of which at least in my opinion are 2-week fun projects instead of a real substantial project that can be a real product.