jhombus's recent activity
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Comment on Prototyping with LLMs in ~tech
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Comment on What's your favorite RSS reader? in ~comp
jhombus Link ParentI have the exact same setup with NewsBlur + Reeder Classic. It's the absolute best. I especially love the controls NewsBlur provides for filtering out content you're not interested in — you can...I have the exact same setup with NewsBlur + Reeder Classic. It's the absolute best. I especially love the controls NewsBlur provides for filtering out content you're not interested in — you can select any word or phrase to mute, and it will no longer show stories with it in their titles. Perfect for gaming blogs that have lots of SEO/guide content along with relevant/interesting editorial content.
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Comment on Introducing Surfboard for Tildes in ~tildes
jhombus Link Parent@earlsweatshirt – no rush, but Surfboard is my favorite way to use Tildes and it would be great to have it back if you've got a sec to refresh it. Thanks for putting it out there in the first...@earlsweatshirt – no rush, but Surfboard is my favorite way to use Tildes and it would be great to have it back if you've got a sec to refresh it. Thanks for putting it out there in the first place, sorry it's continued to be a bit of a burden to keep it working!
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Comment on Does anyone have a digg invite code I can get ? in ~tech
jhombus LinkAlso interested if anyone’s able to share an invite!Also interested if anyone’s able to share an invite!
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Comment on A spoiler free but brief critcism of Blue Prince reviews/recommendation to play in ~games
jhombus (edited )LinkI’m a big fan of this game — the structure is completely unique, and the way you simultaneously pull on multiple puzzle/story threads with each run after reaching 46 has been (mostly) very...I’m a big fan of this game — the structure is completely unique, and the way you simultaneously pull on multiple puzzle/story threads with each run after reaching 46 has been (mostly) very satisfying and interesting.
While it would take away from some of the personal satisfaction from solving things yourself, I strongly believe this game would benefit from something like Outer Wilds’ ship log, or Golden Idol’s “confirm what you know” modules to contextualize all the information you gather.
I took dozens of photos and took lots of notes, but I felt that would have been a less enjoyable experience than something like one of the systems I mentioned.
It makes this tough to recommend to all but a certain type of puzzle sicko like myself — but I appreciate that it’s 100% big swings, and will probably lead to some very interesting iterations on its ideas from other devs in the future.
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Comment on Polygon sold to Valnet and hit with layoffs in ~games
jhombus LinkAwful news. Holding out hope that a group of former staff start an independent co-op publication like Defector, Aftermath, etc. sooner or later — I’d gladly subscribe day 1.Awful news. Holding out hope that a group of former staff start an independent co-op publication like Defector, Aftermath, etc. sooner or later — I’d gladly subscribe day 1.
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Comment on Kagi Translate in ~tech
jhombus (edited )Link ParentI mean, I'm not here to shill for the CEO, but the blog post clearly gained some traction so I could see why he would reach out. I do think responding after the author specifically said "I am not...I mean, I'm not here to shill for the CEO, but the blog post clearly gained some traction so I could see why he would reach out. I do think responding after the author specifically said "I am not interested in getting more replies from you on this subject. Declining a call does not mean I want you to argue with me about Kagi in email either" is iffy at best and disrespectful at worst, but I don't think the tone or contents of what the CEO was saying specifically were disrespectful, and I found what he was saying to be a pretty credible response to what was said in the post.
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Comment on Kagi Translate in ~tech
jhombus Link ParentI was taken in by what the author was saying here and close to cancelling my subscription — but I read his email exchange with the CEO and it didn’t come across nearly as confrontational or...I was taken in by what the author was saying here and close to cancelling my subscription — but I read his email exchange with the CEO and it didn’t come across nearly as confrontational or deluded as the author made it out to be. I thought the point by point rebuttal was straightforward and persuasive and matched up with the stances on these things I’ve seen the company take publicly in the past.
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Comment on What game do you consider an unconventional masterpiece? in ~games
jhombus LinkI’m going to continue singing the praises of Mosa Lina — it’s a small but infinitely replayable physics-based puzzle game with a super unique design philosophy. You’re given a select set of tools...I’m going to continue singing the praises of Mosa Lina — it’s a small but infinitely replayable physics-based puzzle game with a super unique design philosophy. You’re given a select set of tools from a broader pool for each “run” and need to problem solve your way through a set of levels that aren’t designed with any particular tool in mind.
99% of the time, the set of levels is solvable with the tools you have — but it takes practice and in-the-moment ingenuity on the player’s part to discover workable solutions.
I’ve never played anything quite like it, and could quite easily imagine it spawning a genre in and of itself.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
jhombus Link ParentAs someone who absolutely loves modern puzzle games that I understand owe a lot to Myst/Riven (The Witness, Outer Wilds, etc), but found Myst to be painful to play due to puzzles feeling overly...As someone who absolutely loves modern puzzle games that I understand owe a lot to Myst/Riven (The Witness, Outer Wilds, etc), but found Myst to be painful to play due to puzzles feeling overly obscure or arcane — would I enjoy Riven? I've been on the fence about it and I'm curious if it holds up any better.
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Comment on What AI tools are you actually using? in ~tech
jhombus Link ParentChatGPT actually has a pretty excellent voice assistant built in now! I made consistent use of it while I was building a challenging coding project in a language and environment that I was deeply...ChatGPT actually has a pretty excellent voice assistant built in now! I made consistent use of it while I was building a challenging coding project in a language and environment that I was deeply unfamiliar with.
I’d have a window open to get code suggestions, and my phone propped up in front of me so I could rant at it with a stream of consciousness whenever I was confused or needed to clarify something. It did a great job of both figuring out how to address my general confusion and reinforcing that it’s all part of the learning process. It worked as kind of a combined tutor/therapist — helped me a ton.
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Comment on Eclipse plans in ~talk
jhombus LinkSome friends and I drove out of NYC and stayed overnight at a place near Buffalo, and were disappointed the clouds today were so prominent. We ended up scouring every weather radar, satellite...Some friends and I drove out of NYC and stayed overnight at a place near Buffalo, and were disappointed the clouds today were so prominent.
We ended up scouring every weather radar, satellite feed, and projection to figure out if we could get a clear view of the sky anywhere remotely close to us.
Ended up booking it out to Erie, PA — then driving a bit further into Ohio where we saw blue skies, then booking it back toward Erie in an attempt to outpace an oncoming blanket of newly formed clouds.
Got a slight lead on the clouds and pulled off with a couple other cars in a big parking lot behind a pet groomer just a few minutes from totality — it turned out both cars had done the exact same doubling back / escape from the clouds that we had done, and one of them set up an AMAZING telescope within seconds of arriving.
We all ended up having an unbelievable view, got to see the umbra up close with the telescope, and had a great time with a pack of strangers that had all come a long way for the same thing — such a great experience.
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Comment on Do you have any game sub-genres that you have a name for, but aren't big enough to be "official" sub-genres? in ~games
jhombus Link ParentI’ve heard “Metroidbrainia” which is both funny and accurate. Upgrades happen in your own understanding to unlock new paths, usually requiring you to hop back and forth to areas already explored...I’ve heard “Metroidbrainia” which is both funny and accurate. Upgrades happen in your own understanding to unlock new paths, usually requiring you to hop back and forth to areas already explored with new information that changes the options available to you.
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Comment on Game recommendations, specifically (round 2) in ~games
jhombus Link Parent+1 for Tinykin, such a delightful game I was surprised to love as much as I did. I'd say it's lighter on the RTS/time management piece than Pikmin, but it uses similar ideas in service of a super...+1 for Tinykin, such a delightful game I was surprised to love as much as I did. I'd say it's lighter on the RTS/time management piece than Pikmin, but it uses similar ideas in service of a super tight platformer collectathon design that I thought worked really well.
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Comment on What irrational video game requirements do you have? in ~games
jhombus LinkI was just thinking about how much it bums me out when an RPG doesn’t change your character’s appearance with the armor you have equipped. It’s the combination of a visual hook to confirm that...I was just thinking about how much it bums me out when an RPG doesn’t change your character’s appearance with the armor you have equipped.
It’s the combination of a visual hook to confirm that your character’s stats are different than they were, and the additional vector of decision making and customization that really does it for me.
I toootally get that it’s a sizable resource lift to produce that many assets, but the feeling of progression from seeing your character change can be just the push I need to stick with a game that I might not otherwise be totally motivated to see through (i.e. most RPGs, unfortunately)
I’ve fallen off some GREAT games (Final Fantasy, Persona, Like a Dragon, etc) and I wonder if I might have been more likely to continue with just this one tweak.
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Comment on What's a "house rule" that has made a game more fun for you? in ~games
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Comment on What's a "house rule" that has made a game more fun for you? in ~games
jhombus (edited )LinkStrategic paper eating. The ultimate house rule in my book. There's a party game we call Celebrity (also known as Fishbowl, packaged up as Monikers for those who don't want to make their own...Strategic paper eating. The ultimate house rule in my book.
There's a party game we call Celebrity (also known as Fishbowl, packaged up as Monikers for those who don't want to make their own clues) where you write down a bunch of names of famous people and characters on pieces of paper, then teams of 2 hint at and guess as many as they can over the course of 60 second rounds, with new restrictions in place every time all the names in the bowl have been exhausted and players gain enough familiarity to be able to guess them with new restrictions (unlimited words -> 2 word hints -> mime).
The rules we started with, which feel appropriate but imperfect, do not allow for skipping. If you pull a name and can't get your partner to guess it, you're out of luck waiting for the rest of the 60 seconds to transpire. I've played with another group that did allow skipping, and this provides no reward for sticking it out on a hard name, and basically encourages recycling it immediately to get an easier name.
It felt right to us that skipping ought to incur a penalty, but taking a time penalty, for example, would still encourage abuse of skipping if the name itself is hard enough, forcing another team to eventually need to contend with it. This is where paper eating comes into play.
If you eat a name, once you've swallowed it, you can move on to another name. This removes it from play for the rest of the game, and adds an extra layer of commitment and strategy. It inspires questions like:
- Do you eat this name? Or save your appetite for a harder name?
- How thick is the paper this time? (we played with notecards once – never again.)
- Do you choose a teammate who's a good clue giver? A good guesser? Or a relentless paper eater?
It's added a lot to our enjoyment of the game, and absolutely mortifies any new friends brought into the fold.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
jhombus Link ParentHah, I do think if I used immersive mode and factored in the room scan, it could work, but right now I have the game situated in a Volume to let the player reposition it easily. I feel like most...Hah, I do think if I used immersive mode and factored in the room scan, it could work, but right now I have the game situated in a Volume to let the player reposition it easily. I feel like most spatial games would benefit from using this instead of surface detection, as the latter doesn't allow multitasking while the game's open.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
jhombus LinkI just released a chill block stacking game for the Vision Pro! Didn’t know any Swift 6 months ago, and built the whole thing in RealityKit. It’s my first real dev project that I’ve seen through...I just released a chill block stacking game for the Vision Pro! Didn’t know any Swift 6 months ago, and built the whole thing in RealityKit. It’s my first real dev project that I’ve seen through to an actual finished product, so I’m super proud of it. It was a huge learning endeavor, but I feel so much more comfortable developing for Apple platforms now. Definitely worth the effort!
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Comment on Taskmaster NZ | Series 2 complete playlist in ~tv
jhombus LinkThis was one of my favorite TM seasons ever, even including the UK ones — such a great cast with great chemistry. Guy Montgomery especially gets me every time.This was one of my favorite TM seasons ever, even including the UK ones — such a great cast with great chemistry. Guy Montgomery especially gets me every time.
I’m a product designer, and I’ve started to prototype with Claude pretty frequently in my role, as have many non-designers at my company, for better or worse.
How I use it
Usually, when I use it, I have a clear idea of something to float with the team or put in front of customers to assess a premise. I keep the scope contained, don’t hand-wave any details, and make sure that what I’m suggesting doesn’t require anything technically difficult or access to data that’s not already baked into the product.
I also built a skill in Claude to clearly mark the level of “done” at the top of each prototype and adjust the visual fidelity accordingly. Am I in the early days of thinking through the problem (30%)? Am I validating whether I’ve hit the mark with more clearly defined problems to solve (60%)? Am I looking for feedback on interaction nuances and more or less ready to finalize (90%)?
I go screen-by-screen, using voice dictation to get something representative of what’s in my head, until the premise is adequately captured and ready to share — usually takes anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple hours depending on the complexity. And in all quite a bit faster / less mentally taxing than building screens by hand in Figma and wiring together a prototype with complex interactions. It also results in a more dynamic prototype where most interactions are properly functional, which makes it easier to put in front of people without needing to explain the limitations.
How others use it
People in roles across my company have taken to producing prototypes with Claude as a way of telling our product team, “if we could just build THIS, all of the problems I’ve been hearing from [insert customer] would be solved.” These prototypes are typically no more useful than a simple list of those problems (and in many ways less useful since they carry so much LLM-generated specificity that didn’t come from the brain of the person carrying that context).
The biggest issue I observe is that it’s easy to mistake LLMs’ ability to produce visually passable interface design for substitute for the thinking required to arrive at why / whether the solution is correct for the product as it exists today, if it would make sense for the other customers we serve, accounts for our technical capacity, etc.
I’ve seen lots of beautiful customer dashboards and impressive simulated chatbots, each of which precisely targets a customer problem or business goal, and would more often than not be incredibly effective if implemented exactly as presented.
The unfortunate downside is that these solutions almost always each require a massive roadmap of pre-work in defining various systems, new primitives, and data flows — each of which would carry huge, uncertain product and experience implications to make it tenable in the first place.
Whenever a prototype like this is sent my way, I give a “woah, this is so cool” type of response, and keep the core problem they cared enough to try to solve in the back of my head, but don’t often find the prototype itself terribly enlightening.
The outcome of all of this is that there’s a new artifact floating around of what I’ll call “experience slop” that can be hard to differentiate, at a glance, from work that has had adequate thought and proper product context applied to it.
I (and probably many people here) can skim a comment on the web and immediately clock it as LLM-generated or -edited, and feel some discomfort with the idea that a person had an idea they wanted to communicate badly enough to post it, but not enough confidence or enthusiasm to decide how exactly they wanted to communicate it.
I’m now in an odd position of feeling the same way about interactive prototypes in my day-to-day work, trying to puzzle together how much of what I’m seeing is a direct reflection of what the sender is trying to communicate vs an LLM filling in the gaps where the sender couldn’t be bothered to think through whether what they’re proposing makes any sense at all.
At this point, others on my team can pretty easily detect experience slop when we see it, but I do worry that it trivializes the work we do when it’s not always easily differentiable to the untrained eye.
It’s interesting to experience firsthand a threshold being passed where people in my profession are joining the company of artists and writers whose craft has already been comprehensively undermined by LLMs — and I know for all my misgivings about the lack of fidelity of thought used to create experience slop, it’s probably only a matter of time before that won’t really matter anyway.