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thank you for your soulful answer! I jumped into Kyberkit for a bit and climbed the tower and took out some boars lol
much of it outside the core mechanics are indeed vibe-coded and my hope is that in time, and with taste, and thoughtful feedback like yours it can be shaped better.
I've heard the best indie game devs easily put in 5000-8000 hours into their games and I'm only just 100 hours in
appreciate your feedback on the selectable text and 2.5D and true world-building with sound and music
God bless Diddy Kong Racing and also those Nintendo 64 classic devs
Will keep this in mind as I plug away: "It has a shell, but can it have a soul?"
I had the same thoughts. There's nothing here that I'd be interested in outside of the basic concept in the ad.
Low time preference goes a long way when designing video games that people actually want to play (especially in the vibe coding era).
This looks vibe coded, and that's a red flag for me.
I don't care if it is vibe coded, but if it appears like something AI generated, I click away.
There was a meme about vibecoding. I can't find it, but it featured Rick Rubin, and this clip.
In the clip, Anderson Cooper asks him a series of questions:
(in this case, replace artists with gamers)
Rick Rubin is a successful guy because (among other reasons) he helped some major artists produce some hit songs. He did it using his good taste.
If You are Asking for Human Attention, Demonstrate Human Effort.
Ew, what's this 2.5D thing? I'm not much of a gamer and this surprised me. I don't like how the background stays the same and it's just the map overlay that moves. But that's just me and it's just not my cup of tea.
(side note: I don't think I should be able to select the UI text.
user-select: noneCSS type of thing. https://stackoverflow.com/a/4407335)I gotta say, the fixed money supply thing captivated me. I have been thinking about currency in MMOs for years, ever since Gaia Online and I love seeing Bitcoin concepts make it to games.
I have made a few games myself and I know it's extremely difficult so I gotta hold myself back from any more critique because I think you've done a great thing here by bringing together all the parts and you're now running a playable game. I see people chatting in there, and that's another level of complexity that I have to salute.
A few years ago I made a game Kybertrike. (Dead game, not recommended.) Technically it's a game, because there is a win and lose condition, but it's not fun. I quit working on it because I realized how hard it is to make a fun game.
Lately I've been studying games I play. I'm playing through Diddy Kong Racing and if you haven't played, I recommend it. It was made in the early 2000's and the amount of love and care that was put into that game is blowing my mind. You can tell how every model, voice line, map, song, ELABORATE SONG/SFX TEMPO SYNCRONIZATION SYSTEM, was meticulously crafted by a human, and I don't see games like that today. I tell myself that if Kybertrike ever sees the light of day it will because I put aside the AI tools and spent hours crafting every little detail.
Here's a great blog post I like
https://anthonyhobday.com/blog/20260410#how-i-think-about-quality
My favorite quote, "Quality is the absense of problems"
I can only name 1 issue with Diddy Kong Racing, and that's that it sometimes has framedrop issues. Everything else, the characters, the events, the collection mechanics, the story development, the biomes, the color palette, are just chef's kiss and I can't even identify a single problem with any of them.
I'm not trying to make a comparison between your game and Diddy Kong Racing. "Comparison is the thief of joy" after all. I'm using DKR as an example of what a great game looks like. And yes, the game was made with a big team and probably a huge budget. What am I saying here? I lost my train of thought.
I think your game has something there. It has a shell, but can it have a soul? I would love to see that.