Programming

An actual conversation I had today:

End-User: "Since we moved offices our printers don't work anymore."

ME: (Knowing that I tested them before I left.) "Make sure you are printing to the printer labeled 'Department - Desk Printer'."

End-User: "I am, but it's not working."

ME: "Well, I planned on coming over there for something else anyways, I'll take a look at it while I'm there."

ME: *Now at the job site.*

ME: "Were you able to get the printer working?"

End-User: "No. I tried again and it doesn't work."

ME: "And you are printing to the one labeled 'Department - Desk Printer'."

End-User: "Yes, and it doesn't work."

ME: *Prints a test page without any issues on first try.*

ME: "It worked fine for me. Show me what you are trying to print."

End-User: "I go to this document, I press print, and then I select.....Oh, am I supposed to print to the 'Department - Desk Printer'?"

ME: "Yes, that's what I said."

End-User: "Oh, I was printing to the HP M404dne. I thought they were the same."

And this is why I don't trust people anymore when they are adamant and persistent that they did a thing.

Python 3.12 comes bundled with 50 command-line tools.

For example, python -m webbrowser http://example.com opens a web browser, python -m sqlite3 launches a sqlite prompt, and python -m ast my_file.py shows the abstract syntax tree for a given Python file.

I've dug into each of them and categorized them based on their purpose and how useful they are.

I got 75 wishlists on my game! I know it should be thousands to be even relevant, but for my first game it is such a joy to see that people are interested in my game! I have already received a lot of positive and constructing feedback and it motivates me to improve the game and think of new features and environments!

The goal was to release a demo in steam by the start of June and get 100 wishlists without any marketing budget at all. I am really learning a lot about marketing my game these days and I must say, I really do have a lot of respect for marketeers. I mean, how do you make people know about your product without being super pushy all the time?? Anyways, I thought it would be fun to share this small achievement :)

Can literally be anything. Let's hear it.

Been the tech lead of a team of ~5 for about 18 months. 2x Senior engineers, 1x Senior devops (also supports a sibling team who owns two k8s apps), 1x early mid and 1x junior.

One of the seniors left by their own volition. A 15YOE replacement was hired and it was immediately obvious they could only deliver at a junior level. I advised the manager to get rid of them before their probation period was up. They wanted to give them a chance to improve, which hasn’t come to fruition. Once they pass probation, you can’t fire people without cause in my country.

Start of the year, budget cuts happen and the remaining two seniors (who were contractors) have their contract ended. A fresh grad devops engineer is recruited. Team now consists of: myself as lead, mid with ~6YOE, junior with ~3YOE, junior with 15YOE, junior with ~0.5YOE.

I’m getting smashed from all sides. Interacting with the business, being the sole senior engineer, handling a lot of the devops work since it’s moderately complex and a fresh grad is way over their head here. I’d hoped the mid level would rise up but it’s becoming clear that mid level could potentially be their peak. Struggling to keep the lights on let alone have time to grow the other members. Recent feedback from the engineers is that they need cards to have more detail for implementation (which is part of my role) so I feel like I am struggling to perform my core responsibility.

Recent restructuring has brought in a new manager who asked if I want to go back to being an IC. Do I throw in the towel and wait for an opportunity with better support to dip my toes into the leadership path again? Or continue; but focussing on my core roles and letting the cracks I’ve been papering over widen?

Lately, I have been thinking and reading a lot about what makes code great and high-quality.

There was recently a discussion on Hackernews where surprisingly many developers confessed they even ship code that would hardly pass a normal code review process just to get something done.

This is totally understandable since I work at a startup too, but at the same time we often argue about whether we should cut corners in some specific cases.

I am personally a huge antifan of premature optimization and unnecessary abstractions (hello Sandy Metz). My personal rule is closer to the rule of 3.

That said, I still have trouble understanding how to make this decision. When is it okay to half-ass some code and make management happy? When is it definitely not?

What do you think?

My solo indie game just reached the 10000 wishlists last week (10484 to be exact). I never thought I could reach that number on my own without a proper marketing team, budget or big following.

I'd like to share with you what worked and didn't in the hopes it can be helpful to you too.

Disclaimer: I did sign with a publisher two months ago, and while they are already working on marketing stuff, nothing has been published yet. Those numbers are 100% from my own "marketing" efforts. There are people way better at this than me! I'm just sharing my experience here and I'll let you judge if it's helpful. Some things that did not work with me might work with others (and vice versa)! You can also read all of this in my .

Let's sort what worked out the best for me.
Steam Events > Influencers > Reddit > Twitter > Devlogs

It might sound obvious, but take the time to check your wishlists regularly, especially whenever you're trying to give visibility to the game with a post/video/announcement/mail. It will allow you to know what works and doesn't. I usually check out youtube and twitch for gameplay videos or press articles whenever there's a bump while I'm not in an event or did not post anything.

Keep posting stuff on social networks. I know it takes time for a small reward, but it's good to have those regular wishlists and connect with other game devs/influencers. It also shows development is alive and you never know when it will reach an influencer or press. When I stopped sharing my stuff for a while, wishlists completely dropped, I was even loosing some everyday! However, do not post stuff EVERY day and do not spend too much time on this. My best results were with a few key posts on reddit (Reddit is harsh, but very rewarding), same thing on twitter. Sharing something interesting every 1-2 weeks instead of small things everyday seems to work better for me. Of course if you like to share your day to day progress regardless of the result, that's good and that's what social networks are for originally! Don't forget people go there to connect with others, not to be spammed by people promoting their stuff.

I publish devlogs on my youtube channel. I got ~200 wishlist from more than 100k views that took me weeks of work. I don't think publishing devlogs is an efficient way to promote your game, unless you go viral or that your videos also target players by being more accessible without too much technical stuff (mine are definitely targeting game devs for now). I'm only speculating here, but I think game developers are mostly interested in learning from your journey than actually wishlisting/playing your game compared to players which results in less wishlists. So do it only if it makes you happy and you want to share your journey (and be careful not to overwork while doing it)!

Influencers are great for 3 reasons:

1. They give your game visibility.

2. They give you feedback to make your game better.

3. They are usually keen to do it for free to help small indie devs.

Build yourself a press list: a list of press and influencer that might be interested in playing your game. I made a list of games that I think have the same target as mine and search on youtube/twitch for influencers that played those games. They usually have their business mail in the about section or on one of their social accounts. When you have something very interesting to show them (a new demo, event or announce) send them all a mail (but don not spam them)!

Here are two accounts you should follow to get tips about how to properly reach to influencers (and other game marketing in general): and  (subscribe to their newsletters!)

Events are huge for wishlists. It's easy and it does not take time to submit and they are usually free. But there are two big issues with events:

1. You have to find them.

The best free place to find most events is on the  created by Chris (@AdventureMtn). There's also this amazing  (thanks to for sharing this with me)!

2. You have to be accepted.

You need a demo, quality marketing assets to share and a good steam page. Again, Chris has some (free and paid) to get a great steam page up. Consider supporting him if his tutorials helped you!

WARNING Do not submit your game to the steam next fest too soon like I did. You want to submit as late as possible, ideally just before your release. Each game gets one shot at the steam next fest, and the more wishlists you have going in, the more wishlists you'll get. I made that mistake because I thought I would release the game 2 months later (lol).

On a side note, you will have tons of wishlist deletions. Don't worry about it, that's perfectly normal (I won't lie, the first 1000 deletions still hit me hard though).

I think the best time to create your steam page is as soon you have a small trailer, screenshots and interesting description that do not look like a prototype full of placeholders. The sooner you have it, the sooner you start collecting wishlists! With the steam page also comes the whole steam community package, which is a plus to keep in touch with people who like your game. I don't really see any disadvantage in having a steam page early, but you might want to plan the communication around the page release to maximize visibility right away. Do not release it without telling anyone! When you demo is out, you can update your page and announce it everywhere too (try to give the exclusivity to a big showcase if you can!).

Things that did not work for me: devlogs, replying to influencers asking for games on twitter, using those spammy hashtags to promote your game (#wishlistwednesday etc...), posting uninteresting stuff about the game developement EVERY day, reposting the same content, posting on the popular subreddits, sharing my game on those "share your work" channel on discord servers, paid ads and plenty of other little "tricks I wasted my time on.

I hope this was was a nice read! Just to make this clear, this is my experience and it might work very differently for different type of games and game developers. If you'd like to try the game for yourself, you can play the . And if you'd like to keep following my journey, you'll find all my .

Don't hesitate if you have questions, I'll do my best to find time and reply!