u/Senoigh13

I've been reflecting on some of the postmortems I've read lately, including the ones where devs pour their hearts out about marketing failures, bad timing, wrong platform, algorithm changes, and so on. And I've noticed a pattern: we rarely just say the game needed more work.

I get it. It's brutal to admit publicly. You spent years on something and the instinct is to find external reasons it didn't land. But I wonder if the community would actually benefit more from devs being radically honest, including about design mistakes, scope problems, or just shipping something that wasn't quite there yet.

There's also a practical question: if you're writing a postmortem primarily to help other devs learn, does softening the selfcriticism make it less useful? Or does some level of charitable framing help you actually publish it at all, which is better than silence?

I'm working on documenting my own project's struggles and trying to figure out where the line is between constructive reflection and just beating myself up publicly in a way that helps nobody.

Has anyone written or read a postmortem that felt genuinely, almost uncomfortably honest? What made it useful or not?

Hey guys, small aus online store here. Been grinding away and the payment processing side is starting to bite into things more than id like. Tried a couple options but always feels like there's better out there for local businesses. Honestly i'm on the hunt for the best payment provider for aussie ecomm right now. Something with good integration, fair fees and that just works smooth day to day. Any recommendations from people whove switched lately? horror stories welcome too so i don't waste time, what are you all using that actually saves money without headaches? Thanks for any tips!

I recently made the jump from running D&D 5e for a few years to trying out a new system with my group, and the experience has been way more jarring than I expected. Not in a bad way necessarily, but there were so many habits baked into both me and my players that we had to consciously unlearn.

Things like expecting a certain action economy, assuming every problem has a mechanical solution built into a character sheet, or even just how combat is paced. Players kept reaching for their character sheets looking for abilities that simply didn't exist in the new system.

What surprised me most was how much the system itself shapes the stories you tell. Moving away from D&D forced us to think about scenes and conflicts in a completely different way, and honestly it's made me a better GM overall.

For those of you who have made a big system jump, I'm curious about a few things. What was the hardest habit to break, for you or your players? Did the new system eventually feel natural, or does it always feel a little foreign? And do you think the growing conversation around alternatives to D&D has made it easier to convince groups to try something new?

Would love to hear what systems people landed on and whether you ever went back.

bought a place 3 years ago to do the airbnb thing. everyone said it was easy money passive income set it and forget it

yeah no

guests leaving messes stuff breaking. having to coordinate cleaners. dealing with complaints about noise or the wifi or whatever. its like having a second job that pays minimum wage

last month a guest left the AC running at 60 for a week straight while they were out of town. the unit froze up. had to call an emergency repair on a saturday night. 900 i didnt plan for

im just tired. the money is ok but not worth the stress

part of me feels like im giving up on something i worked hard to build. but also i just want my weekends back

anyone else in short term rentals feeling burnt out. did you sell or just push through

We found a newly built house we really liked. Decided to get an inspection before making an offer. Hired Sure Building Inspection and they did a thorough job

They found 5 issues. Nothing catastrophic. But things like improper insulation, a small leak under the sink, and some electrical outlets that weren't properly grounded. All fixable

The seller said he'll fix everything before settlement and said he will take care of it

But now on the one hand, he seemed confident. On the other… I don't really know the guy. What if he just does a cheap patch job? What if he misses something? The inspector found these things once. But after the seller does his repairs, who checks that they were done right?

Do I hire the inspector again for a follow-up? Pay another fee just to verify the work? Or should I walk away and look for another place?

I'm getting ready to form an LLC, and LegalZoom is one of the first names that comes up no matter where I look. It also seems to be one of the more expensive options, which has me wondering if there's something I'm missing. I've seen load of formation services online that basically do the same job but charge less, but I am kind of afraid of scams. What is a normal price for this kind of service?

In their case, is the extra cost mostly for the brand name, or do they actually offer better support, fewer headaches, or something else that makes it worthwhile? I don't mind paying more if it genuinely saves time or helps avoid mistakes, especially since this is my first LLC. At the same time, I don't want to spend extra just because a company has better marketing. Is someone here that actually used their services and can give some advice, or maybe someone switched to/ from them? Thanks

i am so incredibly tired of commercial airlines gouging people just for trying to bring basic outdoor gear on a trip. last week i flew out west to do a quick 3-day tent setup and by the time i added up the checked bag fees for my backpack, sleeping pad, and cooking gear, it literally cost more than my actual plane ticket. it’s getting completely ridiculous.

ended up having to leave my heavy-duty stakes and mallet behind just to stay under the weight limit, which was great until the wind picked up on night two.

honestly next time im flying out to a site im just packing clothes and renting everything else at the destination. on the bright side, we found a local guy who let us use his 4x4 with a built-in trunk organizer for cheap, so at least hauling the squished gear from the airport wasn’t a total nightmare. but yeah, flying with camping stuff is officially dead to me.

So I've been grinding away at my first indie game for about a year and a half now. It's a topdown exploration game with some light survival mechanics, nothing you haven't seen before, but it feels genuinely mine. The problem is I hit this point where the core gameplay loop just stopped feeling fun, even to me as the developer.

I keep reading that if you as the dev are bored of your own game, players will definitely feel it. But I also know that dev fatigue is real, and maybe I just need a break or a fresh perspective.

I tried adding a new mechanic last month to shake things up and got some decent feedback from a small playtest group, but now I'm secondguessing whether I'm overcomplicating things or not doing enough.

For any devs who have shipped something or are deep in development, how did you know when your loop was actually broken versus when you were just burned out? Did you rely on playtest feedback, gut feeling, or something else?

And for players, what makes a gameplay loop feel rewarding enough to keep you coming back in a smaller indie title? Honest takes only, not just encouragement.

Thanks for reading, genuinely appreciate any insight.

my daughter's been begging for ballet classes for months and we finally caved and signed her up for term 3. great, exciting, whatever. then came the shopping list.

i thought i could just walk into any store and grab some basic stuff but apparently not like i went to three different places and either they had nothing in her size or the quality looked like it'd fall apart after one wash. and don't even get me started on the prices. for what?

is it just me or is it getting harder to find decent kids activity gear here? feels like everything's either overpriced or online only and i'm tired of gambling on sizes.

anyone know any local spots i'm missing? or do we all just order online now?

not trying to be rude but i genuinely dont understand. i got a request for a dtf transfer order yesterday. client sent me a 72dpi png from their website. like... what am i supposed to do with this

i asked if they had a vector version or at least something at 300dpi. they said its fine, my designer said png works for everything

so now i gotta either reject the order or spend an hour redoing their artwork. neither option is great

thinking about just adding a file prep fee for orders that need work. but then clients get upset and say im nickel and diming them

how do you guys handle this. do you just fix it and bake it into the price or do you push back

I've been running D&D 5e for about four years now and honestly I've hit a wall. My players are great but I keep feeling like the system is fighting me whenever I try to run anything that isn't a dungeon crawl or combatheavy adventure. Social encounters feel bolted on, exploration is basically just asking people to roll Perception, and I spend more time patching rules than actually prepping stories.

I've been lurking here for a while and keep seeing people talk about games like Blades in the Dark, Savage Worlds, Forbidden Lands, and a bunch of Free League stuff. Every time I read about them I get curious but there's a real intimidation factor around convincing my group to learn something new when they're already comfortable with what they know.

So I guess my questions are these. For those of you who made the switch, what finally pushed you over the edge? Was it a specific moment at the table where the system just couldn't do what you needed? Did your group resist at first and then come around? And practically speaking, what system did you move to and did it actually solve the problems you were having?

Looking for honest experiences here, not just system recommendations. I want to know what the actual transition felt like for you and your group

i havent been to the dentist in like 2 years because life got busy and i just kept putting it off. finally went last week to a place near the university did the xrays hygienist was nice.

then the dentist came in and said i need a crown on my back molar old filling is too big and tooth is compromised. i said ok how much she said $1200 after insurance. i literally laughed because i thought she was joking she was not

i asked if there was any alternative. she said well we could do a filling but it wont last as long. i asked how long a filling would last. she said maybe a year or two. i asked how long a crown would last. she said 10-15 years. so basically im paying $1200 to save a tooth that could probably just be filled.

i dont know man. i get that dental work costs money but 1200 feels insane for one tooth.

anyone else feel like dentists are too quick to go for the expensive option? or am i just being cheap

Hey everyone. I've been quietly working on a small topdown exploration game for about a year and a half. It started as a weekend project to learn gamedev basics and somehow turned into something I actually care about finishing.

The core gameplay loop finally clicked a couple weeks ago after a major redesign. Friends who played it said it felt genuinely fun for the first time, which was incredible to hear after so many months of selfdoubt.

Now I'm stuck on a different problem. How do you actually know when your game is ready to show the world, whether that's a Steam page, a demo, or even just wider playtesting? I keep secondguessing every system and every art asset. I'm not a professional artist so the visuals are simple, but I think the feel of the game makes up for it.

For those of you who have shipped something or put out a demo, what was the signal that told you it was time? Was it feedback from playtesters, a gut feeling, hitting a certain milestone, or just forcing yourself to stop tweaking and going for it?

I'd really love to hear how other solo devs or small teams handled that mental hurdle. Honest advice appreciated.

I've been working on a small hobby project for about eight months now and I keep hitting the same wall. Every time I sit down to build a feature, I think of three more that would make it better, and suddenly my simple topdown game has a crafting system, a dialogue tree, a reputation mechanic, and a daynight cycle I never planned for.

Scope creep gets talked about constantly but most advice stops at "just say no to new features" without getting into how you practically enforce that on yourself when you're a solo dev with no producer or team lead keeping you accountable.

What actually works for you? Do you write a locked design doc and treat any change as a formal amendment? Do you build a vertical slice first and refuse to move on until it feels fun? Do you just ship something broken and learn from it?

I ask because looking at postmortems from devs who spent five or more years on a project, the pattern is almost always the same. The core idea was solid but the scope killed the momentum. I want to break that cycle before I get too deep.

Curious whether people who actually shipped something have a specific system, or if it really just comes down to discipline and pain tolerance

I used to think food quality was the only thing that really mattered. Like, if it tastes good, people will be happy, right?

But lately, we’ve been running into the same issues over and over. Soups leaking during delivery. Sandwiches arriving squished. Cupcakes that look beautiful when they leave our kitchen showing up looking like they went through a war zone. It’s been frustrating because no matter how good the food is, it doesn’t seem to matter if it arrives in rough shape

I'm starting to realize that I may have underestimated the importance of packaging

Are they thinking of the quality of the product in relation to the quality of the packaging that it is coming in? Will their opinion of the food be compromised because of a flimsy box or poor lid seal?

My research on alternative packaging companies basically has led me to a company called WF Wholesale. It appears it meets our needs like sturdiness of materials and even size of the boxes. But I'm still not sure about it because I have had previous experience with packaging suppliers that looked good on paper, but did not live up to expectations

To be honest I don’t know whether changing my packaging is going to solve my problems, or whether this entire issue isn’t simply me overthinking everything. Perhaps there is more to this problem than just packages. Perhaps there is something about my delivery, perhaps there is something about the way that

Has anyone else had this experience? Did changing your packaging actually help with your customers' satisfaction and return business? Am I overthinking this one aspect of my business, or is this really an issue?

I recently made the jump from running D&D 5e for a few years to trying out other systems, and I keep running into the same experience: the rules are fine, but my brain keeps defaulting to D&D assumptions in ways I don't even notice until something breaks.

For example, coming from 5e I kept expecting every system to have some equivalent of advantage/disadvantage, or assuming that higher numbers always mean better. Running something like Blades in the Dark or Call of Cthulhu felt genuinely disorienting at first, not because the rules were hard to learn, but because I had so many bakedin habits from years of D&D.

I'm curious what adjustments other people found hardest when moving away from D&D, or any system they'd played for a long time. Was it purely mechanical, like learning a different dice resolution system? Was it more about shifting your GM philosophy, like moving away from encounter balance as a concept? Or did the fictionfirst versus rulesfirst divide trip you up?

I ask because there's a real skill in unlearning a system, not just learning a new one, and I don't see that talked about much. Would love to hear specific examples from people who made a significant system switch.

how do saas companies justify their pricing for small ecom operators right now? Its actually insane. I realized I was paying almost $150/mo for intercom, another huge chunk for mailchimp, plus whatever random app subscriptions shopify tacks on every month. My store does okay, but having hundreds of dollars siphoned out before I even pay for ads or inventory is just totally unsustainable tbh

I ended up ripping the bandaid off yesterday and moving my customer support and emails over to a cheaper unified setup just to stop the bleeding. The whole tier pricing trap where these big companies lock you in and then double your rate the second you get decent traffic is basically extortion

are you guys just eating these absurd software costs or constantly migrating? I swear managing the tech stack and fighting subscription creep is harder than actually selling the physical products lately

I was reading some stuff about ai agents that can browse the web and post on their own now and it got me thinking... how the future of even basic online interactions is gonna work when you cant tell if the person on the other side is real or some model running 24/7. like seriously, voice calls that sound exactly like your friend, videos of events that never happened, comments that seem thoughtful but are generated in seconds, captchas are joke already and two factor is getting bypassed left and right. One that seems interesting is this iris scan approach some groups are experimenting with for a digital proof that you're a unique human. Apparently millions of people have done it across different countries already, from what i can tell its designed to be pretty private, no central storage of your actual eye data or anything.

I might actually try to find a location and get verified with their solution myself at some point, not because i think the sky is falling tomorrow but just to have that option for whatever the internet turns into in the next few years. Could be useful for certain platforms or future services that want to filter out bots.

What do you all think? is biometric proof of humanity the direction we're headed or will there be too much backlash?

so I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my work machine to 24.04 over the weekend and my local dev environment is completely cooked

Im just trying to test a basic node script right now that hits the xodo sign API to generate some document webhooks for a client. The code is totally fine, it runs perfectly on my co-workers mac and in postman, but on my ubuntu setup it instantly throws OpenSSL SSL_connect: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL every single time

I even tried just raw dogging the endpoint with curl in the terminal and I get the exact same timeout/ssl handshake error. I checked ufw and its totally disabled. did canonical drastically change the default security policies or tls cipher suites in noble numbat?

Im honestly about to just wipe the drive and go back to 22.04 because spending 4 hours debugging curl is driving me insane. Is there some new system-wide ca-certificates thing I need to update? anyone know how to fix this before i lose my mind tbh