13 ms·

Hacker News for Gamedev

544 points by ahub 2y ago

dangrape123 2y ago
[flagged]
drekipus 2y ago
Nice! Great idea, I'll be sure to check it out I'd love if there's more "hacker News like" sites. You could probably use the format for many things, a hacker news for writing?
- 0xEF 2y ago
  Seconded on a HN-style site for writers. I would love that. Aside from tech, I am also an aspiring author and seeing what others are up to helps me develop my own voice.
corund 2y ago
great idea to add tags. Colourful account icons clutters page, i'd rather prefer the hacker news style without these icons
- 7bit 2y ago
  Color theme sucks. Not enough contrast.
  - _tariky 2y ago
    +1 those colors sucks
  - volkk 2y ago
    just straight up hard to read. great site though
cersei 2y ago
Is there a RSS feed? Why not make this a community in Lemmy?
- vayan 2y ago
  not everything needs to be federated
  - rglullis 2y ago
    It doesn't need to, but a social site should. And even if you want to give an elitist vibe to your community by making it invite-only, you can set up Lemmy to be without federation and with restricted applications.
    - appleorchard46 2y ago
      Running a Lemmy instance is a nightmare. Putting aside the questionable Lemmy community, the software takes an enormous amount of resources and is incredibly finicky, always some new bug. The end-user UX is rough, and god forbid you ever want to try to improve it by adding a new feature or improving any existing ones. Not to mention federation woes - it doesn't work reliably in the first place, and you either have to only federate with a select few strictly moderated instances (and abide by their rules yourself), or risk spam and illegal content getting stored on your server. I'm bitter because I really want to love the fediverse. I fully support the principles behind it, but making an ActivityPub-based server is less like adding RSS to a site and more like running a WordPress site with a bunch of iffy plugins. The relative popularity of the fediverse shows that there's a market for non-corporate social media, but the protocol has fundamental issues that really limit it. Hopefully someday the community can rally around something better.
      - rglullis 2y ago
        > Hopefully someday the community can rally around something better. I don't disagree, but at the same time I always feel like users keep this infinite laundry list of requirements just to conveniently excuse themselves of any commitment. Case in point: I can host a Lemmy instance for customers (up to 100 users) for less than $20/month. I manage all the software, security and deal with the inconveniences of alpha software. People need "just" to bring friends and make sure that everyone there behave like decent human beings. I also pledge to give 20% of my profits to the developers. In theory it's a win-win-win. In practice, people just prefer to stick with Instagram or going to Bluesky because that doesn't require anything from them.
miohtama 2y ago
Nice. But is it enough Web 0.9? :)
- cosysinx 2y ago
  I love the HN / old reddit style
nottorp 2y ago
Does it have user submissions? I don't see a 'submit' while logged out and not making an account on the first date...
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  You actually can't make an account, since it's invite-only...
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Oh, I suppose it makes sense if you're just starting to work with a group of manually vetted people. In the long run, that's not HN though.
    - swiftcoder 2y ago
      Yeah, I don't know. I applied for an invite, we'll see if it goes through.
      - timknauf 2y ago
        Is there a mechanism for applying, or were you able to ask via a friend? This is right up my alley — I like the Lobsters format, and have long wished for a game dev-specific take on it!
        swiftcoder 2y ago
        If you go through the sign-up, it says it will post your application in public for anyone to approve shrugs
        swiftcoder 2y ago
        Someone did in fact approve my invite overnight
Crowberry 2y ago
Nice! I’ll bookmark this for sure
iib 2y ago
The theme reminds me more of Lobsters [1]. Is this site invite-based as well? [1] https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs
- ropejumper 2y ago
  Yes it's invite-based, and yes it actually is lobsters, a fork of it.
- stock_toaster 2y ago
  I was curious too, so I looked at the about page, and it says it is using a modified version of the lobsters code, so that makes sense!
cupofjoakim 2y ago
Going to lurk here as well. Not a game dev, but a fun industry to follow on the side.
meheleventyone 2y ago
The only thing that gets me is that there is a loooooooot of border.
innerHTML 2y ago
I love the idea, unfortunate the way this site is presented is such a incredibly busy and noisy way, it makes it so uncomfortable to look at I couldn't use this. I think hacker news aced it with the clean look, although sometimes I wish for a dark theme.
- cloogshicer 2y ago
  Yup, I think the background texture needs to go away and the font color of the posts needs to change.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- saurik 2y ago
  I just use browser extensions to get a dark theme.
  - amorphousmd 2y ago
    Example: https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/
- frogulis 2y ago
  A few colour changes and it would look fine. I don't know if it's the same software as lobste.rs, but it looks almost identical apart from the colours.
- iib 2y ago
  As a sibling commenter said, I think the background texture is the most distracting. Other than that, I also think the tag density is higher than on Lobsters, where they seem to be using mostly one, or at most two, tags, whereas this website's front-page is using around three for each post. Maybe the color scheme as well. And perhaps more negative space can be removed by making the column wider, like it is on HN.
  - esalman 2y ago
elpocko 2y ago
lobste.rs clone, invite-only. I'm not gonna beg for the privilege of providing value to an elitist community.
- i_am_a_peasant 2y ago
  idk who you are but this comment made me wanna buy you a beer lol
- mariusor 2y ago
  Is it a clone when the code is open-source and the maintainers publicly invite others to use it? > You are free to use this code to start your own sister site because the code is available under a permissive license From here: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters#:~:text=You%20are%20free%20to%20use%20this%20code%20to%20start%20your%20own%20sister%20site%20because%20the%20code%20is%20available https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters#:~:text=You%20are%20fre...
  - elpocko 2y ago
    I called it a clone because it's the same software with the same look and feel, the same features, and the same invite rules. It's an obvious clone of lobste.rs the website, only even more exclusively tailored to a niche audience.
    - zipy124 2y ago
      They actually even have the same text on their stat page about their pledge drive, which clearly they did not do, but was in fact on lobste.rs. https://lobste.rs/stats https://lobste.rs/stats https://gamedev.city/stats https://gamedev.city/stats
- dutchbookmaker 2y ago
  I don't even mind an exclusive community but the idea of begging for an invite is against my very nature.
burgerrito 2y ago
Anyone knows any other similar sites? Personally I'm looking for "HN but for music". The only other website I know is https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs, and this website looks like it uses Lobsters' software
- bramhaag 2y ago
  I don't think there is something like that for music specifically, but there are still many traditional forums with interesting discussions. See for example these: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/ https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/ https://www.progarchives.com/forum/default.asp https://www.progarchives.com/forum/default.asp https://forum.metal-archives.com/ https://forum.metal-archives.com/
  - burgerrito 2y ago
    Ahhh, speaking of traditional forums, I personally like https://www.skyscrapercity.com/ https://www.skyscrapercity.com/, it's still surprisingly active. It's also the only where I can get the most updated news about public transport/infrastructure in my country (Indonesia). Also I just remembered that rateyourmusic apparently have their own forum too: https://rym.fm https://rym.fm I've never taken a deep look at it, but it's surprisingly... active?
- OgsyedIE 2y ago
  https://twostopbits.com https://twostopbits.com is a "Hn for retro computer games".
- p2detar 2y ago
  I also think it’s lobste.rs. The about section also mentions an invite-only user tree.
- bdno86 2y ago
  I'd love there to be a HN for high-impact medical articles. Or alternatively for someone to build a tagged layer on top of HN with clear 'biotech' and 'medical' tags.
damir 2y ago
Would love to know more about the tech stack and the idea behind the site. How it started, and why...
- CornishPasty 2y ago
  Looking at the source/mod log/etc. it very much looks like it's using lobsters - https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters
geenat 2y ago
Waiting on approval under gnat.
hubraumhugo 2y ago
I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. Isn't game development already discussed here? I actually built a side project that categorizes front page articles so I can filter for topics. Here's an example for recent gamedev content: https://www.kadoa.com/hacksnack/d57360e8-1eb1-4800-a711-f0d530804fe2 https://www.kadoa.com/hacksnack/d57360e8-1eb1-4800-a711-f0d5...
- ramon156 2y ago
  I had an idea last week for a dutch version of HN, only to realize that dutch people already use HN
  - penetrarthur 2y ago
    Pretty much the only country in the world where every single person speaks perfect English.
- burrish 2y ago
  >Isn't game development already discussed here? ofc sometimes game dev is discussed here, but imo I don't see it enough here that I wouldn't want a hackernews just for gamedev. also very useful side project
  - OnionBlender 2y ago
    For example, SDL 3 was officially released last week, which I think is significant. It was posted on HN, but it didn't get enough votes to be visible to me.
- koolba 2y ago
  > I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. With the rise of LLMs, the fake-it-till-you make it would much easier. Even just having an automated program to scan for relevant URLs on other aggregator sites and cross posting them as new content would give things a bump.
rglullis 2y ago
I think that after "this meeting could've been an email", we should start thinking "this website could've been a Lemmy instance". Even if you don't want to federate, all the functionality is already there, you can have a selection of web/mobile clients and you can apply whatever moderation policies you find suitable for the community you want to grow. And if you want to extend the reach and make it easier for other people to participate, you can open federation and get instance access to the millions of people in the Fediverse.
- cersei 2y ago
  Precisely! Why not support the technologies that exist especially when it comes to helping drive critical mass of users to both? Making this a Lemmy instance would be mutually beneficial to both.
- bloqs 2y ago
  I had to get rid of lemmy. I know some instances are better than others, but the volume of unstable, immature zoomers (particularly the US variety) pushing openly communist rhetoric (and brigading and just abusing anything that doesnt conform to that) made it completely unusable. I really gave it several tries as well as I liked the tech. It was useless for discussing anything unless you aligned immediately with the mob. Yes, I blocked some instances, but the app delivery means the culture bleeds between them. It felt like worse twitter.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    I mostly agree with you (I'm staying on Lemmy despite the average user, not because of them), but this is not really relevant to the point here. My point is that it would be really nice to have a gamedev instance that is able (but not required) to federate. Instead of creating yet-another discussion forum that is completely isolated from the wider network, they could simply set up a Lemmy server with federation disabled. After the community is somewhat established, they could then start whitelist federation. Perhaps, they could open only with programming.dev. Then they could perhaps open federation to the Mastodon instances that are focused on indie developers/gamers. The only way to get rid of this (current) scenario where Lemmy is only for frustrated tweenagers and keyboard warriors is by cultivating the alternatives in the Fediverse.
cosysinx 2y ago
Not very clear to me how to get an invite. Do I ask for one here?
suby 2y ago
The invite only is very offputting.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  So it is more lobste.rs than Hacker News
  - mariusor 2y ago
    It's running on lobste.rs code as far as I've seen.
scholars_io 2y ago
[dead]
CJefferson 2y ago
When you've only got 3 comments on your whole front page, not sure invite-only is the best idea.
- Grumbledour 2y ago
  This is the main problem of the "Hacker News for [x]" type sites. Lobsters got lots of people interested, but it is itself mostly not interesting to read, because there is very little discussion. Sure, you keep out some noise, but you also keep out what makes hacker news great, and that is the comments from all sorts of people. All these kind of sites serve is a curated link list, which can be nice, but they don't fell like a community if you see the same dozen people leave ~3 comments per article and can only participate yourself after groveling before the chosen. While I do think a good community needs some type of gatekeeping, being invite only is not it.
  - righthand 2y ago
    Perhaps "interesting to read" does not correlate directly to "healthy discussion". It's a feature that Lobste.rs has low volume commentary, it leads to more authentic response less ad-hominem or passive-aggressive commentary like HN is constantly flooded with.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >While I do think a good community needs some type of gatekeeping, being invite only is not it. Their verification method already seems to be enough of a gatekeep. >if you don't know (or can't find) an existing_user from whom to request an invitation, you can make a public request for one. This will display your name and memo to all other logged-in users who can then send you an invitation if they recognize you. And they ask for some personal website to verify as well that is visible. Given the volume at this scale, this could have been a manual verification by the creator for a while until there's enough scale to rely on invites (similar to Tildes).
- vunderba 2y ago
  Especially considering how long this site has been around at least according to the stat page (over a decade at this point). https://gamedev.city/stats https://gamedev.city/stats
1ste 2y ago
Assuming this is your site OP, well done for getting it built and launched. I noticed other comments saying "why not lemmy", "why not filter on game dev topics on HN". I think the opposite. Forge your own path and who knows where it will take you.
- ahub 2y ago
  It's not, it's made by saint11 [0] who worked on Celeste. [0] : https://saint11.art/ https://saint11.art/
shahzaibmushtaq 2y ago
So who is this Hacker News for?
stevage 2y ago
The "moderation log" is pretty cool. Nice seeing the transparency. And also, the workload.
Sverigevader 2y ago
This is a bit off topic but I noticed that you've included a moderation log at the bottom. I don't think I've seen that before. I really like it!
gareth_untether 2y ago
Game dev communities are great places in the internet. Thanks for creating this!
wrfrmers 2y ago
In terms of "x for gamedev", what I would love to see is a fork of Brilliant that covers common topics from the basics up, using pseudocode only. I've always liked Cat-Like Coding's approach to tutorials, but I've never been able to "acquire" that knowledge (and an intuitive feel for it) in a permanent way like I have with Brilliant's method. I know that they have a CS module, but one specific to gamedev topics would be amazing.
jschoe 2y ago
HN for economics or geopolitics could be interesting.
otteromkram 2y ago
1. Why aren't websites like this posted under Show HN? This is a promotional post, right? 2. How is this different/better than something like https://gamedev.stackexchange.com https://gamedev.stackexchange.com? More discussion-based vs Q&A?
- ahub 2y ago
  It's not Show HN / Tell HN because I didn't make the site. But I like it and wanted to share.
natural219 2y ago
"A glorified subreddit for HN readers..." At some point, I wonder if `dang` would support this? It seems like a good idea. For more topic-specific higher volume news items.
phendrenad2 2y ago
Let me summarize some of the points brought up here so far (and add a few of my own): 1. Background texture is distracting (background textures need to be very subtle to not be distracting!) 2. You gotta hack the lobste.rs source to allow signup without an invite (Note: if you start getting spambots, try reCAPTCHA in the signup flow and maybe cloudflare DNS for the whole site, that seems to reduce spammers by quite a lot) 3. Widen the page to match HN on desktop, 900px looks incredibly small on desktop monitors. 4. Page header scrolls (left/right) on mobile, scrolling elements on mobile are bad because usually the user doesn't realize they can be scrolled. Maybe beg/borrow/steal a magnifying glass icon to replace the "search" link.
aarongeisler 2y ago
I hope this catches on. For whatever reason, I haven't come across many gamedev-focused sites with good content. The gamedev subreddit is particularly disappointing. Feebdack: agree with the other comments that the background image is a bit hard on the eyes. Nice work!
- eru 2y ago
  You might like https://www.redblobgames.com/ https://www.redblobgames.com/
  - aarongeisler 2y ago
    Yep, familiar with this one - one of the best out there!
- novaleaf 2y ago
  If I may: https://www.reddit.com/r/GodotCSharp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GodotCSharp/ It's a no memes, no marketing subreddit for C# Godot. (I am the Mod)
  - jprete 2y ago
    A little off-topic, but have you found spam or fake content to be a problem in the last year or two?
    - novaleaf 2y ago
      no, but it's a very small (2k members). it's pretty much a "serious, no fun" sub so probably that's a good filter :D
- arduinomancer 2y ago
  The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content from professional/AAA devs
dartos 2y ago
I was just looking for exactly this! HN is too VC focused for a lot of gamedev stuff to break through
mclau156 2y ago
Godot game engine has blown me away lately, such a small footprint at about 100MB, loads very quickly, and can render high quality 3D
nemomarx 2y ago
maybe a petty nitpick but why do I see "41 hours ago" on one of the posts? it feels unintuitive to measure a time longer than a day in hours
- calgoo 2y ago
  Interesting take! I detest when a system says something like: 3 days ago instead of an exact date/time or the total hours since. If its months ago, then the date makes the best sense to me. Maybe I'm just data driven in some way and don't like it when people "hide" details?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
picafrost 2y ago
The communities centered around links and comments that I get the most value out of are those that are gently strict about the discourse that occurs on them. They are well curated by moderators. But importantly, still open to all to participate in. That takes a lot of effort, and the right curators, to do well. Invite only websites seem like a poor replacement for this. Are there examples of invite-only websites that reach the quality of HN at its best? Maybe by definition they are harder to point to.
- shortrounddev2 2y ago
  I'm willing to bet invite-only is not a substitution for moderation (since some of the worst members of a site are often its most frequent posters), but a sort of reputation system to prevent bots from joining. I remember demonoid did the same thing back in the day
- vdddv 2y ago
  https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ is invite only and HN level quality IMO
  - xandrius 2y ago
    Got mass banned for stating that a misunderstood comment was not to be seen in its negative light. No thanks.
    - AlexeyBelov 2y ago
      Link?
samiv 2y ago
Looks like another dead forum for gamedev. The ultimate problem is that there's just an abundance of people doing game development or game tool (engines, tools etc) development. The market is utterly saturated and honestly it's a bit depressing. People putting their heart and soul just to have "0 views, 0 comments". What's the point? Of course this is more like an aggregator of game dev content so now you can observe the "0 views, 0 comments" phenomenom on content that itself has "0 views, 0 comments". ;-)
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  I have a list of games i have been wanting to make for ages. I was a game dev in the 80s, but got into b2b DOS, Windows and then Web dev to make for more consistent money. I guess if I ever do, I would do it for myself and if others like it, fine, if not, fine.
  - samiv 2y ago
    This is absolutely fine. But people who post on Reddit or gamedev.net or any other forum ultimately are also looking for external validation. If they weren't they would not be posting. But hey let's be honest, who wouldn't want to get at least some pats on the pack or some positive feedback, right? But sadly it's a dead end for 99% of people posting on any channel. Tangentially related to this, in the -80s there was the video game crash and a bunch of games were even buried in the ground. It's incredible to think about that today we're already way past that and essentially the cost of any game is about 0. Of course that's not quite true, the market is bimodal where you have the games that cost nothing (because user's would not pay for them) and then the triple A level games. Unfortunately in the former group creation of the games still costs something so now any studio with paid workers has to rely on secondary avenues for revenue since the user's aren't willing to pay up front to pay the game. I'm really not sure if this is a healthy market anymore.
    - anonzzzies 2y ago
      I think it's not healthy anymore; game devs I know are kind of part artist, part coder, often more the former than the latter and so they spend crazy time on polishing things and making it perfect only to get no feedback, no sales, no nothing. It must be incredible frustrating and basically painful, leading to burnouts.
panorama 2y ago
This is neat, but I was wondering if anyone has a forum for discussing game product development (i.e. less the code that goes into game dev, moreso the decision making that goes into making quality games, is there a better name for what I'm referring to?)
- jayd16 2y ago
  Are you asking about design, running a studio, development practices besides code (art, writing, animation etc), market research?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lawlessone 2y ago
Cool, i like the colour scheme. It's kinder to my eyes.
ahub 2y ago
To clarify : I'm not the author/host of the site. Saint11 [0], who worked on the recent "Celeste" platformer, is. [0]: https://saint11.art/ https://saint11.art/
- teach 2y ago
  Oh man Celeste was FANTASTIC. I've been active in /r/gamedev for forever (because I used to teach high school kids how to make video games), so I was already interested but this seals the deal. The storytelling, the accessibility options, chef's kiss Requested.
postalrat 2y ago
Resurrect https://flipcode.com https://flipcode.com.
heyitssim 2y ago
Currently building my own game engine for my games[1], but I'm facing the classic indie game marketing challenge. While platforms like CrazyGames, Poki, grab most of web players. I'm exploring zero-budget marketing approaches. Currently experimenting with daily news posts for SEO[2] and converting them to podcasts too. Would appreciate any suggestions on effective no-budget marketing strategies, or feedbacks! [1] https://pixelbrawlgames.com/game/blast/ https://pixelbrawlgames.com/game/blast/ [2] https://pixelbrawlgames.com/dailynews https://pixelbrawlgames.com/dailynews
appleorchard46 2y ago
The problem with 'HN but for [x]' sites is that what they offer is just a subset of HN. Game dev posts might not be the most popular here, but they're still allowed and do get some traction from time to time - so there's little incentive to post somewhere that has even fewer eyes. IMO for a site like this to succeed it needs to offer something HN doesn't. Chat, subforums, personal promotion section, something.
- andrewmcwatters 2y ago
  I used to think this, but after reading about engagement numbers elsewhere, Hacker News is actually very small when compared to other venues. Depending on where you're reading, it's Hacker News that's a subset of just about anything else.
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    Who cares about engagement numbers? The things this site used to offer was there might be an article about a security breach, a brand new highly anticipated feature in a major product, a historical article about a long forgotten but major technological achievement. Then a key person from that story would chime in with their take about what the article got right or wrong, offer to answer questions. And that is assuming they didn't directly make the post. Nobody actually wants to read self promotion blog spam, besides other people pretending to be engaged so they can do the same
  - appleorchard46 2y ago
    Exactly - you can only add so many inner matryoshka dolls before they're not big enough to sustain critical mass. If HN is a subset of other sites (though arguably its approach to UX and moderation offer something different), a site targeting a subset of HN's users seems unlikely to get much traction.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Personally, I do just really want a "HN but for gamedev". The frequency of games content here is my personal weakness. But the invite only structure is limiting. I like the mentality behind it, but for so, so, so many of the communities I browse, the issue arises from size before any of the problem invite only solves. And I don't need crazy frequent posts. Just something where I check after 2-3 days and it's not just 1 post with zero comments.
MrLeap 2y ago
I requested an invite. Would love to join this, I've been a professional gamedev for about half of my career. My confirmation link was a link to Tentacle Typer's steam page. edit: thanks for the invite.
wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
tonymet 2y ago
kudos for keeping the site small at about 55kb . Though not quite as slender as hackernews 14kb, i was expecting to see 2mb of react cruft so high fives to the devs for keeping it lite.
unchar1 2y ago
Cool site! Is there any way to see the top posts? It's really helpful when I'm trying to catch up on things. I know HN doesn't, but I can usually use hn.algolia.com to find the top posts.
- saint11 2y ago
  Clicking on logo on the top left should go it! In retrospect I should add a little text there to make it clear. (I'm the website maintainer)
lemonberry 2y ago
I can't speak to the content, but I found the a little difficult to read. I ran your homepage through the free Axe Dev Tools for accessibility. It may be worth testing yourself and changing some of the contrast between text and background. Congrats on launching! That's an achievement.
saint11 2y ago
Maintainer of the website here! I'm happy (and a bit terrified) that we made it to the front page of Hacker News. This isn’t a commercial project, and it never will be. We’re curating the site for a very specific vibe and high-quality content, which is why we’re invitation-only and why we aim to grow the community slowly and intentionally. I also want to ensure our server can handle the traffic without issues. I’m slowly working through the invitation queue, so please bear with me!
metadat 2y ago
Cool idea, I hope this ignites. P.s. Why does it have the Lobste.rs favicon? https://gamedev.city/apple-touch-icon.png https://gamedev.city/apple-touch-icon.png
- saint11 2y ago
  Because I cloned it from Lobste.rs and probably forgot to change that one.
  - metadat 2y ago
    Hehe, cool. I just enjoy a good favicon, surely you'll make one for this project eventually!
bdelmas 2y ago
We need a "Ask GameDev" like on HN
elendee 2y ago
fwiw I read hacker news through RSS only, top 10 items every day using https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ Something similar would be great
HellDunkel 2y ago
fix the colors!
kcb 2y ago
So much padding. Not everyone is browsing on an phone or ipad.

544 points by ahub 2y ago

[flagged]

Nice! Great idea, I'll be sure to check it out I'd love if there's more "hacker News like" sites. You could probably use the format for many things, a hacker news for writing?

0xEF 2y ago
Seconded on a HN-style site for writers. I would love that. Aside from tech, I am also an aspiring author and seeing what others are up to helps me develop my own voice.

corund 2y ago

great idea to add tags. Colourful account icons clutters page, i'd rather prefer the hacker news style without these icons

7bit 2y ago
Color theme sucks. Not enough contrast.
- _tariky 2y ago
  +1 those colors sucks
- volkk 2y ago
  just straight up hard to read. great site though

cersei 2y ago

Is there a RSS feed? Why not make this a community in Lemmy?

vayan 2y ago
not everything needs to be federated
- rglullis 2y ago
  It doesn't need to, but a social site should. And even if you want to give an elitist vibe to your community by making it invite-only, you can set up Lemmy to be without federation and with restricted applications.
  - appleorchard46 2y ago
    Running a Lemmy instance is a nightmare. Putting aside the questionable Lemmy community, the software takes an enormous amount of resources and is incredibly finicky, always some new bug. The end-user UX is rough, and god forbid you ever want to try to improve it by adding a new feature or improving any existing ones. Not to mention federation woes - it doesn't work reliably in the first place, and you either have to only federate with a select few strictly moderated instances (and abide by their rules yourself), or risk spam and illegal content getting stored on your server. I'm bitter because I really want to love the fediverse. I fully support the principles behind it, but making an ActivityPub-based server is less like adding RSS to a site and more like running a WordPress site with a bunch of iffy plugins. The relative popularity of the fediverse shows that there's a market for non-corporate social media, but the protocol has fundamental issues that really limit it. Hopefully someday the community can rally around something better.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      > Hopefully someday the community can rally around something better. I don't disagree, but at the same time I always feel like users keep this infinite laundry list of requirements just to conveniently excuse themselves of any commitment. Case in point: I can host a Lemmy instance for customers (up to 100 users) for less than $20/month. I manage all the software, security and deal with the inconveniences of alpha software. People need "just" to bring friends and make sure that everyone there behave like decent human beings. I also pledge to give 20% of my profits to the developers. In theory it's a win-win-win. In practice, people just prefer to stick with Instagram or going to Bluesky because that doesn't require anything from them.

miohtama 2y ago

Nice. But is it enough Web 0.9? :)

cosysinx 2y ago
I love the HN / old reddit style

nottorp 2y ago

Does it have user submissions? I don't see a 'submit' while logged out and not making an account on the first date...

swiftcoder 2y ago
You actually can't make an account, since it's invite-only...
- nottorp 2y ago
  Oh, I suppose it makes sense if you're just starting to work with a group of manually vetted people. In the long run, that's not HN though.
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    Yeah, I don't know. I applied for an invite, we'll see if it goes through.
    - timknauf 2y ago
      Is there a mechanism for applying, or were you able to ask via a friend? This is right up my alley — I like the Lobsters format, and have long wished for a game dev-specific take on it!
      - swiftcoder 2y ago
        If you go through the sign-up, it says it will post your application in public for anyone to approve shrugs
        swiftcoder 2y ago
        Someone did in fact approve my invite overnight

Crowberry 2y ago

Nice! I’ll bookmark this for sure

iib 2y ago

The theme reminds me more of Lobsters [1]. Is this site invite-based as well? [1] https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs

ropejumper 2y ago
Yes it's invite-based, and yes it actually is lobsters, a fork of it.
stock_toaster 2y ago
I was curious too, so I looked at the about page, and it says it is using a modified version of the lobsters code, so that makes sense!

cupofjoakim 2y ago

Going to lurk here as well. Not a game dev, but a fun industry to follow on the side.

meheleventyone 2y ago

The only thing that gets me is that there is a loooooooot of border.

innerHTML 2y ago

I love the idea, unfortunate the way this site is presented is such a incredibly busy and noisy way, it makes it so uncomfortable to look at I couldn't use this. I think hacker news aced it with the clean look, although sometimes I wish for a dark theme.

cloogshicer 2y ago
Yup, I think the background texture needs to go away and the font color of the posts needs to change.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
saurik 2y ago
I just use browser extensions to get a dark theme.
- amorphousmd 2y ago
  Example: https://darkreader.org/ https://darkreader.org/
frogulis 2y ago
A few colour changes and it would look fine. I don't know if it's the same software as lobste.rs, but it looks almost identical apart from the colours.
iib 2y ago
As a sibling commenter said, I think the background texture is the most distracting. Other than that, I also think the tag density is higher than on Lobsters, where they seem to be using mostly one, or at most two, tags, whereas this website's front-page is using around three for each post. Maybe the color scheme as well. And perhaps more negative space can be removed by making the column wider, like it is on HN.
- esalman 2y ago

elpocko 2y ago

lobste.rs clone, invite-only. I'm not gonna beg for the privilege of providing value to an elitist community.

i_am_a_peasant 2y ago
idk who you are but this comment made me wanna buy you a beer lol
mariusor 2y ago
Is it a clone when the code is open-source and the maintainers publicly invite others to use it? > You are free to use this code to start your own sister site because the code is available under a permissive license From here: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters#:~:text=You%20are%20free%20to%20use%20this%20code%20to%20start%20your%20own%20sister%20site%20because%20the%20code%20is%20available https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters#:~:text=You%20are%20fre...
- elpocko 2y ago
  I called it a clone because it's the same software with the same look and feel, the same features, and the same invite rules. It's an obvious clone of lobste.rs the website, only even more exclusively tailored to a niche audience.
  - zipy124 2y ago
    They actually even have the same text on their stat page about their pledge drive, which clearly they did not do, but was in fact on lobste.rs. https://lobste.rs/stats https://lobste.rs/stats https://gamedev.city/stats https://gamedev.city/stats
dutchbookmaker 2y ago
I don't even mind an exclusive community but the idea of begging for an invite is against my very nature.

burgerrito 2y ago

Anyone knows any other similar sites? Personally I'm looking for "HN but for music". The only other website I know is https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs, and this website looks like it uses Lobsters' software

bramhaag 2y ago
I don't think there is something like that for music specifically, but there are still many traditional forums with interesting discussions. See for example these: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/ https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/ https://www.progarchives.com/forum/default.asp https://www.progarchives.com/forum/default.asp https://forum.metal-archives.com/ https://forum.metal-archives.com/
- burgerrito 2y ago
  Ahhh, speaking of traditional forums, I personally like https://www.skyscrapercity.com/ https://www.skyscrapercity.com/, it's still surprisingly active. It's also the only where I can get the most updated news about public transport/infrastructure in my country (Indonesia). Also I just remembered that rateyourmusic apparently have their own forum too: https://rym.fm https://rym.fm I've never taken a deep look at it, but it's surprisingly... active?
OgsyedIE 2y ago
https://twostopbits.com https://twostopbits.com is a "Hn for retro computer games".
p2detar 2y ago
I also think it’s lobste.rs. The about section also mentions an invite-only user tree.
bdno86 2y ago
I'd love there to be a HN for high-impact medical articles. Or alternatively for someone to build a tagged layer on top of HN with clear 'biotech' and 'medical' tags.

damir 2y ago

Would love to know more about the tech stack and the idea behind the site. How it started, and why...

CornishPasty 2y ago
Looking at the source/mod log/etc. it very much looks like it's using lobsters - https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters

geenat 2y ago

Waiting on approval under gnat.

hubraumhugo 2y ago

I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. Isn't game development already discussed here? I actually built a side project that categorizes front page articles so I can filter for topics. Here's an example for recent gamedev content: https://www.kadoa.com/hacksnack/d57360e8-1eb1-4800-a711-f0d530804fe2 https://www.kadoa.com/hacksnack/d57360e8-1eb1-4800-a711-f0d5...

ramon156 2y ago
I had an idea last week for a dutch version of HN, only to realize that dutch people already use HN
- penetrarthur 2y ago
  Pretty much the only country in the world where every single person speaks perfect English.
burrish 2y ago
>Isn't game development already discussed here? ofc sometimes game dev is discussed here, but imo I don't see it enough here that I wouldn't want a hackernews just for gamedev. also very useful side project
- OnionBlender 2y ago
  For example, SDL 3 was officially released last week, which I think is significant. It was posted on HN, but it didn't get enough votes to be visible to me.
koolba 2y ago
> I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. With the rise of LLMs, the fake-it-till-you make it would much easier. Even just having an automated program to scan for relevant URLs on other aggregator sites and cross posting them as new content would give things a bump.

rglullis 2y ago

I think that after "this meeting could've been an email", we should start thinking "this website could've been a Lemmy instance". Even if you don't want to federate, all the functionality is already there, you can have a selection of web/mobile clients and you can apply whatever moderation policies you find suitable for the community you want to grow. And if you want to extend the reach and make it easier for other people to participate, you can open federation and get instance access to the millions of people in the Fediverse.

cersei 2y ago
Precisely! Why not support the technologies that exist especially when it comes to helping drive critical mass of users to both? Making this a Lemmy instance would be mutually beneficial to both.
bloqs 2y ago
I had to get rid of lemmy. I know some instances are better than others, but the volume of unstable, immature zoomers (particularly the US variety) pushing openly communist rhetoric (and brigading and just abusing anything that doesnt conform to that) made it completely unusable. I really gave it several tries as well as I liked the tech. It was useless for discussing anything unless you aligned immediately with the mob. Yes, I blocked some instances, but the app delivery means the culture bleeds between them. It felt like worse twitter.
- rglullis 2y ago
  I mostly agree with you (I'm staying on Lemmy despite the average user, not because of them), but this is not really relevant to the point here. My point is that it would be really nice to have a gamedev instance that is able (but not required) to federate. Instead of creating yet-another discussion forum that is completely isolated from the wider network, they could simply set up a Lemmy server with federation disabled. After the community is somewhat established, they could then start whitelist federation. Perhaps, they could open only with programming.dev. Then they could perhaps open federation to the Mastodon instances that are focused on indie developers/gamers. The only way to get rid of this (current) scenario where Lemmy is only for frustrated tweenagers and keyboard warriors is by cultivating the alternatives in the Fediverse.

cosysinx 2y ago

Not very clear to me how to get an invite. Do I ask for one here?

suby 2y ago

The invite only is very offputting.

GuB-42 2y ago
So it is more lobste.rs than Hacker News
- mariusor 2y ago
  It's running on lobste.rs code as far as I've seen.

scholars_io 2y ago

[dead]

CJefferson 2y ago

When you've only got 3 comments on your whole front page, not sure invite-only is the best idea.

Grumbledour 2y ago
This is the main problem of the "Hacker News for [x]" type sites. Lobsters got lots of people interested, but it is itself mostly not interesting to read, because there is very little discussion. Sure, you keep out some noise, but you also keep out what makes hacker news great, and that is the comments from all sorts of people. All these kind of sites serve is a curated link list, which can be nice, but they don't fell like a community if you see the same dozen people leave ~3 comments per article and can only participate yourself after groveling before the chosen. While I do think a good community needs some type of gatekeeping, being invite only is not it.
- righthand 2y ago
  Perhaps "interesting to read" does not correlate directly to "healthy discussion". It's a feature that Lobste.rs has low volume commentary, it leads to more authentic response less ad-hominem or passive-aggressive commentary like HN is constantly flooded with.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >While I do think a good community needs some type of gatekeeping, being invite only is not it. Their verification method already seems to be enough of a gatekeep. >if you don't know (or can't find) an existing_user from whom to request an invitation, you can make a public request for one. This will display your name and memo to all other logged-in users who can then send you an invitation if they recognize you. And they ask for some personal website to verify as well that is visible. Given the volume at this scale, this could have been a manual verification by the creator for a while until there's enough scale to rely on invites (similar to Tildes).
vunderba 2y ago
Especially considering how long this site has been around at least according to the stat page (over a decade at this point). https://gamedev.city/stats https://gamedev.city/stats

1ste 2y ago

Assuming this is your site OP, well done for getting it built and launched. I noticed other comments saying "why not lemmy", "why not filter on game dev topics on HN". I think the opposite. Forge your own path and who knows where it will take you.

ahub 2y ago
It's not, it's made by saint11 [0] who worked on Celeste. [0] : https://saint11.art/ https://saint11.art/

shahzaibmushtaq 2y ago

So who is this Hacker News for?

stevage 2y ago

The "moderation log" is pretty cool. Nice seeing the transparency. And also, the workload.

Sverigevader 2y ago

This is a bit off topic but I noticed that you've included a moderation log at the bottom. I don't think I've seen that before. I really like it!

gareth_untether 2y ago

Game dev communities are great places in the internet. Thanks for creating this!

wrfrmers 2y ago

In terms of "x for gamedev", what I would love to see is a fork of Brilliant that covers common topics from the basics up, using pseudocode only. I've always liked Cat-Like Coding's approach to tutorials, but I've never been able to "acquire" that knowledge (and an intuitive feel for it) in a permanent way like I have with Brilliant's method. I know that they have a CS module, but one specific to gamedev topics would be amazing.

jschoe 2y ago

HN for economics or geopolitics could be interesting.

otteromkram 2y ago

1. Why aren't websites like this posted under Show HN? This is a promotional post, right? 2. How is this different/better than something like https://gamedev.stackexchange.com https://gamedev.stackexchange.com? More discussion-based vs Q&A?

ahub 2y ago
It's not Show HN / Tell HN because I didn't make the site. But I like it and wanted to share.

natural219 2y ago

"A glorified subreddit for HN readers..." At some point, I wonder if `dang` would support this? It seems like a good idea. For more topic-specific higher volume news items.

phendrenad2 2y ago

Let me summarize some of the points brought up here so far (and add a few of my own): 1. Background texture is distracting (background textures need to be very subtle to not be distracting!) 2. You gotta hack the lobste.rs source to allow signup without an invite (Note: if you start getting spambots, try reCAPTCHA in the signup flow and maybe cloudflare DNS for the whole site, that seems to reduce spammers by quite a lot) 3. Widen the page to match HN on desktop, 900px looks incredibly small on desktop monitors. 4. Page header scrolls (left/right) on mobile, scrolling elements on mobile are bad because usually the user doesn't realize they can be scrolled. Maybe beg/borrow/steal a magnifying glass icon to replace the "search" link.

aarongeisler 2y ago

I hope this catches on. For whatever reason, I haven't come across many gamedev-focused sites with good content. The gamedev subreddit is particularly disappointing. Feebdack: agree with the other comments that the background image is a bit hard on the eyes. Nice work!

eru 2y ago
You might like https://www.redblobgames.com/ https://www.redblobgames.com/
- aarongeisler 2y ago
  Yep, familiar with this one - one of the best out there!
novaleaf 2y ago
If I may: https://www.reddit.com/r/GodotCSharp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GodotCSharp/ It's a no memes, no marketing subreddit for C# Godot. (I am the Mod)
- jprete 2y ago
  A little off-topic, but have you found spam or fake content to be a problem in the last year or two?
  - novaleaf 2y ago
    no, but it's a very small (2k members). it's pretty much a "serious, no fun" sub so probably that's a good filter :D
arduinomancer 2y ago
The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content from professional/AAA devs

dartos 2y ago

I was just looking for exactly this! HN is too VC focused for a lot of gamedev stuff to break through

mclau156 2y ago

Godot game engine has blown me away lately, such a small footprint at about 100MB, loads very quickly, and can render high quality 3D

nemomarx 2y ago

maybe a petty nitpick but why do I see "41 hours ago" on one of the posts? it feels unintuitive to measure a time longer than a day in hours

calgoo 2y ago
Interesting take! I detest when a system says something like: 3 days ago instead of an exact date/time or the total hours since. If its months ago, then the date makes the best sense to me. Maybe I'm just data driven in some way and don't like it when people "hide" details?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

picafrost 2y ago

The communities centered around links and comments that I get the most value out of are those that are gently strict about the discourse that occurs on them. They are well curated by moderators. But importantly, still open to all to participate in. That takes a lot of effort, and the right curators, to do well. Invite only websites seem like a poor replacement for this. Are there examples of invite-only websites that reach the quality of HN at its best? Maybe by definition they are harder to point to.

shortrounddev2 2y ago
I'm willing to bet invite-only is not a substitution for moderation (since some of the worst members of a site are often its most frequent posters), but a sort of reputation system to prevent bots from joining. I remember demonoid did the same thing back in the day
vdddv 2y ago
https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ is invite only and HN level quality IMO
- xandrius 2y ago
  Got mass banned for stating that a misunderstood comment was not to be seen in its negative light. No thanks.
  - AlexeyBelov 2y ago
    Link?

samiv 2y ago

Looks like another dead forum for gamedev. The ultimate problem is that there's just an abundance of people doing game development or game tool (engines, tools etc) development. The market is utterly saturated and honestly it's a bit depressing. People putting their heart and soul just to have "0 views, 0 comments". What's the point? Of course this is more like an aggregator of game dev content so now you can observe the "0 views, 0 comments" phenomenom on content that itself has "0 views, 0 comments". ;-)

anonzzzies 2y ago
I have a list of games i have been wanting to make for ages. I was a game dev in the 80s, but got into b2b DOS, Windows and then Web dev to make for more consistent money. I guess if I ever do, I would do it for myself and if others like it, fine, if not, fine.
- samiv 2y ago
  This is absolutely fine. But people who post on Reddit or gamedev.net or any other forum ultimately are also looking for external validation. If they weren't they would not be posting. But hey let's be honest, who wouldn't want to get at least some pats on the pack or some positive feedback, right? But sadly it's a dead end for 99% of people posting on any channel. Tangentially related to this, in the -80s there was the video game crash and a bunch of games were even buried in the ground. It's incredible to think about that today we're already way past that and essentially the cost of any game is about 0. Of course that's not quite true, the market is bimodal where you have the games that cost nothing (because user's would not pay for them) and then the triple A level games. Unfortunately in the former group creation of the games still costs something so now any studio with paid workers has to rely on secondary avenues for revenue since the user's aren't willing to pay up front to pay the game. I'm really not sure if this is a healthy market anymore.
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    I think it's not healthy anymore; game devs I know are kind of part artist, part coder, often more the former than the latter and so they spend crazy time on polishing things and making it perfect only to get no feedback, no sales, no nothing. It must be incredible frustrating and basically painful, leading to burnouts.

panorama 2y ago

This is neat, but I was wondering if anyone has a forum for discussing game product development (i.e. less the code that goes into game dev, moreso the decision making that goes into making quality games, is there a better name for what I'm referring to?)

jayd16 2y ago
Are you asking about design, running a studio, development practices besides code (art, writing, animation etc), market research?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lawlessone 2y ago

Cool, i like the colour scheme. It's kinder to my eyes.

ahub 2y ago

To clarify : I'm not the author/host of the site. Saint11 [0], who worked on the recent "Celeste" platformer, is. [0]: https://saint11.art/ https://saint11.art/

teach 2y ago
Oh man Celeste was FANTASTIC. I've been active in /r/gamedev for forever (because I used to teach high school kids how to make video games), so I was already interested but this seals the deal. The storytelling, the accessibility options, chef's kiss Requested.

postalrat 2y ago

Resurrect https://flipcode.com https://flipcode.com.

heyitssim 2y ago

Currently building my own game engine for my games[1], but I'm facing the classic indie game marketing challenge. While platforms like CrazyGames, Poki, grab most of web players. I'm exploring zero-budget marketing approaches. Currently experimenting with daily news posts for SEO[2] and converting them to podcasts too. Would appreciate any suggestions on effective no-budget marketing strategies, or feedbacks! [1] https://pixelbrawlgames.com/game/blast/ https://pixelbrawlgames.com/game/blast/ [2] https://pixelbrawlgames.com/dailynews https://pixelbrawlgames.com/dailynews

appleorchard46 2y ago

The problem with 'HN but for [x]' sites is that what they offer is just a subset of HN. Game dev posts might not be the most popular here, but they're still allowed and do get some traction from time to time - so there's little incentive to post somewhere that has even fewer eyes. IMO for a site like this to succeed it needs to offer something HN doesn't. Chat, subforums, personal promotion section, something.

andrewmcwatters 2y ago
I used to think this, but after reading about engagement numbers elsewhere, Hacker News is actually very small when compared to other venues. Depending on where you're reading, it's Hacker News that's a subset of just about anything else.
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Who cares about engagement numbers? The things this site used to offer was there might be an article about a security breach, a brand new highly anticipated feature in a major product, a historical article about a long forgotten but major technological achievement. Then a key person from that story would chime in with their take about what the article got right or wrong, offer to answer questions. And that is assuming they didn't directly make the post. Nobody actually wants to read self promotion blog spam, besides other people pretending to be engaged so they can do the same
- appleorchard46 2y ago
  Exactly - you can only add so many inner matryoshka dolls before they're not big enough to sustain critical mass. If HN is a subset of other sites (though arguably its approach to UX and moderation offer something different), a site targeting a subset of HN's users seems unlikely to get much traction.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Personally, I do just really want a "HN but for gamedev". The frequency of games content here is my personal weakness. But the invite only structure is limiting. I like the mentality behind it, but for so, so, so many of the communities I browse, the issue arises from size before any of the problem invite only solves. And I don't need crazy frequent posts. Just something where I check after 2-3 days and it's not just 1 post with zero comments.

MrLeap 2y ago

I requested an invite. Would love to join this, I've been a professional gamedev for about half of my career. My confirmation link was a link to Tentacle Typer's steam page. edit: thanks for the invite.

wetpaws 2y ago

[dead]

tonymet 2y ago

kudos for keeping the site small at about 55kb . Though not quite as slender as hackernews 14kb, i was expecting to see 2mb of react cruft so high fives to the devs for keeping it lite.

unchar1 2y ago

Cool site! Is there any way to see the top posts? It's really helpful when I'm trying to catch up on things. I know HN doesn't, but I can usually use hn.algolia.com to find the top posts.

saint11 2y ago
Clicking on logo on the top left should go it! In retrospect I should add a little text there to make it clear. (I'm the website maintainer)

lemonberry 2y ago

I can't speak to the content, but I found the a little difficult to read. I ran your homepage through the free Axe Dev Tools for accessibility. It may be worth testing yourself and changing some of the contrast between text and background. Congrats on launching! That's an achievement.

saint11 2y ago

Maintainer of the website here! I'm happy (and a bit terrified) that we made it to the front page of Hacker News. This isn’t a commercial project, and it never will be. We’re curating the site for a very specific vibe and high-quality content, which is why we’re invitation-only and why we aim to grow the community slowly and intentionally. I also want to ensure our server can handle the traffic without issues. I’m slowly working through the invitation queue, so please bear with me!

metadat 2y ago

Cool idea, I hope this ignites. P.s. Why does it have the Lobste.rs favicon? https://gamedev.city/apple-touch-icon.png https://gamedev.city/apple-touch-icon.png

saint11 2y ago
Because I cloned it from Lobste.rs and probably forgot to change that one.
- metadat 2y ago
  Hehe, cool. I just enjoy a good favicon, surely you'll make one for this project eventually!

bdelmas 2y ago

We need a "Ask GameDev" like on HN

elendee 2y ago

fwiw I read hacker news through RSS only, top 10 items every day using https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ Something similar would be great

HellDunkel 2y ago

fix the colors!

kcb 2y ago

So much padding. Not everyone is browsing on an phone or ipad.