#webApps engineering

[kraniumet]

least spirited extortion campaign

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Game Garage: Lancer

Hello! Welcome to what I hope to be the first instance of a series about Game design and clever usages thereof in Tabletop games! We'll be talking about lancer, it was the first post on this blog so I felt it was fitting, we'll be going through standard character creations from License Level 0 til License Level 3, and showing how our mech, and pilot, grows during that time while playing out a theoretical game. Is this just like the example of plays in the actual books? Yes! But I wish to go for some more mechanical depths than those often do, and try to theorize around certain decisions made in a specific game.

I'll be using Comp/Con as a visual for this guide, I'm aware there's other ways to do mech building but basically everyone agrees you should just use Compcon for it, also while I'll avoid using expansions too much, I'll still assume you at minimum have KTB as it adds some pilot-side customization

LL0: Beginnings

You are immediately prompted to give a portrait, name, Callsign, and a background to your character, already just giving your character a callsign adds that little bit of personality to them! Lancer is primarily focused on the tactics side, rather than the roleplay side, but these little things do really help in fleshing out a character's personality, as that's still a factor.

I'll also give a quick shout out to Comp/Con for having the sickest UI of any webapp for a ttrpg i've seen, intuitive and strangely immersive, I really like it

Thracia was a project by a shadowy, now defunct, corporation to create a spokesperson for their gene editing services, the company went defunct before she turned 3, so she was just thrown away into some bin somewhere. She was eventually picked up by a gang of mercs who brought her back to base where she was effectively communally raised before joining the corps proper at age 20.

Now that we've filled out some simple flavor, lets move on to proper stat creation

We're brought to a stat creation screen, these don't matter too much in combat, but outside of them they're what your character specializes in, their role outside of the mechs. Don't sweat these too much, you can respect at any level up in lancer, and this won't matter too much outside of on the floor missions, which barely happen

For now, Thracia's good at fighting, investigating, and leading and inspiring, its what she was built for after all!

Now we get to talents, these are vaguely intimidating at first glance, but don't worry, you can respec at any time RAW, and they're pretty easy to decode once you get the hang of the system. For now, just think of what your role within the party will be, I want Thracia to be an artillery Pilot with a side of support, so we'll be taking Crack shot (which lets me give up my movement to become better at aiming each turn) , Leadership (which lets me add leadership dice dice to allied rolls as long as my fellow party member is within range) and Technophile (which gives me a Servant-Class NHP, a form of AI that controls my mech if I'm away, not too useful right now, but gets better benefits later on)

Now we get to the part I don't like, Mech Skills. Mech Skills are... theoretically really fun, but practically speaking you always want at least one level in Hull, and the other level in whatever your main stat is, in this case we'll be taking Engineering, you'll see why later.

Now we have our full pilot card! but there's still a little bit left to do before we Level Up for our first time.

First lets pick out our equipment, this is basically purely flavor so just pick what you think your character would logically have

NOW! we finally get to the fun part: Building your Mech... kinda

see right now, you're stuck with default configurations, you're not licensed for anything more complex than GMS mechs, the Great Value store brand of Lancer. So we carry on with an Everest, a basic if not a bit underwhelming mech, its reliable, customizable, and handy, if not a bit underwhelming and a lot less flashy and optimized than later mechs you get, I'd still keep an everest in your backpocket though, never know when you might need it

Someone playing with all official products would have a choice of 3 different GMS mechs, but I still recommend just picking the Everest, its the handiest option. though for reference: the Chomolungma is a Hacking frame, and the Sagamartha is a tank

You're prompted to name your mech, Thracia's gonna name it A farewell to Arms, after an ancient book she read once

Booting into your mech screen, it may feel a bit overwhelming at first but don't worry, these all aren't too complex to understand Traits are just that, what your mech has that makes it special from other mechs, its just that genesequouis that makes them cooler than other mechs.

Attributes are derivative stats that take your skills, Grit, and base mech stats into account, in our case the Everest is pretty middling in everything, but has a decent heat capacity due to our investment into Engineering.

and now for the fun bits, Core System and Mounts

Core Systems contain two things: your ultimate move, your signature play, that special power that you use once per duel and spare only for the most dire moments! the other thing is your Core System itself, Everest doesn't have any, but for future reference these are what your build is entirely based around, your core gimmick

Mounts are what you put your weapons into, and Systems are non directly attacking abilities that you use to gain advantage during battles, we once again only have GMS tools to go with for now. Something clever about the mount system is that it adds an inherent balance to mechs, a mech could have incredibly powerful abilities, but lack specific mounts that could make it overbearing, as an example the Gorgon lacks a heavy weapon mount, and Heavy weapon mounts are in general sparsely distributed, as giving them to the wrong mech could break the balance, this is a problem I see a lot of lancer GMs and homebrewers run into, underestimating the power of a heavy slot, even some who were contracted by Massif themselves!

For now, we'll give ourselves a shotgun, to dispatch enemies at close range, a Mortar, to deal with large clusters of enemies, and an Anti-Materiel Rifle to be our primary weapon.

Now for the systems, you have a budget of SP to use on buying systems for your mech from the ones you've unlocked, the GMS systems, outside of some standouts like the Flight System are... underwhelming mostly, you'll usually dumpster these pretty quick, but we might as well pick them because hey, its just free advantage, right?

We'll be mounting our free NHP we got from our talents of course, as well as a shield, a turret drone as we're not doing much with our reactions right now and they allow you to expend a reaction to deal some extra damage, Personalizations and a Custom Paintjob, these are basically just flavor but they both have to do with adding some extra bulk to your mech, in our case the Personalization is a built-in winch, adding a +1 to relevant Hull skill checks, and the Paintjob is a tasteful pin-up of an older looking woman, a fling from a past mission.

And that's it for LL0! It might feel like a lot, but I promise its a breeze in actual play. Now onto: LL1: Your First Taste of TRUE power

Thracia Schrader Came back to home base, sweaty and tired after a long mission, nothing big, just dispatching some pirates, but it was her first truly serious one, only to receive a ping on her terminal: she'd gotten a promotion, she'd be given budget to buy new parts for her mech, a raised paycheck, and some free time to work on new skills, she was over the moon, finally she'd be getting recognized!

Now onto LL1, so far your mech has had decently high customization, but from here on out? the world's your oyster honey, pull it open and devour its flesh, show the world that it's gotta be scared of you!... I think I lost my train of thought there, sorry about that.

Anyways, when leveling up you'll be given the down-low on what you're getting, an improvement to your skill triggers, more talents, more skills, more grit, your first license unlock, extra sauce on your eggs, and a complementary chocolate bar... OK those last two aren't there, but I'm sure most merc companies add them in

Skills don't matter too much so we'll skip over that, but for reference I took a boost in Leadership

You get an improvement in one talent, in my case I'll take the second tier of Technophile, which lets me reroll one roll per scene, very useful. You can also take a 4th talent at this point, but I recommend holding out a bit before doing that, your build is too weak to really afford big moves like that right now. You could also actually delevel one of your talents and level another to level 3, if you have a talent that you don't really need or want, but again, not recommended unless you know what you're doing

Now onto mech skills, you just get a flat +1 to any skill, right now I'd advise taking whatever you picked as your second skill after Hull, but if you wanna boost hull even further because you don't wanna get hurt too bad, I don't blame you, but we'll be getting that engineering boost for now

NOW to the fun part, the part we're all looking forward to (I think), getting more mech parts! now, people familiar with the system knows that the Engineering boosts and Artillery focus probably means we'll be taking a Harrison license, the 4 licenses in the game correspond roughly to the 4 mech skills in how they're built, they do end up mattering for something called Core Bonuses, but that's for much later, for now just treat them like a way to split playstyles. IPS-N likes Hull, Smith-Shimano Corp likes Agility, HORUS likes Systems, and Harrison Armory likes Engineering, choose accordingly.

We'll be unlocking the Sherman first, its a cool mech that I think often gets overlooked in this game's cluster fucks of eldritch mecha nightmares and othersuch things. You don't get the mech itself until LL2, so for now just slap on the parts you got into an Everest

The first level up is always kinda underwhelming in lancer, but trust me it'll get better from here! for now, we'll just replace our shotgun with a Sol-Pattern Laser Rifle, and our Personalizations and Custom Paint Job with a Reactor Stabilizer, a useful tool for keeping us nice and healthy when melting down

That's about it for LL1, yeah as I said its kinda boring, but it only gets better with LL2: You know what they say: Find what your niche is, that leads to riches!

Thracia Schrader comes back home, tattered, bruised and beaten, the promotion obviously meant more dangerous missions, this she knew, but she didn't expect to deal with enemies of that caliber just yet, turns out the pirates were more equipped than she thought at first, they seem too organized to be pirates actually... Well, she's being paid to dispatch rabblerousers, not think, she goes back to sleep in her cot, while browsing mech licenses for sale, she got a big bonus, she can splurge a little bit

While you get the same benefits as from LL1, this is where the fun really begins because if you take a second level from your frame you obtain:

A frame! You can finally get out of that dinky everest and get into something COOL! Frames in lancer essentially serve as your classes, they're what you mount your other obtained abilities into to create your unique playstyle, but overall they're probably the most important aspect of your character. Frames can have different sizes, HP thresholds, armor, and so on. the Frame system leads to your creativity being effectively limitless, while I'm doing a fairly basic artillery build, I'm sure a melee Sherman build could be fully possible! anyways, if you're using this as a build guide for some reason, I took Crack shot and an extra point in Hull alongside the Sherman frame

Now lets build our new puppy shall we? Our new mech will be called... how about Mr. Blue Sky? its Thracia's favorite childhood song

Now you'll have to rebuild your mech, but with a few considerations in mind 1: Your mounts are all different now, you can't rely on the weapons you did previously most of the time, Sherman's actually an exception to this, it has largely the same mounts as an everest, with the main difference being a built-in laser gun which charges while stabilizing, hm, maybe taking some stabilization talents could be worth the time... 2: Your new mech has new traits! the traits in the everest were pretty simple, just some bonus actions once per scene, "More of what's good" is the unofficial GMS Motto

The sherman's a bit more complex, it can keep you in the danger zone (which benefits not just the sherman but most Harrison Armory mechs really), give you soft cover by throwing steam at your enemy's face, and makes it better at engineering (handy, since you'll be trying your best to not take too much unintended heat)

For equipment, we'll be using some old tools and the new ones we just got

Sherman just got the incredibly powerful Andromeda-Pattern heavy laser rifle, but don't worry kids, this isn't the peak of laser power, oh no no, that comes a bit later. We're also using our handy shotgun, she needs to defend herself from nearby enemies somehow.

For systems, we're dumping the reactor stabilizer, its served its purpose but we can manage our heat better now, and we're picking up a deployable cover, useful for long drawn out gun fights, personalizations (a huge library of ancient and modern texts, useful for SYSTEMS checks), and turret drones, we're still not doing much with that reaction and our sensor range's pretty dang strong. Now a word of advice, at LL2 is where your build will branch most, you're comitting to an entirely new mech after all! but always remember: you can respec at any time

LL3: True Power!

Thracia comes back home and brews herself a cup of tea, so it turns out that the pirates she was dispatching were just locals defending themselves against the corporate agency paying her, she was offered a contract by them, lower price, but less price on the conscience, she urged her boss to take it, and she did take it in the end, she thanked Christ the Buddha she didn't need to betray the closest thing she had to a family. Tomorrow, Thracia would dispatch a corporate HQ, the locals were calling the Union for aid, and they promised aid would come in the form of supplies, but they'd need to fend for themselves, and supplies did come, she took some of the mech weapon supplies for herself, she was fighting for them now, might as well right?

LL3 is where your chosen frame's power peaks, many people actually skip the third level of a license, the items given are usually fairly niche, we won't be doing that, this is a pretty standard build so i don't think its worth it

you know the drill for skills

Talents, I'll actually do something a bit weird here, if anything to demonstrate one of the more interesting RAW decisions of Lancer, I'll take away crackshot. Most of the laser rifles of the sherman are AOEs, and Crackshot assumes one target. Instead we'll be taking two levels of Grease Monkey, they make our stabilizations stronger, and give us some nice bonuses during rests, and we'll also be capping off Technophile, you'll see why soon.

We'll be leveling up Engineering for this level and taking the final level of sherman, but more on that later because now, we have the first sight of our Core Bonuses

the 5 companies of lancer like to reward brand loyalty, so if you stick with one company for 3 levels, you unlock their "Core Bonuses". what are these? these are powerful abilities that you only get every 3 levels, and you need to have 3 levels in a company to unlock their respective core powers, GMS powers are unlocked by default of course. We'll be taking Superior by Design, the premiere Harrison Armory ability

the boost to heat cap is what we're looking for, anything that makes us less punished for taking too much heat is a good thing. the Impaired immunity is a good bonus

Now at this point, your mech should have unlocked their most powerful weapon and system, these are often "Super Heavy" weapons, which means they take up two slots to mount, but sometimes they just may be a powerful control ability, for example the Kidd unlocks their ability to build misc structures at that level.

We'll be installing our brand new and shiny Tachyon Lance, a massive motherfucker of a weapon that just emits a line of destruction and a cone of destruction behind you

we'll also keep the shotgun, its a handy weapon

for systems, we'll be equipping our brand new Asura-Class NHP, what does it do?

well, once per scene, it just lets you take another turn! No caveats, and the only real cost is a bit of heat on your end, but other than that? you just have two turns that turn, incredibly valuable in a build that often wants to stabilize, wasting precious actions

Oh, as for the third level of technophile? I can't have 2 NHPs in a mech at once unless I take that level, its just not possible, NHPs are incredibly powerful resources so I understand wanting to limit them like that.

That's about it for LL3, its your peak of power... for now, but soon enough your mech might be having some... foreign intrusions

LL4: The Crossover nobody wanted

Thracia was broken. She wished she'd never signed up for this mission in the first place. Children and women running from corporate mechs way better equipped than them, farms being abandoned by people who lived there for generations, good people sacrificing themselves to keep their loved ones safe. Terrakis had gone from a quick buck by dispatching pirates, to a nightmare. She was always told it was a dirty business, making money from blood, but she never expected it to be this bad. Looking to calm down, she calls up a friend, a warehouse worker from IPS-N, and wonders if she could maybe hook her up with something

You know the drill by now, the only thing of note is I'm going to dump Leader to take 2 levels in Siege Specialist (lets me take down structures more easily and lets me knock down adjacent enemies), we're picking up another level of Hull, and now, for the interesting bit: your 4th license

At this point, you've found your niche and made your mech plenty strong... but it could always be better, right?

Thracia picks up a level of the Drake, giving her the powerful Assault Cannon, a handy, if not low ranged, weapon that can grow in strength by spinning its barrels before launching, as a bonus its also a cannon allowing for our Siege Specialist to trigger. She throws away her nostalgic shotgun for this weapon

Thracia had also been feeling protective of her fellow backliner, a clumsy goblin pilot named Lika whom she borderline had a crush on, while Thracia's mech isn't bulky by any means, its bulkier than xer goblin, so she gives up her redundant systems to pick up the Argonaut Shield, a tool that lets her take half the damage her fellow pilot would take instead.

Conclusion: You got your tools now! Thracia was tired of seeing people dying, she was tired of the war, of the bastards in suits puppeteering it, she wanted it done and she wanted it done now. Talking to the leaders of the locals they decide on a final plan of attack: destroying the HQ of the corporate settlers

SimpleCorp must fall

Terrakis must be free

From here on out, you have your own tools to make your own builds, remember to focus on your roles, pick up abilities that complement your allies' playstyles and positionings, and most of all: have fun! a bad build in lancer isn't a huge deal, you can always try and try again until you get it right.

Oh, you wanna know how Thracia's story ended? Alright then, here you go

Mr. Blue Sky stood atop the ruins of SimpleCo's elite pilot: Fear, Thracia was no longer afraid, she was no longer broken, she was now only filled with pride, and joy. Terrakis was free, and she had been a part of its liberation. She hoped this would send a message to any bastard trying to take it over, she looks upon the pictures hanging inside her cockpit, complimentary drawings given to her by small children, of her mech as a hero of legend, of SimpleCo goons being burnt by her Tachyon Lance. That day, Thracia knew she had for once in her life done the right thing. After all of this, she decided to stay, War was not her business, and the locals of Terrakis wished for her to stay to help with any future intrusions.

She and Lika lived a peaceful life together, no one wanted to fuck with Terrakis after SimpleCo's downfall

Too cheesy? well, sometimes that's just how careers end, in the duty of a lancer, you either leave before you die, or you die before you leave. Go play your own stories! I'm sure there's some GM out there struggling to find new players who'd love to have you in their group

oh fuck i completely forgot to talk about bond-

[glitchypsi]

ENDTHOUGHTS: CA-6 & POKERMAN23

Pokerman is the codename for the underlying card-game engine (not Unity's parts) of the GLITCHYPSI CA-6 game, which was made for Artfight as a means to challenge myself in a gamejam-esque fashion. I was kind of soured by the fact it didn't garner attention by the Artfight staff despite the effort I put into it, but even in light of that, I have employed techniques that I had not used before which have increased my confidence as a game developer, and I kind of enjoyed it even if I pulled an allnighter to complete this one in time, with my job and all...

Pokerman started as an exclusively CLI application, as my approach this time was to separate the actual card game logic from the game itself. Kind of an engine-frontend separation, which would allow the engine to be extensible and also ported to many other "frontends" if so I wished, so the game could exist in Unity, maybe even MonoGame, as a webapp with a C# backed server, and so on.

I worked on the "dealer" and card values first. The way the engine is set up is that every hand is its own instance that checks a hand's cards, and if it matches, it puts itself as the "Hand result" for that hand, and that is used to determine the weight of the hand, which can be compared to other hands to decide which is stronger.

This approach makes it easy for me to add new hands, for instance. Currently, the only existing Hand Results are all the results that pertain to the 5-card hold rules with no jokers.

What the engine does is use a set of hand instances and check from strongest to weakest until the first one yields true. The last one will always happen, as it is the bogus hand. The only chain is, as expected, the 5-card hold one.

This, the hand weight comparisons, and the tie mechanics were perhaps the places I debugged in the most to check for potential pitfalls. With the console and specific non-automated tests, it was kind of easy and fun, although... the code... might use some work.

Next I worked on the AI. With all the ML fuzz I must state that this AI is merely a random chance AI. No machine learning is involved in this AI.

All this AI does is look at a chance table given a number of cards to replace which determines the chances of getting the wanted hand with X cards to replace. The table is precomputed. (1 = 100%)

Some of the values may be probabilistcally wrong. My combinatorics aren't as polished as they used to be, and instead of using raw math I took a simpler approach and used the engine itself to generate 10k pseudorandom (System.Random() .NET 6 implementation) draws to determine a percentage. However, for the purposes of the game engine, and given extreme precision was not necessary, it's acceptable.

Risk and Contentness were a pair of values that determined whether the AI would risk discarding their current hand for a stronger one. Contentness was tested for first. If it met the margin, it would draw no new cards. Riskiness was tested for last. If it met the margin, it would go up one hand in terms of hand weight to aim for. It then gave back the result evaluation that it desired to get the cards for, or, if content, the actual hand (signifying contentness with the current hand).

It would've made a fair game with a degree of difficulty that wasn't ever the same, and the AI risk and contentness parameters can be changed at any moment during runtime.

This was all for the underlying engine. Next was to actually link all these faceless bits of data to something the player could interact with...

...and while at work, when I had completed all my assigned development projects (under supervision of my boss, so I was not just slacking!!!) I made a placeholder set of cards.

These were used to make a Unity ScriptableObject. This was also my first time working with ScriptableObjects themselves, but a dear friend had shown me their power before and I was raring to try them out for this project.

The data is reminiscent of the Pokerman Engine Card (structure below), with added relevant Unity information.

The approach of using ScriptableObjects with their own methods I could call to, for example, get the sprite for a particular Card, was extremely useful, because I could write code once and make seven thousand themed decks if I so wanted.

I used this to make the world-space and GUI space cards that you can touch in the game.

Yes. they DO flip, literally. It was the easier way to do this, and in the context of the game (and shader used) you couldn't just cheat out of that.

After the cards were set in place, it was time to make the dealer..................................... oh mama

The assets often are the hardest part of these things. They take so long because animations are something else. The first dealer was

hm

this.

Yes, that is positively a Henohenomoheji.

It was simple, sketchy and scratchy, which was perfect to test out animations with. Lord, it did take some time still. Animating is hard. Praise animators.

I had some fun playing with it, not gonna lie.

After all this, it was time for the real deal.

Oh boy. Remember when I said animation was hard? With such tight timeline to work with and having to work in my usual artstyle?

Yeah. Look at this.

This took me a relatively mean amount of hours (entire afternoon), and it was the final day I could work on this game by the time I had started making this spritesheet.

It is composed of individual parts to make my life easier and then put together in Aseprite. It was probably the part that took me the most time out of everything else asset related. It even still has some flaws, such as the body sometimes shifting positions between frames. My bad.

After that I worked on the cards. They were abstract-ish representations of the characters I had chosen to become cards as part of my Arfight gimmick for this year, and a Casandra themed cardback.

Fun fact. Card with value 1 was gonna be somebody different.

After everything was put together......... it was time for the audio. I left audio for last. I suck at music. I have said it once I will keep saying it and it does NOT seem to be getting any better, and it was not going to improve within the remaining 12 hours I had to work on the game. I could not afford time to laze off in FL Studio when I had to polish some stuff to make the game get out there. I wasn't confident in my music skills at all (in contrast to my programming and graphics skills).

I got some sfx from freesound and edited it to match, and used some of the stream assets for other sound effects related to the coins (taken straight from Mario Party 3, ha ha)

The music track... I had asked another dear friend about it when development was still in the console-app stage, but they said they wouldn't be available for such. So, I just left it for the very last moment. I was then SCRAMBLING to find a nice track to use that would not get me in trouble (I did not use Luigi's Casino's track for this reason), so I looked where I get some of my tracks I play while programming, and settled on this one...

I liked it for the ambience (background) I pulled at the last minute (because I HADN'T even drawn the background then yet!!!) and with that, it just needed to be polished and uploaded to itch and Artfight (most importantly Artfight!!!!)

I pulled an allnighter finishing the final details of the game and authoring the page for it in itch. I had done allnighters before for other games I had made for people I cherished (although those are... probably better left in the past now.)

And so while at work I published the game and posted it on Artfight.

It sure was a ride and yes I will mention again I am sort of mad I was not even mentioned among the games that were highlighted in the final Artfight blogpost despite all the effort I put into it. However... the people the game featured really liked it, and that warmed my heart and justified my effort, as well as what I learned while making it.

This game was a promise to myself to complete, since in 2021 my computer was stolen while I was making a Subway Surfers clone for the same reasoning. I wanted to get it done by all means necessary, and I can now reliably say I have completed my goal.

Hope you enjoy the game. I am going to polish it a little bit more and upload it to Newgrounds at a later date... but no more allnighters over it.

It's done. It's cute, it's small, and it's something I should've done when I first started my gamedev career instead of trying to lift the big pumpkins first without any muscle.

Maybe I'll make Pokerman open source... or make another game using it, extending it to be able to properly handle Hold'Em Poker.

Want to play the game? Click "CA-6" in the title of this post.

[levemetal]

Before I get into my peeves with this and get stoned by comments:

NEVER CLICK ON LINKS FROM EMAILS YOU WERE NOT EXPECTING.

ALWAYS NAVIGATE TO THE OPTIONS ON A SITE YOURSELF.

This is Internet Safety 101.

This outta the way:

Has anyone got some goddamn proof of this?

I've been searching the net for news on this from reputable sources or even discord themselves but found nothing.

At most I have seen is just a screenshot of the mail and basic header. What I would be interested in seeing in terms of proof is the actual email complete with the full email header. Reason is you can spoof email addresses so that it looks like it's discord who's sending it, without discord being the one actually sending it.

There is so many factors in this before you can confidently say the entire email servers at discord have been compromised. That would be a HUGE data breech you think the attackers would have done something else with to make money (seeing this is the primary interest for most threat actors)

Further, if you already have the ENTIRE EMAIL SERVER at discord, why would you go this far to phish random ass users that will not grant you further access to say, an Active Directory or any Crown Jewels. Sure you can get lucky, but again, you're already in, why would you expose yourself so obviously like this unless you're some dumbass script kiddie threat actor. If you already have such a piece in your control, why would you want to make it known to everyone that Hey I'm here and got your servers :D✨

In the recent years phishing has become extremely good. The Emails can be highly polished and look official without being an actual compromise on the side of the company. Spoofing is a thing that will be used. Again, I want some proof.

THAT BEING SAID: all of my points here are by no points excuses to ignore basic fucking internet safety. These emails rely on social engineering (in case your emotions and impromptu panic) in other to get you to hand over your data. It is phishing 101. If you get such an email, then go to your app or a webapp you have of discord, navigate there manually, login manually and navigate to settings from there: Account -> Status. There you have your answer. Delete the email you got or report as spam and move on. Maybe even report such emails to discord properly (send the spam you received as attachment to their indicated support for spam and phishing) If it is indeed a breech it is in your best interest for discord to know and to look into this. This is all you can do as a regular ass citizen.

Important, discord compromised. Careful.

[dejoe]

The Vibe Coding Revolution

Vibe coding isn't about the code, its about the intent.

That’s the radical idea behind this new approach to building things with technology. Vibe Coding, as defined by Andrej Karpathy, is the practice of using AI tools and minimal human input to create functional, even elegant, digital experiences—without getting bogged down in the weeds of technical execution.

It’s coding for the rest of us, where the focus is on what you want to build, not how. And it’s a movement that’s quietly upending the world of software development.

The tools of the trade are usually Cursor IDE, Windshark, and in some cases plain old ChatGPT. Usually Claude Sonnet gives better results with Cursor. However now the newer models which are geared towards coder are killing it.

Before it got a name, this has been popular and there were many that were building code through this. I recently saw a team of high school students win a bootcamp with a Vibe-Coded app. They wanted pitched a "Smart AI Mirror" that would provide a score for skin health. As a demo of how it would appear, they vibe coded a webapp. They had no knowledge on React or Tailwind. They know what they wanted and voila they had an app.

My Vibe Coding Experiment

I wanted a digital clock for my pomodoro sessions. Something like bigtimer.net; however the ads in them were a turnoff. That started my quest to build it. Instead of my approach of starting with an architecture and design, I thought why not vibe it out.

The result - a working app - dejoe.github.io/timer ; I used plain prompts with no prompt engineering. This was intentional to see the mileage I could get without getting fancy. Also did not provide it with technical inputs. There was only one place where I did provide it with a technical input, mostly because I was being impatient.

Here are the prompts that I had used :

Write a javascript and HTML program, that will create a full page timer.

The page must contain two elements:

Clock. The clock should just be mm:ss. It should start decrementing seconds for every second when the clock is started

Start Button. The start button on click must start the clock. Then it should convert into stop button. The start button must be center aligned and below the clock.

___________

There should be a way to enter the hours and seconds before starting the clock.

___________

There are a few issues with this.

Input has hours and minutes.

Display has both only minutes and seconds. The clock display should have hours minutes and seconds.

Then if there are no hours input, then it must not display NaN

___________

This looks good, can you make it full screen though

___________

the .container has 100vw. However the clock font is small. It does not expand to fit the entire screen.

___________

this code works.

Can you style the button a bit

___________

two more requests. Can you make the inputs and the buttons take up a single line.

Also can you create a fullscreen mode. Where the page will occupy the full screen.

Also a dark mode.

If possible have a bottom panel, which will fit all the above buttons, along with the input and start / stop button

___________

can you make the font of the clock to be 24vw instead of javascript based font size

Then can you provide a way to pause the timer when it has started apart from stopping.

Also can you provide beep for 5 seconds, when the timer reaches 0

____________

javascript error in the page

____________

Learnings:

AI does the heavy lifting, with minimal input. The less I specified, the more it relied on its own “vibe” of what a timer should be.

Dark mode and fullscreen? Just ask. I didn’t explain how to implement them—I just wanted them. The model figured it out.

You’ll get features you don’t want. The hours part in the clock? I still don’t use it. But I let it stay. Perfection is the enemy of the vibe.

Vibe Coding isn’t about replacing developers—it’s about expanding the definition of who can create. It’s about saying, “I want this thing. Make it happen.”

The high schoolers won because they focused on the vibe of their idea, not the technical specs. They didn’t get lost in the code; they got lost in the why.

So, what do you want to build? A productivity tool? A personal dashboard? A silly game? Write down. Be lazy with your prompts. Let the AI do the heavy lifting.

[australiajobstoday]

Testbook - Content Manager - Engineering Exam Vertical (5-7 yrs) Noida (Content/Design)

user base of over 7 Crore students, more than 750 crore questions solved on the WebApp, and a knockout Android App… Apply Now

[mcgravin]

Here's the above post, textified with links (where I could find them)!

Powerful Free/Open Source Software to Do the Thing You Want to Do

3D Modeling/Animation(Complex) - Blender.org 3D Modeling (Simple) - SketchUp [free webapp version] 3D Modeling (Voxel/Brick) - MagicaVoxel 3D Modeling (Digital Clay Sculpting) - Sculptris 3D Modeling (in VR) - Google Blocks [Steam] Human 3D Model/Armature Generator- MakeHuman Photo Editing/Manipulation - GIMP Digital Painting/Comics - Krita Vector Art (like Illustrator) - Inkscape Storyboarding - Storyboarder Video Game Engine - Unity Visual Novel Maker w/No Code - Fungus + Unity Text-Based Game - Twine (twinery.org) Audio/Sound Recording/Editing - Audacity Sheet Music Notation - MuseScore Retro Game Music Maker - Bosca Ceoil [itch.io] Retro Video Game Effects Generator - Bfxr Screen & Webcam Recording - OBS Studio Live Streaming (Twitch/YouTube) - Streamlabs OBS Video and Audio Converter - HandBrake 2D Animation (Cutout) - DragonBones Pro, Synfig 2D Animation (Drawn) - Blender 2.8, OpenToonz Stick Figure Animation - Pivot Animator Stop Motion/Claymation - Stop Motion Studio (mobile only) Video Editing - Blender (only if you're desperate) Flashcards/Spaced Repetition Learning: Anki

Awesome Websites: Disraction Free Writing - Writer (bighugelabs) Script/Playwriting - Amazon Storywriter [defunct] Sound Effects Database - Freesound.org Music for Film/Games - incompetech.com/music Pixel Art & Animation - Piskel Textures and HDRIs for 3D - HDRI Haven Fonts - Google Fonts, 1001freefonts.com Learn Coding - Codecademy Simple Android App Maker - AppInventor (MIT) Color Palette Generator - Coolors.co Rhyme Dictionary - RhymeZone.com

Complied with love, for you by Cullen. Now go make some art! <3

---

(I tried to find out who Cullen is, but it looks like the list image is from at least 2018 with no attribution.)

Obviously people will have their own opinions on what option is "best" for each of these categories, but I'd suggest:

Photo Editing/Manipulation - Photopea

Video Game Engine - Godot

Visual Novel Maker - ren.py

Text-Based Game* - Inform 7 (*I actually really like Twine, but I'd dispute calling it an engine for "text-based games". It's an engine for hypertext games.)

Script/Playwriting - Scrivener (not free, but please dear god do not use Amazon!!)

And a couple categories not in the original post:

Game icons/symbols - Game-Icons.Net

Thesaurus - WordHippo

The best free software

[aitoolswhitehattoolbox]

Testbook - Content Manager - Engineering Exam Vertical (5-7 yrs) Noida (Content/Design)

user base of over 7 Crore students, more than 750 crore questions solved on the WebApp, and a knockout Android App… Apply Now

[jeymzzzzzz]

Week 17 (Part 2)

Continuation for Part 1, leads us to Week 17 (Part 2). Though it gave us short duration to finalize everything for the presentation, me and team managed to finish up everything and present them in a short time.

And what can I say? It was a success!! Finally!! Our hard work has paid off and both the papers and our webapp have been officially approved by our instructor, Sir Carl. This milestone marks a significant journey as a Computer Engineering student. Looking at back now, I mean way back since Week 1, I've come a long way to achieve something wonderful that can provide not both of the experiences in working other fields, but the hardships and countless nights of no-sleeping and Kopiko Blanca Twin Pack drinking spree have paid off. It serves us as a testament to their unwavering support and belief in our abilities.

THANK YOU SIRR LABYUU ADVANCE MERRY CHRISTMAS PO 🎉🎉🎉

[holyjak]

An essay explaining the reasons for creating InstantDB, a "A Graph-Based Firebase" (database as a service with an API). InstantDB has relational queries, auth, and permissions and supports optimistic updates, "multiplayer" (user's changes are propagated to all others), and offline mode. These last three capabilities arguably make an app way better, and transform how you use it. The article discusses first the general architecture of such as webapp-and-DB system (a normalized in-browser store turned into a graph for each screen, and with mutations that apply both to the local store and the remote DB) and then dives into the integrated solution Instant delivers, with a "Local DB" that understands graph queries and handles normalization, caching, and syncing with the backend. Instant is based on a triple store (id, attribute, value), and has a datalog-like query language at its core, and a UI-friendly InstaQL on top of it.

Note: Firebase has reportedly two problems: 1) It is only a document store, without support for relations; 2) Its permission language is too weak and gets very complex very quickly.

Related: A Database in the Browser argues that the schleps we face as UI engineers are actually database problems in disguise (and InstantDB tries to be the solution for that).

[geniunebuyerzone]

FREE VIRAL WEB TOOLS

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One of the most popular free web tools is Canva, a graphic design platform that allows users to create beautiful images, logos, and social media posts without having to be a design expert. With a user-friendly interface and thousands of templates to choose from, Canva is a great tool for anyone looking to enhance their online presence.

Another useful tool is Trello, a project management software that helps individuals and teams organize their tasks and collaborate more effectively. With its easy-to-use boards, lists, and cards, Trello makes it simple to track progress and stay on top of deadlines.

For those looking to improve their website's SEO, there's SEO Site Checkup, a free tool that analyzes a website's performance and provides recommendations for optimizing its search engine rankings. By following the suggestions provided by SEO Site Checkup, website owners can increase their visibility and attract more traffic to their site.

Overall, free web tools can be a valuable resource for individuals and businesses looking to streamline their processes and achieve their online goals. With so many options available, there's bound to be a tool that fits your needs and helps you succeed in the digital world.

Are you looking to boost your online presence and reach a wider audience? Our free viral web tools are here to help! With these easy-to-use tools, you can create eye-catching graphics, videos, and memes that are sure to capture the attention of your followers and get them sharing your content like crazy.

Our tools are designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, so you can quickly create professional-quality materials without any design experience. Whether you're promoting a new product, sharing a funny meme, or just trying to increase your social media reach, our viral web tools have got you covered.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to go viral and get your message in front of millions of people. Try our free viral web tools today and start creating engaging content that will have everyone talking!

1. #ViralWebTool

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[checkcashing247]

Article - Scenario

GenAI Game Development with Scenario

Introduction to Scenario

Scenario is the first GenAI toolkit for the gaming industry, offering the most complete suite of features for creative precision to game studios and indie developers.

Through advancements like LoRAs and SDXL Models, it is at the forefront of game development, facilitating the creation of AI models by anyone from anywhere and at any time to easily incorporate style-consistent assets in current game production workflows for ideation, conception, production and marketing.

Scenario is available as Webapp or API that can directly be integrated within popular engines such as Unity and Unreal or directly in-game, thus adapting to diverse projects needs and revolutionizing the traditional game creation process.

Advanced Features

Scenario isn't just about creating assets; it's about enriching the entire artistic process by giving full creative control.

Features like Style Transfer, Character transfer (IP Adapter) and 12 ControlNet modes allow for precise customization and adherence to reference materials, ensuring creations remain unique and copyright-compliant.

Model Training:

A significant advantage offered by Scenario is its robust model training capabilities, empowering users to custom-train AI models tailored to specific game development needs.

It allows users to train and refine their own AI models (primarily LoRAs) on a large scale for game asset creation, supporting SDXL and SD 1.5 models that understand and replicate artistic styles, game mechanics, and narrative elements. This facilitates maintaining a consistent aesthetic and gameplay experience throughout projects. By providing a seamless interface for both beginners and experts, ensuring that even the most intricate design requirements are met efficiently and effectively.

Scenario also simplifies the integration of both in-house and community-sourced models, including those from platforms like HuggingFace and CivitAI. Users can manage all their models in one central location, leveraging an extensive toolkit and API to tailor AI capabilities directly to their project needs. Additionally, unlike other platforms where control may be limited, Scenario provides full control over the training process, allowing for precise adjustments and refinements.

IP Adapter and ControlNet Modes:

What sets Scenario apart is not just the breadth of features like text & image prompts, img2img conversion, and the innovative 12 ControlNet modes, but also the depth with which these features can be customized.

ControlNet offers various modes for enhanced image generation. For instance:

Depth: Generates depth maps to provide nuanced depth information.

Pose: Identifies and replicates human poses from images.

Segmentation: Creates color segments to identify main objects.

For more detailed information, visit the Scenario ControlNet guide.

IP Adapters are transforming project development by enabling the integration of images as prompts.

This allows the effortlessly merge of artistic visions with AI's capabilities by enabling the use of detailed images to direct the creative output.

All while ensuring creations remain unique and copyright-compliant, and allowing for precision in adherence to reference materials, forming a robust advancement that enriches the artistic process rather than replacing it.

Scenario Integration in Game Development Tools

Integrating Scenario's AI into Unity enhances creative processes by providing developers with tools that streamline asset creation and scenario development.

This integration allows for the dynamic generation of environments, characters, and narratives, leveraging AI to interpret, adapt, and manifest creative visions in real time within Unity's versatile engine.

By utilizing Scenario's AI, anyone can push the boundaries of conventional game design, introducing a level of detail and responsiveness previously unattainable.

This not only boosts efficiency but also paves the way for more complex, engaging, and personalized gaming experiences, showcasing the potential of AI in advancing the frontier of interactive storytelling.

Enhance: Elevating Game Asset Quality

Scenario Enhance uses sophisticated algorithms to enhance the quality of textures, character models, and environments.

This tool simplifies the asset enhancement process, allowing developers to focus on creating visually stunning games that redefine digital storytelling.

Restyle

Restyle allows you to apply specific styles to images or sketches:

Transform images with various artistic styles

Render sketches through guided artistic lenses

Create a unified look across multiple images

Practical Applications and Use Cases

Scenario provides detailed guides and examples to help developers produce assets efficiently:

Designing Seasonal LiveOps Icons: Simplify workflows for timely content updates.

Training Models for RPG Avatars: Enhance player engagement with customizable avatars.

Isometric City Builder: Create precise tile sets for varied game worlds.

Creating Dynamic Game Backgrounds: Streamline the design of game backgrounds with enhanced efficiency and quality.

Case Study: InnoGames’ Streamlined Production with Scenario

InnoGames, a leader in mobile and browser games, has integrated Scenario's AI solutions to streamline the creation of game assets. With Scenario, InnoGames has enhanced various aspects of game development, including character design and icon creation. This collaboration has enabled InnoGames to quickly test new ideas and maintain style consistency across their games, significantly boosting productivity.

Key Achievements:

Character and Icon Generation: Rapid and diverse creation of game characters and icons, reducing the need for manual adjustments.

Loading Screens and Backgrounds: Efficient conceptualization and rendering of aesthetically consistent loading screens and game backgrounds.

Enhanced Collaboration: Multi-user collaboration capabilities facilitate effective sharing and creation processes within the team.

Dario Berutti, Head of Art at InnoGames, praises Scenario: "It allows us to shorten our production time, stay consistent with our styles, and quickly test new ideas. It’s becoming an integral part of our tool chain."

Conclusion: The Future of Game Development with Scenario

Integrating Scenario into the game development process marks a significant shift in asset creation and enhancement. By automating what was once a manual and time-consuming process, Scenario not only saves time but also expands creative potential, making it an essential tool for developers aiming to stay at the cutting edge of game design innovation.

[krcdgamedev]

I haven't been working on this as much because I've been job hunting (anyone need a mediocre dev?), so let's get back into it by trying to make a game in the engine as it is now.

I envision a game where the "mons" are just wild animals in a forest. You wake up one day and decide you're going to do on a journey and kill God, you know, typical JRPG plot stuff. Game won't be very long, something like 3-4 main areas.

Menus are fucked until Godot makes hboxes and vboxes work properly with items added by scripts. I could probably do something about this (ie not add items by script) but idgaf

Species: I'll be adding a single new stat, magic, which acts as a secondary attack stat with both attack and magic using the target's defense stat. So it's like gen 1 Pokemon's special stat but it's the defense stat that's doing double duty. Will this add a massive amount of intrigue and ingenuity to gameplay? No, but it's slightly different, so I'm doing it anyway.

While on my desperate quest to figure out how to get jerb I did end up making a species editor webapp that's made to work with Mondo, so I can use that to, you know, put together the species data.

Unique type system of course. Probably just single type per species. Not sure if they'll have abilities, probably not. Since you only recruit one of each species, no unique stats (IVs/natures), probably no EVs either.

Moves in the engine are currently very rudimentary. Priority of all things is fully implemented, but secondary effects and power points aren't… not sure this game will even have a PP system versus something like a mana pool. The species editor can be used to edit a moves database as well.

Battlescenes… none of the basic ones will actually be used. You'll always have all three party members (two early on) on the field, versus like 3-5 enemies per battle, and the mon-swapping mechanics/menu won't be used at all. (Neither will the items menu which I haven't made yet, probably.)

Sorting battle participants by speed is something very Pokemon-like, so I might want to do something different. Maybe have a random buff/debuff to each participants' speed before sorting, and have the resulting order for the turn visible to the player. That's a but like the old Pokemon contests actually, so maybe have moves that change the order in the next turn. Dunno if priority would be added on top of that. The speed-sorting function is in the basic battle functions, but it's only called on the highest level script, so the user can just swap it out there for a unique one.

In terms of balance I'm thinking something like, the weaker earlier critters level up faster while the later stronger ones take more EXP to level up. So both groups of party members have upsides and downsides, with later critters not being quick easy strength immediately. So EXP growth classes will be implemented.

For assets (mainly music and character models) I'll be relying heavily on OpenGameArt. Looking at the animals available gives some amusing ideas- how about you encounter a whale as a subboss in a lake halfway up the mountain?…

[carminegarden]

Partner just ordered me two pishocks!??!?! Anyway guess who just spent yesterday writing a webapp to call the API (and intends to reverse engineer the comms it receives to remove any need for an outbound connection) because being reliant on a server/website hosted by someone else is strange for a device I want to keep beyond the existence of the company

[remotetrove]

QA Engineer (sr) at Divelement

Description Job Title: QA Lead (Long-Term Contractor with Potential for Full-Time Conversion) Company: Divelement Job Description: Divelement, an IT consultancy specializing in webapps and mobile apps development, is seeking a highly skilled QA Lead to join our team. This is a long-term contractor role with the potential to transition into a full-time position with all associated benefits after…

[minasesouya]

3Dゲーム内のネット書店「さかえ書店」オンライン を公開 https://minase-souya.com/webGL_bookshop_UE4_typeA/index.html ウェブブラウザ上で稼働 本をWクリックするとamazonで詳細が開きます 現実世界の大型書店の閉店がニュースに何度もなったりして、紙の本が並んでいる空間が好きなひとりとしては寂しいところですが、自作のメタバースで抵抗しようと思います。 ---------------------------------------------------------- Demo reel of a virtual e-bookstore I made by UE4 The app shown in the video is playable on my website: https://minase-souya.com/webGL_bookshop_UE4_typeA/index.html Game players can walk around in the bookstore and open each book's link connected to the corresponding information on Amazon. Note: Only books written in Japanese are in the app for now.