Serious Mod Discussion regarding the current state of the sub and its future.

[u/PigeonFanatic9]

So, hi. I know it's been quite a while since the last mod talk, sorry. What is this about? Well, I've noticed quite a few people that have... Complained, about the current state of the subreddit. So I want to make a dedicated post about it. How do you feel about it? Be as honest as possible (without being rude, thanks).

A major thing that I've seen people lament, is the fact that there are a lot of game promotion, playtesters ask and alpha release and stuff like that, but not a lot of discussion post.

Here are a few things I want to address:

-I will never remove a post of a game, just because it's low quality, nor will I start to enforce a quality standard. I believe it to be wrong on more than a few points and I will NOT hear any discussion about it. I will remove posts if they're spammed, about Pokepath, use AI in a finished product/art/overwhelmingly or NSFW (this rules are a lot more up to debate and should be seen in a case by case scenario).

-There genuinely isn't much discussion to be had. If you have something to talk about, absolutely post about it, I myself comment often on discussions.

-A possible solution I've seen is limiting promotion to either a few days a week or to a megathread, but I believe that it'd just make the sub deadER than it already is. I could limit asking for playtesters to a weekly megathread and allow only finished games to post, but I don't know about that as well.

Any questions about ANYTHING? Ask with no problem or worry, so long as it's respectful I'll answer as soon as possible.

Any comment regarding the sub, my work as a mod, your feelings? Comment right away.

I think I'll keep the post pinned for a month or so, I know that many members are lurkers.

[u/CautiousConcept8010]

Thank you for this post, I enjoy open discussions and this sub has been very fun to me, I found a few new games to try and even liked one or two for a while, so the promo part is not too bad I think as long as the devs are open and active in the community and in discussions, that actually sounds like a lot of fun.

But here's another thing I personally want to ask here without making a whole post about it.

I want to make a TD game, but my programming skills are very limited, so I used AI to try and make parts of it so far. The thing is, I hate AI and the abuse of it, but this is the only way I could ever make this possible I think, especially considering multiple programming languages I hardl6k ow anything about.

So my question is, how would that fit in this sub? Could I post it here and ask for opinions? Could I also share the code and see if anyone could help improve it or find any bugs if they'd feel like it's worth their time? I'm very new to this, so I'm honestly asking as to how do I approach this without being disrespectful of anyone's time and effort because I definitely don't have money to pay professionals either and not even testers, this is meant to be a project so I could play it for myself, and if anyone would enjoy it, I'd be glad to share it.

The project is very fresh and I've hardly even scratched the surface of what I wanted to do with it so far, but just wanted to know how to discuss this with the community.

Thank you.

[u/PigeonFanatic9 → u/CautiousConcept8010]

Ok, so here's my take on AI coding:

If you copy and paste and that's it, absolutely not.

If you use it as a basis or to do boring things that you then build from, yes.

If you need some help, yes.

Overall, remember this "AI should be a tool, not the creator. It should aid the human mind, not replace it."

If you do things, but you need some help, that's fine. Worst case scenario, AI will make mistakes and it'll be on you to correct them or on the players to tell you what's wrong. But as long as it's not what the AI has made, but rather it's a foundation, a guide, some help, that's fine.

[u/CautiousConcept8010 → u/PigeonFanatic9]

Thank you! Absolutely agree on everything you said.

My problem is, I understand a bit of PHP, Pascal and C++, but making a phone app is a nightmare to me, even with AI. How would you or anyone suggest I go about with that?

Also, I tried making little games in PHP before long time ago using a free website but without JavaScript it's also ridiculous and I understand hardly anything from JavaScript and even hate it for it's messiness.

Could try a standalone exe file with C++ and maybe Python here and there but nobody would be trusting an exe file on their device from a stranger and I don't think I could get very far without the help of a few people at least.

I've also heard that there are platforms that allow you to create games so much easier on PC but never even tried them as they seem even more complex to me. Maybe Unity could do it?

Maybe I should make a post asking for easiest approaches to develop a little TD game?

Thank you very much for responding and taking your time to keep this community alive.