Coder Legion - Recent posts tagged indiedev

Rend Infestation Devlog #2 - Death by thousand papercuts

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 20:54:31 +0000

Second status update on my upcoming game Rend Infestation, slowly getting back into the rhythm of development.

I built a blog engine with no build step — one JSON file, a noscript list, and a gated RSS feed

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:34:26 +0000

I run NitroIDE, a free browser IDE where your code never leaves the tab — no signup, no cloud backend, no waiting for a container to boot. Last week I rebuilt its blog engine, and the whole thing runs on one JSON file.

No static site generator. No build step. blog-data.json holds every post, and a small vanilla script renders the list, the article pages, and the search index. If JavaScript is off, readers still get a full noscript list of every article. The RSS feed is gated so it only serves valid items — one bad entity used to break the whole feed, and that taught me to validate before shipping.

Why this matters: most blog setups I tried wanted a framework, a pipeline, or a CMS. For a small indie site, that is overhead I do not need. One JSON file, one script, and the blog is fast, private, and mine.

The part I am proudest of: the site works fully offline once loaded, and the blog is no exception. Try NitroIDE free at https://nitroide.com/?utm_source=coderlegion&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=daily-2026-10-21 — no account, just code.

Evening the Terrain & the construction of Road Infrastructure | UE5 Devlog

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 23:23:34 +0000

In this devlog, I continue shaping Kazuhara Resort by evening out the terrain and building its road infrastructure in Unreal Engine 5. The focus is on preparing the ground and creating routes that connect the resort’s different areas.

I showcase the Flatten and Smooth tools to level uneven surfaces and soften transitions, the Ramp tool to connect different elevations, and the Landscape Paint tool to define the road surfaces. These changes help establish the resort’s layout and make the terrain more practical for further construction.

Ragdoll Physics Issues | UE5 Devlog

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:02:45 +0000

While implementing player death and ragdoll physics, I ran into a persistent Chaos physics issue. The death system and ragdoll activation work correctly, but once the body hits the ground, it begins violently twitching, bouncing, and rotating, sometimes appearing to push through the Landscape.
I tested several potential causes, including terrain collision, CCD, impact velocity, physics simulation nodes, modular mesh collision, damping, collision presets, and constraints, but the instability remained.
During debugging, I also discovered that I had initially been troubleshooting the wrong Physics Asset. After switching to the correct one, the issue still persisted.
The current investigation is focused on the Physics Asset's collision bodies and whether overlapping or conflicting bodies are causing Chaos to continuously apply forces to the ragdoll.
Death system: working
Ragdoll activation: working
Possessed inflatable tube-man physics: still under investigation

Rend Infestation Devlog #1 - A new start

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:12:49 +0000

Getting back into game development by resuming works on a project I started earlier this year - a top-down twin-stick shooter called Rend Infestation.

Sprint & Stamina | UE5 Devlog

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 02:01:31 +0000

This devlog showcases my Blueprint-based sprint and stamina system and its integration with the player’s health and thirst.

Hydration decreases at a normal rate while walking. Sprinting consumes stamina and accelerates hydration loss, giving faster movement an additional resource cost. Once stamina is depleted, the extra hydration drain from sprinting stops, while the normal drain continues. If hydration reaches zero, the player begins losing health.

These connected systems make resource management part of traversal. Players need to balance speed with their physical condition, using drinks to restore hydration and medkits to recover health. The UI tracks each stat and highlights critical levels, providing clear feedback as resources run low.

Building a Procedural Murder-Mystery Game That Still Has to Make Sense

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 03:50:17 +0000

Building Casefile: Sixty Seconds — From Murder-Mystery Prototype to Launch Sprint

I’ve been spending a lot of my development time lately on a new Vasken Interactive Studios project called Casefile: Sixty Seconds, and it’s finally starting to feel less like a prototype and more like an actual game.

The basic idea is a procedural mystery game built around a simple loop:

Briefing → Investigation → Accusation → Results

Players examine suspects and evidence, look for contradictions, and decide who is responsible. The goal was to make cases short enough to play in a few minutes without turning the deduction itself into guesswork.

One of the biggest development challenges has been procedural generation. Randomizing names, suspects, evidence, motives, and relationships is easy enough. Randomizing them while still producing a case that is logically solvable is another matter entirely.

So the generator now performs structural validation before a case reaches the player. I recently ran 1,000 generated-case tests, and all 1,000 passed validation. That was one of those development milestones that doesn’t look flashy in a screenshot, but it felt pretty damn good.

The current build includes:

Three handcrafted Pinecrest cases alongside procedural Dispatch cases
Six difficulty levels, from Rookie through Black File
XP, streaks, case archives, personal scores, and Clue Tokens
Daily Case and leaderboard-oriented competition systems
A Case Rush mode where the clock actually becomes part of the pressure
A Supply Desk with a small launch-focused purchase catalog rather than a giant monetization ladder
A progression system that lets players unlock higher difficulty tiers through play, with an optional Investigator Access Pack

The monetization philosophy has been another interesting design problem. I don’t want the game built around constantly interrupting the player or selling them the answer. The current plan is limited to optional rewarded ads, controlled interstitials between cases, Remove Ads, a small Clue Token pack, and the $9.99 Investigator Access Pack.

Most of the core game systems are now working. The remaining launch work is the less glamorous but absolutely necessary stuff: production art, tutorial polish, audio and feedback, mobile layout cleanup, Android packaging, Google Play Billing, leaderboards, privacy/compliance work, and final QA.

That means I’m currently in the dangerous stage of development where the game is functional enough to make you think, “I’m almost done,” while the launch checklist quietly laughs at you from the corner.

Still, seeing the investigation loop, procedural generation, progression, scoring, and case systems finally working together has been a great milestone.

Casefile: Sixty Seconds started as a fairly small idea: three suspects, a handful of clues, one contradiction, make the accusation.

It has turned into a considerably deeper system than I originally expected.

And apparently I have not yet learned my lesson about the phrase “This should be a simple app.”

— Wendell Wilhelm
Founder, Vasken Interactive Studios LLC

We Built Kolaboratr Because Finding the Right People to Build With Shouldn’t Be This Hard

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 02:44:16 +0000

There’s a pattern we keep seeing across indie development and creative communities.

One person posts:

“I have a project, but I need an artist.”

A programmer says:

“I’m looking for a team.”

A writer is looking for something worth joining.

A composer wants a real project to score.

A designer has an idea, but needs developers to help bring it to life.

Sometimes these people are in the same community.

Sometimes they’re only a few posts apart.

And somehow, they still never find each other.

That problem is why we built Kolaboratr.

{% embed https://youtube.com/shorts/NFo2aRf9ZYw?si=XcF9ijJWNIWQr0hG %}

What Is Kolaboratr?

Kolaboratr is a creator collaboration platform built to help people find projects, collaborators, and teams.

It’s designed for creators such as:

Developers
Artists
Writers
Designers
Composers
Animators
Project leads
Other people trying to build something with a team

Project leads can create a Kolab, explain what they’re building, list the roles they need, describe the collaboration or compensation arrangement, and manage applications and invitations.

Creators can build profiles around their:

Roles
Skills
Tools
Experience
Availability
Portfolio

The goal is simple:

Put the people looking for collaborators and the people looking for projects in the same place.

We’re Starting at Zero — And We’re Not Hiding It

Kolaboratr is brand new.

That means there aren't thousands of creator profiles already waiting inside.

There aren't hundreds of projects filling every category.

We could try to make the platform look established.

We'd rather tell people the truth.

We're building the first community right now.

We’re looking for the first real:

Developers looking for projects
Artists looking for teams
Writers looking for collaborators
Composers looking for games to score
Designers looking for people to build with
Project leads actively trying to form teams

If you join now, you aren't arriving after the community has already been established.

You're helping establish it.

Finding Someone Is Only the Beginning

Anyone who has worked on a collaborative project knows the problems don't disappear once somebody says:

“Sure, I’ll join.”

Then come the other questions.

Who owns the work?

Is the project paid, unpaid, or revenue share?

How is revenue divided?

Who gets credit?

Can contributors use their work in their portfolios?

What happens if somebody leaves?

What happens if the project gets cancelled?

And perhaps the most dangerous question:

“Wait... what did we actually agree to?”

That’s why Kolaboratr also includes Kolaboratr Kontracts.

Kolaboratr Kontracts

Kontracts give collaborators a way to document important project terms, including:

Compensation
Revenue sharing
Existing asset ownership
Ownership of new contributions
Licensing
Credit
Portfolio rights
Expected time commitments
What happens if someone leaves
What happens if the project is cancelled

Both parties review and sign the same version of the agreement.

Once finalized, that version is preserved as a record of what everyone actually accepted.

Kolaboratr Kontracts are not a substitute for professional legal advice when an attorney is appropriate.

They are a way to prevent important collaboration terms from existing only inside scattered DMs, Discord messages, and forgotten conversations.

Built by Vasken Interactive Studios

Kolaboratr is a product of Vasken Interactive Studios LLC.

We’re an independent game and software studio creating original games, apps, and creator-focused tools.

Our projects include games currently in development such as:

House of Brats
Last Haul
Shadow Realms

We're also building practical and creative software including:

Trucker Suite
PremiseForge
Kolaboratr

Different projects. Different audiences.

But there's a common theme:

Take an idea and turn it into something real.

Kolaboratr grew directly out of one obstacle that keeps appearing when people try to do exactly that.

Having ideas isn't usually the problem.

Having work to do isn't the problem.

Finding the right people who actually want to build something with you can be.

The Founding Kolaboratrs

Because we're building the initial community now, the first 1,000 members receive:

One full year of full access free
No payment card required
A permanent Founding Kolaboratr badge

That Founding badge stays with the account permanently.

It marks the creators who were there while the community was still being built.

We Want the Rough-Edge Feedback

This isn't a polished corporate announcement followed by:

“Thanks for using our product. Please submit feedback into the void.”

We're still actively building.

If you're one of the first people using Kolaboratr and something is:

Confusing
Awkward
Broken
Missing
Unnecessary
Harder than it should be

Tell us.

We especially want to hear from people who are genuinely trying to:

Find a project
Recruit collaborators
Build an indie team
Organize a creative project
Work across different creative disciplines

The first community has a real opportunity to influence how Kolaboratr develops.

Find Your People

If you're building something and missing the right person...

Or you're the person looking for something worth building...

Come help us build the first Kolaboratr community.

Join Kolaboratr

Find your people. Build something together.

— Vasken Interactive Studios LLC

What 166K Clicks Taught Me About Using AI for SEO

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:16:52 +0000

Over three months, my static website generated 166K Google clicks from 1.39M impressions, with an 11.9% CTR and 7.5 average position.

The graph also shows traffic declining after its peak. That is important: AI did not create automatic, permanent growth. What helped was using AI inside a measurable SEO workflow—and reverting ideas when the data disagreed.

Here is the loop I now use.

1. Use Keyword Planner for discovery, not decisions

I start with broad product terms in Google Keyword Planner and export the results.

Search volume and competition help me find possible clusters, but a high-volume keyword is not automatically a reason to create a page.

Before choosing one, I ask:

Does it match my product?
Is its intent different from pages I already have?
Does an existing URL already rank for it?
Can I create something genuinely useful for the searcher?

This prevents keyword research from becoming a factory for thin pages.

2. Check keyword ownership with GSC MCP

I use a Google Search Console MCP connection to pull query-and-page data directly into my workflow.

This is more useful than looking only at a keyword report. A keyword may appear to be an opportunity while an existing page already ranks in positions 1–3.

Creating another page could split its signals and cause keyword cannibalization.

My basic decision record contains five fields:

Query: target keyword
Current URL: ranking page or none
Evidence: clicks and position from a settled GSC window
Intent: informational, local, comparison or action
Decision: improve, create or reject

If the intent already belongs to an existing page, I improve that page instead of creating another URL.

3. Use Claude skills as reviewers, not autopilot

I use Claude SEO-audit and keyword-research skills to inspect proposed changes.

They help me check:

Duplicate keyword targets
Titles, descriptions, H1s and canonicals
Indexability and internal links
Thin or repetitive content
Unsupported product and pricing claims
Possible performance regressions

AI can investigate, compare and draft—but it cannot replace evidence or editorial judgment.

I reject templated pages that only swap a keyword or city name.

4. Fix what Search Console actually flags

When clicks fall, I do not immediately rewrite the entire site.

I first separate incomplete recent Search Console data from settled data. Then I decompose the loss:

Compare equivalent date ranges.
Find which page lost clicks.
Pull that page’s query-level changes.
Check its indexing, canonical and crawl status.
Review the commits made before the decline.
Revert only when the evidence supports it.

This has saved me from treating every ranking fluctuation as a technical emergency.

5. Audit before and after deployment

Before every SEO commit and deployment, I run the repository SEO audit.

After deployment, I inspect the live HTML—not just the local source file—to verify:

Title
Meta description
Canonical
Robots directive
H1
Sitemap entry

Only after the production page passes those checks do I submit it through Search Console and begin its validation window.

The main lesson

My best results did not come from asking AI to “write SEO content.”

They came from giving AI access to structured evidence and enforcing a release process:

Keyword Planner → GSC ownership check → human intent decision → SEO audit → deploy → live verification → measure or revert

That is the process I use on Flingo, a product website with hundreds of static pages.

AI makes research and diagnosis faster.

Search data decides whether an idea deserves to ship.

How are you using AI in SEO without handing it the steering wheel?