Doing less, more productive, but I know its limits. I treat is as my "little assistant" - able to accomplish a lot but without the experience or cognition to make good decisions independently. Been using it a lot for framing out basic unit tests, governance configuration files, bulk renaming, building test files on a known syntax, etc. On the side, I've been using it to throw together PoCs I can quickly test to see if I like my an implementation or need to take my idea back to the drawing board.
It's not exactly what you're looking for but Game Dev Tycoon is very enjoyable if you want to experience a video game startup. Checks most boxes, not the most realistic but enough.
I've been building https://smartrik.com which is heavily vibe coded. The entire platform is built out but far from production-ready. Prompts were very compartmentalized and specific so it hasn't been a high level "I want X, build Y" chain of commands, but manually written code has been minimal.
On a similar note my parents didn't love the [AS] shows with more narrative but always sat down to watch stuff like 12oz Mouse with me. I still enjoy that kind of loose narrative content but I really don't get a lot of stuff these days, Skibidi included.
I'm building a platform to help employees prepare for large high-value meetings and presentations with note taking and on-demand AI summarization and sentiment analysis to best prepare and deliver information. The main driver was first-hand experience with expensive team meetings that use time inefficiently and result in "circling back" or "taking it offline" to actually make decisions, which results in information silos and even more inefficient use of time.
The platform also supports HR for the organization by presenting in-depth anonymized data surrounding team interactions, exceptional individuals, and potential bottlenecks within the organization caused by qualitative issues. Aiming to launch by end of year and working with small businesses as free test users for feedback and validation.
Being the resident JavaScript/Node expert on my last team put me in a great position for quasi-leadership and opened up some doors later on. The greatest skillset in my tech career has been developing soft skills, especially communication with non-technical audiences. Yes, metaphors and analogies are easy and overused, but using the right ones with the right people can go a long way.
Hit some speed bumps but still building out a Discord-based digital TCG platform. Discord felt like a natural social context for an accessible and customizable experience. Users can use their own media for card images, but it's also integrated with a free pixel art AI that generates cards based on description. Would love feedback, even if basic or high level suggestions.
Previously I developed crypto-centric web apps and games for clients, which eventually pivoted to security testing and bug bounties (several apps were in a legal grey area and willing to pay higher than average).
These days not doing anything actively making money but slowly working on a Discord trading card game platform that is free and open source but will have a premium version with hosting, additional features, etc.
If AI can replace my job (mid/senior level developer) a lot of people will be in trouble as well. Realistically I would take whatever available retail job is closest and start churning out lightweight web and mobile games on the side until something caught on, bringing in slow ad revenue and selling the rights to anything that goes viral for a quick buck. Not quite shovelware, but not exactly AAA titles :)
My team has faced issues like this and other than ensuring any secrets are removed from your code and stored in a .gitignore'd config file (if you really need them to live so close to the codebase in the first place), you need to prioritize that everything goes through proper PRs, privacy/access is properly configured, and any compromised secrets are rotated immediately. We have some tools like Snyk and Trufflehog but even those don't catch a lot of things - human review is best.
I like the design and what the game's trying to achieve, but something was slightly off. Even on topics I'm well versed in (eg. sports brands) seeing 9 words at once, on the clock, felt more stressful than fun. Definitely a strong foundation for a daily game but I don't think triva-based categories work for the current design.
I've been working on a basic TCG platform to run on Discord servers. Community owners can build card collections while players can earn credits, open packs, trade up cards, and fuse cards into original creations. I'm still testing trading and working on battling, but wanted to get early feedback and feature suggestions as to what would make the bot really stand out and provide value to communities beyond basic entertainment.
Other than significant features like trading and battling, I'm working on integrating AI generated art based on card attributes, improving storage solutions, and a chunk of optimization under the hood.