Ben Awad

every job will be automated until one remains: programmer

@0xmaz_ ggs

Just played pickleball with @benawad sf is awesome

@ankithharathi @nitinrajini It's not the size of the house that matters, it's how you renovate it

Announcing: Househunt - monopoly with real houses 3 years ago @nitinrajini and I became obsessed with a single stat Zillow has 220M monthly active users but less 5M homes are sold every year The vast majority of people browse houses because it's fun. Fun to dream about what you could buy if you had more money, or could live somewhere else So we made a game where you can live out all your real estate fantasies @playhousehunt is monopoly with real houses - guess house prices, buy, renovate, and sell homes to build your dream real estate empire

open source is all fun and games until they fork you

@cursor_ai We need this for app dev!

Cursor now shows you demos, not diffs. Agents can use the software they build and send you videos of their work.

You’re only as good as your last prompt

Answering game dev questions 1. Which monetization worked best for Voidpet? Freemium games have trained players to want: - battle pass - growth pass - starter pack - bundles - premium currency - holiday sales Players now expect to see these when they download your game and will look for them. "I always get a starter pack when I start a game" is a common player profile. If your game doesn't offer one you are missing out. Battle pass usually makes the most $ 2. How much did you adjust to user feedback, or more your own plan? Players are not game designers. If you implement their feedback directly you will ruin your game. Listen to what they say and build what you think is best. 3. What are realistic download numbers on the Appstore? When you first put your mobile game on the app store, you shouldn't expect any downloads from people organically finding it through the app store. You have to either fight for downloads -> make content or buy downloads -> ads 4. Is anything beyond TikTok valuable to grow initial user base and make it more popular for a small indie game? YouTube/TikTok/Instagram/X are all good. Try posting on all them and see if where you get traction. If you can't get traction on any of them, make a new game.

The way you tell if your game is a viable business is if you can spend $1 marketing it and get $2 back - buy meta ads - sponsor creators If you lose money, iterate on your monetization & make your game more fun If you still lose money, make a new game

Software Engineering Expectations for 2026 - The majority of your code should be written by AI now - Cursor/Codex/Claude Code/Gemini/etc - You should try all the tooling and switch between them, as each one gets an edge over the others depending on the release cycle. - You should be using AI to check the code that is written by AI - Have AI write tests - Have AI read logs - Have AI navigate your browser - I don't do this every time because sometimes it's simple enough to check it myself - You should still skim code changes - This can be a lighter skim on internal tools and a heavier read through on customer facing code - Use AI to help you define specs

AI killed coding tutorials

Instead of spending 5 minutes drinking coffee, I like to spend 9 hours sleeping

Voidpet game design principles 1. No one-time-only character/skin availability We do not create characters that can only be obtained once and never again. Limited seasonal characters are acceptable as long as they recur. Focus on long-term retention over short-term pressure

don't test bad ideas for the sake of a/b testing

I have not forsaken Typescript for mobile game development I don't use a game engine I make games with Typescript & React Native (Expo)

3.5 years ago I transitioned from being a software engineer to running a mobile gaming company This is what I wish I knew at the beginning 1. Your players will call you greedy or your company will go out of business. 2. Ads work. As a software engineer, I thought no one clicked on them. I was wrong. 3. Organic content is not king. It’s spray and pray. Social media ads are like a sniper for finding customers. Both are good. 4. You need to earn the right to make a big game. Start with a game that you can make in less than 6 months. 5. You can’t MVP a game. Wait until you have a tight polished core loop to launch. 6. You can’t “fix” a bad game. Make a new one. 7. To make a great game you need someone that is 10x at: game design, coding, and visual design. This is usually 3 people. Partner/hire what you are missing.

coding has never been more fun

2 traits of a giga engineer thorough - aware of every possible path a unit of code can take, and consciously handles or ignores each one speed - can do the above quickly

This is what it looks like if the request takes longer

I’ve been using a new loading pattern Before: 1. Claim reward 2. Wait for API request 3. Navigate to results After: 1. Claim reward 2. Navigate to results 3. Show loading indicator if not done yet This gives the illusion of being faster because of the navigation animation

@jasonrostro1005 @iam_rx3 Let’s say 1 week

@benawad @iam_rx3 I got your invitation. Thanks. Btw, what is the deadline?

I'm hiring a Fullstack Software Engineer to work with me at Voidpet Stack: React Native, Typescript, Node.js, Postgres Pay: $150K–$200K Location: Remote Apply below

@jasonrostro1005 @iam_rx3 All good I don’t care if you don’t have any contributions, you should get an email with access to repo

@benawad @iam_rx3 I mostly use github accounts created from company emails and after leaving the companies, I have to return all the assets including company emails, laptops and etc. So I don't have professional github account. But this is my personal github account. jasonrostro-cloud