Jonathan Courtney

This, this is how rich I want to be:

@gregisenberg @lennysan The boys!

Be like Lenny (@lennysan) 1. Find a niche you genuinely care about 2. Obsess over creating insanely useful content for that niche 3. Build products that solve their problems better than anyone else 4. Be really nice 5. Design a life you don’t need a vacation from

@KevinMillerXI never heard of it! im gonna check it out

@Jicecream heard about your GERD troubles on Greg Isenberg’s show. I swear by this product. Started using it after having chemo-induced indigestion. Experienced life-changing improvement within an hour of first dose. Start with 3 a day and then dial back.

@InOneProjects should clearly be #1. such a deep game. its like the next zelda

@Jicecream Hahaha just missed it 😉

TOP 10 GAMES I REVIEWED OUT OF ALL 945 After reviewing all 945 games in #vibejam (unofficially!!) these are my picks, not presented in any order. The genre's and what's on display are so diverse that it really feels like a disservice to pick any of them as a true top spot winner. As a reminder, I'm not an organizer or involved in the judging in any way. These are my personal opinions and I have no connection to the actual competition except that I submitted my own game and took the time to review the competition (they beat me). Links for all of the games below. Vibefall by @imkieransmith This titanfall homage is one of the smoothest experiences you can have from FPS offerings in the vibejam. It’s got great onboarding, sound, visuals look good without looking vibey, feels like part of a much larger game, and is overall the sort of game that pulls from you an astonished, “This was vibe coded?” Fight life @fightlifemobile There aren’t many games that I loaded up and which had my jaw drop, but this was unquestionably number 1 on that list. This is the best mobile first boxing game since Punchout and it captures the feel of NES meets modern gaming like no other. The retro vibe is exactly my style, so there’s bias here, but I think the quality bar is set high enough that even non-mobile, non retro loving gamers can start this up and be impressed. Tiny Skys @DannyLimanseta The simplicity disguising a deeper game and the unmatched approachability of this make it a perfectly scoped, gorgeously packaged entry. It’s performant, plays well, looks good, and packages multiplayer and meta progression alongside the single player experience. It’s also just an absolute stunner from the very first load. Pawnfall by @rnschiehll A stylish, run-based strategy roguelite somewhat reminiscent of Slay the Spire or FTL, Pawnfall packs incredible depth into a package that in no way feels vibecoded. Music is perfect, animations are great, gameplay is chess inspired and easy to take in and get a feel for, everything just clicks. It’s brutally hard, but to me, this is a sleeper hit I heard nothing about and I think is likely criminally underplayed. Vibe Inc. by @cadostropia While I saw a number of games approach the genre of “automation and number go up” this one impressed me earliest and still does with it’s depth and polish. There’s a lot of complex games on the list that are really well done, but this one feels the most complete and the most approachable, not overplaying complexity as a cheap trick to reach depth. Aeralis by @duckocancode The most fun 3rd person shooter I played in the whole jam. A few tried to reach this level of fast paced, feels great to play, high skill ceiling shooter but none of them have the polish, feel, or vibe that Aeralis has. It’s a bit much putting the lyrics at the bottom of the screen for the music but, damn it, I DO like the music. Nebula Zero G by @Rev12Studios It’s simple, it’s not super pretty to look at, but this game more than any other on this list captured me as a player. I put another hour into it today over lunch. I can’t stop. It doesn’t bury the lead in complexity or force you to spend an hour discovering its true worth. You either pick it up for a second run and don’t put it down, or you give up. I just wish it was on iOS already. Capybara delivery by @leocooout My one qualm about including Capybara on the top 10 is it feels too complete, too good to have been done in a month. Maybe some people (teams?) are just built different though. A lot of these games struggled with identity - is it a shooter? A survival roguelite? Adventure? “A Game about Capybaras Delivering Food” feels like you’re John Malkovich going into his own head in the movie “Being John Malkovich” except instead of everything being Malkovich... It’s Capybara. Orbital Ops by @sidriff This game fought neck and neck with Null Range (honorable mention) to be included in my top 10, but there’s only room for one low poly, retro neon vibe space shooter and this one edged out the spot. From the very beginning it impresses, with a menu that feels hand crafted, a depth that is only hinted it, and an easy to learn difficult to master play style that gives it feel on par with commercial games built by teams. Field of Command by @Southers15 Unquestionably the fullest game I played among all of the standouts. A full, voiced tutorial, tight RTS controls, deep respect for the historical context it lives in, and it plays great. There’s a campaign, skirmish, and multiplayer (though I didn’t get there in my reviews). It feels like the kind of game you’d pick up at the store and pop the plastic only to get lost reading the manual, not wanting to miss the smallest bit of the nuance that goes into the play experience

@jasonfried hahaha love this

Bragging about how much software you’re shipping with AI is like holding down the shutter button and bragging about how many photos you took.

@gregisenberg 6. I didnt listen to gregs pod enough

reminder

@InOneProjects haha thanks :)

🏆 OUT OF OFFICE: European Business Simulator @jicecream: Such a good tongue in cheek number go up clicker. Really enjoyed it. No notes.

I'm going through all 945 submissions to the 2026 #vibejam. Here's reviews 336-340: one game that clearly rose above the pack, then some clever action-strategy ideas and a few moments where the elements actually reinforce each other. ↘️

@takimoore Thanks Taki, I love YOUR YT vids!

@Jicecream I fucking love your tweets. And this is 100% the way

The best way to meet people who you look up to is just to make things that are interesting enough for them to notice. So, I guess, being interesting is the key to networking?

I can't wear headphones in public spaces because I become extremely uncoordinated and clumsy. Anyone else?

@BiffTannen ha yes the new one :D

@Jicecream I just realized you are talking about a new game, lol. wtf, wonder if is based on the one I used to play?

Marathon is the best designed videogame i've played since Elden Ring. Just insane levels of attention to detail that are way beyond what most people will ever care about. I'm very bad at both.

@matt_gray_ Dubblin' those headphones just in case

Hustle culture told you "doing it yourself" is the mark of seriousness. It's not. It's the mark of a bottleneck.

@levelsio @rameerez I would never shit again

Eat more eggs (has choline) and you stop being anxious Also great protein for your muscles (6g per egg) My friend @rameerez went from skinny to ripped just eating eggs all day for a year, his fridge looked something like this

@levelsio Wait till you hear about how many german startups are funded by hyper wealthy parents. They never succeed, but they never die either.

Subsidies in Europe are generally a net negative because they change incentives People won't compete to become the best at their job, they'll just compete who can win the most subsidies So you get below average people doing below average work but getting paid for it

@atbrakhi I guess problems get more engagement on X though

@Jicecream I think problems do exist and there is space for improvements. Every system has problems. But every conversation does not have to be about problems. It would be productive to talk about solutions and navigating system

Online founder culture feels very different from offline founder culture. Last week I was hanging out with some founders in Berlin, none of them doing tech businesses, but all of them running businesses in Germany. It was also 1st May, so half our conversations happened while walking between street techno raves, including one literally outside a church because Berlin lol. Somethings I noticed: - All of them were selling something physical. One of them sells premium coffee packaged as gifts. Big margins! - Hours went by, I was waiting for the “Germany is impossible for business” conversation, but it never came up. For a change, I also didn’t start it lol. - They were not interested in comparing markets (USA vs Germany). - None of them are trying to become billionaires. - None of them raise money from VC, instead 2 of them took personal loans when they needed cash - They are all after financial freedom and building a good life. - All of them are fit, you can't rave if you are not fit lol

@lightworkhome is a genius business idea, anything like it in Europe?

@levelsio *correction 408k subs. should have checked before posting :)

Yep, this happens, I have a channel that has 500k subs and a few 1m+ videos which is now much less engaged. BUT the missing piece of your narrative is it's not just about building the team that fucks it up, it's the owner themselves (me) losing interest in the core topic. A lot of channels fail or fall apart because the owner actually kind of just doesn't care about it anymore and is doing other stuff. It's not always an unforeseen accident. Personally I have no interest in building back my main channel.

One thing I see is the moment YouTubers built big teams and stop doing things themselves things go wrong fast It's better to just DIY and solo it and keep control of your narrative, I like how PewDiePie always did that I also have no staff and won't ever build a big team, it'd ruin my content and you get formulaic quick