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The hardest part wasn't building the game. It was making it PLAYABLE. 🎮
While building Shadow Heist, I hit errors that broke the game, interrupted missions, and forced me back into debugging more times than I expected.
But that's where the real development happened.
I fixed the issues, tested the gameplay, pushed through the final mission, and turned the idea into something people can actually play.
Build. Break. Debug. Fix. Repeat.
That's what development really looks like behind the screen.
What's the toughest bug you've ever had to solve? 👇
#WebDevelopment #GameDevelopment #JavaScript #FullStackDevelopment #BuildInPublic
It was great working on this project together💕👌✌️
Gladly love it
Nice work
Good to hear that💕💕💕
Toughest for me was a rich text editor that swallowed the first keystroke when it took focus. No error, no crash, the text just published with the first letter missing. It stayed hidden a while precisely because nothing failed loudly. Now I read the field back before submitting....
That's a great example of a "silent" bug. Those can be much harder to catch because everything appears to be working normally until you notice the actual user experience is wrong. I really like your point about reading the field back before submission sometimes the best...
Only after, mostly. Checks everywhere and you end up with code nobody reads and warnings nobody trusts.
The one I add by default is a read-back on anything that leaves the process: form submit, API write, file upload. Confirm it landed by asking the system again, not by checking...
That's a really valuable lesson. I hadn't looked at verification from that angle before especially the difference between confirming what my code thinks happened and confirming what the actual system received.
The "source of truth" point really stands out to me. For something...
Debugging is where the real learning happens; great job pushing through and making Shadow Heist playable! 🎮🔥
i love this
can i colaborate with you
Exceptional 🙌
Nice game🔥 . Hard to believe its JS based
That first keystroke vanishing is such an annoying and silent bug. Reading the field value directly before submitting rather than trusting the visible output is exactly the right instinct.
good Ridwan
The gap between built and playable is where product engineering really lives. The best fixes are almost invisible: no broken state, no lost progress, no confusing recovery. Which bug forced the biggest architectural change during Shadow Heist?
Interesting perspective, but a robust pre-production phase and strict testing setup usually prevents these endless debugging cycles altogether.
Very nice
Weldon 👏👏
Really nice UI direction😍 the visual style and overall presentation look great. If you ever need help with game UI/UX, interface design, or polishing the visual system, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to collaborate.🙌
The debugging journey really shows the work behind making a game playable. Great process!
Great process
Did the final mission end up being the buggiest part, or was the debugging spread across the whole game?
Stunning!
Shadow Heist's build-break-debug loop rings true; some of my toughest bugs were mission flags that didn't reset between runs, so things only broke on a second playthrough. Did you add any automated playtests, or was it all manual runs through the missions?
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Pick a car. Hit the handbrake. Turn the horde into combo points. 🚗💨
Play free: www.animattor.co/zombie-drift (live leaderboard, beat me!)
Desktop (keyboard or gamepad), mobile (gyroscope).
🏆 Top 3 on October 18 get 1 year of Rive Cadet from me. Post a screenshot in comment of your score on X, LinkedIn or here and tag me and Rive.
🚙 Real drift physics. Every car handles differently and is fun in its own way
🔓 Monster truck unlocks once you pass 500,000 points
💨 Drifting to stack combos
🛞 Ramps with slowmo its something, fix your car in repair garage
I started building it right before the weekend. By Sunday I was already beating my own high scores.
Built in Rive with the Rive CLI and Claude. Zombies are animated vectors, the cars are custom vector designs, and the HUD runs on data binding [+ GPU Canvas / Luau]. The whole game is just 2.37 MB.
Drop your score below 👇
Got feedback or something's not working? Let me know.
@Rive @Matt Jedrzejewski very fun game! Frames really get low with a lot of zombies on the screen!
666 - Wack a Ghost Game, Build Full in Rive Editor and CLI, free to play
https://boooo-qxcc7h.rive.to
please share to your friends celebrate Halloween...
Type for Treat! Get your Halloween goodies and practice your typing at the same time!
Play as a ghost (I promise it’s not a kid with a blanket over his head) going trick or treating around his neighborhood with his mom and dad.
Collect candies from each house by typing out words then catching them in your goodies bag. But be careful, some of your neighbors are giving away tooth brushes and tooth paste too, yuck!
Upgrade your gear with the goods from the vampire (AKA dad). He only accepts candy, so you better stock up.
If you need help, mom, I mean, the vampire queen is just around the corner with some tips!
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Had a blast making this game and learned a ton. Super happy I went into this challenge despite barely having enough time. Excited to share more about what I learned in the future when things slow down.
All the designs come from Ivan Dubovik (https://www.instagram.com/vandubovik/?hl=en). All of the game mechanics + Shaders were made using Rive CLI in Cursor. Animations by me.
Hope you have fun with it, and let me know what your high score is!
Great job, Caleb! I gave it a try, but it’s really hard to play, even though I’m familiar with touch typing. I think the candies should fall more slowly, or maybe the bowl at the bottom should be removed to make it a bit easier.