Pixeljam

DINO RUN 2 Kickstarter Is Now Live!

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

AQUANAUT Is Now Available!

https://t.co/R4RThTcj2B

A solo-deved, hand-crafted, good ol' fashioned bullet hell roguelike adventure set deep underwater.

Created by Jacob V and published by Pixeljam.

The grand deep awaits...

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

@DeLsArcade Noted, thanks :)

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

Our oscillisope-flavored base-defending bullet heaven/hell arcade shooter UTOPIA MUST FALL is now 0% off!

Buy it at full price and keep the vectors flowing over at Pixeljam :)

https://t.co/vmGPK2ILuG

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

AQUANAUT launches in 5 days!

https://t.co/R4RThTcQS9

An underwater bullet-hell roguelike adventure, solo-deved by the Dino Run 2 artist Jacob V.

[Airframe Ultra @AirframeUltra]

Kill your rivals. Destroy their bikes. Become the top dog.

Airframe Ultra is out now.

Better show up on the track.

https://t.co/sMYUh8HNFP

[Spudcats @spudcats]

Dropped down to some ruins, exploring the deeper floors, collecting treasure, battling skeletons, avoiding bullets, summoning bubbles, getting random items, being attacked in a store, giant hermit crab and cannon balls in Aquanaut by @pixeljamgames
https://t.co/EoQL5zM9jd

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

@spudcats Thanks for the coverage!

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

@mossmouth Awesome work Derek!

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

@K4rn4ge Unless it's successful on Steam, probably not

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

Announcing AQUANAUT's official launch day:

November 11, 2026!

For those that enjoy a good old-fashioned twin-stick bullet-hell action roguelike, check it out:

https://t.co/R4RThTcj2B

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

@MezazeOf We wont stop you :)

[Akupara Games 💫 Indie Games @akuparagames]

Let's be real...golf needs a little help. That's why you need:

Cheap Golf
🤔A psychedelic, retro mini golf labyrinth built by an intrusive AI named Susan?
😀Now we're talkin'.

Skullf!
🤔A disembodied skull terrorizing locals at a mini-golf course?
😀I'm in!

Grab the Par for the Corpse bundle & get ready to tell people "Yeah, I play sports games." while silently thinking "Yeah, I play COOL sports games..."

@pixeljamgames

[Akupara Games 💫 Indie Games @akuparagames]

Question: How many people do you know that own a t-shirt depicting a mass extinction event?🤔

Probably none, I'd bet.

Now factor in this shirt depicting a mass extinction event where the dinosaurs are wearing hats...

See? Now all you need is a link so you can go buy it. (in bio)

@TheYetee
@pixeljamgames

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

@itszephyora Aquanaut?
https://t.co/R4RThTcj2B

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

It's #WishlistWednesday and you know what that means - delete your entire wishlist.

And then add Aquanaut, if you are so inclined:

https://t.co/R4RThTcj2B

Check out the free demo too!

[Dino Run Central @DinoRunCentral]

Dino Run 2's Patch 0.8.0 is available to supporters now!
- Connection System with Pivots, Welds, and Hinges.
- 40 Kickstarter Backer Hats
- Halloween Decorations
- And So Much More!

Build cars, build elevators, build contraptions, and build a way to survive the apocalypse!

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

Steam Next Fest has 8 million demos in it this year, and 7.99 million of them were created by AI promptmaxxing other AI's to one-shot games for them.

However, AQUANAUT was made the old fashioned way: weird spaghetti code and 2-3 pixels plotted per second:

https://t.co/oHHWab6KbB

Enjoy games like this while you still can folks!

[Akupara Games 💫 Indie Games @akuparagames]

💲DEALS!!!💲

Two Things:
1. ☀️It's STILL hot outside
2. 🔥Pixeljam's STILL bringing the heat

Cornhole Hero and Dino Jump Deluxe are now only $2.99 on both Android and iOS!

🥵Hot enough for ya???

@pixeljamgames

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

Dino Run AX is really kind of amazing, regardless of how it was made.

I (Miles) coded the original Dino Run in 2006. It involved a lot of very frustrating moments (sometimes with actual tears) but also incredible highs.

Getting the game out there was a unique experience, and the fact that I wrote every line of code for it, and hunted (almost) every bug down and squashed it with my bare hands... nothing can replace that feeling.

And now, we wonder if we'll ever have that feeling again.

Will it all be a net negative or positive? I don't know, but I think we can all agree that it's very fast. And now that the world has to speed up with it, I wonder if the time it takes to code something entirely by hand will feel much slower than it used to.

[Professor Rex ➡️ TGE @RexProfessor]

Growing up Dino Run was one of my favourite Miniclip games.
@pixeljamgames absolutely crushed it back then.

I got it in my head that I wanted to drop Dino Run into an arcade machine. Since the source code for Dino Run is public I started the process of changing the game to work in an arcade setting.

There’s now an attract-mode, credit system and local high score tracking. I fixed some bugs from the original, and added QoL adjustments for myself.

The only thing is, I wasn’t overly familiar with ActionScript.
At first, working through the code to make adjustments was slow and I was constantly making syntax errors.

I’ve tried to hold out on AI but GitHub’s free code space that could host the full repository and analyze it was too tempting.
Building a debug version of the game with breakpoints and reading through the trace callback stack or using ctrl+f in Notepad++ to find where specific functions and features were called had been slow.

With CoPilot I was able to ask where specific functions were in the code, and what they did.
It feels like cheating.

In University, we used to have written on-paper only tests for tracing code.
It’s a fun skill I’ve always been proud of having as one of my strong suits.
However, when it comes to efficiency - I can’t come close to something like Claude.

The ability to read code almost feels useless now when an LLM can distill everything down to plain language.

I’m really really happy with the mod I’ve created for the game and I’m super excited to see it in the arcade cabinet.
I feel like I’ve diminished the value of my own work and the work of the original developers by using an LLM to help with tracing code and determining the source of bugs.

When I started the mod by hand, getting the game to boot into an “attract mode” where the little Dino ran around randomly felt like a huge achievement.

It required learning to read AS3 and start to understand the engine itself.

I fell in love with programming because of how much I love solving puzzles.
How do I do X with Y?
What does Y do that might cause Z?

Solving the bait Strat was all done with hand written code. A few weeks ago someone reached out saying they had checked my results using an AI.
One of my favourite puzzles, solved independently by a machine.

I’m not sure what is left of my love for programming that can’t be done more effectively by an AI agent.
Tracing code, solving puzzles, and learning now feel like optional parts of building a program instead of a required part.

Everything that appears in the modified version of Dino Run were my own ideas, almost entirely implemented by me.
But even letting AI into the process of tracing code & helping with debugging felt like it cheapened the entire experience and now I feel strange about the end result.

It feels like everything I studied in Univeristy is obsolete.

All visual changes and assets were done by me. All ideas from my own head. But the process of working on the game was maybe 5x faster with the use of CoPilot.

Auto-fill, syntax checkers and even function generators have been part of programming since I started learning in 2013, but this felt different.

It’s hard to treat it like AI-art since all the art is stolen. But CoPilot has access to pretty much every open source project ever to learn from.

Where does everyone stand right now?

[Pixeljam @pixeljamgames]

The AQUANAUT Demo is live!

https://t.co/4NlYs4lwaF

A generous (and free) helping of good old fashioned twin-stick bullet hell action, from solo dev Jacob V.

We'll be launching the full game this November - check out the demo and wishlist it, eh?