I've written a bit here before about the games themselves. This time I want to talk about the process — specifically, the small decisions that turned out to matter way more than I expected once real strangers started playing.
The name that had to change
Pyramid used to be called "Ponzi Pyramid." It made sense to me as a builder — it's a self-aware joke about the shape of the mechanic, players joining and the structure growing until it collapses. What I underestimated was how that name reads to someone who's never talked to me, never seen the code, never heard the joke. A name is often the very first — and sometimes only — signal a stranger gets before deciding whether to trust something. Renamed it to Pyramid. Same mechanic, same collapse, same tension. Just without a name doing work against me before anyone even clicked play.
The dollar sign problem
All four games use a free, non-purchasable in-game currency — no deposits, no real money, ever. But the wallet still displayed a plain "$" sign, because that's just... what you type for currency, right? Except a dollar sign next to a number means something very specific to anyone reading it cold, and no amount of fine print three clicks away changes that first impression. Ended up labeling it explicitly as "in-game dollar" everywhere it appears. Small text change. Genuinely changed how the whole platform reads.
