[Ep576] How Many Dudes Beta Begins, and AI Just Got Dumber

[Ep576] How Many Dudes Beta Begins, and AI Just Got Dumber

From Game Dev Podcast | Coffee with Butterscotch by Butterscotch Shenanigans

June 10, 2026 · 1h 5m

About this episode

The episode discusses the closed beta for How Many Dudes and critiques the AI hype cycle, particularly focusing on GitHub Copilot's billing changes.

In episode 576 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers kick off the closed beta for How Many Dudes and dig into what they're actually trying to learn from it. Then the conversation pivots hard into the AI hype cycle, unpacking why GitHub Copilot's switch to usage-based billing just handed a hundred-times-larger bill to the developers who went all in, and what that says about where this whole thing is headed. Support How Many Dudes! Official Website: https://www.bscotch.net/games/how-many-dudes Trailer Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgQM1SceEpI Steam Wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3934270/How_Many_Dudes 00:00 Cold Open 00:29 Introduction and Welcome 01:22 Closed Beta for How Many Dudes 08:15 Game Balancing: Challenges and Techniques 12:25 Evaluating Enemy Strength and Player Progression 18:27 Beta Test Goals and What They're Looking For 27:00 Pivot to AI and the Tech Landscape 29:32 How LLMs Actually Work 32:08 Agentic Programming Explained 37:08 The AI First Company Myth 40:02 Slot Machine Development 44:18 GitHub Copilot's Usage-Based Billing 50:34 The Dependency Trap 53:11 Where This All Ends Up 57:15 The Cost Reckoning Begins 01:00:01 What Comes…

People in this episode

Host: Butterscotch Shenanigans

Topics covered

  • game development
  • AI
  • beta testing
  • technology
  • game balancing
  • programming

Keywords

  • How Many Dudes
  • AI hype cycle
  • GitHub Copilot
  • closed beta
  • game balancing
  • programming

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: GitHub Copilot, Steam

Products: How Many Dudes

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