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Robert Helmer

@rhelmer.org
55 followers 71 following 19 posts

I'm Rob Helmer, a software engineer with 20 years of experience building impactful projects and solving complex problems with code. www.rhelmer.org

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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 02/10/2026
🎃 October is live on Stellar Whiskers Antique Halloween postcards (one window/day) or Trick or Treat Street. Free. No ads, no tracking pixels. Nothing too scary. www.stellarwhiskers.com?utm_source=b... #indiegame #gamedev #Halloween
Screenshot from Stellar Whiskers Games of October Countdown button
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 29/08/2026
🌠 New free browser game: Comet Connect Classic Connect Four with a cosmic twist. Drop comets, build threats, challenge the AI. ⚡ Instant play, no download 🚫 No ads, no tracking www.stellarwhiskers.com/comet-connect #indiegame #webgames #gamedev
stellarwhiskers.com
Free Online Connect Four - Train Spatial Planning | Comet Connect
Free Connect Four that exercises spatial planning and threat recognition. Drop comets, connect four in a row, and challenge the AI. No ads, no tracking.
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 23/08/2026
Our games got soft music & crisp move sounds 🎵 Opt-in only — Sound on or Play quietly. Separate Music / SFX toggles. Remembers your choice. Live in Rocket Reversi, Crystalign, Meteor Bounce & Solitaire. Try it: www.stellarwhiskers.com #indiegame #gamedev #webgames
stellarwhiskers.com
Free Browser Games — Privacy-First Puzzles | Stellar Whiskers
Play free browser puzzle, strategy and card games that exercise your mind — no ads, no tracking, no hype. Reversi, Solitaire, Match-3 and more.
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 21/08/2026
🚀 Rocket Reversi multiplayer soft launch Room link or Quick Match (sign-in). Free. No ads, no tracking pixels. www.stellarwhiskers.com/rocket-rever... #indiegame #gamedev #indiedev
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 16/08/2026
Cloudflare Turnstile + Astro + Workers. Here is how I wired it up end to end: site key at build time, secret in the Worker, deploy order that does not break production. www.rhelmer.org/blog/astro-t... #cloudflare #astro #privacy #webdev
rhelmer.org
Add Cloudflare Turnstile to Astro Forms and Workers
How I added Cloudflare Turnstile to an Astro newsletter form and verified tokens in a Worker: keys, CI, deploy order, and DevTools noise.
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
MDN Web Docs @developer.mozilla.org · 08/05/2026
Create frosted glass effects in CSS 🪟 backdrop-filter applies visual effects to the content behind an element - blur, brightness, contrast, and more. backdrop-filter: blur(10px) brightness(0.9); No JavaScript. No canvas tricks. Learn more 👇 developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/...
Code snippet showcasing various CSS `backdrop-filter` functions like blur, brightness, contrast, and saturation against a blue background.
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Myzreal @myzreal.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Why did no one tell me math can be fun #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 24/03/2026
Part 3 in a series on authentication for multiplayer games www.rhelmer.org/blog/stellar..., I'll have a post in a few weeks on how the games are actually using this (still testing that bit!)
rhelmer.org
Asymmetric Encryption for Player PII in Multiplayer Games
How HPKE encryption protects user email addresses and personal data so the server can't read them even if compromised.
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 22/03/2026
Part 2 of my series on multiplayer web games is live! Using HttpOnly + CHIPS to stop XSS and tracking while keeping subdomains seamless. I *think* it describes a reasonable CSRF mitigation, thoughts? 🔗 www.rhelmer.org/blog/stellar... #WebDev #InfoSec #WebSecurity #indiedev #gamedev
A sequence diagram showing a secure authentication flow between a User, Browser, Auth Server, and Game Server. The process begins with the User entering credentials into the Browser, which sends a POST request to the Auth Server. The Auth Server returns a "Set-Cookie auth token" to the Browser. The Browser then sends a "Join game with cookie" request to the Game Server. The Game Server validates the session with the Auth Server, receives a "Valid user ID," and confirms "Game joined" back to the Browser. A highlighted note at the bottom emphasizes: "Cookie never accessible to JavaScript."
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 21/03/2026
17 years in the making! ☄️👾 Meteor Bounce is a modern rewrite of a 2008 Breakout clone. We’ve added cosmic physics, touch support, and a fresh coat of paint. 🚀 See the evolution: www.rhelmer.org/blog/rewriti... Play: www.stellarwhiskers.com/meteor-bounce/ #StellarWhiskers #IndieDev
rhelmer.org
Rewriting my 17-year-old Breakout! clone for the modern web
A post about rewriting my 17-year-old Breakout! clone, now named Meteor Bounce hosted by Stellar Whiskers Games
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 28/02/2026
New coordinates locked in! 🚀 We’ve just updated the Stellar Whiskers quadrant with: 🃏 Stellar Solitaire (Brand new!) ⚪️ Rocket Reversi (difficulty levels + fresh UI) 💎 Crystalign & Meteor Bounce (Graphics overhaul) Come play for free and help us fuel the mission! 🌌 #IndieDev #Gaming #SpaceVibes
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Stellar Whiskers Games @stellarwhiskers.com · 07/03/2026
Major progress on login system: ☁️ Cloud saves for all games ⚔️ Multiplayer coming soon 📬 Optional updates (no spam, ever) ❌ Zero ads, zero data selling, zero nonsense We're indie devs, not data brokers. Your trust > everything. www.stellarwhiskers.com #indiegamedev #cloudsave #privacy
stellarwhiskers.com
Play Free Online Games | Reversi, Puzzles & More | Stellar Whiskers
Play free online games including Rocket Reversi (reversi/othello), puzzles, and arcade games. No downloads required - start playing instantly in your browser!
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 12/10/2025
Spent the morning wrestling a subtle C/SDL memory leak. Brutal reminder of low-level complexity makes me profoundly grateful for Godot. Perf trade-off is real, but velocity and sanity gain from its resource management and abstraction layers are a huge win. #gamedev #godotengine #indiedev #godot
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
TracketPacer @tracketpacer.com · 09/10/2025
what happens if u cut 4 wires out of an ethernet cable & then plug it into yr PC
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
daniel:// stenberg:// @bagder.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2025
Joshua Rogers sent us a *massive* list of potential issues in #curl that he found using his set of AI assisted tools. Code analyzer style nits all over. Mostly smaller bugs, but still bugs and there could be one or two actual security flaws in there. Actually truly awesome findings. I have […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 04/10/2025
Decided to learn modern C++ by building a game engine instead of Hello World. Now I have: ECS architecture, OpenGL renderer, cross-platform builds, and a working space shooter demo. Was this overkill? Yes. Would I do it again? Also yes. 🎮 www.rhelmer.org/blog/buildin... #gamedev #cpp
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usrbinkat.io @usrbinkat.io · 08/07/2025
My humor? Terminal.
Split-panel pastel illustration with the caption “Are you gonna be #1 or a 0?” Above, on the left, a confident woman in a pink blazer holds a shiny gold number one trophy. Below her is a red error message reading “Error: exit status 1.” On the right, a chill woman with lavender hair in a teal hoodie holds a glowing number zero while sitting at a sticker-covered laptop. Her side is labeled with a green success message: “Success: exit status 0.” Beneath both panels is the tagline “REAL ONES EXIT 0” in bold lettering.

This meme-style artwork plays on Unix shell conventions, where a process that finishes successfully exits with status code 0, and errors exit with code 1 or higher. The cultural punchline flips mainstream notions of “being number one” by celebrating stability, quiet success, and correct code execution over flashier but broken performance. It’s beloved by coders, DevOps engineers, and anyone who’s spent late nights chasing green checkmarks in CI pipelines.

This is terminal humor with pastel swagger—where “zero” isn’t nothing, it’s everything. Real ones don’t crash, they compile, deploy, and vibe out in soft hoodies with stickered laptops and clean logs.
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Reposted by Robert Helmer
Alex Strook 🐭⚡️SQUEAKROSS @alexstrook.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Funny guy
Music notes looking like a smiling face
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 20/06/2025
Everyone hates cookie banners—users ignore them, conversions drop, compliance is messy. I tested cookieless approaches that eliminate banners. Promising results, but legal nuances matter. My findings: rhelmer.org/blog/privacy-analytics-without-cookie-banners/
rhelmer.org
Can You Ditch Cookie Banners and Still Get Useful Analytics?
Explore cookieless analytics with Umami to ditch cookie banners while keeping useful insights. Privacy-first approach to GDPR compliance.
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 07/06/2025
A privacy-first analytics enhancement for @umami — adds scroll depth, time-on-page, visibility, click tracking, and more. - No cookies - First-party tracking - Just one script tag to get started www.rhelmer.org/blog/automat... #UmamiAnalytics #PrivacyTech #OpenSource #Analytics #WebDev
rhelmer.org
Automatic, Configurable Analytics for Umami with umami-kit
Umami Kit is a drop-in enhancement for Umami Analytics. Scroll depth, time-on-page, visibility, and click tracking—no cookies, configurable, and privacy-first.
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 06/03/2025
A contributor just fixed a game-breaking bug in my old Magicor fork! This game is nostalgic for me since my kids and I used to play it when they were little. I ported it to Python 3 & Pygame, and I'm updating the WASM version for better web play: www.rhelmer.org/magicor/ 🎮 🐧 #gamedev #Magicor
rhelmer.org
magicor
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 14/02/2025
Quick post about re-writing my 17-year-old Breakout! clone www.rhelmer.org/blog/rewriti... #webdev #gamedev #buildinpublic
rhelmer.org
Rewriting my 17-year-old Breakout! clone for the modern web
A post about rewriting my 17-year-old Breakout! clone, now named Meteor Bounce hosted by Stellar Whiskers Games
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 20/01/2025
I reimplemented the same game (Reversi) in Godot, Typescript and C+SDL to compare (so you don't have to!) www.rhelmer.org/blog/game-de... #gamedev #webdev #godot
rhelmer.org
Comparing game development using C and SDL vs. Godot vs. Web
A post comparing and contrasting game development using C and SDL, Godot, and a pure web approach, from a cross-platform perspective.
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 09/01/2025
My old blog post about experimenting with React for the `about:addons` UI in Firefox (spoiler: Firefox uses Lit now) keeps getting search engine traffic for people looking for how to build browser extensions in React, so I made one that covers a bunch of frameworks: www.rhelmer.org/blog/browser...
rhelmer.org
Building a Cross-Browser Web Extension with React, Astro, Svelte, and Angular
Step-by-step guide to creating a web extension in React, Astro, Svelte, and Angular for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, and Safari.
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 06/01/2025
www.rhelmer.org/blog/observa... #webdev #gamedev #godot #indiedev
rhelmer.org
Observability in Godot Web games with Highlight.io
Learn how to enable observability for Godot Web games for errors and session record/replay with highlight.io to see how people play your game
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Robert Helmer @rhelmer.org · 02/01/2025
Just published my first blog post in quite a while! Sharing my 2025 website hosting setup guide using Astro + Azure Blob Storage + Cloudflare Workers for fast, scalable, and cost-effective sites. www.rhelmer.org/blog/how-i-a... #webdev #perfmatters
rhelmer.org
My Modern Website Hosting Stack for 2025
An overview of my modern approach to hosting and optimizing websites.
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