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Show HN: Social Minecraft clone with shooting

12 points by julius ↗ HN
It is a new game much like Minecraft, but with more Deathmatch. Made it in my freetime.

Arenas, built by players, can be shared on Twitter/Facebook/etc. and are ranked by how often they are played.

You can play it in your browser at: http://julius-eckert.com/game (On OSX only Safari works...)

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDBr8ZD9Uto

Do you like it? How would you improve it (including the website)?

13 comments

[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 40.3 ms ] thread
xnerdr
Thats pretty good! Add some textures and weapons and you should be good to go.

Good luck!

julius
Interesting. Why do you want textures? And what kind of textures? Do you mean green boxes should look like grass?
runjake
This seems to be the effect in Minecraft, too. The initial draw to Minecraft was that it was a ridiculously simplistic sandbox, but now users want an infinite number of improvements: better textures, anti-aliasing, better shading, and less "blockiness".

It's an effect in pretty much any piece of software. See also Firefox, which used to be prized for it's minimalism, but is now considered bloated next to Chrome. Eventually Chrome will get Minecrafted too.

20after4
make it work on Linux ;)
julius
I would love that. Even on my Macbook it only works in Safari (with bugs).

I chose to use the Java stack (LWJGL-Libraries), because Minecraft uses it (compatible enough to be successful).

Would like to do it in WebGL, but a JS-only version is not possible on current browsers. There is simply no way I can set the mouse position.

Anyway, I hope I will find the time to hack something together which will make it compatible.

20after4
Since it feels kinda like paintball, it'd be neat if you could choose team colors for player clothing as well as ammo colors...then make the colors stain stuff you shoot.
kirchhoff
It's really neat. Would be good to see how many players are on.
julius
Good idea. Will become especially important, when the game gets a real multiplayer mode (there are only bots right now).
hortonew
It's actually really fun. I think the end all greatness of this would be if I could play minecraft, and enter an arena, and start playing this. (guy can dream)

I love the jump height...do not change that.

Powerups might be cool, but not necessarily required.

julius
Also I added climbing. While jumping, run against a wall and hit Space again. You will "rejump".
shii
Reminds me of Ace of Spades[1], another minecraft/voxel like game just like Minecraft that's an FPS as well. Only for Windows though, but really fun. And free unlike Minecraft.

[1]: http://ace-spades.com/

retroafroman
This game is fun. As a side note, I got it running on Linux through Wine rather easily, so it's possible to play on other platforms than just Windows.
ChrisNorstrom
This reminds me of a game concept I came up with a while back I called "Last Man Standing". Players are put in a 3D world with completely destructible buildings and must hunt each other down one by one until only one player is left. Although it's a free for all, each player is assigned a target and can see where their target is at all times, so there's no hiding. Players can shoot through walls, foundations, and collapse buildings and destroy anything in their way. Because all buildings and obsticals are destructible, eventually there will be nothing left for players to hide behind. Once a player kills his target another is randomly assigned to him. You can also kill other players you meet along your way. Also, your target might be player#12 but his target is someone else. Anyway the gameplay was suppose to be quiet different than most games of the same concept. Instead of hiding and camping, everyone knows where everyone is at and everyone has someone to kill and be killed by. There is no hiding, no camping. And you have to keep moving.

I REALLY like Pew Pew Arena and see a lot of potential in it. Honestly, for me, it's much more fun than minecraft for the following reasons: - I can delete objects from far away - I can spawn objects from far away - So I can build and destroy much faster - Shooting is unlimited - the world has edges, it doesn't go on forever, it also has a bottom so I can make enemies fall through.

I wish: - there was a secondary weapon like a "bomb" that destroys an area the size of 3x3x3 blocks at once. This way it's possible to kill other players by destroying the ground beneath them until they fall through. You can currently do this but it takes way too long to destroy the map block by block. - when other players are behind blocks or far away and not rendered, an onscreen marker should show up to let you know where they are so you can find them. Bots aren't very good at hiding but when real people start playing, it's going to be really annoying finding them when they're hiding.