Just blows my mind how much content you can provide through the browser. Beautiful game, and a wonderful experience. Some bugs (one of the paths lead outside navigational area) but not that bothered me particular. The browser is not a browser any more. It definitively is a multipurpose, cross platform delivery infrastructure.
Wow, this game is beautiful! Has a monument valley feel to it in the music and the art. I wonder what technologies where used to make this, the seamless transition between the cut scene at the beginning and the game.
I played the whole game before opening the credits, and while playing, I couldn't help but think of some of the other things of his I've seen over the years -- for example, I remember a different one where you just wandered in various directions as patterns formed, I think, but I don't remember what it was called -- and then lo, this was something he worked on as well!
Matt's work is an inspiration. His 'Audiograph' from a few years back took me down so many good paths, learning about palette choices, 3D cameras, audio analysis, and more. His stuff is a treasure.
But yeah, it works only with a mouse/tablet interface.
Wondering whether 1to1 mapping of the (input device)TOscreen makes a difference. Where dragging, multiple repositioning of the cursor, targeting the position brakes the fun.
hypothesis: it is fun when you can match the movement of the ball with your input device. (speed, resolution, smoothnes)
I just finished the 3rd day at my new job, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I want to thank you for making this game and posting it, I don't know what exactly but it has what I need at this moment.
I don't want to be disrespectful to OP but my PC is too old to run their game.
My oldish laptop is a bit thermally allergic to just about anything graphical, so I hastily closed the tab after verifying the system was at 86°C again. I too look forward to upgrading one day. So you're not alone there.
Congrats on landing a new job. What're you doing now?
403... not anymore! There is a source map however so you can still explore. Looks like it's structured as an entity-component-system project? I'm not at all familiar with game dev, but that's my guess based on the structure.
Is weird, I'm a forever quake fan, however some years ago I played (at a friend' house) a beautiful game where the player was the wind, there were no words, nor obvious hints, but instead a slow idea of the game goal, which was to somehow save the nature. Anybody can tell what game was that one?
Speaking of relaxing games, have you played Little Orpheus? I made aware of it when won an Apple Design award and I assumed that Apple simply gave itself an award for publicity as it is part of the Apple Arcade.
I decided to give it a try and wow! That game is something else. There's nothing special about the gameplay itself, it's even not that good but the concept of narrating your actions or having a dialog about the story and telling the story is extremely pleasing experience. Normally I would listen to podcast or open a YouTube video in the background as I play casual games. This is much better because your senses don't fight for attention priority.
Then I remember, in Half Life there were parts when an outside voice would talk about something relative(g-man or someone asking you do something etc.).
Every game should have a narrator or some kind of background voice taking you deeper into the story.
I haven't played Little Orpheus, but the concept of "narrating your actions sounds" like what Supergiant Games did with Bastion. I thought it was a break through in narrative gaming, and was surprised no one had copied it.
Supergiant’s most recent game Hades doesn’t have as much of a narrator as Bastion, but it does have one, and they do clever things like having the narrator accidentally tell the main character secrets (because the main character can hear the narration).
And agreed they do interesting things with the narrator. It didn't hit home for me quite the same way that Bastion did, but I appreciate that they're constantly trying out new things.
I genuinely have to wonder what sort of setup you're running. I'm getting a perfectly fluid experience using a i3 7100 with no additional graphics card, 8GB of DDR4 2100 and Firefox on Win10.
This is very a very pretty game, reminds me of quest games I was playing as a kid. Those games seem limited in capabilities but they were pushing boundaries back in the day in terms of graphics and artistry. Looking forward to see more of this. Im gonna try this on my 3 year old and see what response Im getting.
dear mobile game developers: PLEASE make my initial touch the origin for movement vectors, not the character model. it's annoying having to constantly drag my finger up into the top half of the screen, breaks immersion as well as being just plain difficult when I have to obscure the character model with my finger in order to do fine movement.
Wow. That was unexpectedly, profoundly beautiful. Not so much a game as a work of art, definitely worth some time to experience. Makes me want to donate to the authors.
From the colophon [0]:
> Each experience of Wayfinder is as unique and ephemeral as the natural world itself. The visual assets are assembled procedurally and delivered in real-time. The lines of poetry are created with a mix of artificial intelligence, machine learning and generative processes, providing thousands of possible combinations. As such, Wayfinder is an ever-changing, emergent artwork with infinite possibilities.
The generated haikus seem natural. I guess this might be one of the easiest genre of poetry for a computer to generate, with a well-trained model that can juxtapose matching lines.
I got the same line twice in only 4 poems, so I'm not entirely convinced. I'm also naturally suspicious of anything that claims to use artificial intelligence and machine learning, as if these are two unrelated things.
I am more comfortable with JS + Three + Web than Unity/Unreal, and we had planned this as a web first experience. I also wanted a lot more control over the application than what those engines support (eg - in terms of loading, mobile, asset management, DOM-based UI, etc).
In hindsight some things would have been a lot easier with a game engine!
Thanks! Lots of things inspire me - Journey and Flower are obvious references, but also many other projects! I find a lot of inspiration through online illustration and generative art communities.
It was coded with JavaScript + ThreeJS and built on top of a custom entity component system. Lots of different parts to the game, each receiving different treatments; eg the terrain is built from a mix of voronoi cells, layered simplex noise, and poisson disc sampling.
I found Amit Patel’s blog to be a great resource for this:
Absolutely stunning. I work with loads of museums who are always looking for ways to tell interactive stories. I'll be sharing this with them and may be in touch with you :-)
What were the 'item slot' looking things in the bottom left of the screen? I couldn't figure that out.
At one point, I had one filled, but I don't know how or what it meant.
Thanks! We used ThreeJS and JavaScript for the engine, and Svelte for the UI.
We started the project with a small team, just myself (concept/code/design), Tiffany Beucher (illustration, character design and concept art), Guillaume Le Roux (modelling, animation and art direction), and production by the NFB.
As the project grew we brought others to help with different parts. You can find the full credits below:
Special shoutout to the National Film Board who’s shorts set the tone for my inquisitive life and who’s funding allowed all kinds of artists to add to our culture.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 183 ms ] threadBut it's definitively beautiful and relaxing :)
Matt's work is an inspiration. His 'Audiograph' from a few years back took me down so many good paths, learning about palette choices, 3D cameras, audio analysis, and more. His stuff is a treasure.
(edit: the wandering game I couldn't recall the name of was https://bellwoods.xyz/)
1 - https://www.audiograph.xyz/
Code: https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/ddd
I'd guess a necessary enhancement to make it more of a game would be to have it pop the dot when it hits so you can never rest easy.
But yeah, it works only with a mouse/tablet interface. Wondering whether 1to1 mapping of the (input device)TOscreen makes a difference. Where dragging, multiple repositioning of the cursor, targeting the position brakes the fun.
hypothesis: it is fun when you can match the movement of the ball with your input device. (speed, resolution, smoothnes)
I don't want to be disrespectful to OP but my PC is too old to run their game.
Congrats on landing a new job. What're you doing now?
The JS code is unminified. It uses Three.js and Svelte.
https://wayfinder.nfb.ca/src/systems/CanvasSystem.js
I like to play this one as well, not as artsy but super fun - https://play.gl/ - unfortunately it was not crafted as a PWA like this one.
Seems to work fine in Edge (Chromium)
The next generation of M-series chips can’t arrive quickly enough. I anxiously await my next laptop.
I like these kind of games a lot
If you liked it, Journey takes it to the next level.
In fact, this Wayfinder game appears to take lots of inspiration from both of these games.
http://thatgamecompany.com/journey/
Avoid spoilers until you've played it all the way through!
I decided to give it a try and wow! That game is something else. There's nothing special about the gameplay itself, it's even not that good but the concept of narrating your actions or having a dialog about the story and telling the story is extremely pleasing experience. Normally I would listen to podcast or open a YouTube video in the background as I play casual games. This is much better because your senses don't fight for attention priority.
Then I remember, in Half Life there were parts when an outside voice would talk about something relative(g-man or someone asking you do something etc.). Every game should have a narrator or some kind of background voice taking you deeper into the story.
Maybe that's part of the lure of game streamers?
I'll have to check out Little Orpheus now.
Think of it as two people having a conversation about where you are and what's happening.
Now I remember, I think Max Payne also had an occasional background voice. It added so much to the atmosphere.
And agreed they do interesting things with the narrator. It didn't hit home for me quite the same way that Bastion did, but I appreciate that they're constantly trying out new things.
That game is an Apple Arcade exclusive. The end.
From the colophon [0]:
> Each experience of Wayfinder is as unique and ephemeral as the natural world itself. The visual assets are assembled procedurally and delivered in real-time. The lines of poetry are created with a mix of artificial intelligence, machine learning and generative processes, providing thousands of possible combinations. As such, Wayfinder is an ever-changing, emergent artwork with infinite possibilities.
The generated haikus seem natural. I guess this might be one of the easiest genre of poetry for a computer to generate, with a well-trained model that can juxtapose matching lines.
[0]: https://www.nfb.ca/interactive/wayfinder
I feel that using them both in a game is with-in the realm of possibility. So, I am less likely to be offended until I know more.
[1]https://techtiptrick.com/machine-learning-a-subset-of-artifi...
Another relaxing game I discovered a few years ago (I think also through HN) https://alexanderperrin.com.au/paper/shorttrip/
You're controlling a small railcar of some kind driving through villages and landscapes.
Happy to see this resonating with so many people. :) Feel free to ask any questions!
My question is, what factors made you decide to hand-craft it instead of using Unity/Unreal?
In hindsight some things would have been a lot easier with a game engine!
I found Amit Patel’s blog to be a great resource for this:
https://www.redblobgames.com/
What were the 'item slot' looking things in the bottom left of the screen? I couldn't figure that out. At one point, I had one filled, but I don't know how or what it meant.
We started the project with a small team, just myself (concept/code/design), Tiffany Beucher (illustration, character design and concept art), Guillaume Le Roux (modelling, animation and art direction), and production by the NFB.
As the project grew we brought others to help with different parts. You can find the full credits below:
https://www.nfb.ca/interactive/wayfinder
The team were they on paid or volunteering bases?