Many years ago there was a viral web-based game involving...shooting frogs, perhaps?
The mechanics were not explained, you had to discover how to play it.
The problem: the primary mechanism was pointer clicks, but the Mac's tap to click didn't work.
So the game was in motion but nothing I did made any difference. I even wondered if perhaps the virality was a joke: the people who knew it didn't actually work were playing a trick on everyone else.
Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that forcing the user to discover the mechanics works better when you control the full stack.
Or that those of us who cherish tap to click should occasionally press harder, just in case.
Old Version
Written in ActionScript 3.0
Supports spheres and boxes as collision shapes
Supports various joints (ball and socket, distance, hinge, prismatic, etc...)
Fast and stable collision solver
That caught me off-guard as well. I only ever written one thing in Haxe, but the experienced was mixed. It worked, but it also kind of painful to work with.
For context: Haxe is a programming language with the main purpose to have several compile targets for many programming languages.
This has vibes of the old Web, where amazing and niche things were happening. Apparently that engine is written in something called Haxe and its multi-platform.
Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing out by looking at lists curated by points given out by people who come together by hyper specialised interests. Should have heard of it before hearing about the millionth JS framework.
Haxe can compile to even more targets these days, like C++, JVM, C#, PHP, Lua, etc. It also includes an interpreter to run without compiling, and there’s a newer, faster VM for Haxe called HashLink.
I see, it pops up every few months but most of the time it appears that doesn't get any traction with exception of a few times in the last 10 years. Interesting case, at glance I think it should be getting more love than it has.
Three.js is just a rendering engine -- it wouldn't allow you to create something like this anyway.
Also, I don't believe that the bubble toy is related to their physics engine; it seems like a different type of physics. The engine is focused on 3D collisions, joints, springs, etc., whereas the bubble toy is simulating thin films.
I wish there was source code for the bubble toy so we could see how it works!
I'm still grappling with my last bout of "holy moly is the universe a simulation?" after reading about a way of dealing with latency in networked games that looks a lot like relativity.
I absolutely love this and am curious about the technical details behind simulating soap bubbles like this (it looks like the code isn't available). Does anyone know what algorithm is being used?
Their physics engine doesn't seem related to the bubble toy as far as I can tell (although another HN comment implies it is). The physics engine implements 3D collisions between solid objects, joints, springs, etc. But the bubble toy is a different type of physics.
I spent wayyy too much time playing with this, just trying to understand all the dynamics. What makes the bubbles burst, or merge, or collapse, or partially burst and partially expand a connected bubble.
The impact of the various directions of the fan or pin.
I agree that this is a true work of art. The variation and attention to detail is delightful. I hope more people put together and share stuff like this on HN.
This was fun. I kept trying to "throw" the sand and use a forward momentum to the falling sand, but that doesn't work. No matter the speed of the mouse's movement, the falling particles always fall straight down. Otherwise I liked it enough that I am saving it for my next conference call as you've suggested
I hate almost all games for this need to advance, earn levels, die and start over, compete and score. One of very few games I played when I was young was Test Drive 4*, where I would simply drive around and play, switching wipers on and off. I liked sports cars games, but I would often go backwards or wonder off the track, if game permitted. Also.. Neverhood. And creative mode in Minecraft.
I used to do this on Total Drivin’ on PS1. There were all sorts of ledges and off-track locations you could get yourself onto if you drove off track in the right way, sometimes even wall driving. Many, many hours.
> hate almost all games for this need to advance, earn levels, die and start over, compete and score
One of the only games I've truly enjoyed for a long time is SimCity. I learned this genre is sometimes called "idle games".
> What differentiates idle games from other types of game systems is that they can progress without player input. When players do engage, they tinker with a system, rather than encountering a confrontation that they can win or lose.
> Idle games invites players to participate in the game world, but does not revolve around them. You are, essentially, not a center of the world but a spectator.
> I learned this genre is sometimes called "idle games".
That is very interesting. With "idle games" idea of playing games may be stretched to all different spaces of interacting with the computer/program, touching on learning, relaxation, ideation. Well... food for thought.
> Neverhood looks fun! Love the claymation art.
Neverhood is unique with its aesthetics as it was created with real, huge set made of real clay and cameras recording character walking.
Cool! I enjoyed watching the making of Neverhood. Fascinating how they created a world from literally a ton and a half of clay, then turned it into interactive entertainment. And how Steven Spielberg was involved, bringing together a team of artists, musicians, programmers, crafts people.
Love the physicality/materiality of clay, like one person said, how it has finger prints. Creatures and their environment all made by hand. I have a feeling, as society becomes more digitized and virtualized, people are missing the tactile sensation of touching real things. It might lead to a revival of interest in hand-made crafts, and material objects made of wood, ceramics, wool..
> With "idle games" idea of playing games may be stretched to all different spaces of interacting with the computer/program, touching on learning, relaxation, ideation.
The paper I linked above has made me curious about the concept of "idle games", and related topics like "gamification" of education, work, and life routines.
I realized, Stardew Valley is a famous example of an idle game without competition, winning or losing. I haven't played it, but I imagine it's a pleasant experience.
Glad you liked it. I feel it also shows amazing atmosphere and spirit of people involved and this is what attracts us. You know, like backstage of Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show.
I will definitely read the paper / explore the idea of 'idle games'. Thx again.
This is one of the allures of Forza Horizon for me. On the surface, it's an MMRPG, with social, collection, crafting, levels, puzzles, competition, et al, all of that can be turned off / ignored as desired.
With those items off, it's a great place to "drive" around, with different climates, seasons, amazing views, etc. Drive a classic convertible along a beachfront road. Explore dirt roads in an SUV during a snow storm.
It's no driving simulator, but it's a pleasant way to get away from the world for a while. If you've got the winter blahs and like driving / scenery, plug your PC or Xbox into the biggest display you have and get away for a while.
Have you tried Kerbal Space Program? My son and I love to just roam around exploring, and trying to build different rockets and airplanes. We're just not interesting in the game, but the exploration is amazing. It is also a terrific learning tool.
Delightful toys like this are why I love the web. I'd never go through the rigamarole of installing an app to play with this, but I sure will click a link.
Such a fun surprise when I realized that the fan does not only push air but pulls air in as well. The bubble wand placed to the left of the fan will still make bubbles out the right hand side. Interestingly it makes bigger bubbles than normal.
That stung me hard. Damn, Orisinal. I spent so much time playing those wonderful games on rainy afternoons with a tea pot. I had a dinky little Sony VAIO laptop, they were called "Netbooks" at the time around 2005. It was bliss.
I made a small tribute[0] to Winterbells last year when beginning to learn Godot. Spent much time with that music on loop way back when playing that cozy game!
181 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] threadThe mechanics were not explained, you had to discover how to play it.
The problem: the primary mechanism was pointer clicks, but the Mac's tap to click didn't work.
So the game was in motion but nothing I did made any difference. I even wondered if perhaps the virality was a joke: the people who knew it didn't actually work were playing a trick on everyone else.
Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that forcing the user to discover the mechanics works better when you control the full stack.
Or that those of us who cherish tap to click should occasionally press harder, just in case.
Old Version Written in ActionScript 3.0 Supports spheres and boxes as collision shapes Supports various joints (ball and socket, distance, hinge, prismatic, etc...) Fast and stable collision solver
For context: Haxe is a programming language with the main purpose to have several compile targets for many programming languages.
Glad it is working for them.
Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing out by looking at lists curated by points given out by people who come together by hyper specialised interests. Should have heard of it before hearing about the millionth JS framework.
But human curation costs money, and can't (yet!!11~ scream the AI folks) be replaced by AI, so here we are.
Haxe is interesting. I remember coming across it back in the days of Flash.
They also had a bytecode VM of their own called Neko.
At the time when I heard of it there were three platforms you could target with Haxe: JavaScript, Flash, and Neko.
It’s pretty cool to see that after all these years Haxe is still alive and in use.
Had to use it at a gaming startup. Everybody hated it, including the CEO, and we were planning moving to Unity as soon as possible.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=haxe
Also, I don't believe that the bubble toy is related to their physics engine; it seems like a different type of physics. The engine is focused on 3D collisions, joints, springs, etc., whereas the bubble toy is simulating thin films.
I wish there was source code for the bubble toy so we could see how it works!
What kind of competitions is this referring to?
eg: https://atcoder.jp/contests/ahc016
(Sidenote: try dragging the profile pic!)
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Bubble_Bobble
than expected time to pop
But, they will all pop
This is very fun.
Maybe I don't want to know.
I'm still grappling with my last bout of "holy moly is the universe a simulation?" after reading about a way of dealing with latency in networked games that looks a lot like relativity.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1z0t7y/replication...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram
It's more likely IMO that the Voronoi pattern emerges from the constraints of the simulation.
The impact of the various directions of the fan or pin.
So much variation in such a simple seeming base.
I agree that this is a true work of art. The variation and attention to detail is delightful. I hope more people put together and share stuff like this on HN.
A game has a goal. Here you are free to experiment without being led or nudged. In the world of computer-based entertainment, it is refreshing.
https://oskarstalberg.com/Townscaper
But it kinda only works for towns.
The "big" buildings feel tiny due to the size limit (3x3?) so you can never get a satisfying city.
https://oskarstalberg.com/Townscaper/#IzBQKaIkyOM1lbn9IiXdyw...
Someone rebuilt it in Javascript. It’s not mobile friendly, so I haven’t been able to try much with it yet. https://peterfidelman.github.io/constructor/
I recommend exploring the top-right link and poking around this person's site. It felt like an old flash website and took me back a couple decades.
*) Test Drive 3
I checked how Total Drivin' looked. Have a look at http://dos-scholar.blogspot.com/2011/04/test-drive-iii-passi..., if you want to see TD3.
One of the only games I've truly enjoyed for a long time is SimCity. I learned this genre is sometimes called "idle games".
> What differentiates idle games from other types of game systems is that they can progress without player input. When players do engage, they tinker with a system, rather than encountering a confrontation that they can win or lose.
> Idle games invites players to participate in the game world, but does not revolve around them. You are, essentially, not a center of the world but a spectator.
On the Design of Idle Games, Katta Spiel et al. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3311350.3347180 (PDF)
---
Neverhood looks fun! Love the claymation art.
The Neverhood Trailer (1996) - https://youtu.be/OOcWNOxoG6E
That is very interesting. With "idle games" idea of playing games may be stretched to all different spaces of interacting with the computer/program, touching on learning, relaxation, ideation. Well... food for thought.
> Neverhood looks fun! Love the claymation art.
Neverhood is unique with its aesthetics as it was created with real, huge set made of real clay and cameras recording character walking.
Behind the Scenes - Neverhood and Skullmonkeys [Making of] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrR3jbgocI4
Love the physicality/materiality of clay, like one person said, how it has finger prints. Creatures and their environment all made by hand. I have a feeling, as society becomes more digitized and virtualized, people are missing the tactile sensation of touching real things. It might lead to a revival of interest in hand-made crafts, and material objects made of wood, ceramics, wool..
> With "idle games" idea of playing games may be stretched to all different spaces of interacting with the computer/program, touching on learning, relaxation, ideation.
The paper I linked above has made me curious about the concept of "idle games", and related topics like "gamification" of education, work, and life routines.
I realized, Stardew Valley is a famous example of an idle game without competition, winning or losing. I haven't played it, but I imagine it's a pleasant experience.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/413150/Stardew_Valley/
Found another one, World of Goo. https://store.steampowered.com/app/22000/World_of_Goo/
Glad you liked it. I feel it also shows amazing atmosphere and spirit of people involved and this is what attracts us. You know, like backstage of Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show.
I will definitely read the paper / explore the idea of 'idle games'. Thx again.
With those items off, it's a great place to "drive" around, with different climates, seasons, amazing views, etc. Drive a classic convertible along a beachfront road. Explore dirt roads in an SUV during a snow storm.
It's no driving simulator, but it's a pleasant way to get away from the world for a while. If you've got the winter blahs and like driving / scenery, plug your PC or Xbox into the biggest display you have and get away for a while.
Also they appear to be a student?
[0] https://poacher2k.itch.io/summercoins
http://freewebarcade.com/game/winterbells/
homepage : https://oimo.io/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh%E2%80%93Taylor_instab...
This whole comment thread makes for happy reading.
A talented person creating cool original things and a bunch of smart people playing with, discussing and appreciating their work.