Show HN: Homegames. An open-source game platform I've been making for 8 years (homegames.io)

as a matter of ux, users probably don't need to know that a session is being instantiated, and probably expect a simple play button

fun

If you architect your protocol cleanly, you should be able to run the simulation client side too without much effort (certainly the web platform has everything you'd need). This is how modern game engines do it, it goes back to the Quake VM and probably beyond.

You'd still get multiplayer "for free", but it could be turned on and off. You could do it with zero code change for the actual games, they don't have to know.

It seems some of the games could do with a singleplayer mode that doesn't depend on the backend having free slots.

Just an idea from a fellow web games person!

I was obsessed with the Arcade Game Construction Kit on the C64.

And Fireworks Construction Kit

And Garry Kitchen's Game Maker

I worked on a similar concept (padgames.io now defunct) that offered a state sync networking system with rollback netcode style stuff. It could handle exposing only certain information or fake info to certain clients (to prevent cheating). It integrated super nicely with vuex or react stores as it was all observable and all game actions just turned into state mutations.

I made the game I wanted, enjoyed it with family and friends, and then let COVID sweep it away. Congrats on continuing to work on it.

No need to be sorry! Good job on launching and working on it for years. It’s awesome. These launch hiccups happen.

Just keep pushing, I know how hard it is

I think that's a very weird and dishonest take. To me, it reads as written by reflex rather than in good faith.

You can point out that something isn't a good look and not be a pearl-clutching culture warrior, although for people who feel strongly for/against it certainly doesn't feel this way. The marijuana culture in general is in my experience generally perceived as tacky and I personally know many who use but want nothing to do with the culture itself because it's a bunch of people whose humor essentially equates "weed = funny" in the same way kids equate "poo = funny". As usual it's a loud majority making the rest look bad, of course, and not a general rule about how marijuana users behave.

It is well known that similar people get along and stick together, and if you manage a community you will know that whatever you put on a pedestal decides what kind of new people are attracted, and what kind of people stay. If you want to build something community driven, this is something you will need to manage. Sure, you can put this kind of stuff on the home page, but your home page tells new users what the community looks like.

As an example you are probably familiar with, Reddit solved this using subreddits and the front page - the content shown to new users is almost by definition the most popular and agreeable content that most people like, which is good for adoption. I think we would both agree reddit would seem a lot less attractive if to new users if the user is shown a random selection of new posts from all across the site. Instead, it is the users responsibility to find niches that may fit them better than the average opinion. Most subreddits are out of sight for those who don't care/don't want to interact with it.

If you want to show off your product and want adoption, would you rather nobody tell you and suffer from a lot of people turning away with no idea why? Or would you prefer people point out possible issues? It doesn't mean you have to agree, but data is important, and I think anyone with any community work experience could tell you the exact things I have written.