My big smile moment was in the level with a torturously long path between blue barriers that snaked around... UNLESS someone was on the blue barrier.
At that point, everyone was free to go straight to the exit (except the kind soul, who had to wait for someone to hit the cyan trigger and let them out)
I edited that out because I felt like everyone would just go top and hope someone would save them. By introducing a long path before they can help others, it makes them think "Well, I could just finish the level, or trust that someone will save me and help them..."
When I got to that level a cursor was drawing an arrow to a false path. I couldn't figure out how to draw, so I assume a "fake cursor" was part of the level.
'Cheat' to get you past thin red pathways: line yourself up with the pathway, and jam yourself against the wall opposing the path. Take your cursor outside the game box, then bring it in from the opposite side. Your cursor will snap across to the wall opposite where it currently is. My hand is a bit too wobbly for those paths, so I had to 'think outside the box' to get past them...
Everyone seems to be loving it, but doesn't work for me. I don't control any of the cursors. There's a message in the bottom corner "Area too full, drawing is disabled". Latest Firefox.
The control is hard if you disable the cursor lock, which I had to do to get it to work in Safari. If you lose track of your "game" cursor, you get the red circle around your "real" cursor until you link them back up.
It worked as expected for me in Chrome (then I went back and tried it in Safari after figuring it out).
Firefox's cursor hiding breaks it, won't let you move the cursor, so don't enable it. Red circled cursor is your actual mouse position, grey circled one is the 'ingame' cursor that's blocked by walls. Move the red onto the grey to start.
On Chrome I get "Area too full, drawing is disabled". The site disables my cursor (if I give it permission) and then I simply can't move my cursor, but I can click which creates a ripple around my cursor.
I went AFK after reaching a particularly hard level, and came back to "Lost connection to server." Apparently it boots you if you're AFK for more than a minute or two.
A bit frustrating, considering how much "work" I put in to get to that point.
It's hands-down the best HTML 5 game experience I've ever had. I look forward to more.
Dev here. There's an editor at http://cursors.io?editor, but it can't submit the level to me yet. But you can type "generateCode();" and put it on pastebin and email it to me at me [at] m28.io and I'll put it in game if I like it.
My server is getting hammered pretty hard, that's the reason for the disconnects. The spike caused by hn: http://d.m28.io/ZCWdy0m1DHOG.png
I'm gonna sleep now but ask anything and I'll reply when I get up.
Edit: Sleeping is not an option anymore, the server is having some... troubles.
Curious what the tech stack and data flow looks like for this, is the server running a C++ game representation and pushing updates to the javascript clients via WebSockets?
Noticed the string from the level editor `std::vector<LevelObject*> wallByColor[`
Yep the server is in C++. The level editor is mostly for personal use right now, so it just generates the C++ code that I need to paste into a file. I plan to make the editor public and make an easy process to submit levels so maybe some day no one will ever be able to reach the end.
They're really overpowered for what they're using atm. I'm just keeping extra capacity just in case. Web server is on a Linode 2048 and Game server is on a Linode 4096 (not even using 15% of the CPUs).
Seems like you already have this on your to do list but it would be nice to save state on local storage or something like that so that it doesn't reset every time the connection is lost.
You, sir, have crafted a beautiful, wonderful experience. I was playing with ~700 people, a figure that jumped to nearly 900 before I turned back to doing real work for the day. (Your Reddit posts must be gaining steam.)
The thrill of messing with people on the level with the large spiraling maze with red blocks, the agony of waiting for someone to come relieve you on the "go out of your way to man button clicking stations" levels... It's almost shocking how much depth can be pulled from such an incredibly simple concept.
It makes one wonder if you've inadvertently stumbled across the Holy Grail of game design: Did, through the game mechanics themselves, you create True Art?
I started playing this while some code was compiling and ended up getting completely sucked in.
That giddy thrill of enabling a restless mass of fellow cursors to rush through a gate, or the temporary, unspoken bond between the lone cursor selflessly manning a button and the new arrival sidling up to them to see if they want to change shifts... there's a lot going on in this seemingly simple game. I'm glad I got to play while it's at critical mass.
(Developers, are you logging the cursor movements? This would be fascinating to analyze later.)
Arrgh, how do you guys write these awesome, complex projects (with networking! and built-in tools!) in just a few days? If I tried my hand at making this, it would take me, like, a month. What is the trick that lets you leap across this order-of-magnitude-sized time gap?
The game is really creative and addictive! I am a Ph.D. student and I would like to use the game as a platform for research. Do you plan on making the logs available any time?
This is, hands down, the most awesome game I have ever played through a web browser!
Please start logging as soon as possible. Simple heat maps of cursor positions, draw areas and pings would be awesome to look at. It could be shown to players in the end of the game.
If you collect data, I will help you process it. I am especially interested in measuring the percentage of players who volunteer to change a poor soul trapped far away, just because it is a nice thing to do. Percentage of players who never do that would also be interesting, just as players who figure out that they can click 2 or sometimes 4 buttons by oneself, freeing several cursors.
Playing this was a mistake on my part considering I have plenty of networking HW due tomorrow, but then again looking at HN was the first mistake. Great job! It's a simple game that ended up being significantly more fun than I thought it would be.
I really wanted to see how many people were at each level, to get a sense of how far up the tower this goes, and how many people were up top, and how soon I'd get there.
It'd also be cool if the higher up you go, you can see a previous level, and affect it in some way, like helping more cursors get up to your level, or hinder them to be evil.
Some indicator would be great. Maybe even of "cursors in the earlier levels that might come soon". Is there branching? I was stuck with 3 people in a room where we needed 5-6 (or super good clickers) to proceed and gave up waiting for new cursors after several minutes. (The spiral with 5-6 "5 click" buttons that were all blocking the exit in the lower right.)
244 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 279 ms ] threadI love it.
One of the cursors sat by the real one and danced invitingly until everyone noticed.
At that point, everyone was free to go straight to the exit (except the kind soul, who had to wait for someone to hit the cyan trigger and let them out)
My design let you go from spawn directly to the obstacle removal button, but the dev edited that part out.
I really like trust exercise levels, even though an entire heard of cursors left me in the box once.
These games really are impressive though. I wonder if there's been a good thesis written on them yet.
I gave up on the one where you had to squeeze through a bunch of narrow red pathways, it's not so easy on a trackpad.
Ps: I just realized you can draw something on board. Hint: Press and hold Ctrl.
It worked as expected for me in Chrome (then I went back and tried it in Safari after figuring it out).
A bit frustrating, considering how much "work" I put in to get to that point.
It's hands-down the best HTML 5 game experience I've ever had. I look forward to more.
Thank you.
(and unfortunately I got "disconnected from server" about 15 levels in)
I had myself convinced for a few minutes it was just a clever way to end the game when you got to the last level.
My server is getting hammered pretty hard, that's the reason for the disconnects. The spike caused by hn: http://d.m28.io/ZCWdy0m1DHOG.png
I'm gonna sleep now but ask anything and I'll reply when I get up.
Edit: Sleeping is not an option anymore, the server is having some... troubles.
Noticed the string from the level editor `std::vector<LevelObject*> wallByColor[`
what are you using for your web server?
* O: spawn * A/S: change paint color * W: exit? green block
* A: Prev Paint Color
* S: Next Paint Color
* B: Create Click Button
* Z: Undo
* W: Add Exit Block
* O: Move Spawn Point
* N: Create Hover Area
* Arrows: Change Size
The thrill of messing with people on the level with the large spiraling maze with red blocks, the agony of waiting for someone to come relieve you on the "go out of your way to man button clicking stations" levels... It's almost shocking how much depth can be pulled from such an incredibly simple concept.
It makes one wonder if you've inadvertently stumbled across the Holy Grail of game design: Did, through the game mechanics themselves, you create True Art?
The game seems to have gotten popular on /r/webgames, but if it gets popular on /r/gaming or something, then it's gonna explode.
That giddy thrill of enabling a restless mass of fellow cursors to rush through a gate, or the temporary, unspoken bond between the lone cursor selflessly manning a button and the new arrival sidling up to them to see if they want to change shifts... there's a lot going on in this seemingly simple game. I'm glad I got to play while it's at critical mass.
(Developers, are you logging the cursor movements? This would be fascinating to analyze later.)
Stats about one's own selflessness etc would be really cool. Or even aggregated stuff. X% is selfish, Deciles of goodness etc.
Great work!
Please start logging as soon as possible. Simple heat maps of cursor positions, draw areas and pings would be awesome to look at. It could be shown to players in the end of the game.
If you collect data, I will help you process it. I am especially interested in measuring the percentage of players who volunteer to change a poor soul trapped far away, just because it is a nice thing to do. Percentage of players who never do that would also be interesting, just as players who figure out that they can click 2 or sometimes 4 buttons by oneself, freeing several cursors.
Likely excuse! Cue xkcd linkbot.
[1] http://nekogames.jp/g.html?gid=CURSOR10
Edit: Ouch, I was disconnected from the server after getting several levels in.
It'd also be cool if the higher up you go, you can see a previous level, and affect it in some way, like helping more cursors get up to your level, or hinder them to be evil.
Firefox says:
> SecurityError: The operation is insecure. client_out.js:30
Chrome says:
> Uncaught SecurityError: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from 'Window': Access is denied for this document.
I see just a rectangle with border, when I move cursor to it it disappears, when I move it out it appears again.