Wow. This is the first time i played a really cool and addicting websocket/webgl game.
Most games try to be too big for the current state of the platform. This nails it!
I dominated. Quickly got to first place and soon I was sitting at 8/9k score. When you get that high you have a constant drain on your score at about 25/second.
It got pretty boring as small ships could / would run away and any bigger ships were still much much smaller and I could win just through attrition.
- NodeJS for web server
- C++ for game server
- Redis for data storage
- Nginx + Varnish for caching and routing
- Websockets for client <-> server communication
- UglifyJS for source code compression
- Planet icons designed by Freepik (http://www.freepik.com)
This is pretty fun :) -- the controls are definitely more challenging than Agar.io, which uses the mouse for movement. I would caution the author to be ready for the possibility of a DMCA letter from Minclip [1], the company that now owns the rights to the game and is aggressively attacking all "clones" of the Agar.io game. Vanar.io seems different enough, but the letter has some strong wording such as "The URL is a deliberate attempt to create a false association with the Agario game, take advantage of the goodwill and reputation in the Agario game and divert users of the Agario game to the URL". Discussion and another example is on reddit [2]. So far the only Agar.io clones sent a letter are ones that directly copied and used the javascript code, so hopefully that's not the case here.
I played the game, got really good at it, and then quit because the company refuses to do anything about the teaming problems associated with FFA and the mind numbing issues with lag. It doesn't surprise me one bit that they are spending their time and efforts trying to attack others while Rome burns.
Upvote because a reasonable discussion point, but I deeply disagree. If you want easy control you can already play agario. Having some more complex games is also good.
Yes this is more complex but mouse could have been an option for an easier transition.
In the long term, however, I think that a player who is experienced and used to the keyboard controls would be way better than someone with equal experience (and skill) but used to playing with the mouse.
Isn't this actually a business opportunity? Supplying non-animated, non-tracking ads. I also imagine one could allow the publisher to accept params to make the images match the target site's color scheme.
"Y U Block ads"? I have adblock on by default and I planned to spend a couple of minutes on the page just to see what it was like. I am not going to land on a random page with adblock turned off. If it bothers you so much, find a different revenue source.
I block ads, that's my choice. Sites can choose to nag if ads are blocked, that's their choice. I can enable ads for their site, or I can go elsewhere.
You and I can't make them find a different revenue source.
It's not as fun as agar.io in my opinion. The biggest problem is the balance in this game: in agar.io big players are discouraged from attacking small players, they're too slow to catch them and the risk of splitting is not worth it. It's incredibly easy to attack a smaller ship in this game and there is no risk.
The mutual destruction in this game is an annoying mechanic in this game, yet you keep shooting at players with a similar size as there is a chance they wont react quickly enough.
It looks incredibly cool, but it needs some more balancing to be as fun as agar.io.
It's actually very strategic. You'll start having "a-HA!" moments after you have wasted quite a bit of time there.
One of the first things I realized is that a very small cell can safely hide near the largest cells in the game. Since the larger a cell, the slower its movement, the small cells can use the larger ones to shield them without risk of being devoured. Kind of a host/parasite relationship. Just eat their scraps until you're large enough to go out on your own.
There are many other little nuances you'll pick up on, but I won't spoil it!
These controls are almost exactly the same but without the reverse thrust. Have you been playing since the Steam launch? I'm in game a lot, same alias as here if you ever want to chat.
I have been destroying this game for the last two hours. Sitting at 8/9k got boring so I just quit.
I had one of the largest squads in Subspace back in the day. If you're a fan, you may be interested to know that Continuum actually got Steam green-lighted a bit ago, and as of this month, is now available via steam:
Interesting game, I'm pretty impressed with how well the Canvas 2D performs here. I tried writing a clone of Gate88 (http://www.queasygames.com/gate88/) for the web four years ago, but even on high end machines it wasn't performant enough. Time to revisit it I think.
You can play what I built here (it's single player against the AI):
Controls are a little funky, would be nice to have some kind of particle explosion when your ship is destroyed. Probably a little more satisfying than just flipping straight to the "play again" screen.
Honestly, I think the balance needs some serious changes here. Size -> slowness is a strong mechanic for Agar because you have to engulf enemies, but it's not much of a handicap in Vanar.
I'm comfortably sitting on top of the leaderboard gunning down anyone who crosses me, because they can't outrun my bullets and turn speed. The best small players are doing some pretty cool bombing run stuff with guns -> speed -> shield, but it's often not enough. They hit me 1-2 times quite skillfully, and then I clip them once and they die.
edit: Possibly US East just hasn't learned how to dogfight. I restarted a few times and can reliably top the leaderboard in a minute or two.
66 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadedit: Also, typo in about.txt (vanario.io)
It got pretty boring as small ships could / would run away and any bigger ships were still much much smaller and I could win just through attrition.
- NodeJS for web server - C++ for game server - Redis for data storage - Nginx + Varnish for caching and routing - Websockets for client <-> server communication - UglifyJS for source code compression - Planet icons designed by Freepik (http://www.freepik.com)
[1] https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/d028f601f93e201186b4a75b...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Agario/comments/3f7oys/miniclip_sta...
In the long term, however, I think that a player who is experienced and used to the keyboard controls would be way better than someone with equal experience (and skill) but used to playing with the mouse.
You and I can't make them find a different revenue source.
The mutual destruction in this game is an annoying mechanic in this game, yet you keep shooting at players with a similar size as there is a chance they wont react quickly enough.
It looks incredibly cool, but it needs some more balancing to be as fun as agar.io.
One of the first things I realized is that a very small cell can safely hide near the largest cells in the game. Since the larger a cell, the slower its movement, the small cells can use the larger ones to shield them without risk of being devoured. Kind of a host/parasite relationship. Just eat their scraps until you're large enough to go out on your own.
There are many other little nuances you'll pick up on, but I won't spoil it!
http://www.getcontinuum.com/
These controls are almost exactly the same but without the reverse thrust. Have you been playing since the Steam launch? I'm in game a lot, same alias as here if you ever want to chat.
I have been destroying this game for the last two hours. Sitting at 8/9k got boring so I just quit.
Maybe I should resurrect that attempt.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/
You can play what I built here (it's single player against the AI):
http://lucaspiller.github.io/88etag/
The controls are:
Arrows - move
D - Fire
Q - Place turret
W - Place mass driver
Here is the source: https://github.com/lucaspiller/88etag/blob/canvas2d/applicat...
It's really high performance (uses Webgl by default and falls back to canvas if its unavailable).
[1]: http://www.pixijs.com/
A lot of big players on it, and impossible to get going because death is almost imminent upon spawning!
I'm comfortably sitting on top of the leaderboard gunning down anyone who crosses me, because they can't outrun my bullets and turn speed. The best small players are doing some pretty cool bombing run stuff with guns -> speed -> shield, but it's often not enough. They hit me 1-2 times quite skillfully, and then I clip them once and they die.
edit: Possibly US East just hasn't learned how to dogfight. I restarted a few times and can reliably top the leaderboard in a minute or two.