[HN Gopher] Prince of Persia in JavaScript
___________________________________________________________________
Prince of Persia in JavaScript
Author : colinprince
Score : 792 points
Date : 2021-12-28 04:49 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (princejs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (princejs.com)
| luisnuxx wrote:
| So many days spent playing this game. Good old days.
| nojs wrote:
| So many memories playing this, thanks!
|
| I expected after finishing level 1 to see the "page 4 line 2
| character 6" challenge room, where you were supposed to prove you
| owned the official manual.
|
| When I was a kid we had it on floppy disk but never had the
| original book, and I remember diligently filling in a table of
| failures each time I drank the wrong letter and died. Eventually
| I got them all!
|
| Because of this I remember level 1 extremely well :D
| sparker72678 wrote:
| This! Somewhere down the line we managed to get a copy of the
| manual -- we played a lot more after that!
| mehrdada wrote:
| I used to play this in college in the back of the classroom in
| DOSBox. I was good enough at it that I would only need to look at
| the screen on occasion, so the instructor wouldn't notice, and
| almost had the key sequences and time to hold in muscle memory.
| livinglist wrote:
| I really admire thisss guy
| livinglist wrote:
| no you don't
| shmde wrote:
| Played it first on my Windows 98 PC or was it the counterfeit
| nintendo ? I don't exactly remember, but me and my big bro had a
| blast playing this during the early 2000s. Did not remember the
| jumps were this dysfunctional tbh.
| pow_pp_-1_v wrote:
| Thank you! It's fascinating that I still remember the controls
| all these years later. One of the very few games I completed -
| without cheats, mind you!
| chromejs10 wrote:
| Just as hard as I remember
| thanatos519 wrote:
| This is great and I also enjoy https://github.com/NagyD/SDLPoP
| where my favourite feature is the ability to take a screenshot of
| the whole level... which usually fits well within my 4K display.
|
| Oh, and playing at 3840x1200 means that every original 320x200
| pixel is ... 144 pixels!
| [deleted]
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Damn. I used to pass this game without dying in ~35 minutes or
| so. There goes my next few hours, I guess...
| orliesaurus wrote:
| Hope you don't mind I decided to start with 9 health hearts...
| because I always sucked at this game...
| anandsuresh wrote:
| So fucking good it felt like the 90s again. :)
| mysterydip wrote:
| I'm interested in the tech behind this. Most javascript game
| stuff I've tried on my iPhone have had issues because of safari
| "helpfully" scrolling or zooming or showing the address bar when
| tapping or swiping. This one doesn't seem to do that for me.
| What's the trick?
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| The css directives here are probably a part of the answer:
|
| https://github.com/oklemenz/PrinceJS/blob/master/assets/web/...
|
| And also see the <meta name="viewport" ... values in the page
| itself.
| omgitsabird wrote:
| I found the input latency made this unplayable.
| argc wrote:
| It feels very much like the original game.
| omgitsabird wrote:
| To me, there is a very large difference between the original
| game in an emulator and this.
|
| It appears that this is using http://phaser.io/ and is a
| complete rewrite of the original game.
| therein wrote:
| Yeah, not to take away from the great work that the author
| put into the game but it indeed feels very very different
| to the original.
| spider-mario wrote:
| Yeah, it's a lot of very small things but they add up,
| especially in such a game where there is often a fine
| line between surviving and dying.
| [deleted]
| usaphp wrote:
| It was exactly the same in the original game, that what made it
| difficult to play back in the days
| gajus wrote:
| Indeed. You can compare it to emulated version.
| https://www.retrogames.cz/play_102-DOS.php?language=EN
|
| Feels exactly the same.
| jasfi wrote:
| It's an acquired skill. I remember hating it, then adapting.
| nmg wrote:
| The prince doesn't stop on a dime, this was a design choice.
| This recreated version plays the same as it did on OG hardware.
| If you're having difficulty, focus on holding and releasing the
| inputs and think of it as applying acceleration, where you want
| to release before you want the object to stop.
| omegabravo wrote:
| The controls are very similar to the original, however
| there's somethings you can't do like step then crouch.
| djmips wrote:
| Interesting. I think you can but the animation is way
| clumsier? I was testing against
| https://archive.org/details/msdos_Prince_of_Persia_1990
| bmn__ wrote:
| That's false. The controls are identical to the original
| and you can indeed step then crouch (|+- |).
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| What the hell are the controls? I can't figure out how to swing
| the sword.
| [deleted]
| comboy wrote:
| It's part of the experience. I remember it taking me a long
| time to figure out on my 386DX.
| djmips wrote:
| Pirate. ;-)
| comboy wrote:
| Oops. In my (8yo _) defense at that point in time I had no
| idea that games can be bought.
|
| * I think I'm still somewhat afraid of sliding doors ;)_
| djmips wrote:
| Controls are same as original (linked) where on desktop the
| arrows are joystick and shift is your joystick button. On
| mobile it's covered elsewhere in the comments (it's screen
| controls)
|
| http://www.abandonia.com/files/extras/26916_Extra%20document...
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| >Controls are same as original (linked)
|
| Is it? Num7/9 don't work regardless if num lock is on or not.
| febin wrote:
| Cheats
|
| https://princejs.com/?level=2&health=3&time=59&strength=100&...
|
| You can change the parameters here.
| kottaram wrote:
| was gonna say the same thing XD
| wantsanagent wrote:
| Oh man I hate this game so much. What a blast from the past :)
| Very cool to see it reproduced like this though!
| coryk135 wrote:
| How do you unpause the game? Hiding the tool bar in Safari on iOS
| pauses the game but there's no way to unpause...
| halt40 wrote:
| It's neat to see this in a browser, but I never really liked
| playing the game. The visuals are cool, but the life-like
| movement always annoyed me.
| aniijbod wrote:
| Why?
| ricardobayes wrote:
| It's weird that the character 'overruns' like in a cartoon
| and makes control quite annoying.
| pantulis wrote:
| Kind of "uncanny valley"
| beardedwizard wrote:
| Soooooo, walkthroughs weren't a thing when you were kids? They
| definitely existed for every space/police/kings quest game, and
| many others.
|
| I'm not sure things are so different now, perhaps we are looking
| at the past through rose colored glasses.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Not really, there were magazines where you could ask questions
| - and some cheats were provided. If you were badly stuck and
| you had no buddies playing the same game you would be just
| stuck.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Where did you watch walk-thrus in the 80s?
| egypturnash wrote:
| You bought books. At the same store you bought the games.
| therein wrote:
| Someone should make Dave, or Volfied. Spent way too much time
| playing those back in the day.
| cronix wrote:
| IIRC, PoP was revolutionary in the way the character moved. It
| was fluid and natural. A big step up from a blocky character just
| moving around with no motion. I remember being mesmerized as a
| kid in Jr High on the C64 when it came out and it was unlike any
| game before, at least that I recall. Jumpman[1] was similar in
| that respect, but less detail since the character was a lot
| smaller.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3LFdJS_lk
| Geee wrote:
| Fighting is really difficult (on level 5). I'm wondering if it's
| supposed to be this way or not. I don't remember how it was in
| the original.
| karussell wrote:
| Key Up is your friend
| 867-5309 wrote:
| there was a similar game to purchase on the old pre-WiFi Sony
| Ericsson phones where the marketplace and checkout system was
| squashed into ~240x160px
| sagia wrote:
| Quite impressive, it's amazing how embedded that "stop" animation
| the character does when he runs in my memory, used to play this
| quite a bit when i was small
| arn wrote:
| you might enjoy this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKgLfqOVHco
| ximeng wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_eExHpTZI
|
| There is a link in the description of the video you shared to
| an extended version showing more how the animations were
| created from videos.
| 1_player wrote:
| This is fantastic, thanks for linking it! Yes like GP I
| haven't played this game in more than 2 decades but the
| movements are still etched into my memory, and how brutal the
| difficulty is.
|
| I used to love two games at the time, this and Zak McKraken
| and the Alien Mindbenders. I managed to played the latter to
| completion in my teenage years, but I never finished
| PRINCE.EXE, perhaps it's time...
| kristianpaul wrote:
| Good memories
| [deleted]
| shmerl wrote:
| You can also check:
|
| * https://archive.org/details/msdos_Prince_of_Persia_1990
|
| * https://archive.org/details/msdos_4D_Prince_of_Persia_1994
|
| * https://archive.org/details/msdos_Prince_of_Persia_2_-_The_S...
| NithurM wrote:
| You made my day
| snihalani wrote:
| If anyone's taking requests: Dangerous Dave/Road rash pls
| wruza wrote:
| And if it's automated, all dos games, please!
| bzzzt wrote:
| Something like
| https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games ?
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| I think the spikes behave a bit differently than original, but I
| haven't compared. You can't run through them because they will
| activate and kill you, but you can slow walk safely. But in this
| implementation I slowed walked right on top of them (they
| activated but didn't kill me - that's correct) and then I started
| to run and I was killed instantly.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| You have to be well clear of the spikes to run, I recall quite
| the number of starting again back in the day due to this, as I
| was impatient.
| krisgenre wrote:
| It must be at least 20+ years since I played this game and yet
| can remember the controls correctly (up + side arrows to jump)
| even though I haven't used this combination in any other game
| since.
| appel wrote:
| Muscle memory is a hell of a drug.
| norswap wrote:
| Is this playable without a num pad?
| pedro2 wrote:
| Serious question: is the game beatable in 60 mins?
| Sammi wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dOhUCvqV7o
| jclevy wrote:
| Great job! It's amazing to be able to feel again the sensations I
| had 30 years ago while developing the Atari version of this game.
| Thanks again!
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Oh, Atari ST; I assume that's where the graphics for the JS
| edition are from? It looks far to good to be the Apple
| version...
|
| [edit]
|
| Looks like there were many ports with similar looking graphics:
| https://www.mobygames.com/game/apple2/prince-of-persia/scree...
| _eLRIC wrote:
| Then, thanks a lot. I spent countless hours on this very
| version !
| jclevy wrote:
| You are very welcome! From time to time I meet people that
| played that PoP Atari version and each time it is
| heartwarming. Thanks.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Was that version ever released? We're you at Broderbund at the
| time? :-)
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| Could be the Atari ST version
| https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/prince-of-persia
| jclevy wrote:
| Yes it is this one!
| dreadnaut wrote:
| Did you, by any chance, work on "Stunts" at Broderbund
| too? There's a reverse engineering effort around
| http://forum.stunts.hu/ that would dream to have a
| glimpse of the source code :)
| jclevy wrote:
| I'm really sorry, I did not work on "Stunts". I was also
| developing at that time a Formula 1 game, that was
| finally not released.
|
| With Broderbund I worked on:
|
| - Showoff (https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/show-
| off-/), a kind of PowerPoint software
|
| - Downhill Challenge (port from Atari to Apple II GS -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V5JZGHox7I)
|
| - Prince of Persia (port from Apple II to Atari ST)
| dreadnaut wrote:
| No problem, thank you!
| anentropic wrote:
| Thank you, I enjoyed playing the Atari ST version of PoP
| many years ago, I remember it as one of the best games of
| the time!
| jclevy wrote:
| You are very welcome! I thank Jordan Mechner for creating
| this game and the Broderbund team for letting me be part
| of this extraordinary adventure...
| jclevy wrote:
| Yes of course it was released ;-)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIscoVqTwpY And yes, I was
| working with Broderbund (from Paris) at that time, it was a
| great time! Translating 6502 Apple II code to Atari 1040ST
| 68000 code was funny...
| lucasverra wrote:
| Is still Paris a great place to develop games? I heard that
| the studio responsible for Netflix's 'Arcane' AKA 'League
| of Legends' TV series are in Paris [1]
|
| [1] Fortiche Productions, a small Paris-based studio who
| specializes in creating animated projects with a unique
| blend of 2D and 3D art. src
| https://www.techradar.com/news/inside-arcane-netflixs-
| animat...
| jclevy wrote:
| Yes Paris is still a great place to develop video games
| (even if I'm not anymore in this field).
|
| Here is a link to interesting and creative French game
| people and projects (it is in French, so here is a Google
| translated version: https://gamingcampus-
| fr.translate.goog/tomorrow-lab/gaming-i...)
|
| Outside of Paris are also great teams like the Asobo
| teams in south west of France who developed Microsoft
| Flight Simulator 2020...
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Interesting... Care to share what was overall approach? I.
| E. More bottom up in literally translating instructions and
| assuming it will lead to same results if translated
| accurately enough ; or top down looking to code specific
| results / behaviour and using original code more as a
| reference... Or some other approach :)
| jclevy wrote:
| Um, that was really a long time ago...
|
| As I can remember, my approach was the first one: "bottom
| up in literally translating instructions and assuming it
| will lead to same results if translated accurately
| enough". That was not to difficult to achieve.
|
| The funny thing was that Jordan Mechner used every bit of
| available memory in the Apple II computer, so I had to be
| very careful ;-)
|
| Then the hard part: create the input and output codes
| that were totally different on the two computers, then
| the code for sounds and music also totally specific and
| then I wanted to have better graphics. So I ended up by
| creating a sprite editor, in assembly language, for my
| graphic artist colleague so that we can recreate all
| graphic assets and put color in it...
| hrithwikbha wrote:
| I can finally pass levels by just changing the url query
| shmde wrote:
| Was just going to comment this, can even increase the health
| bar now :)
| kazinator wrote:
| Prince of Persia is very reminiscent of Aztec:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_(video_game)
|
| The basic idea is the same in Aztec: you control a character that
| descends into a multi-level tomb. Like in PoP, there isn't any
| sideways scrolling. You step from screen to screen sideways, or
| fall through traps or go down stairs and such.
| max_ wrote:
| So much nostalgia! Thanks!
| aledalgrande wrote:
| extremely well done, even the same quirks when jumping up and not
| directly under the edge!
| dirkk0 wrote:
| This seems to be the corresponding repo?
| https://github.com/ultrabolido/PrinceJS
| dasefx wrote:
| I think is this one https://github.com/oklemenz/PrinceJS
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| What a nice Christmas gift! Takes me down memory lane.
| ncfausti wrote:
| Can you add action buttons? The directional buttons were easy
| enough to infer, but not sure what other types of input are
| possible. (I'm on mobile)
| BtM909 wrote:
| Check out this overview:
| https://github.com/oklemenz/PrinceJS/raw/master/assets/web/m...
| tda wrote:
| I managed to get halfway through level 2 on my phone. I think
| the screen is a 3x3 button grid. Center is 'action' for swords
| and potions.
| lokedhs wrote:
| I'm not on mobile and I also cannot figure out where the action
| button is. One can get as far as finding the sword, but I have
| to idea how to pick it up.
| dhr wrote:
| Seems like the controls are the same as the original!
|
| Use the Shift key to pick up the sword. And I think Space to
| attack and the Up cursor key to block when you get to the
| swordsman.
| cheschire wrote:
| Tap on the screen at diagonals. It's location context aware.
| [deleted]
| blondin wrote:
| i just tried it on mobile and i am very impressed.
|
| the movement controls are very intuitive. they don't hit
| accurately but they work in an intuitive way. i tapped the four
| directions and four quadrants of the play screen. and the
| character responded as i expected.
|
| i am with you though. i have no idea how i will use the sword
| when i get it.
| wruza wrote:
| How do you walk forward slowly? Tapping bottom edges does
| "run" action for me.
|
| Edit: figured it out, tap on the center and swipe to the
| left/right to walk.
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| Slash sword is the middle tap. Took me awhile to figure that
| out but makes sense now that I know since you can't slash
| backwards.
| surajs wrote:
| justinclift wrote:
| Interesting. Only the four direction buttons work for me,
| regardless of num lock setting. eg 2, 4, 6, 8. None of the
| corner buttons nor middle button have any kind of effect.
|
| This is when using Firefox on Linux, and using a standard
| 101-key external keyboard.
| aenis wrote:
| Oh this is soo good!
|
| Now, would someone kindly reimplement the Railroad Tycoon? Pretty
| please?...
| eliaspro wrote:
| You might like this one: https://www.openttd.org/
| drran wrote:
| > Railroad Tycoon
|
| Transport Fever?
| mikeytown2 wrote:
| Incredibly hard to play on a phone. The fact that swipes on a
| screen actually does something is impressive nonetheless.
| riskneutral wrote:
| This is awesome, takes me back to my childhood. Thanks for making
| this!
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I was fully expecting this to be an emscripten to Web Assembly
| port but was delighted to see that this is built with Phaser[1]
| from scratch! Great job! Feels just like it did when I originally
| played it.
|
| 1 - https://phaser.io/
| hasitseth wrote:
| Wonderful programming and the game too. Great effort. Kudos.
| arepublicadoceu wrote:
| Oh my god, I was just happy with myself for beating Sekiro a few
| hours ago and now I'm having my ass kicked by a 30 years old
| game. Great job!
| dgerges wrote:
| Thank you ! I loved this game, sensations are exactly the same.
| benstrumental wrote:
| Does anyone know how the game was implemented in JavaScript?
| aix1 wrote:
| Here's the source code: https://github.com/oklemenz/PrinceJS
| luckydata wrote:
| the difficulty is maddening just as I remember it :)
| edgarvm wrote:
| there is a bug in level 1, I lifted the sword but it still
| appeared on the ground.
| martinsuchan wrote:
| Is it just me or the Space key for jump is not working?
| shmde wrote:
| UP arrow for jump.
| heroku wrote:
| Nice work. How did you generate the assets?
| bgitarts wrote:
| Is this open source?
| screed wrote:
| Volume buttons please.
| bhrgunatha wrote:
| This is a constant gripe for me. If you're going to play audio
| on your website, you really should provide a volume control.
| comboy wrote:
| Why? You have global volume control, music players have it.
| To me it's the same as asking every website for brightness
| adjustment bar or font size control.
| pier25 wrote:
| I've been working on an audio player for my current project
| and debated whether to include a volume control or not.
| This led me to realize how different the experience is
| depending on the OS.
|
| On macOS and mobile, the vast majority of users are used to
| controlling the volume with hardware buttons. There are
| many media players that do not include a volume control
| precisely because of this (eg: Apple's podcast player for
| the web).
|
| On Windows and Linux, users do not always have hardware
| volume controls so the majority of users are accustomed to
| doing that in the media players themselves.
| ikiris wrote:
| Because we don't want to have to readjust everything else
| around your special snowflake site?
| prmoustache wrote:
| Hmmm, pulseaudio volume control allow me to change the
| volume and device used for every single source (app,
| firefox tab...) I am running.
| comboy wrote:
| I mean it sincerely. Are you listening to something else
| while using a website with sound? I usually just pause
| the music.
|
| If it's some music/podcast isn't it more handy to have a
| known volume knob on that instead of finding one on every
| website?
|
| I don't care about the right opinion. I'm just curious
| about scenarios where lack of volume control is a
| problem.
| Beldin wrote:
| Hear, hear.
|
| I know where my computer's volume controls are - and if I
| have a keyboard with volume controls, that's what they
| work on. I almost never want to touch a specific app's or
| website's volume control... unless its volume is way too
| soft even at max system volume.
|
| Basically, I don't need a gazillion interfaces. One
| suffices. Just don't go out of your way to make that
| generic, system-wide interface insufficient for your app
| and it'll be fine.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| I think you answered your own question. Not everyone
| needs just a single audio-playing app at the same time.
|
| Audio is also things like warning sounds, it isn't just
| music and games.
| ikiris wrote:
| Yes, discord and twitch stream at minimum.
| lottin wrote:
| Suppose you use different apps that output sound. I use
| audacious, Firefox (Youtube) and mplayer on a regular
| basis. All these have their own volumes adjusted at
| different levels. Having a single volume isn't good
| enough. One app would be too loud and another too quiet.
| Plus I'm used to being able to change the volume on one
| app without affecting the others. Not having this control
| would be annoying.
| djmips wrote:
| Why isn't this built into the browser? Volume per tab or
| something.
| aspaviento wrote:
| You can mute a tab. That's something.
| Procedural wrote:
| Gotta wait for web 4.0 for that
| pmarreck wrote:
| On Linux at least, it is
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Never played the original.
|
| Are there any controls besides the arrow keys? None of the other
| keys I pressed seemed to do anything.
| Geee wrote:
| Shift for walking, hanging, picking up, fighting...
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Thanks.
| tdrdt wrote:
| Ow wow! I remember that the sounds were so real after I purchased
| a sound card!
|
| I am still amazed by the animations. They are still looking very
| good. Great game.
| nope96 wrote:
| This was also ported to Roku, and is the best game I've played on
| Roku
|
| (remember when Roku was going to be a Wii competitor, with the
| fancy motion remote?)
|
| https://github.com/lvcabral/Prince-of-Persia-Roku
|
| It has a 9 screen (3x3) mode that is pretty cool to see on a big
| TV.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I had no idea Roku had games (!!)
| lisperforlife wrote:
| This is awesome. Brings back so many memories as a kid. Thank
| you. This is built with phaser. I am not very good at this game
| but if you need to recover life mid game, you can use this.
|
| Phaser.GAMES[0].state.getCurrentState().ui.player.addLife()
|
| Is this open source?
| ariedro wrote:
| Love that the cheats are just program statements that can be
| understood, instead of some obscure rom or memory hacking. This
| is how software always should have been like.
| VMtest wrote:
| this really depends on the developer though....
| pmarreck wrote:
| One of the most valuable lessons I learned early on from
| hacking the binaries of savegames is that if you make it too
| easy, it stops being fun.
|
| And yet, I still sometimes go to places like flingtrainer.com
| when a game "feels too hard" for me (and therefore is also
| not fun... the recently-released 2021 "Dark Alliance" is one
| example)
|
| I think editing game state should be "difficult, but not
| impossible". The thing is, if it's "difficult", then someone
| somewhere's just going to make a free save editor...
|
| "Fun" is a delicate balance in these things and probably
| varies by person. For example, I CANNOT STAND inventory
| management in games (it's not immersive, it's WORK!) so
| Skyrim became 100% more fun once I figured out how to console
| up my carryweight (and installed a mod to make the inventory
| UI searchable/sortable by type). To me, all this did is
| prevent me having to spend time traveling in-game back to a
| home stash to retrieve some odd thing and then traveling all
| the way back... that's literally "work, inside a game" to me,
| and takes away time better spent exploring, questing,
| fighting etc. Similarly, I have no idea why Blizzard limits
| Diablo 2 stash size (I mean... the extra database cost has to
| be practically... negligible for them?) because all it does
| is cause lots of login/logout churn for them as people switch
| off to mule characters to hold all their set
| items/uniques/runes/etc.
| sprkwd wrote:
| It's probably this: https://phaser.io/
|
| Which is open source.
| mzs wrote:
| https://github.com/oklemenz/PrinceJS
| lleb97a wrote:
| I've gotten further in this version than any other I can
| remember. Great work with the mobile controls.
| computershit wrote:
| I just spent the last five minutes playing this with a huge grin
| on my face. Thanks for the quick trip down nostalgia lane.
| FrankyHollywood wrote:
| Awesome! Takes me back :)
|
| My 8 yo son is playing it now, he knows all the modern consoles,
| but this is challenging him. He is frustrated things are hard
| from the beginning, jumps don't work right away and he stopped
| after a few minutes. I remember my perseverance as a kid.
|
| I was thinking about that lately, I see my kids don't have this
| strong motivation as I had, not for anything. Everything works
| for them and is layed out. For example, when I was young I had a
| lego technic motor, but the wires sometimes got oxidatid or just
| broke, and I had to fix it. My son has a new lego set, and the
| motor always works, except when the wireless remote runs out of
| battery. Same with gaming, it always works, while in the past
| even getting a game to run could be a challenge on its own. And
| when he gets stuck in a game he watches a YouTube. No hours of
| frustration and endless searching and figuring for a solution.
|
| I see my kids don't have much of these challenges, everything
| works for them.
|
| Don't know how this will affect them on the long run. Now it's
| only my observation.
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| Teach him Factorio. It's not frustrating but you need to work
| to get good layouts done.
| j1elo wrote:
| To be fair, as an old player of PoP back in the day, I still
| think the jump controls were pretty shitty in that particular
| game. Please jump when my optical nerves tells me the signal
| that I want to jump and I convert that into a physical action.
| Otherwise it feels like if I was playing a screen-captured game
| on a faraway computer through WebRTC streaming.
| novok wrote:
| I think a key part of the puzzle of PoP was the precise
| controls it asked from you. Also I get a feeling they assume
| you read the manual, because there are a bunch of unintutive
| controls it explains in there. When I was a kid playing it, I
| didn't realize there was a manual: http://www.abandonia.com/f
| iles/extras/26916_Extra%20document...
| mattigames wrote:
| I never felt the controls where shitty, it just felt like
| jumping needed some foresight and that was part of the fun,
| just like jumping in real life requires you to bend down your
| knees first before actually getting some air; even in modern
| games I get that feeling, like how in Dark Souls you have to
| time the parry and pressing the button does not instantly
| makes the shield teleport in front of the character.
| paulluuk wrote:
| > _I was thinking about that lately, I see my kids don 't have
| this strong motivation as I had, not for anything._
|
| > _Don 't know how this will affect them on the long run. Now
| it's only my observation._
|
| I realize that you're only talking about your own kids, but I
| have a feeling that many people on here consider this to be
| some kind of general rule for all kids, akin to the "back in my
| day" rhetoric of the generations before us.
|
| I think it's good to consider that your kids will likely live
| in a world where this attitude is actually a very effective
| one:
|
| * Instead of spending days trying to solve some problem
| yourself, download an app that solves it for you in minutes.
|
| * Instead of coming up with a very well informed opinion about
| everything relevant in today's politics, listen to trusted
| others who have taken the time to form opinions on the matter.
|
| * Instead of trying to "earn" that promotion by working 80 hour
| weeks and "keeping your head down" at your office, apply for a
| different job elsewhere that offers better pay and work/life
| balance.
|
| As most of us here are programmers, we all know the benefits of
| greedy algorithms vs brute-force solutions. Yes, sometimes a
| brute force solution can be very satisfying, but taking "smart"
| shortcuts in life really does pay off, whether we like it or
| not.
|
| And before you tell me that I'm probably one of those
| millenials who doesn't do anything and thinks everything will
| just be handed to them: well.. yeah, that's kinda true. I've
| never worked at a single job for more than a year, I've never
| really put more effort into my education than what was strictly
| needed to pass (and sometimes less), and now I'm a data
| engineer at Apple.
| inputvolch wrote:
| I would hate to work with a person who subscribes to these
| strategies. Someone who can't form their own opinion and
| looks for the easy way out above all else.
|
| Suddenly anyone in the future with the ability for critical
| thinking and problem solving beyond "do they have an app for
| that?" is going to inherit the Earth.
| [deleted]
| novok wrote:
| You automate the solved, so you can focus on the unsolved.
| The unspoken conclusion to that. It's how humanity
| progresses.
|
| We don't do our laundry manually anymore either for the
| most part in the developed world, and we are fine!
|
| Also if you talk to your parents, you'll find out you
| probably had many instances of a lack of 'grit' in early
| childhood, but you forgot.
| [deleted]
| ballenf wrote:
| > * Instead of trying to "earn" that promotion by working 80
| hour weeks and "keeping your head down" at your office, apply
| for a different job elsewhere that offers better pay and
| work/life balance.
|
| I think the reason the "head down" strategy doesn't work so
| well now is at least partially because it's still the
| dominant approach. Some time after it becomes the exception,
| it may become the path to success it once was.
| pm90 wrote:
| Thanks for saying this.
|
| There is always a generational tendency to point out that the
| next one has it easy or that they are weak because
| $OBSERVATION. I would like more folks to counter that. I'm a
| millennial but absolutely love how Gen Z is incredibly adept
| at navigating the always online culture, calling bullshit on
| dated traditions around work ethics and so on.
|
| You can look at change and either pat yourself on the back
| for being better for having overcome challenges they didn't
| have to. Or you can see what other generations bring to the
| table and work with that.
| novok wrote:
| There is a big part of gen Z that is about working hard and
| grinding it out, but to grind it out on the right shit.
| Grind smart and hard, not just hard!
| disillusioned wrote:
| Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy specifically calls this out.
| It's brutally difficult from the jump, and his narration talks
| about how videogames used to ask a lot of their user. They were
| unforgiving challenges with no guarantee of obvious success. My
| brain instantly flashed over to TMNT on the NES and just how
| hard that and Battletoads were.
|
| If you haven't played Getting Over It, it's a tremendous
| meditation on failure, and Bennett's narrations as you struggle
| are brilliant from a philosophical standpoint. He talks about
| how the challenge and failure and difficult ARE the point for a
| certain class of gamer and how that's the game he wanted to
| build.
|
| For another take, Super Hexagon provides that same "this is
| impossible but I'm getting closer to possible and that feels
| good."
| novok wrote:
| There are also a lot of games out there that are just bad and
| difficult for the wrong time wasting reasons, and there is
| also a ton of selection compared to back then. Kids are
| probably showing rational behavior in picking the 'best'
| experiences. Old NES games and such were hard either to get
| more quarters out of you in an arcade and because they didn't
| have much space to program games, so they made them hard to
| increase the play time and 'satisfaction' feeling.
|
| Also when I was a kid, early childhood I just couldn't really
| play the harder games, late childhood I could play the hard
| games. When they're just too hard you stop playing. Also
| different kids have different strengths and they will
| gravitate to games that play to their strengths. I have below
| the mean reaction times so I just did bad in reaction time
| platformers and eventually gravitated towards games that
| weren't hard because of reaction times, like RPGs, strategy
| games, installing linux on my computer and troubleshooting it
| and what not.
|
| There are also new 'hard' games out there that demand a lot
| out of their players, and be careful if your kid gets
| obsessed about them. Like many esports games.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| I think it's unfair to actual games to call Battletoads a
| challenge. It's a trial and error puzzle with more in common
| with kaizo rom hacks. Battletoads and Double Dragon,
| basically the same thing but with a human-friendly difficulty
| curve, almost feels like an apology from the developers.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| I remember another proof of that: MKIII. Second hardest level
| made me swear so much I'm probably excommunicated in multiple
| religions. I had to build muscle memory to even have a
| chance, on my Sega Mega Drive II controller. And for the
| Fatalities, the timespan and combination of keys (that you
| had to discover yourself or find in some obscure gaming
| zines) was so hard it was an achievement to do one.
| wsc981 wrote:
| _> My 8 yo son is playing it now, he knows all the modern
| consoles, but this is challenging him. He is frustrated things
| are hard from the beginning, jumps don 't work right away and
| he stopped after a few minutes. I remember my perseverance as a
| kid._
|
| That's why it's your parental responsibility to start playing
| games with your kid early, starting with the oldest consoles up
| to modern times: https://medium.com/message/playing-with-my-
| son-e5226ff0a7c3
| markus_zhang wrote:
| This is really good. In the meantime my Chinese parents who
| believe video games are evil and whoever make them are moral
| monsters will only agree that I try something similar for my
| son over their dead bodies.
| [deleted]
| atomflunder wrote:
| If you want to counteract this tendency, consider getting them
| into (competitive) sports. Nothing will work right away, they
| will have to ,,grind" (train/practice) a lot, failures are all
| but certain; but hard work and perseverance get rewarded, and
| the successes are all the sweeter. As a young guy who has had a
| modern and easy childhood not unlike the one you describe, many
| of my most cherished memories come from competing in a sport.
| JackFr wrote:
| Sports and musical instruments - if you can keep them
| motivated/interested, the results of focused practice can't
| be ignored.
|
| To some extent I only realized this late in life myself. I
| don't play a musical instrument, schoolwork through
| undergraduate never required _really_ hard work and as an
| athlete I was a lackluster football player who never really
| put in the time to get better. But as an adult, computer
| programming and crossword puzzles were things which I applied
| myself to and was astonished to see how much better I could
| get at them by putting in the time and effort. (That being
| said I am an awful teacher - as an autodidact myself, I often
| - unfairly - feel that others aren't putting enough effort
| in.)
| kazinator wrote:
| > _results of focused practice can't be ignored_
|
| Throngs of well-rehearsed, talented, yet ignored musicians
| cannot agree. ;)
| novok wrote:
| In many ways esport games (MOBAs, some FPS, etc) have many of
| the same mechanics!
| 748 wrote:
| I completely agree to some extent, however I want to add my
| experience to make it more realistic, which is completely
| off-topic. Not all competitive sports bring rewards even
| after consistent efforts, which can be a bit demotivating. I
| consider myself an example, however I don't have an overall
| overview of things so your mileage may vary. While in school
| I spent 5+ years doing consistent competitive sports 3 times
| every week, which was extremely exhausting for me, I did not
| like it but I was just doing it because I was told to do so,
| I never won anything, I was always the "weird person that
| doesn't belong here" even though I wasn't bad at it, I just
| wasn't good enough to compete with people who've been doing
| it since the age of 5 and doing it professionally. In the end
| I am not motivated to do sports, I try to do them, but I
| really see no reason to do sports since it changes literally
| nothing in my life. Same experience with "studying" - I spent
| all my free time in school studying pretty consistently and
| not socializing at all, which kind of got me into a nice
| college but in the end it didn't really "reward" me with
| anything that I could properly enjoy besides of getting
| disappointed in colleges. I don't know, maybe I'm out of
| place here, but for me neither sports nor education developed
| any "grind habit" and at this point I am in a relatively nice
| situation, definitely better off than 95% of the people I
| used to grow up with, but I have no happiness, I have no
| goals in life, I get amazing opportunities that I
| consistently don't take advantage of because I simply don't
| want to because I know nothing will change for my happiness.
| If my comment is out of place please delete it
| conqrr wrote:
| I recall being as a teenager hearing of Linux and distros on
| the internet in the early 2000s and experimenting with
| different ones. Not sure what motivated me, but everytime
| things would break and I'd google and try fixing it myself so
| that the rest of the family could use the same one computer.
| Perhaps Linux can still function the same and help pose a
| challenge to kids these days too.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I had countless selfmade bootdisks to config DOS to play games.
| Almost every game did need it's own bootdisk.
| _zamorano_ wrote:
| For older kids, I think bricolage and manual labor can bring
| some of this attitudes you talk about.
|
| The digital world is mostly done. Everything, from social
| networks, to videogames is studied to avoid frustration, be
| addictive, and generate a dopamine rush. When not, like
| competitive gaming and so... the skill gap is too big and the
| entrance barrier too high
|
| Manual labor cannot be so easily simplified and automatized.
| Yes, you need to perform a task and, if it's common enough,
| you'll have a Youtube tutorial at one click reach. But that's
| not so easy in the real world, because you'll eventually find
| obstacles and unforeseen problems. Usually, the uploader is a
| skilled guy for whom, some situations, are not even worth
| mentioning, but will be a problem for a newbie.
|
| Furthermore many basic manual task are not to be found in
| Youtube, because they're too specific. Yes, you can find a
| tutorial on how to hang something to a wall, but you need to
| hang an object of an specific shape, between two walls corner,
| where some other object is an obstacle.
|
| In those cases, you're mostly on your own, but the task is
| achievable
| sergiotapia wrote:
| This is a good related video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP1AmDRhoas
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Then again, it's much easier to branch out and build your own
| games now. .
|
| I dislike Roblox since at that point you might as well open up
| Unity and ship your own game. That's how I learned to program
| in my early twenties, a bit later than most of y'all
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > I see my kids don't have much of these challenges, everything
| works for them.
|
| This is one of the reasons I recommend teaching kids C++ early.
|
| Between build systems, ABI issues, compiler error messages, and
| undefined behavior it really builds perseverance and a great
| sense of accomplishment when your program compiles and runs
| correctly.
|
| I am not aware of any other production language that gives that
| sense of accomplishment and requires that level of
| perseverance.
| thisistheend123 wrote:
| This comment hits the nail on the part just between eyes.
|
| There is an effort we can put in teaching our kids c++ and
| even better if we can start them on leetcode at an early age
|
| This will help them improve their problem solving ability and
| they will also get frustrated when they are not able to solve
| a hard graph problem.
|
| But the hardest problem never is the problem itself, but the
| inability to keep on going when the problem seems very hard.
|
| When kids learn how to handle that and when all the kids in
| the world know how to handle that, then surely we are looking
| at a future generation that will help solve all the hard
| problems that we are not able to solve like World Proverty,
| income inequality and global warming.
| marcodiego wrote:
| My biggest problem with this: this effect does not affect only
| children. I see students learning to program giving up at the
| first syntax error; some don't even care about reading compiler
| messages and trying to fix them.
|
| The first successful code I wrote was the following:
|
| 10 input a 20 input b 30 print a+b
|
| I was around 12, without manual or online help and it was trial
| and error for an entire weekend until I got this right. Very
| few people I know today used to tech would have such
| perseverance.
| vegai_ wrote:
| My teenager plays a game called Celeste (among other pretty
| difficult games). I grew with 80s and 90s games and Celeste
| looks like I would not bother (or possibly even be capable) to
| learn it, but he did over several painful and repetitive hours.
|
| So it could be that the children are both ok and broken in new
| ways, like our generation was.
| tjader wrote:
| This is an important point. I don't think it's fair to assume
| today's kids won't play Prince of Persia because they lack
| perseverance or because the game is hard. It may just as well
| be because the game is bad.
|
| I played Prince of Persia as a kid, the game is amazing for
| its time. But game design has evolved in these 30 years, and
| it shows. When we were kids we didn't have better games to
| play so we had to persevere with PoP.
|
| Nowadays, if you want hard platforming you can play Super
| Meat Boy or Celeste and fight with your ability to perform
| the required movements, not with the clunky controls.
|
| If you want to explore an unknown world you can play Hollow
| Knight or Ori and enjoy a much larger and more developed
| setting.
|
| Neither of these games are easy, but they have much more well
| crafted learning curves for example. PoP simply drops you in
| a dungeon and you have to die there until you manage to get
| the timing of the jumps, while Celeste has an "easy" first
| level and constantly ramps up the difficulty.
| machawinka wrote:
| Well, I grew up in the 80s and I do like Celeste quite a bit.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Celeste is a masterpiece. It's well worth the investment in
| beating the base game, though I did quickly give up on the
| significantly-more-difficult B- and C-side content.
|
| If you're interested in understanding some of why Celeste is
| so important to a lot of people but don't feel up for playing
| it yourself, these two video essays are a great watch:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QRZyei6dBo
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSxo9JnB1iI
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Celeste was a great game, difficult and with finally a well
| written woman protagonist that is not tokenized. Deserves all
| the praise it gets!
| inputvolch wrote:
| This doesn't counter anything the OP said. No one is claiming
| the new generations aren't both ok and broken in new ways.
| Pointing out that you have a teenager that plays a somewhat
| difficult game doesn't add much to the discussion. Also, the
| fact that you won't even try the game and yet have made a
| judgement about how difficult it is says more about you than
| anything else.
|
| And in fact, I don't think anyone would be surprised if that
| very same teenager looks up YouTube videos about how to beat
| the most difficult parts, find all the secrets, and so on.
|
| Even less like the hard old games, Celeste comes with an
| assist mode:
|
| > Assist Mode allows you to modify the game's rules to fit
| your specific needs. This includes options such as slowing
| the game speed, granting yourself invincibility or infinite
| stamina, and skipping chapters entirely. Celeste is intended
| to be a challenging and rewarding experience.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Hmm I see the exact opposite. If I wanted to know how something
| worked or how to build something I had to go to a physical
| library and hope some dusty encyclopaedia had a minimal entry,
| and if I needed supplies it would be a specialist catalogue.
|
| If my daughter wants to know how something works she can find a
| brilliant well-produced video on YouTube of an expert
| explaining it, and she can easily buy tools and supplies from
| anywhere in the world for esoteric hobbies.
|
| From what I see the next generation are far more practical and
| hands on and involved in constructive and creative hobbies than
| mine was. When I see young people's resumes today they are
| frighteningly practical and talented in advanced hobbies.
|
| Sometimes I worry about how to keep up and compete with them!
| krisgenre wrote:
| Wow! this is too good except for the sound though which seems a
| bit modern to me.
| dissent wrote:
| Sound is definitely the same as the Amiga version at least.
| drorco wrote:
| You're probably right. Though I played it originally on a 286
| with a simple internal speaker and it sounded a lot more
| basic.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Adlib/Sound Blaster gave you a similar experience, although I
| also like the PC speaker version better.
| fareesh wrote:
| After you start you can edit the url and change your life bar.
| More fun IMO
| ajdoingnothing wrote:
| If you haven't seen Jordan Mechner talking about the development
| of Prince of Persia yet (definitely recommended):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw0VfmXKq54&ab_channel=ArsTe...
| mtlynch wrote:
| He published a book containing his journal entries from the
| time as well:
|
| https://jordanmechner.com/store/the-making-of-prince-of-pers...
|
| My notes about it:
|
| https://mtlynch.io/book-reports/making-of-prince-of-persia/
| fareesh wrote:
| After you start you can edit the url and give yourself more life
| wilhil wrote:
| It's accurate.... I suck at this as much as I suck at the
| original.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This was my thought, as well...
| astronautjones wrote:
| Finally, a thought is able to form from the depths of my mind -
| the netflix noise is just straight up the falling noise from
| prince of persia!
| pmarreck wrote:
| TIL there is a whole story behind the "ta-dum" sound (which is
| also its name, btw) and that the core of it is a wedding ring
| rapping on a cabinet:
|
| https://www.news24.com/channel/tv/news/the-story-behind-the-...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I don't know how I did it but I teleported to level 2 before even
| leaving the first screen of level 1.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| The game's controls feel exactly as frustratingly washy as I
| remember them. Amazing.
| atum47 wrote:
| Can you tell more about this project? Is this wasm?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-28 23:01 UTC)