[HN Gopher] Show HN: I Made a Stupid Game
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Show HN: I Made a Stupid Game
Author : last_one_in
Score : 115 points
Date : 2022-03-31 13:36 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (weighoff.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (weighoff.net)
| [deleted]
| anyfactor wrote:
| I know this is going to remind us to watch the "Monty Python
| Witch Trial" scene.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg
| last_one_in wrote:
| Aww man, I'm going to have to watch that again tonight. True
| story: in one of my tech jobs me and my boss had a game to try
| to get Monty Python quotes into meetings. In a client meeting I
| talked about search engine behaviour and how you don't want the
| search engine to just return any old results like "I found this
| spoon" (Life Of Brian). My boss nearly fainted trying not to
| laugh. Nobody else got it.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Watching Holy Grail was the perfect way to unwind at the end of
| a very very long day. Thanks!
| naoqj wrote:
| Doesn't resolve at all.
| brazzy wrote:
| Firefox refuses to show me the site due to a bad certificate,
| apparently its certificate is valid for domains belonging to
| arrowloans.co.uk - this is consistent with other reports saying
| they're being forwarded to a loans company.
|
| Looks like your site got hacked, or maybe some weird DNS problem?
| last_one_in wrote:
| Oopsie. I totally took out the server. Should be back again
| later.
| kirchhoff wrote:
| Site seems compromised?
| tayloramurphy wrote:
| I'm seeing this as well. Sends me to some home loan page.
| isaacimagine wrote:
| I did about 20 questions and didn't miss one. Because most
| plants, animals, etc are made of water, you really just have to
| compare volume. I found that visualizing the order of magnitude
| of the volume was a pretty good strategy for estimating weight.
| (Water has a density of about 1000 kg/m3)
| last_one_in wrote:
| Edit: sorry, misread. Wow. My best is about 5 and I've played
| it. Solidly for the last 3 days!
| yreg wrote:
| I don't know if I was just lucky but I also did a lot of them
| (where's a counter?) and had all of them right.
|
| I think the game should try to pick answers that are closer to
| each other. Perhaps even have an inconsistent difficulty so
| some questions are easier than others.
| last_one_in wrote:
| It picks choices where the winner is about 10 times the
| weight of the loser. Very simple. Still trying to come up
| with something better that increases difficulty over time.
| superninjy wrote:
| Fun game!
|
| I have a suggestion: the huge numbers are not quite readable.
| Maybe add the scientific notation as well. Comparing
| 73,400,000,000,000,000,000,000 with
| 844,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 is tricky, especially since the
| numbers are not right aligned.
|
| Adding a 73.4x10^21 vs 844x10^21 would be helpful.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah, I'd find that more readable too. I aimed for something
| anyone could understand.
| crummy wrote:
| Could you just have a simple bar graph that showed their
| relative sizes? Two numbers with a bunch of zeroes are hard
| to compare.
| tovej wrote:
| Maybe greek prefixes or even spelling out the bigger units?
| I.e. 9.4 gigagrams or 54 billion kilograms.
|
| Of course you might have the issue of short scale vs. long
| scale billions but a footnote should solve that.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah. A friend was playing with a group in a room and one
| of them was trying to read out the questions. Not a problem
| with 800 gorillas but it is with bigger numbers. Hmm, not
| sure what to do. The Greek prefixes I find really hard to
| remember! For simplicity and debugging it was easiest to
| just slap the numbers up.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Perhaps a toggle?
| fallinghawks wrote:
| That was wonderfully silly. But some comparators are vague, like
| "a can" or "a teabag" (used vs unused is a lot of weight
| difference). But making things more specific could detract from
| the silliness.
| idkwhoiam wrote:
| Stupid game is my favourite kind of game. Great job!
| last_one_in wrote:
| Stupid username is my favourite kind of username. Great job!
| robocat wrote:
| At least one question has its figures wrong. It asks which is
| heavier, Space Shuttle or 747, and goes on to say that the
| Shuttle weighs 2 million kg. But that is not just the shuttle:
| "The stack, as the composite of orbiter, tank and boosters is
| called, has a gross liftoff weight of 2000 tonnes" (which I
| presume includes liftoff weight of fuel as well).
| someacocunt34 wrote:
| For those that are curious (yes, I realize this takes no effort
| to find):
|
| https://weighoff.net/data.js
| kizer wrote:
| I love the todo list at the bottom.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Doh!
| last_one_in wrote:
| I made a game which asks questions like "which weighs more? 8,000
| bumblebees or a gorilla"
| okibry wrote:
| so weird game but cool :]]
| paparush wrote:
| Feedback Highlight Correct in green, Incorrect in red
| anyfactor wrote:
| I love that you are using plain JS for this. I was the kid who
| unscrewed the Rubik's cube and screwed it back together because I
| am too dumb solve that.
|
| What is the deal with min_mass_kg and max_mass_kg?
| last_one_in wrote:
| Thanks. Simplest thing that works. I haven't programmed in
| years. I just had the idea. The last game I had released was in
| 1991. Seriously. I check min mass of the heavier * its multiple
| against max mass of the lighter times its multiple.
| navels wrote:
| Bait and switch? User account was created an hour ago.
| last_one_in wrote:
| OP here. Nah man, not bait and switch. The server got fried!
| Username is my reddit username. Of 11 years, although I hardly
| use it. I read HN daily but never created an account (not that
| I can remember anyway). Should all be getting fixed now.
| goldcd wrote:
| Does seem to be a lot of effort... well I guess if everybody is
| off playing "the long game", there's probably a gap in "short"
| degenerate wrote:
| I did about 15 questions waiting for the game to "end", not
| realizing it would go on forever.
|
| IMO if the game is infinite, count how many questions I get
| correct in a row, and have the game end when I get one wrong.
| Keep track of my high score and display it somewhere on the page,
| so I have a baseline target to beat. That way the game is
| _replayable_ and now has a metric for how well someone plays it.
|
| I got all questions right except for the ones involving the
| moon... for some reason I got all those wrong. Moon is big!
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. Counting winning streaks is good. I was thinking
| of an acheivement system too.
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _1000 tons of bricks_
|
| This option was strange, because all other options don't compare
| concrete weigh but weight of objects.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Ahh, it's joke data: { name: "a ton of bricks", plural: "tons
| of bricks", frequency: 0.01, weighWord: "weighs", min_mass_kg:
| 1000, max_mass_kg: 1000 }, { name: "a ton of feathers", plural:
| "tons of feathers", frequency: 0.01, weighWord: "weighs",
| min_mass_kg: 1000, max_mass_kg: 1000 },
| gus_massa wrote:
| :)
|
| Nitpicking: I use 1 ton = 1000 Kg, but world wide it's more
| complicated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton
| last_one_in wrote:
| Bah! Well spotted!
| beardyw wrote:
| That's definitely heavier than 1000 tons of gorillas!
| 0des wrote:
| They are the same
| gegtik wrote:
| wrong.. one of them is bricks whereas the other is gorillas
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| 1000 tons is _definitely_ heavier than 1000 kg.
| winterismute wrote:
| Nice! I think you have a type in "heaver", it should be "heavier"
| maybe?
| last_one_in wrote:
| No way! You are the only person to spot that. Fixed. Thanks!!!
| last_one_in wrote:
| Haha! Just clocked your username. One of my prize possessions
| is a signed copy of Neuromancer.
| randomrandi wrote:
| Fun! Some feedback:
|
| 1. Spruce up the design to make seeing the answer more of a "fun"
| experience
|
| 2. Button to share an answer on social media
|
| 2. Button to send a question to a friend
| last_one_in wrote:
| TBH my HTML and CSS is so rusty. I haven't built a webpage in
| about a decade! I love number 2 and number 2. That's awesome,
| especially sending a question to a friend. Love it.
| localhost wrote:
| I texted my kid a photo of my monitor as a workaround :)
| holmesworcester wrote:
| My friends and I always talk about how big a social problem
| scale-blindness is, so this is awesome!
|
| Suggestions:
|
| 1. Show progress towards some fixed number of questions so you
| can see your score at the end so you can see how well-calibrated
| you are and compare with friends.
|
| 2. Add other things than weight, so people can get calibrated for
| other things too. Time. Probability. Money. Risk of death. Deaths
| (in war or from disease, e.g.). Stuff like that!
|
| 3. Have a speed mode where you have to learn to do these
| calculations really fast, so that you can incorporate this
| awareness into your day to day life and awareness of things. 4.
| Have a slow mode where you are trying to get everything right, so
| that you learn how to proceed when you really want to be sure.
|
| 5. Have a mode where nothing is within 100 or 1000 of anything
| else, so that you're purely focused on scale awareness and so
| that your ability to estimate on a 10-100 scale doesn't matter so
| much.
| petersonh wrote:
| Feels like I'm answering questions my 4 year old always asks me.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Weird you should say that. The idea came to me after a long
| conversion with my 6 year old. He was telling me about a friend
| of his who said he was god or a god and we talked about how you
| could test to see if he was. That seemed to trigger off a whole
| synaptic storm.
| jessep wrote:
| It was really fun, but maybe throw a few combos closer in weight
| in? I played for maybe 5 minutes and didn't get any wrong. I
| would have played longer if I got some wrong.
| last_one_in wrote:
| You're much better at it than me then :-)
| gigaflop wrote:
| "10 cans of baked beans" vs "A gorilla"
|
| A real stumper there, gotta check my math on baked bean can
| sizes!
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| It doesn't say the age of the gorilla!
| last_one_in wrote:
| To be honest, I weighed a can on my kitchen scales :-)
| fortran77 wrote:
| And how did you weigh the gorilla?
| sdwolfz wrote:
| According to my reckoning, on his kitchen scales ;)
| last_one_in wrote:
| Aww man, I couldn't even fit a gorilla in my kitchen let
| alone on my scales.
| dom96 wrote:
| simple idea executed well, that's what makes the best games,
| maybe this will be the next wordle? :)
| last_one_in wrote:
| Aww, thank you. My friend suggested weighdle as a name but I
| already had the site up!
| isaacimagine wrote:
| Really fun game! There's no social incentive to share with
| others, or hook to return to play again, though. I learned a
| lot about how much thing weigh though.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Thank you! Yeah, I have been meaning to add that. I just copy
| and paste! I want to keep a track of your best winning streak
| and have achievements.
| goldcd wrote:
| I quite enjoyed that.
|
| Few (hopefully helpful) bits of feedback:
|
| 1) Would be nicer if it wasn't just an endless list of question
| cards. Maybe have new ones sliding in on the right, with answered
| ones going off to the left.
|
| 2) Visually separate the question, your answer, the
| correct/incorrect answer and the explanation.
|
| 3) Scores! How many right, how many in a right in a row, how did
| your guess compare with others etc
|
| 4) Social Interaction. Let me share my "best run in 60 seconds"
| and then let others see if they can beat me.
|
| 5) Pictures? Was just thinking you could have a 2x2 grid, with
| number and labelled picture of object in a colum, then you click
| on whether you think column 1 or 2 is the heaviest.
|
| 6) Stats - maybe on landing page or as commentary on your
| selections "Did you know the weight of the Blue-whale has the
| most over-estimated mass"
|
| 7) Difficulty curve (or setting), feels a bit odd after you'd put
| some estimate into guestimating to just be asked "does a gorilla
| weigh more than 5 tins of beans?" Or maybe it just currently
| feels too-random. I might get 20 in a row, but I can't compare
| myself to somebody else who got another 20 in a row right.
|
| 8) "Is greater than" is nice, but simple <,> choice makes it too
| simple some times. Maybe, "Which is closest to?" - which would
| give you multiple options to choose from.
| Ntrails wrote:
| > 4) Social Interaction. Let me share my "best run in 60
| seconds" and then let others see if they can beat me.
|
| But please don't decide that you need to shove a popup in my
| face repeatedly to persuade me to do so. I don't have "socials"
| and have no intention of sharing anything. Being obnoxious
| about it is a "Dick Move" imo
| SamBam wrote:
| Hug of Death. I'll try again in a couple of hours.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah right. I'm trying to send messages of apology to my
| sysadmin (a FOAF). I bet they hate me.
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| It's now redirecting to http://arrowloans.co.uk for some
| reason.
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| I like it.
|
| I got most everything right until it asked about the moon
| compared to some huge number of elephants and again with
| tyranosaurus rexes. I picked moon both times and was wrong. I
| felt like those are mathematics questions that don't test your
| sense of scale as much as the rest because there's just no real-
| life experience.
| quartz wrote:
| This is fun, well done!
|
| Also: 700,000,000 peas weighs more than a tyrannosaurus rex?! I
| need to re-evaluate my perception of the weight of a pea.
| last_one_in wrote:
| That is a lot of peas. I might have some maths wrong in there
| I'll admit. I hacked it all together in day.
| umvi wrote:
| 700M drops of water weigh (.05g * 700M) which is 35,000 kg and
| a pea weighs more than a drop of water
| jaimehrubiks wrote:
| "According to my reckoning a human weighs at most 80kg"
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah..... um, so I picked min max ranges which would accomodate
| 50-90% of something. The human one is probably a bit narrow. It
| was a manic day of googling. Trying to work out what one
| molecule of caffeine weighs nearly broke me.
| gondo wrote:
| Advice: make the answer much more visible. First text, visually
| separated (bigger font, bold, line ...), green/red. Separate the
| explanation part into its own block of text.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Don't do green red for colorblind.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| As long as there's also a non-color differentiator (like a
| checkmark / X) I think it's fine. Just like traffic lights
| having different positions. The word itself is possibly
| enough, although on the other hand words take longer to
| process than shapes/colors so best to offer a shape if also
| offering a color.
| city17 wrote:
| The site forwards me to some UK home loans website?
| Stevie300 wrote:
| Same, very curious what's going on here.
| Beltiras wrote:
| Apparently the author was hugged to death. Hosting provider
| started to redirect the traffic elsewhere.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah man, the server got hugged to death. My provider was
| awesome solving issues and all back up again. I could do
| with a hug after all that!
| antattack wrote:
| I was redirected to some loan company.
| last_one_in wrote:
| Aww man, really sorry. Not my doing. Trying to sort it out. My
| hosting account's been suspended. It's all gone a bit pear
| shaped. Oopsie.
| tomhallett wrote:
| When you get some time to breathe, I would love to hear a
| "retrospective" about how an account suspension turned into a
| redirect to a loans website. Did a bad actor notice your
| account was suspended, took over it somehow and then they
| sent traffic to their website? Is this standard protocol for
| your hosting provider (similar to those domain landing pages
| which link to all sorts of weird crap)?
| last_one_in wrote:
| The sysadmin thought I was up to no good and suspended me,
| which seems pretty reasonable to me. He was really cool and
| not even pissed off that I wiped out a server. All got
| cleared up. The site is on a different server now.
| tomhallett wrote:
| figured that you got suspended, but it sounded like the
| url starting going to some other site vs just erroring
| out. right?
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah, because I got suspended the webserver decided to
| just serve the first site alphabetically. Nice behaviour.
| I scared the ** out of me, I thought it had been hacked.
| kome wrote:
| me too!
| sodimel wrote:
| Me too. Here's the result of nmap -p 443 --script ssl-cert
| weighoff.net: Starting Nmap 7.80 (
| https://nmap.org ) at 2022-03-31 17:24 CEST Nmap scan
| report for weighoff.net (213.175.208.197) Host is up
| (0.056s latency). rDNS record for 213.175.208.197:
| charlie.awebserver.co.uk PORT STATE SERVICE
| 443/tcp open https | ssl-cert: Subject:
| commonName=arrowloans.co.uk | Subject Alternative Name:
| DNS:arrowloans.co.uk, DNS:cpanel.arrowloans.co.uk,
| DNS:cpcalendars.arrowloans.co.uk,
| DNS:cpcontacts.arrowloans.co.uk, DNS:mail.arrowloans.co.uk,
| DNS:webdisk.arrowloans.co.uk, DNS:webmail.arrowloans.co.uk,
| DNS:www.arrowloans.co.uk | Issuer: commonName=cPanel,
| Inc. Certification Authority/organizationName=cPanel,
| Inc./stateOrProvinceName=TX/countryName=US | Public Key
| type: rsa | Public Key bits: 2048 | Signature
| Algorithm: sha256WithRSAEncryption | Not valid before:
| 2022-01-21T00:00:00 | Not valid after:
| 2022-04-21T23:59:59 | MD5: 087b d643 652c f167 689e
| 71fb 2acc ef07 |_SHA-1: d212 d954 f09d 7ff7 9068 6e90
| 4012 b592 cc2d c64f Nmap done: 1 IP address (1
| host up) scanned in 0.58 seconds
|
| Edit: that's funny, http://weighoff.net/ (not https) shows the
| content of charlie.awebserver.co.uk :D
| goldcd wrote:
| How odd - I'm now seeing https://www.webs.limited/
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I got the Bad SSL Cert warning in Firefox and just backed
| out.
| [deleted]
| last_one_in wrote:
| Yeah, really sorry about that. Wasn't my doing. The rather
| unexpected surge of traffic fried the server. Hopefully
| resolved now. I was never expecting to hit the front page of HN
| let alone number 1.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Chrome is flagging your SSL cert as being invalid, just an FYI.
| contravariant wrote:
| That's because it's forwarding the traffic to some entirely
| unrelated website for some reason. Not sure if the DNS went
| screwy, but something is not right.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Think the guy got hacked mid launch.
| last_one_in wrote:
| OP here. Everything went screwy! Should be working again now.
| I don't even work in tech anymore. I haven't been involved in
| a website launch in over a decade. It's been one hell of a
| day. My plan for the day was literally to put the site up and
| then do some craft work, spinning wool into yarn for making
| my friends a couple of hats (it's wool from their sheep). I'm
| not even joking! My day went so off the rails.
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(page generated 2022-03-31 23:01 UTC)