[HN Gopher] Mindustry - Open-Source Game
___________________________________________________________________
Mindustry - Open-Source Game
Author : gigel82
Score : 548 points
Date : 2022-08-11 07:19 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mindustrygame.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (mindustrygame.github.io)
| joymonger wrote:
| Mindustry is a serious bargain at $6. I just got into the game,
| and while it does stand on its own, it scratched the Factorio
| itch while I was away from my computer, as it runs on mobile
| (android). The maps I've seen so far are unique and interesting.
| I like the tower defense campaign. To me, combat in Mindustry is
| better than in Factorio. Would totally recommend.
| winter_squirrel wrote:
| I will say, this is why I love the JVM so much. Runs on
| everything, I can pull, compile and build this game easily
| without worrying about any kind of platform specific library
| issue unlike open source c++ games I've tried to compile
| pjmlp wrote:
| I have other reason why I love this being in Java, it makes the
| point that a fun game isn't about the language it is programmed
| on, rather the quality of its programming and the overall game
| design.
| awelxtr wrote:
| I'd like to give my kudos to the Mindustry developer because
| this game uses the same engine as the slay the spire but this
| game runs without a hitch, even when there is plenty happening
| while Slay the spire overheats my phone when I'm thinking what
| card to play next... -.-'
| jewel wrote:
| A few years ago we played this for a few weeks at the office over
| Christmas break when things were otherwise slow. We had maybe a
| dozen players, and played in Survival mode which I believe is
| infinite with difficulty ramping up.
|
| We split into four teams, with one providing power, one providing
| ammo, one building defenses, and the rest just running around
| trying to help out where we needed it the most.
|
| There was a ton of potential. I had to keep adjusting the
| difficulty as the match went on to keep us alive and then to
| finish us off when we were running out of time.
|
| I'd love a multiplayer coop game like this but with the potential
| to have fifty or a hundred players. Right now the office plays
| CS:GO once a week, with the settings changed to allow max
| players, but it still caps at thirty. CS:GO is hard for new
| employees to get in to so I'd love something where everyone has
| fun. We also did TF2 for a while, which was better because the
| newbies could be medics and still feel like they were
| contributing, but the hard-core player base loved the challenge
| of CS:GO.
| flowless wrote:
| I can recommend Teeworlds (CTF modes) for casual office gaming.
| I've organized a tournament once and got my ass kicked in the
| final matches (2v2 CTF) as people improved really quickly.
| apignotti wrote:
| Hope this helps: https://teeworlds.leaningtech.com/
| euos wrote:
| Factorio.
|
| I play it with my kids (10 and 16) and my father (70) and
| brother. Everybody finds something to do and everybody has a
| lot of fun.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| As an aside, it's a wonder to read casual accounts of office
| work where teams will play with toys rather than be allowed to
| go home to their families or other interests
| nonbirithm wrote:
| I think it's taken for granted that finding even three other
| people to play couch co-op is very difficult, much less
| enough people for a 30-person LAN match. Work seems to be a
| reasonable place to meet people who want to partake in
| extracurriculars.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Ooh, can I play? "It's a shame you dislike your coworkers so
| much that you'd like to spend as little time with them as
| possible."
| dvt wrote:
| Be careful not to fall for the "we're a family here"
| corporate tropes and then have an existential crisis once
| you get fired or laid off. Work is work. Your customers are
| not your friends and your coworkers are not your family.
| tfsh wrote:
| Coworkers might not be your family, but it doesn't mean
| you can't be friends. Some of the people I'm closest to I
| met at work, however to ensure our interactions aren't
| constrained to the workplace, we've made deliberate
| attempts to meet up outside of the office.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Worker friendship and solidarity is fantastic and should
| be encouraged. I was commenting on their owners
| fluoridation wrote:
| The friend I'm closest with I met at a previous job and
| we continued talking and seeing each other after I quit
| that job. Your coworkers are not your family, but they
| can be your friends if you let them, and that
| relationship doesn't have to end when the professional
| aspect of the relationship ends.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| > rather than be allowed
|
| This seems like a particularly uncharitable interpretation
| from the context of the post.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it's the industry standard to expect defined working hours
| presence regardless of the work at hand. whatever workers
| want to do in the lulls or otherwise, that's great for
| them. I was commenting on their owners
| bee_rider wrote:
| We don't know anything about their business -- for all we
| know they could be required in the office to provide
| _availability,_ but with large downtimes in actual work.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| that's the line given for every instance of it at scale
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I have a family and a great work life balance. Some of the
| fondest memories I have of team building at work is playing
| video games or doing activities like paint ball or volley
| ball. So go ahead and judge.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| You clearly need Eve Online
| darkteflon wrote:
| Those screenshots are triggering my Factorio PTSD.
| [deleted]
| memorable wrote:
| I have this on my phone and my computer and haven't played it in
| a very long time. Looks like I will need to give this game a
| second shot.
| thro1 wrote:
| I flag this post, but to late - the game was already downloaded..
| [deleted]
| throwaway378037 wrote:
| Uh oh! Your mind has been replaced by conveyor belts
| koalalorenzo wrote:
| I like this game a lot, I did not know it was open source! After
| playing Factorio I find this refreshing. I am happy I paid for
| something Open Source <3
| Aeolun wrote:
| You get much easier multiplayer when you buy it on Steam, so
| it's not like you paid for nothing :)
| RektBoy wrote:
| Looks like Factorio.
|
| Oh no no no no no, I need to work ....
| [deleted]
| cwillu wrote:
| ...on your factory.
| Winsaucerer wrote:
| The factory must grow.
| gww wrote:
| The factory must grow!
| bfors wrote:
| I find it very interesting that they link to the trello board for
| the project on the main site. I don't think I've seen that
| before.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I went through an obsessive period with this game on my iPad
| early in the pandemic.
|
| Eventually the game mode shifted away from the more tower-defense
| factory situation into something else I found less fun, and so I
| bailed.
| Strilanc wrote:
| I really like Mindustry.
|
| One place where Mindustry is clearly better than factorio is the
| feel of trying to build things quickly. It's very satisfying to
| lay something down _fast_. A stumble there is that the keyboard
| combinations are chorded but not overlap-free. So you hit like
| 1-3 for one thing and 3-1 for another, which means if you change
| your mind you can 't abort a chord by starting another. Quite
| frustrating in the moment.
|
| Another "so close to greatness" problem is that the campaign
| doesn't allow you to trust your friends to run separate parts of
| the planet. You all have to be on the same map at the same time.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > the campaign doesn't allow you to trust your friends to run
| separate parts of the planet
|
| I think this is more of a technical issue, not something the
| campaign is designed to prevent.
|
| Besides, what would be the fun in playing by yourself on
| separate maps?
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Last we played, the "send from one base to another" building
| (I forgot the name) worked _much_ faster when you were in the
| sending base instead of the receiving one. So when topping
| off resources before launching to an adjacent map, it would
| usually be most efficient for everyone to hop to the
| resource-sending base for a minute and then hop back to the
| (now fully-supplied) bridgehead, then finally launch to the
| new map.
|
| In this case it's more the game design that's questionable
| (why does stuff behave so differently based on whether or not
| we are in the map?), but there simply are occasions where you
| have to check or fix something real quick, and requiring
| everyone to more or less stand by in those situations is
| pretty dull.
| TillE wrote:
| Factorio is quite deliberately designed so that you gradually
| progress from somewhat tedious manual construction to conjuring
| blueprinted designs out of thin air with fully upgraded robots.
| It's very satisfying.
| mcv wrote:
| That page has no real info on what the game is actually about.
| Lots of people here compare it to factorio. So how does it
| compare to factorio? Is it a factorio clone, is it better or
| different in some way?
| Kiro wrote:
| Tower Defense + Factorio
| Filligree wrote:
| So Factorio.
| hajile wrote:
| Factorio is a factory with some tower defense to mix things
| up. Once you get your defenses up a bit, the biters are
| never really a big threat again.
|
| Mindustry the opposite. It's actually either a tower
| defense or an RTS (depending on if you're playing the
| campaign or against other humans).
|
| In Mindustry campaign, waves are timed and if you don't
| pause, you're going to be building frantically trying to
| keep up with the increasing difficulty of the upcoming wave
| as the clock counts down.
|
| Also unlike factorio, space isn't unlimited. You have to be
| very efficient to pack as much stuff into the limited space
| as possible. Enemies aren't just limited by walls and a
| boss flying overhead is a force to be feared.
|
| Each sector is its own factory. Once you get far enough
| along (spoiler alert?), your older sectors will start
| getting attacked by enemies again (much more powerful
| ones). A lot of locations are lacking some resources
| necessary to create top tier weapons, so defending these
| means managing how you send these resources to them from
| other sectors.
|
| Then as you get that worked out, five sectors all get
| attacked at once. You try as hard as you can, but the more
| you build, the more they attack. Then the conveyor break
| and it's publishers clearing house day!!!
| mcv wrote:
| In Factorio, my defenses are usually pretty weak, because
| they can never keep up with the growth of my factory.
| Instead, I take out biter camps before they become a
| threat. So there's not much tower defense about it for
| me.
|
| It sounds like in Mindustry, taking out camps to prevent
| an attack doesn't work?
|
| On the other hand, building very compact comes naturally
| to me. My Factorio journey had been mostly about learning
| to use more space so the factory stays scalable when it
| needs to grow. But I'm very bad at that; everything
| eventually turns back into super cramped space-efficient
| spaghetti.
| nindalf wrote:
| Destroying biter camps in Factorio makes them evolve
| faster. Maybe that's why you're finding the enemies hard
| to keep up with?
| mcv wrote:
| I haven't really had any problems with that. Sometimes
| there's a brief period where some camps are too powerful
| for me to engage with, but soon enough there's a new
| technology that gives me an edge against them again
| (modular armor, tank, artillery).
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| > It sounds like in Mindustry, taking out camps to
| prevent an attack doesn't work?
|
| No, it's a more traditional tower defence format where
| there are set waves that spawn on a timer, there's
| nothing you can do except build defences to kill the
| enemies that spawn
| hajile wrote:
| The enemies spawn into a restricted area when the spawn
| counter finishes.
|
| There are some maps that require you to invade the enemy
| base too, but they also spawn invading enemies and those
| bases have defense towers like yours does, so you aren't
| just going to walk in and deal with it.
| blktiger wrote:
| For many levels the enemies come from "off screen" so
| there is no base to attack. There are some levels where
| you are supposed to send troops to destroy the enemy
| base, but once you beat that level if your base there
| comes under attack the enemies come from "off screen"
| again from what I remember.
| smolder wrote:
| No, because like in a tower defense game, there are stages,
| and every stage has its own base to build and a different
| level of technology available to the builder.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Short 1-2 hour games with a focus on wave defense, with
| somewhat factorio-like resource gathering and defense.
| cardy31 wrote:
| Different though because you never really end up with a
| mega base.
| Kiro wrote:
| In Factorio you put down a big wall with turrets behind it.
| In Mindustry you build a maze with towers and bottlenecks.
| You can't build it off completely and always need to leave
| a path for the enemies. The production line is all about
| feeding your towers.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| And it's open source, which is a pretty good selling point
| for some people.
| willis936 wrote:
| Everything is derivative. Factorio was built out of love for
| the industrial games that came before. How does factorio
| compare to Gregtech 4? Is it a Gregtech 4 clone, is it better
| or different in some way?
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20171021012424/http://www.minecr...
|
| My point is to not be dismissive of new things. There is likely
| missing context.
| otachack wrote:
| I love the Wayback machine. We really are risking losing
| historical sites and data like this but I'm happy there are
| active people working on archiving like this like the
| Internet Archive.
| corobo wrote:
| Were they being dismissive? It seemed like they were after
| more information to see if it's something that works for
| them. The opposite of dismissive if anything
|
| I think this one's a bias in your ingress filters rather than
| their intention
| the_af wrote:
| He/she was just asking how it compares to Factorio. It's a
| valid question, since I already own Factorio...
| weberer wrote:
| Parent comment was sincerely asking for information, not
| being dismissive.
| unhammer wrote:
| I don't really play games these days, but I was looking at non-
| bullshit games[0] one evening to see if there was something fun
| to put on my kids' tablets, and stumbled upon this. When I looked
| up from the screen because the dog was barking, five hours had
| passed. Caveat emptor.
|
| [0] https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| I haven't played it but it looks heavily inspired by the Creeper
| World series:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/280220/Creeper_World_3_Ar...
| dusted wrote:
| I love creeperworld and factorio, definitely going to throw
| some time into this one :)
| geogra4 wrote:
| My 6 year old loves this game. Great creative fun.
| enimodas wrote:
| Funny, I quit this game after a couple of tries because I found
| it too hard. So even 6 year olds are better than me.
| PostOnce wrote:
| Play it coop with them, it's great fun as a team with your kid
| if you have 2 computers.
| gigel82 wrote:
| After finishing shapez.io (another open source game similar to
| Factorio) I went looking for more and stumbled upon this
| masterpiece that's been occupying my evenings for the past weeks
| - thought others would want to check it out too.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| shapez is really great, I've been following the development of
| shapez 2 with great interest. I like shapez because it removes
| a lot of the grindiness in Factorio, resulting in a more
| relaxed experience. Shapez doesn't require you to do anything
| but build factories to process shapes - there's no real
| resource limitation. (Technically there are one or two
| mechanics, but once you have a sufficiently good blueprint
| factory you won't really be in situations where you don't have
| enough of something).
|
| There's a great free demo online at https://shapez.io/, and
| since the game is open source, you can technically download and
| build it yourself to get the full version for free (it's 10
| bucks, which is well worth not having to figure out one more JS
| build process in my free time)
| hajile wrote:
| If you think you've finished shapezio, install the shapez
| industries mod and enjoy a bunch of extra mechanics.
| balentio wrote:
| I guess it's neat there is a game, but I am burned out on
| "industrial building type of games". It was cool back in the
| Starcraft era, but since then it has been wearing thin for me.
| Aperocky wrote:
| The coding aspect of mindustry is a lot of fun, having robots
| intelligently deliver resources and engaging enemies enable
| builds that use to be impossible.
|
| Yes you can code in mindustry!
| samstave wrote:
| Anyone remember ROBOTS or whatever it was called for the
| TRS-80?
| vageli wrote:
| How? I have been playing the android version for some time and
| have yet to discover robots or coding.
| Aperocky wrote:
| mechs can be remotely controlled via logic processors (they
| can also remotely control basically everything in this game).
| jackmott42 wrote:
| People who enjoy this may also love the Creeper World series of
| games:
| https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/1984/Knuckle_Cracker_U...
| silveira wrote:
| First thing I thought when I saw the screenshots. I played a
| lot of Creeper World and I will at least play a bit of
| Mindustry.
| culi wrote:
| Been playing the creeper world series since it was a wee little
| flash game. Underrated game. Tho, relevant to this thread, it's
| worth noting it's not open sourced afaik
| joshstrange wrote:
| Same here and I was super sad when the newest version was
| released windows-only. One day I'll build a gaming VM or
| maybe get a steam deck so I can play it. I still go back and
| play through all of those games every year or so.
| sprkwd wrote:
| I like games like this, but they suddenly become a time sink and
| I'm short on time. So glad that there's a bunch of OS games being
| show on HN.
| Kiro wrote:
| Regarding putting it on Steam at a price tag. I've been thinking
| about doing the same for my game but on the other hand it feels
| bad that I take profit on something people contribute to for free
| without getting any share of it (even though I am the biggest
| contributor).
|
| What's your view on it?
| notahacker wrote:
| There are blockbuster Steam games which sell tens of millions
| of copies largely on the strength of an active volunteer
| modding community keeping them interesting, and no shortage of
| OS projects whose founding company profits from selling
| [derivatives of] that software to people that want paid
| software licenses.
|
| Obviously it's less legitimate if you rugpull access to the
| existing base game or if your original OS project marketed
| itself as being always free everywhere...
| axus wrote:
| As long as you have a free-to-play version available outside of
| Steam, you're fine. Keeping a game updated for Steam is extra
| work on top of the other free versions.
|
| Think Dwarf Fortress, but your source code is open and always
| free.
| lawl wrote:
| mindustry allows you to still get the game on github, you just
| don't get steam integrations. i think that's pretty fair.
|
| However, even if that wasn't the case i think it would be fine.
| If I contribute to a BSD licensed project, i shouldn't be mad
| if someone ends up selling my code.
|
| So as long as the license permits it, I think it's generally
| fine. Otherwise, what's the point of the license?
| hajile wrote:
| What game (out of curiosity)?
|
| As long as the game is freely available to fulfill copyright
| license clauses, I don't think people would mind.
|
| Steam makes it easier for people to keep updated and allows
| them to support the creator. People who can't afford that can
| still download independently.
|
| This seems like a win for everyone.
| andrewchambers wrote:
| I think its more fair if you say your intentions from the start
| so nobody feels ripped off.
| andruby wrote:
| I think it is fine if you keep an easy to install free version.
| And if you earn a significant amount, you could distribute some
| of that back to certain contributors if you wanted.
| freedomben wrote:
| As long as you keep it open on GitHub, and keep it installable
| for people, I don't think there's any issue. In fact, I think
| it's a great thing! If it makes money, it incentivizes you to
| put more time and effort into development, which in turn
| benefits the entire community of contributors. Again, as long
| as you don't remove it from GitHub or make installation outside
| of steam a pain in the ass, it's win-win for everyone.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Make it obvious that whatever is sold on Steam is also freely
| available, and I don't think anyone will have issues. The only
| thing Steam specific to Mindusty is the multiplayer logic (as
| far as I'm aware), and that wouldn't work without steam in the
| first place.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| As other people have replied, I think it's fine as long as
| there's a free version that's also available.
|
| Personally, I started playing Mindustry using the free version.
| I enjoyed it and started playing it with a friend. Keeping my
| version up to date was _just_ annoying enough that throwing the
| developer $6 (USD) to not start each game session with 20
| minutes of fiddling with software versions was worth it. I
| really liked that it's free and open source AND I really
| appreciated the easier to use option once I decided that I like
| this particular game.
|
| So giving people the option (free & manual, or token payment
| and Steam makes my life easier) is actually a really nice,
| appreciated option for players. Or at least, appreciated by
| this player :)
| Inhibit wrote:
| As long as you honor the license you all agreed to and you own
| any IP not covered by copyright, I can't imagine what the
| complaint could be.
|
| Plenty of copies of games get charged for by people with no
| connection to them at all. Asking for a non-required purchase
| as the creator of software shouldn't feel weird.
|
| Plus you'll be providing and updating the Steam release de
| facto providing nominal support. That's not free.
| dmos62 wrote:
| This thread is an energetic littering of tongue-in-cheek warnings
| that this game is addictive. Not sure why, but that puts a smile
| on my face.
| [deleted]
| andruby wrote:
| It is addictive, but it has an "ending". I played for 98 hours
| (steam stats) and reached the ending, and with that I reached
| the end of my mild addiction.
|
| I am much more afraid of Factorio which seems a lot more open
| ended, and thus _endlessly_ (ha) addictive
| cheschire wrote:
| Factorio has a defined ending which is launching the rocket.
| Many people play to that point and then stop. It doesn't take
| _that_ long to get there though as long as you don 't get too
| distracted with efficiency.
|
| The endless part is that launching the rocket is a necessary
| step for acquiring the endgame science pack, which unlocks
| the handful of endless research tracks. From that point on
| the entire game is focused on improving efficiency.
| aeneasmackenzie wrote:
| Many people feel that launching the rocket is just the end
| of the tutorial. I think this is the same crowd that
| installs power armor/roboport starting mods and sneers at
| Satisfactory because it doesn't have bots. There is a split
| here into the group that plays mostly vanilla and goes for
| extreme scale and the group that plays fuck you tech tree
| mods like bobangel, krastorio, or pyanodon if you really
| have a lot of time.
| cheschire wrote:
| Now that Earendel was hired for the official expansion, I
| imagine a lot of concepts from their mods are going to be
| considered for addition to what will be "vanilla" after
| the DLC launch.
|
| Space Exploration mod was a huge change, and I hope the
| core dev team can temper some of the crazier aspects.
| breckenedge wrote:
| Factorio let's you keep playing after reaching a certain
| goal, which took me about 80 hours, but it was a lot easier
| to put it down afterwards.
| hajile wrote:
| They're expanding to add extra planets with all new mechanics
| in the upcoming v7.
| awelxtr wrote:
| What ending have you reached? Campaign?
| baking wrote:
| I assume he means launching the rocket.
| andruby wrote:
| indeed, the end of the campaign when you launch the
| rocket to the next planet.
|
| I might pick it up again when v7 has matured a bit, but
| I'm happy to have more time to spend on life (and work)
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| I'd like to join the chorus of warnings. I've had this on my
| phone for about a week and I've already had dreams of arranging
| conveyor belts.
| rochak wrote:
| Had the same happen to me, but with Into the Breach. That game
| is very addicting and should come with a disclaimer for this :P
| lake_vincent wrote:
| Oh no, it's on mobile? I just assumed it was not on mobile
| because it's FOSS.
|
| My productivity karma was trending up this week. Was.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| If it helps, I advise avoiding it on mobile because it makes
| my RSI flare up like crazy. YMMV.
| Aeolun wrote:
| This is the worst. If I've been overthinking something like
| that my entire nights rest will be disrupted, very much akin to
| a fever dream.
|
| So far that's only happened for Factorio, but Mindustry is a
| good contender.
| b0afc375b5 wrote:
| I remember when I was addicted to Factorio, I could vividly
| "see" conveyor belts everytime I closed my eyes.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| I've experienced this effect with jigsaw puzzles, Tetris,
| and the pedestrian paths in RC Tycoon.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| I once saw and felt myself biking when closing my eyes
| after riding a bicycle the whole day, so this isn't limited
| to computer games
| drifkin wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
| jasonmccay wrote:
| For me, in college, it was Age of Empires. We'd have late-
| night LAN sessions with roommates and friends and when I
| eventually crashed into bed, my brain would continue
| strategizing for battles, determine necessary resources to
| mine, etc.
| culi wrote:
| I've had this experience with all of the Conceptis logic
| puzzle games
| [deleted]
| culi wrote:
| Both Mindustry and Freeciv made it to the frontpage of HN today
| so I feel it's necessary to share the OS Game Clones site in case
| people haven't yet looked through it:
|
| https://osgameclones.com/
| uo21tp5hoyg wrote:
| Also available on Steam[1], I wonder why they don't link to steam
| on that page nor their GitHub readme.
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127400/Mindustry/
|
| edit: nevermind it's in there, leaving this comment for others
| that block 3rd party iframes.
| gurubob wrote:
| This was too much for me - I had to uninstall it and literally
| hide it from my Steam library after clocking up 20 hours in the
| first week. And no, I'm not a youngster with time to burn lol.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-08-11 23:01 UTC)