[HN Gopher] Bubbles
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Bubbles
        
       Author : findhorn
       Score  : 1876 points
       Date   : 2022-11-11 21:12 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (oimo.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (oimo.io)
        
       | mikotodomo wrote:
       | It didn't work (I think? It was just a white screen). I tried
       | changing IP with CTRL+SHIFT+L and it wasn't doing anything, then
       | tried copying the link and opening in a different window, but it
       | wouldn't copy (because I used CTRL+L). Only then I realized it
       | just doesn't let you press any button on the keyboard. JESUS
       | CHRIST never show me this link again.
        
       | AkshatJ27 wrote:
       | If you move your mouse really really fast, you can get through
       | the bubbles without popping them.
        
         | ianai wrote:
         | It's totally not anything at all related to quantum tunneling
         | in anyway.
        
           | aussieshibe wrote:
           | Would that actually make sense?
           | 
           | Maybe I don't want to know.
           | 
           | I'm still grappling with my last bout of "holy moly is the
           | universe a simulation?" after reading about a way of dealing
           | with latency in networked games that looks a lot like
           | relativity.
        
             | hjkl0 wrote:
             | Is this the latency thread?
             | 
             | https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1z0t7y/replicatio
             | n...
        
             | svnt wrote:
             | What is the method of dealing with latency called?
        
           | a9h74j wrote:
           | Wow, the tiny physics engine is that advanced?
        
         | elwell wrote:
         | Perhaps lack of interpolation of mouse event points
        
           | NaturalPhallacy wrote:
           | I wonder if you could do this if you cranked your polling
           | rate up to 500hz like many gaming mice can.
        
             | sitzkrieg wrote:
             | 1000 hz! and yes, seems tied to fps is all :^)
        
               | NaturalPhallacy wrote:
               | 144hz monitor? :D
        
       | blululu wrote:
       | This site is so good. I'm personally a huge fan of:
       | https://oimo.io/works/jelly/
        
       | anonu wrote:
       | Beautiful work. My 4 year old instantly got it. But she noted
       | that bubbles usually pop themselves. She also wondered when the
       | bubbles would run out.
        
         | jdthedisciple wrote:
         | sweet
        
         | nullifidian wrote:
         | Bubbles in this demo do absolutely pop by themselves.
        
       | FpUser wrote:
       | Love it. Now I can just stare and turn my brain off ;)
        
       | Cerium wrote:
       | Such a fun surprise when I realized that the fan does not only
       | push air but pulls air in as well. The bubble wand placed to the
       | left of the fan will still make bubbles out the right hand side.
       | Interestingly it makes bigger bubbles than normal.
        
         | sodapopcan wrote:
         | You can also rotate the fan...!
        
           | mlukaszek wrote:
           | And move the spike!
        
       | Ilasky wrote:
       | Absolutely love things like this that encourage a little bit of
       | discovery instead of instructions - makes it a bit more magical,
       | I think
        
         | macintux wrote:
         | Many years ago there was a viral web-based game
         | involving...shooting frogs, perhaps?
         | 
         | The mechanics were not explained, you had to discover how to
         | play it.
         | 
         | The problem: the primary mechanism was pointer clicks, but the
         | Mac's tap to click didn't work.
         | 
         | So the game was in motion but nothing I did made any
         | difference. I even wondered if perhaps the virality was a joke:
         | the people who knew it didn't actually work were playing a
         | trick on everyone else.
         | 
         | Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that forcing the user
         | to discover the mechanics works better when you control the
         | full stack.
         | 
         | Or that those of us who cherish tap to click should
         | occasionally press harder, just in case.
        
       | ArtWomb wrote:
       | So soothing! Todo: implement Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner (L-S-W)
       | theory of particle coarsening for soap bubbles (avg size
       | increases with cube of time) ;)
        
         | dr_dshiv wrote:
         | I was wondering why I couldn't blow bigger bubbles?
        
           | lagt_t wrote:
           | Drag the ringy thing.
        
       | herpderperator wrote:
       | More of their amazing work here: https://oimo.io/works
       | 
       | Also they appear to be a student?
        
         | tailspin2019 wrote:
         | That website is a work of art.
         | 
         | This whole comment thread makes for happy reading.
         | 
         | A talented person creating cool original things and a bunch of
         | smart people playing with, discussing and appreciating their
         | work.
        
         | passion__desire wrote:
         | Also the homepage animation is a demo of Rayleigh-Taylor
         | instability
         | 
         | homepage : https://oimo.io/
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh%E2%80%93Taylor_instab...
        
           | gpderetta wrote:
           | That's just beautiful. I wish I had free time, patience and
           | skills to do something like that.
        
         | faitswulff wrote:
         | This reminds me of orisinal games!
        
           | systemvoltage wrote:
           | That stung me hard. Damn, Orisinal. I spent so much time
           | playing those wonderful games on rainy afternoons with a tea
           | pot. I had a dinky little Sony VAIO laptop, they were called
           | "Netbooks" at the time around 2005. It was bliss.
        
           | danielskogly wrote:
           | I made a small tribute[0] to Winterbells last year when
           | beginning to learn Godot. Spent much time with that music on
           | loop way back when playing that cozy game!
           | 
           | [0] https://poacher2k.itch.io/summercoins
        
             | andai wrote:
             | Apparently Winterbells runs in Ruffle! The FPS is a bit low
             | though.
        
               | danielskogly wrote:
               | It's still playable here[0] as well! :)
               | 
               | http://freewebarcade.com/game/winterbells/
        
         | kurtreed wrote:
         | Looks like it's just one person
        
         | the_cat_kittles wrote:
         | the jelly one is incredible!!!
        
         | afranchuk wrote:
         | I especially liked the one for the works page itself! Very fun.
        
           | Matumio wrote:
           | Yes! Try scrolling there, I almost missed that.
        
           | shellfishgene wrote:
           | Especially that the gallery one is also in the gallery...
        
       | theturtletalks wrote:
       | Thought this was using three.js, but they built their own physics
       | engine: https://github.com/saharan/OimoPhysics
        
         | binbag wrote:
         | Very impressive!
        
         | ithrow wrote:
         | Written in haxe.
        
           | Nican wrote:
           | That caught me off-guard as well. I only ever written one
           | thing in Haxe, but the experienced was mixed. It worked, but
           | it also kind of painful to work with.
           | 
           | For context: Haxe is a programming language with the main
           | purpose to have several compile targets for many programming
           | languages.
           | 
           | Glad it is working for them.
        
           | nbzso wrote:
           | Holly cow.
           | 
           | Old Version Written in ActionScript 3.0 Supports spheres and
           | boxes as collision shapes Supports various joints (ball and
           | socket, distance, hinge, prismatic, etc...) Fast and stable
           | collision solver
        
         | mrtksn wrote:
         | This has vibes of the old Web, where amazing and niche things
         | were happening. Apparently that engine is written in something
         | called Haxe and its multi-platform.
         | 
         | Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing out by looking at lists
         | curated by points given out by people who come together by
         | hyper specialised interests. Should have heard of it before
         | hearing about the millionth JS framework.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | matai_kolila wrote:
           | I feel like I'd StumbleUpon this...
        
             | dividedbyzero wrote:
             | I wish there was something like what Stumbleupon was back
             | in the day. I miss it.
        
               | drumttocs8 wrote:
               | Why isn't there?
        
               | slater wrote:
               | Human curation (on their end, not SU users) is what made
               | Stumbleupon great.
               | 
               | But human curation costs money, and can't (yet!!11~
               | scream the AI folks) be replaced by AI, so here we are.
        
           | codetrotter wrote:
           | > Apparently that engine is written in something called Haxe
           | and its multi-platform.
           | 
           | Haxe is interesting. I remember coming across it back in the
           | days of Flash.
           | 
           | They also had a bytecode VM of their own called Neko.
           | 
           | At the time when I heard of it there were three platforms you
           | could target with Haxe: JavaScript, Flash, and Neko.
           | 
           | It's pretty cool to see that after all these years Haxe is
           | still alive and in use.
        
             | joshtynjala wrote:
             | Haxe can compile to even more targets these days, like C++,
             | JVM, C#, PHP, Lua, etc. It also includes an interpreter to
             | run without compiling, and there's a newer, faster VM for
             | Haxe called HashLink.
        
             | technoooooost wrote:
             | Haxe is a pile of dump with bugged generics, garbage
             | tooling and no community. Unusable for anything bigger than
             | toys.
             | 
             | Had to use it at a gaming startup. Everybody hated it,
             | including the CEO, and we were planning moving to Unity as
             | soon as possible.
        
           | Kiro wrote:
           | Haxe is not that niche and is on the front page a lot:
           | 
           | https://hn.algolia.com/?q=haxe
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | I see, it pops up every few months but most of the time it
             | appears that doesn't get any traction with exception of a
             | few times in the last 10 years. Interesting case, at glance
             | I think it should be getting more love than it has.
        
         | astroalex wrote:
         | Three.js is just a rendering engine -- it wouldn't allow you to
         | create something like this anyway.
         | 
         | Also, I don't believe that the bubble toy is related to their
         | physics engine; it seems like a different type of physics. The
         | engine is focused on 3D collisions, joints, springs, etc.,
         | whereas the bubble toy is simulating thin films.
         | 
         | I wish there was source code for the bubble toy so we could see
         | how it works!
        
           | astroalex wrote:
           | The author just explained the algorithm on Twitter:
           | https://twitter.com/shr_id/status/1589238902325669893
        
           | andai wrote:
           | Might take a little bit of refactoring ;) but
           | https://oimo.io/works/bubbles/main.js
        
       | smusamashah wrote:
       | How do I make big bubbles with this? Because that's what I do
       | with real bubbles, blow them to be as huge as possible. This
       | can't do that.
       | 
       | But bubbles require constant slow airflow, at that pace this does
       | not make any bubble at all.
        
       | astroalex wrote:
       | I absolutely love this and am curious about the technical details
       | behind simulating soap bubbles like this (it looks like the code
       | isn't available). Does anyone know what algorithm is being used?
        
         | rahimnathwani wrote:
         | https://github.com/saharan/OimoPhysics
        
           | astroalex wrote:
           | Their physics engine doesn't seem related to the bubble toy
           | as far as I can tell (although another HN comment implies it
           | is). The physics engine implements 3D collisions between
           | solid objects, joints, springs, etc. But the bubble toy is a
           | different type of physics.
        
         | adamredwoods wrote:
         | Looks like a little bit of Voronoi patterns when the bubbles
         | connect?
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram
        
           | astroalex wrote:
           | Agreed that Voronoi patterns emerge, but I'm not sure that
           | they're using an explicit Voronoi algorithm to achieve that
           | effect. I doubt it.
           | 
           | It's more likely IMO that the Voronoi pattern emerges from
           | the constraints of the simulation.
        
       | varenc wrote:
       | It's a beautiful page! I miss sites like this.
       | 
       | Though strangely, it seems to disable all of my browser keyboard
       | shortcuts. Even basic ones like going back, selecting the address
       | bar, or changing the zoom level. I assume it's just listening for
       | all key events, though I didn't even realize it was possible to
       | override the basic ones.
       | 
       | edit: I found the bug! It has a list that's supposed to contain
       | all possible keycodes, and if all the keys in your shortcut are
       | on it that list it works. But I'm on macOS so my shortcuts all
       | involve the "MetaLeft" or "MetaRight" key and those are missing
       | from the list. Appending those keycodes to the minified array
       | named `ba.G` fixes shortcuts for me!
        
         | sammalloy wrote:
         | I think it's designed for mobile or touch screens. Works
         | perfectly on iPhone, and you need touch for various features.
        
       | michaelhoney wrote:
       | this brings me internet joy, in a time when so much is terrible
        
       | mik09 wrote:
       | after i put the mosue slightly off-center for a minute or two, it
       | produced something like this: https://freeimage.host/i/yhmkaS
        
       | jarek83 wrote:
       | And make sure you put adequate tune for it
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn0sB3CSMbo
        
         | smcl wrote:
         | context - it's an old-skool (Victorian era?) song that has been
         | adopted by West Ham football club, and I guess some fans
         | recorded a version of it here :)
        
       | jaime10 wrote:
       | I was surprised by all the projects on the website. This isn't
       | even the coolest one
        
       | shever73 wrote:
       | Strongly recommend experimenting with this after a bottle of
       | Malbec!
        
       | anyfoo wrote:
       | Voronoi Cells just fascinate me for some weird reason.
        
       | dmix wrote:
       | I spent wayyy too much time playing with this, just trying to
       | understand all the dynamics. What makes the bubbles burst, or
       | merge, or collapse, or partially burst and partially expand a
       | connected bubble.
       | 
       | The impact of the various directions of the fan or pin.
       | 
       | So much variation in such a simple seeming base.
        
         | 3pt14159 wrote:
         | (dmix man long time no see! Let's hang out soon!)
         | 
         | I agree that this is a true work of art. The variation and
         | attention to detail is delightful. I hope more people put
         | together and share stuff like this on HN.
        
       | DavidPiper wrote:
       | While everyone's loving the bubble physics, I just like the
       | attention to detail where if you put the fan _in front_ of the
       | bubble blower facing away from it, it will still blow bubbles in
       | that direction if the air stream would still be drawn through the
       | blower.
        
         | 4gotunameagain wrote:
         | you can move the bubble racket thingy to make huge bubbles as
         | well !
        
         | sh4rks wrote:
         | Also, try moving a bubble behind the fan
        
         | perlgeek wrote:
         | You can also put the fan on top of the bubble blower...
         | probably not very realistic, but a fun edge case :-)
        
       | nikolayasdf123 wrote:
       | beautiful work.
       | 
       | what I like about this is that that air is particle system. and
       | so are bubbles are made of elastic strings. in a sense there is
       | no bubbles here, it is interaction of particles, and bubbles and
       | air wind is emergent property
       | 
       | back back to it
       | 
       | .. making bubble, but not quite
       | 
       | .. spinning a bubble
        
       | camdenlock wrote:
       | Make sure to check out the rest of his site. Amazing. Pay careful
       | attention to the recursive box on the "works" page.
        
       | jdthedisciple wrote:
       | I love the gallery-ception:
       | 
       | https://oimo.io/works
        
         | staindk wrote:
         | Aha I see what you mean - that's great.
         | 
         | ((check out the second-last item in the gallery))
        
       | kevdoran wrote:
       | anyone else make a giant scary bubble to take over the page
        
       | reidjs wrote:
       | There are a bunch of other equally cool physics simulations/games
       | on that website, well done
        
       | BOS134 wrote:
       | Sangat cocok
        
       | est wrote:
       | 12 years have passed since Steve Jobs killed Flash and finally
       | people can make some decent interactive Web animations which
       | correctly works on latest browsers.
        
         | pixl97 wrote:
         | Too bad flash was security cancer on top of browsers that
         | already have enough of their own issues.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | spcebar wrote:
           | There was absolutely nothing that could be done about either
           | of those problems.
        
             | drusepth wrote:
             | I can think of one thing that could be (and was) done. ;)
        
               | blondin wrote:
               | well, is the web a safer place after they did it?
        
         | justinator wrote:
         | I remember some impressive native demos of platform games 12
         | years ago. Did the Flash to HTML5 converter work well? I never
         | migrated my own "masterpieces"
        
         | haxiomic wrote:
         | Funny enough this project is a descendent of the flash lineage
         | - it's written in haxe which first existed as an alternative
         | ActionScript compiler. It's since evolved to be a strong
         | functionally focused language of its own and perfect for
         | writing games and interactives like this and now exports js
         | instead. There's even a project (OpenFL) to preserve the old
         | APIs!.
         | 
         | A good example of how haxe has evolved since AS2, the author
         | (saharan) has written their own shader language _in_ haxe which
         | they've used in this project. Haxe has a compile-time macro
         | engine which you can develop DSLs to improve your workflow
         | https://github.com/saharan/HGSL
        
           | andai wrote:
           | They also wrote one in ActionScript!
           | 
           | https://github.com/saharan/OGSL/blob/master/src/com/element/.
           | ..
        
         | vbezhenar wrote:
         | You could make web animations 15 years ago. I don't know what's
         | so special about flash that people miss in modern web.
        
           | est wrote:
           | > I don't know what's so special about flash
           | 
           | A GUI authoring tool which everybody can learn instead of
           | some insane manual canvas coding.
           | 
           | From tech perspective, it works in my Pentium III computer,
           | and the animation is streamable. Try that with JS?
        
             | vbezhenar wrote:
             | With the abundance of software around I'm pretty sure that
             | the're plenty of GUI authoring tools. According to quick
             | Googling I can see that there's Adobe Animate which is
             | successor of Adobe Flash and it supports HTML5 output.
             | 
             | I don't think that asking from modern software to work on
             | Pentium 3 is reasonable. Software should work on a
             | reasonable percentage of user computers. Pentium 3 is
             | definitely outside of this definition. You didn't ask for
             | Flash to work on 8086, did you? I'd expect it to be a
             | challenge to even run Google Chrome on Pentium 3.
        
       | pigtailgirl wrote:
       | -- fun - also - love authors twitter avatar is dandelion -
       | https://twitter.com/shr_pc - feel like they are in tune with the
       | poetry of physics --
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | > competitive programmings, mainly marathon-styled ones
         | 
         | What kind of competitions is this referring to?
        
           | pigtailgirl wrote:
           | -- they talk a lot about hackathons in their tweets =) --
           | 
           | eg: https://atcoder.jp/contests/ahc016
        
           | gfd wrote:
           | His about page has some of his competitive programming
           | results: https://oimo.io/about
           | 
           | (Sidenote: try dragging the profile pic!)
        
       | unsafecast wrote:
       | I watched it go for like a minute before realizing that I can
       | actually interact! I love this.
        
       | reset2023 wrote:
       | Therapeutic, please make it an app for the apple watch
        
       | noduerme wrote:
       | I love the fluid design on the "works" page as it resizes to the
       | browser. Putting physics into your resize algorithm really shows
       | a lot of care and attention.
       | 
       | Haxe is an awesome project that's been around for ages... I last
       | looked at it as a potential replacement for AIR/AS3 a decade ago
       | but the GPU capabilities weren't there yet with OpenFL. Seems
       | like it's time to take a new look!
        
       | MarketMan123 wrote:
       | Is this supposed to be a visual representation of the crypto
       | market?
        
       | CheeseLovers wrote:
       | If the challenge was to get the pin inside a big cluster of
       | bubbles, then I succeeded.
        
       | ppjim wrote:
       | It seems to me a very interesting and entertaining mechanic that
       | could evolve into a game.
        
         | pigtailgirl wrote:
         | -- bubbles meets Tetris --
        
         | tezza wrote:
         | Bubble Bobble (1986)
         | 
         | https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Bubble_Bobble
        
       | pfoof wrote:
       | The entire website is so cool
        
       | NaturalPhallacy wrote:
       | My experience:
       | 
       | "Wow, neat. I wonder how they did this."
       | 
       |  _tries to right click_ (no context menu appears)
       | 
       |  _hit F12 for developer tools_
       | 
       | "Oh, it's just a solid 173KB of javascript. _No big deal._ "
       | 
       |  _notices the window resize affected the simulation_
       | 
       | "There's now a big blob of bubbles coalescing at the top of my
       | screen. Wow!"
        
       | aunterste wrote:
       | so addicting...
        
       | alismayilov wrote:
       | Some bubbles take much more than expected time to pop up. But
       | eventually, they all pop up.
        
         | justinator wrote:
         | Some bubbles take more
         | 
         | than expected time to pop
         | 
         | But, they will all pop
        
       | nine_k wrote:
       | It's a wonderful thing: a toy, not a game.
       | 
       | A game has a goal. Here you are free to experiment without being
       | led or nudged. In the world of computer-based entertainment, it
       | is refreshing.
        
         | conductr wrote:
         | > it is refreshing
         | 
         | I recommend exploring the top-right link and poking around this
         | person's site. It felt like an old flash website and took me
         | back a couple decades.
        
         | Kerrick wrote:
         | The last time I remember seeing an internet toy was over a
         | decade ago: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/browser-ball
        
           | comprambler wrote:
           | Powdertoy is definitely a toy. https://powdertoy.co.uk/
        
             | anibalin wrote:
             | Woah this is fantastic! thanks for sharing!
        
           | sandreas wrote:
           | There is also https://thisissand.com/ - very good for long
           | telephone conferences :-)
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | This was fun. I kept trying to "throw" the sand and use a
             | forward momentum to the falling sand, but that doesn't
             | work. No matter the speed of the mouse's movement, the
             | falling particles always fall straight down. Otherwise I
             | liked it enough that I am saving it for my next conference
             | call as you've suggested
        
           | sorenjan wrote:
           | I'd count Townscaper as a toy as well.
           | 
           | https://oskarstalberg.com/Townscaper
        
             | rightbyte wrote:
             | Oddly satisfying. I really whish there was a good modern
             | graphic city building games with the scale of Som City 2000
             | or 3000 ...
        
               | pkage wrote:
               | Cities: Skylines might scratch that itch.
        
               | rightbyte wrote:
               | Ye that game with the road mod is really nice.
               | 
               | But it kinda only works for towns.
               | 
               | The "big" buildings feel tiny due to the size limit
               | (3x3?) so you can never get a satisfying city.
        
             | red_admiral wrote:
             | That is lovely.
        
             | robertheadley wrote:
             | I love townscaper.
        
           | frogulis wrote:
           | If we're linking to internet toys, here's a bit of shameless
           | self-promotion. Something I made a little while back:
           | https://frogulis.net/little-bits/eye-on-a-string
        
             | BubbleRings wrote:
             | I like it.
        
           | filoeleven wrote:
           | Soda constructor, circa 2000. Draw things with lines. Make
           | some of them springd. Watch them move around.
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_Constructor
           | 
           | Someone rebuilt it in Javascript. It's not mobile friendly,
           | so I haven't been able to try much with it yet.
           | https://peterfidelman.github.io/constructor/
        
         | dotancohen wrote:
         | Have you tried Kerbal Space Program? My son and I love to just
         | roam around exploring, and trying to build different rockets
         | and airplanes. We're just not interesting in the game, but the
         | exploration is amazing. It is also a terrific learning tool.
        
         | awelxtr wrote:
         | What I like to say to distinguish them is that for something to
         | be a game there must be a lose condition
        
           | Smaug123 wrote:
           | For more on the subject, Mark Rosewater (head designer of
           | Magic: the Gathering):
           | https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/what-
           | game-201...
        
           | groestl wrote:
           | Well, a sandbox game still has game in the name, right?
        
         | nanidin wrote:
         | It reminds me of The Incredible Machine game.
        
         | gala8y wrote:
         | I hate almost all games for this need to advance, earn levels,
         | die and start over, compete and score. One of very few games I
         | played when I was young was Test Drive 4*, where I would simply
         | drive around and play, switching wipers on and off. I liked
         | sports cars games, but I would often go backwards or wonder off
         | the track, if game permitted. Also.. Neverhood. And creative
         | mode in Minecraft.
         | 
         | *) Test Drive 3
        
           | silviot wrote:
           | Have you tried Little Inferno?
        
             | gala8y wrote:
             | Now, that is interesting concept. I will. :)
        
           | beaker52 wrote:
           | I used to do this on Total Drivin' on PS1. There were all
           | sorts of ledges and off-track locations you could get
           | yourself onto if you drove off track in the right way,
           | sometimes even wall driving. Many, many hours.
        
             | gala8y wrote:
             | It's zoning out, letting mind loose. Feels a bit like
             | traveling, too.
             | 
             | I checked how Total Drivin' looked. Have a look at
             | http://dos-scholar.blogspot.com/2011/04/test-drive-iii-
             | passi..., if you want to see TD3.
        
             | jakopo87 wrote:
             | For me was Midtown Madness 2, I used to climb the highest
             | buildind in San Francisco with each vehicle and see how
             | many fall it takes to wreck them.
        
           | daggersandscars wrote:
           | This is one of the allures of Forza Horizon for me. On the
           | surface, it's an MMRPG, with social, collection, crafting,
           | levels, puzzles, competition, et al, all of that can be
           | turned off / ignored as desired.
           | 
           | With those items off, it's a great place to "drive" around,
           | with different climates, seasons, amazing views, etc. Drive a
           | classic convertible along a beachfront road. Explore dirt
           | roads in an SUV during a snow storm.
           | 
           | It's no driving simulator, but it's a pleasant way to get
           | away from the world for a while. If you've got the winter
           | blahs and like driving / scenery, plug your PC or Xbox into
           | the biggest display you have and get away for a while.
        
             | gala8y wrote:
             | Judging from yt videos, amazing graphics and feel. Thx for
             | suggestion.
        
           | RektBoy wrote:
           | Ultima Online (unofficial servers)
        
           | behringer wrote:
           | Try out beam.ng and Microsoft flight simulator.
        
           | jtode wrote:
           | Also a Neverhood fanboy. Respect.
        
           | lioeters wrote:
           | > hate almost all games for this need to advance, earn
           | levels, die and start over, compete and score
           | 
           | One of the only games I've truly enjoyed for a long time is
           | SimCity. I learned this genre is sometimes called "idle
           | games".
           | 
           | > What differentiates idle games from other types of game
           | systems is that they can progress without player input. When
           | players do engage, they tinker with a system, rather than
           | encountering a confrontation that they can win or lose.
           | 
           | > Idle games invites players to participate in the game
           | world, but does not revolve around them. You are,
           | essentially, not a center of the world but a spectator.
           | 
           | On the Design of Idle Games, Katta Spiel et al.
           | https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3311350.3347180 (PDF)
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | Neverhood looks fun! Love the claymation art.
           | 
           | The Neverhood Trailer (1996) - https://youtu.be/OOcWNOxoG6E
        
             | gala8y wrote:
             | > I learned this genre is sometimes called "idle games".
             | 
             | That is very interesting. With "idle games" idea of playing
             | games may be stretched to all different spaces of
             | interacting with the computer/program, touching on
             | learning, relaxation, ideation. Well... food for thought.
             | 
             | > Neverhood looks fun! Love the claymation art.
             | 
             | Neverhood is unique with its aesthetics as it was created
             | with real, huge set made of real clay and cameras recording
             | character walking.
             | 
             | Behind the Scenes - Neverhood and Skullmonkeys [Making of]
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrR3jbgocI4
        
               | lioeters wrote:
               | Cool! I enjoyed watching the making of Neverhood.
               | Fascinating how they created a world from literally a ton
               | and a half of clay, then turned it into interactive
               | entertainment. And how Steven Spielberg was involved,
               | bringing together a team of artists, musicians,
               | programmers, crafts people.
               | 
               | Love the physicality/materiality of clay, like one person
               | said, how it has finger prints. Creatures and their
               | environment all made by hand. I have a feeling, as
               | society becomes more digitized and virtualized, people
               | are missing the tactile sensation of touching real
               | things. It might lead to a revival of interest in hand-
               | made crafts, and material objects made of wood, ceramics,
               | wool..
               | 
               | > With "idle games" idea of playing games may be
               | stretched to all different spaces of interacting with the
               | computer/program, touching on learning, relaxation,
               | ideation.
               | 
               | The paper I linked above has made me curious about the
               | concept of "idle games", and related topics like
               | "gamification" of education, work, and life routines.
               | 
               | I realized, Stardew Valley is a famous example of an idle
               | game without competition, winning or losing. I haven't
               | played it, but I imagine it's a pleasant experience.
               | 
               | https://store.steampowered.com/app/413150/Stardew_Valley/
               | 
               | Found another one, World of Goo.
               | https://store.steampowered.com/app/22000/World_of_Goo/
        
       | XCSme wrote:
       | This one is impressive too: https://oimo.io/works/sandvox/
        
         | Panoramix wrote:
         | That's really impressive
        
       | msie wrote:
       | Person appears to be super-smart.
        
       | 3qz wrote:
        
       | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
       | I love little toys like this.
        
       | odo1242 wrote:
       | Fun fact: if you zoom out a ton, place the bubble machine at the
       | outside edge, and then zoom back in to standard, you get a _crap
       | ton_ of bubbles _very_ quickly
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | How do you zoom?
        
         | odo1242 wrote:
         | You also get completely glitched bubbles, [briefly] self-
         | intersecting bubbles, and bubbles within other bubbles
         | depending on how you position stuff!
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | radiojasper wrote:
       | I can't even trash the fan with my pokey stick.
        
       | scottrogers86 wrote:
       | Fun! Would love to be able to throw the pin.
        
       | acomjean wrote:
       | Remove the spike and the little fan bubbles glom onto on another.
       | Very cool. You can just wave the bubble wand around too...
       | 
       | This is very fun.
        
         | twobitshifter wrote:
         | You can move the fan and the bubbles too
        
         | water-data-dude wrote:
         | Oh nice! I figured out the fan and spike, but for some reason I
         | didn't think to try to wave the want around :)
        
         | SLWW wrote:
         | Nothing truer could have been spoken concerning this
         | masterpiece.
        
       | kibwen wrote:
       | Delightful toys like this are why I love the web. I'd never go
       | through the rigamarole of installing an app to play with this,
       | but I sure will click a link.
        
       | joe5150 wrote:
       | It's really easy to see how big an impact iOS low power mode has
       | in the framerate of something like this.
        
       | proee wrote:
       | These are magical little apps. I've spent a good while looking
       | for these types of projects. It's like coming across a gold
       | nugget. Here is a site I've found with some amazing apps that are
       | really fun to interact with. https://www.abowman.com/
        
       | tsukurimashou wrote:
       | reminds me a lot of the little "games" that were included with
       | wario ware on the nintendo DS
        
       | zelphirkalt wrote:
       | Is anyone aware of a DOS game named Kernreaktor (nuclear reactor)
       | and knows where to find it? Sonetimes its game type is also
       | called "bubbles".
        
         | Nition wrote:
         | I've never heard of it, but it looks like you can download it
         | from here:
         | http://www.kultmags.com/games.php?folder=S2VyblJlYWt0b3I= (link
         | under the screenshots)
        
       | leetbulb wrote:
       | Elegant and surprisingly fun.
        
       | ebbflowgo wrote:
        
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       (page generated 2022-11-12 23:02 UTC)