[HN Gopher] Summer Afternoon - A WebGL Experiment
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Summer Afternoon - A WebGL Experiment
        
       Author : jaden
       Score  : 836 points
       Date   : 2023-01-20 23:41 UTC (23 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com)
        
       | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
       | It's very cool.
       | 
       | However, it crashed my iPad Safari, the first time I ran it
       | (worked the second time, though).
        
       | gl-prod wrote:
       | > threejs, gsap, svelte and houdini mostly @vlucendo
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/vlucendo/status/1615099156451758082
        
       | Wowfunhappy wrote:
       | My Intel i7-4790K is able to run this at 1080p and 30 fps
       | (specifically 60 with drops to 30), on a build of Chromium that
       | has hardware acceleration disabled.
       | 
       | I don't know if this is thanks to the speed of the app or
       | Chromium's software renderer or just (semi-)modern CPUs, but I am
       | super impressed. I had no idea you could do something like this
       | without a GPU!
       | 
       | Edit: Whoops, I lied! I knew something had to be wrong here, so I
       | checked. GPU _Compositing_ is disabled. However, chrome: //gpu
       | reads "WebGL2: Hardware accelerated but at reduced performance"
       | (whatever that means).
       | 
       | When I _fully_ disable hardware acceleration, performance dips to
       | something in the range of 1 fps. So, basically what you 'd
       | expect, and a lot less interesting!
        
         | ilikehurdles wrote:
         | It runs flawlessly smooth on Safari on a MacBook Air with M1!
        
         | losteric wrote:
         | Flawless on Pixel 4 (Firefox)
        
         | ElFitz wrote:
         | It runs quite well on a phone too. Impressive.
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Indeed quite usable on a Nokia 7 Plus from 2018, which
           | doesn't happen always, even though GL ES 3.0 represents 2011
           | GPUs designs.
        
           | nazka wrote:
           | Ya iPhone 7 Plus here, it works perfectly well and is very
           | smooth.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | zengid wrote:
       | This is beautiful, and I think I made a friend in there. Amazing
       | that this works on mobile (safari). Any notes on how it was made?
       | Unity?
        
         | sosodev wrote:
         | Safari got WebGL 2 support not long ago :) the future of web
         | gaming is very bright
        
         | friedman23 wrote:
         | Threejs apparently
        
           | flohofwoe wrote:
           | There's a lot of WASM in GUID-named binary blobs though (most
           | of those have one JS file and one WASM file included, some
           | only a JS file).
           | 
           | Does three.js make heavy use of WASM and bundle them in blobs
           | with GUID names?
           | 
           | PS: yes it appears to be three.js, looking at other three.js
           | demos they also have those blobs with one JS and one WASM
           | file in them. I'm surprised three.js uses so much WASM!
        
             | dm33tri wrote:
             | I think three.js is pure JavaScript, it may be some physics
             | engine that uses WASM (like Rapier)
        
       | spacemaiv wrote:
       | This is beautiful.
       | 
       | Fun challenge: Get on top of the red roof behind the planters.
        
       | bennyp101 wrote:
       | Love how smooth this is, even on a phone! Really well done, not
       | just from a technical point of view, but aesthetically as well.
       | 
       | As I ran through the trees, with the sunlight changing, it
       | brought back some little flashbacks of me doing exactly that when
       | I was that height! Very cool!
        
       | JudithNorah wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | hem777 wrote:
       | This is beautiful!
       | 
       | I wanted to talk with the other kids, I wanted to go over that
       | hill. I wanted to feel the end of the day and the sunset. I feel
       | the sea is somewhere near.
        
       | picklelo wrote:
       | This is awesome the graphics are very relaxing
        
       | misterti wrote:
       | Runs smoothly on Galaxy S8
        
       | Mikeb85 wrote:
       | Runs very nicely on Android Chrome. Also nice controls. Floating
       | joystick and tap anywhere to jump.
       | 
       | And nice art style. It has good vibes for sure.
        
       | Topgamer7 wrote:
       | I'm just stuck in the floor on firefox and can't do anything
        
         | diimdeep wrote:
         | Same, but works in private(no extensions) mode
        
         | teraflop wrote:
         | I had the same issue when I tried at first (on Firefox), but I
         | waited a while and when I tried again, it worked correctly and
         | gave me a controllable character. Not sure if something failed
         | to load the first time or what.
        
           | Crespyl wrote:
           | I was a little surprised, but it also worked fine on FF
           | mobile, after ~15-20 seconds loading.
        
       | posterboy wrote:
       | This is nice vut not impressuve. We have had Quake Live on the
       | browser years ago.
        
         | parasti wrote:
         | Quake Live was a browser plugin that you had to install to play
         | the game. This game is built with web APIs, and runs on any
         | device that has a WebGL-capable browser. It's a zero-install,
         | no-setup, click-to-play game in the literal sense, without any
         | marketing hype.
        
       | kibwen wrote:
       | I saw a distant figure running straight towards me through the
       | woods and thought this might be one of those secret horror games,
       | until I realized it was multiplayer. :P
        
         | ge96 wrote:
         | yeah I thought it was a hint lol, cool
         | 
         | had to watch the motions to realize it wasn't scripted
        
       | EarthLaunch wrote:
       | I looove this. I agree with the other commenters that this has a
       | special feeling. And that the future for web games is bright.
       | (For as long as Google is spearheading features with Chrome.)
       | 
       | I guarantee this game wasn't built with Unity: 1) Unity bad for
       | building WebGL games. It does multiple conversions to make a
       | WebGL build. Unity offers live editing in its application, but
       | that doesn't apply to web; whereas modern threejs/babylonjs
       | systems offer hot reloads. 2) And Unity is just unpleasant and
       | bloated generally, for the last few years.
       | 
       | Plug for my game[0] if someone wants to see another WebGL
       | experiment (that I devoted 10 years to...better not to ask lol).
       | PS - WebGL supports WebXR, I've been in my world in VR!
       | 
       | 0: earth.suncapped.com
        
         | skocznymroczny wrote:
         | > Unity offers live editing in its application, but that
         | doesn't apply to web; whereas modern threejs/babylonjs systems
         | offer hot reloads.
         | 
         | It doesn't have to. The idea is that you'll develop the game as
         | a desktop target, with all goodness such as live editing, and
         | then just export the game to WebGL as a final step.
        
         | anand wrote:
         | Agree that close to the metal threeJS gets you best performance
         | but don't sleep on Unity WebGL.
         | 
         | They announced at their Unite conference a few months ago they
         | were gonna add proper mobile support for it. Nice to see them
         | investing.
         | 
         | Also shameless plug for [https://spatial.io]. With Unity's URP
         | we can get near AAA visual quality in the browser. Plus hosted
         | multiplayer, chat, native web/mobile/vr apps, etc.
         | 
         | The future is bright for web and no install! And with App
         | Store's 30% cut the economic winds are at our back!
         | 
         | [https://spatial.io/toolkit]
        
           | moron4hire wrote:
           | They've been saying they'll improve the WebGL experience for
           | as long as I can remember.
        
         | adastra22 wrote:
         | If you like this, you should probably try out Alba.
        
           | khobragade wrote:
           | Looks wonderful https://www.albawildlife.com/
        
           | TomK32 wrote:
           | My 7-yr-old just played through it again. On the first run I
           | asked her to read out all text loud, you know, calling it
           | educational for a second-year reader :-)
        
         | mertens wrote:
         | So happy to read in a top comment on HN that the future for web
         | games is bright :-) We've been betting on it for a while[0] and
         | it should only get better with WebGPU.
         | 
         | Unity has issues indeed, unfortunately. The developer
         | experience is shit. If you want to mitigate the user
         | experience, you can use our open-source optimization package:
         | https://github.com/CrazyGamesCom/unity-optimizations-package
         | (feedback welcome!)
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.crazygames.com/
        
           | fulafel wrote:
           | WebGL2 has just recently become production quality on all
           | browsers, take all the WebGPU talk with a pinch of salt if
           | you're interested shipping sometihng in the next few years.
           | 
           | (Practically, both are low level APIs and you'll probably be
           | using something that can reasonably easily switch between
           | WebGL2 and possible future WebGPU backends once they finish
           | the spec and implementations start shipping and stabilizing
           | and waiting for Safari)
        
             | paulgb wrote:
             | If you look at it from the perspective of "when will I be
             | able to support 99% of users", it will absolutely take a
             | few years, but from the perspective of "when will a WebGPU
             | game have distribution to more people than a Steam game",
             | it could be a lot sooner. Gamers generally aren't the same
             | people stuck on enterprise-pinned old browser versions, so
             | once Chrome + Firefox have support the chances of someone
             | in the target audience for a 3D game having a WebGPU-
             | supporting browser on their system are pretty high.
             | 
             | (I'm assuming you're talking about distribution rather than
             | tooling, but I acknowledge the tooling will take a few
             | years to catch up.)
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | svantana wrote:
         | > I guarantee this game wasn't built with Unity
         | 
         | It looks like you're right - the announcement tweet credits
         | threejs and houdini [1]. I measured 13MB downloaded, of which
         | most are fairly bloated "assets" (here's a 3MB blurry png, for
         | some reason [2]), so the "engine" itself looks to be less than
         | 1MB.
         | 
         | [1] https://twitter.com/vlucendo/status/1614983883866390530 [2]
         | https://summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com/assets/images/clouds_t...
        
           | throwbadubadu wrote:
           | > here's a 3MB blurry png, for some reason [2])
           | 
           | That blurry png may be the terrain, height map?
        
             | kqr wrote:
             | The filename says "clouds" but either way, whatever it's
             | used for, the information in it really doesn't need 3 MB of
             | pixels.
        
         | smooth__ wrote:
         | I'll plug mine too, it's got multiplayer/deathmatch etc, and I
         | recently fixed multitouch and a lot of WebGL performance
         | issues.
         | 
         | I can concur with other comments in this thread that there is
         | something strange going on with iOS and WebGL. Just checking
         | now though, and it does seem to run a little better after the
         | iOS 16 update.
         | 
         | https://spectre3d.com/web-alpha/
        
         | jimmySixDOF wrote:
         | WebXR is going to take off behind these advances in WebGL like
         | WebGPU is supported on Chromium 113 in the next few months and
         | there are claims of 3x and higher perf. Its big draw card is
         | supporting desktop/mobile/XR all at the same time so if you can
         | work within its limits then definitely the way to go however
         | you choose to get there (Unity or Three/Babylon or Wonderland
         | or xyz).
        
       | mwidell wrote:
       | The incredible smoothness / high framerate is so soothing :)
        
       | LoganDark wrote:
       | > Seems like WebGL2 is not supported by you browser Please update
       | it to access the experience.
       | 
       | This.. is incorrect. If I go to chrome://gpu (I'm using Chrome on
       | Windows!) it says "WebGL2: Hardware accelerated". I have an RTX
       | 3060. There is no reason this shouldn't work.
       | 
       | There's no error in the console for me to go off of, and the
       | source code is packed/obfuscated, so I can't tell what the
       | problem is. I can't tell if it's pre-emptively refusing to run
       | because I'm not on a whitelist, or running into some sort of
       | error.
        
         | qxxx wrote:
         | it works for me, I also have RTX 3060, if I open chrome://gpu I
         | see this:
         | 
         | Canvas: Hardware accelerated Canvas out-of-process
         | rasterization: Disabled Direct Rendering Display Compositor:
         | Disabled Compositing: Hardware accelerated Multiple Raster
         | Threads: Enabled OpenGL: Enabled Rasterization: Hardware
         | accelerated Raw Draw: Disabled Video Decode: Hardware
         | accelerated Video Encode: Hardware accelerated Vulkan: Disabled
         | WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Hardware accelerated
         | WebGPU: Hardware accelerated
        
       | whatgoodisaroad wrote:
       | This is clearly much more impressive technically since it runs
       | seamlessly on my browser, but visually and tonally it reminds me
       | of a peaceful game called Alba that I played recently.
        
       | souvlakee wrote:
       | First webgl without lags.
        
       | chmod775 wrote:
       | That we could only communicate with each other by excitedly
       | jumping around - and still managed to explore together - reminded
       | me of childhood memories playing with other kids in Sweden as a
       | tourist who didn't speak their language.
        
         | kqr wrote:
         | Vaguely reminds me of https://tale-of-
         | tales.com/TheEndlessForest/index.html which had a similar idea.
        
         | somesortofsystm wrote:
         | I too have such memories, and even the colour scheme aligns
         | with my memories of Stockholm in the summer .. javla sjuit
         | bolla ..
        
       | pkdpic wrote:
       | Seriously beautiful, well done.
        
       | mr_woozy wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | dusted wrote:
       | That was a lovely experience, I didn't spend too long find the
       | secrets :)
        
       | cdaringe wrote:
       | I enjoyed finding the secrets. My gf said "this person gets up"
       | after finding a specific "rocky" secret
        
         | throw_a_grenade wrote:
         | _[SPOILER AHEAD]_ On mobile it 's very hard. You can't jump and
         | go forward at the same time, and there's radius when you turn,
         | so precise positioning is fiddly.
        
           | bschwindHN wrote:
           | Gotta put that second finger to use while you're running
           | forward!
        
             | throw_a_grenade wrote:
             | Didn't work, I've checked.
        
               | bschwindHN wrote:
               | Huh, works for me in mobile safari on a 2016 iPhone SE.
        
       | hestefisk wrote:
       | Very very cool!
        
       | nemo44x wrote:
       | Yeah it's great. Mix this kind of thing with the advances in AI
       | and we are seeing the beginning of our next tech bull market.
        
       | myth_drannon wrote:
       | Looks better than Meta's metaverse.
        
         | trowt wrote:
         | "Stop chatting and start buying things!"
        
         | troymc wrote:
         | Yeah, the characters have _legs_!
        
           | andybak wrote:
           | If I implemented avatars in social VR I would also avoid
           | legs. No legs is better than bad legs and good legs is very
           | hard to achieve.
           | 
           | So the "no legs" thing is the correct design decision in many
           | cases.
        
             | andsoitis wrote:
             | > No legs is better than bad legs and good legs is very
             | hard to achieve.
             | 
             | What do you think of the leg quality in this game?
        
               | andybak wrote:
               | That's an entirely different problem to the one faced
               | with VR avatars. You can make in leg position. With VR
               | avatars, you're trying to infer leg movement to the head
               | and hands movement of a human in 3d space.
        
         | robotburrito wrote:
         | It does, I love the peaceful vibe it has. But to be fair this
         | is conveying a lot less information about the individual
         | players than Meta does. A "metaverse" is much harder problem
         | than people imagine.
        
           | jojobas wrote:
           | It's a non-problem that's very hard to solve indeed.
        
           | NemoNobody wrote:
           | Kids in Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft have all built a
           | better metaverse than Zuck.
           | 
           | I've had more fun playing super basic Roblox games with my
           | nephews than I can imagine myself ever having with meta.
           | 
           | Zuck's metaverse feels like the Doctors Office equivalent of
           | a nightclub.
        
           | tiborsaas wrote:
           | > A "metaverse" is much harder problem than people imagine.
           | 
           | I agree that it's complex, but probably not that complex not
           | to have legs :)
        
       | throw101010 wrote:
       | I love the color palette and music, really relaxing and it was a
       | nice surprise to see it is multiplayer
       | 
       | Works really well on Firefox for Android too!
        
         | BuckyBeaver wrote:
         | Works great on desktop Safari, too!
        
         | ryandrake wrote:
         | No sound or music for me on mobile Safari (iPhone) but
         | rendering is smooth.
        
           | jurmous wrote:
           | I had music on my iPhone in mobile Safari. But the ringer
           | switch had to be on and I had to press the top right sound
           | button.
        
             | hamburglar wrote:
             | I had sound on iPhone until I unplugged my headphones, then
             | I couldn't figure out how to turn it back on.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | karlshea wrote:
       | This is the cutest thing ever
        
       | jamestimmins wrote:
       | Really lovely. Reminds me of the Studio Ghibli films.
        
       | ajnin wrote:
       | Firefox developer edition, Linux - I can't give any input. Moving
       | the mouse pointer moves the camera POV slightly, so that it can
       | end up below the ground, but apart from that no keys or clicks
       | are registered.
        
       | anotheryou wrote:
       | Super cute.
       | 
       | In my firefox I can only jump once though -_-. Clicking out- and
       | inside again let's me do another hop.
        
       | surfpel wrote:
       | This has a very similar feel to games from thatgamecompany* who
       | made Journey and Flower.
       | 
       | Love it!
       | 
       | * - https://thatgamecompany.com/
        
       | NemoNobody wrote:
       | This is great - so simple but I played for awhile. Love the Straw
       | Hat
       | 
       | I was just checking this on my PH-1 from 2017 and it played very
       | well. I was running around for a bit before I realized how
       | amazing that was.
       | 
       | Ran it right from HN
        
       | 20after4 wrote:
       | Very nicely done. I really like the stylized graphics and
       | performance seems pretty good.
        
       | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | schaefer wrote:
       | I'd love to learn more about the tooling used to make this.
        
       | hrkucuk wrote:
       | Very soothing somehow. It is interesting to see other players
       | around as well. I wish I could send twitter-like shout messages.
       | 
       | I found the sloth secret literally by mistake, that one was
       | pretty difficult
        
         | agolio wrote:
         | I am guessing they are not other players live but probably
         | recordings of older sessions, I did try to follow a few people
         | and jump around to communicate but couldn't verify any
         | response... quite a beautiful project in any case
        
           | zengid wrote:
           | Someone followed me and we jumped together!
        
             | yungbeto wrote:
             | If this was preceded by running in circles on the beach
             | that may have been me :)
        
               | zengid wrote:
               | I think it was in the woods!
        
             | untech wrote:
             | If you played during the last 10 minutes or so, it might've
             | been me!
        
               | zengid wrote:
               | If it was then thanks for the fun!
        
       | uni_baconcat wrote:
       | This is impressive!
        
       | lairv wrote:
       | After 15 minutes of trying I managed to reach the roof of the
       | house you can climb, and managed to take a cool screenshot :)
       | https://imgur.com/Vq8i8Yz
       | 
       | Underrated thing that I haven't seen mentioned is how great the
       | gameplay is, I was able to play without a mouse using only arrows
       | and space bar, and the camera never felt clunky, which is rare
       | for a 3d game. Haven't tried on mobile though
        
         | dodslaser wrote:
         | Neat. I got up there too, and after a while someone noticed me
         | and climbed it too.
         | 
         | Also, if you jump onto the clothes rack thing on the same
         | building and go as far towards the road as you can you will get
         | stuck in the falling animation.
        
           | lairv wrote:
           | Haha yeah I also noticed this thing with the clothes rack
        
         | Sharlin wrote:
         | It works pretty great on mobile too!
        
       | FailMore wrote:
       | Bravo!!
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | porbelm wrote:
       | Oh my, WebGL has come a long way since the late '90s
       | 
       | I think I mean VRML but you know that don't you, you old farts
       | you
        
         | moralestapia wrote:
         | Hehe, you're one of those "Senior WebGL developers with 30
         | years of experience".
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | WebGL is stuck in 2011 hardware capabilities.
         | 
         | What matters is what people are able to do with its features,
         | basically something like a PlayStation 3.
         | 
         | By the way, I might have some VRML book lost somewhere on my
         | university boxes.
        
           | flohofwoe wrote:
           | AAA games are way deep into diminishing returns for the last
           | 10 years when it comes to rendering. A 2010 game with good
           | art style can still look great if you run it on a high
           | resolution display, while other games with much more
           | impressive 2010-era rendering technology but poor art style
           | have aged badly.
           | 
           | It makes little sense to reduce the quality of games to their
           | rendering technology and 3D API of choice.
        
             | bcrosby95 wrote:
             | I unironically prefer Valheim's graphics to any AAA game
             | I've played. The scenes it sets are just perfect. I really
             | enjoy the art style in the OP too.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Looking at its 3D requirements I doubt it would be
               | playable in WebGL 2.0.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | Except I am yet to see any Web based game with PlayStation
             | 3 like graphics, or to make it even more clear, Infinity
             | Blade.
             | 
             | After a decade of WebGL existence.
        
               | brown wrote:
               | I think that's more about asset sizes and loading times
               | than rendering capabilities.
        
       | lonk wrote:
       | Where is the fifth secret?
        
         | ikt wrote:
         | you found the cats that you have to jump up the rocks next to
         | the house to get to?
        
       | c_s_guy wrote:
       | Secret hints:
       | 
       | 1. Animal on roof
       | 
       | 2. Animal on tree
       | 
       | 3. Large object in trees
       | 
       | 4. Beach goer
       | 
       | 5. Small wooden fence room
        
         | zxcvbn4038 wrote:
         | Animal on tree has me stuimped, I think I'm looking for a sloth
         | someplace but not seeing it.
        
           | genezeta wrote:
           | The sloth is fairly small compared to some other secrets.
           | It's also the same colour of the tree's trunk so it's kind of
           | hard to see for afar.
        
             | genezeta wrote:
             | s/for/from
        
         | neophyt3 wrote:
         | Sloth cats alien ufo some alien objects
        
           | jq-r wrote:
           | Those alien objects are actually objects from a Zelda game.
        
         | linsomniac wrote:
         | Thanks for the hints, animal on the roof had me stumped.
        
         | spuz wrote:
         | I couldn't find the animal on the roof until I saw another
         | player and thought "how did they get up there?". Great example
         | of how being multiplayer improves the experience.
        
       | ohthatsnotright wrote:
       | I was so hoping when I hopped from the railing by the cats to the
       | roof I found a secret :(
        
       | ozten wrote:
       | Very cool experience!
       | 
       | Firefox. Not sure how to select my audio out device. I think it
       | used the wrong one.
        
       | FpUser wrote:
       | Beautiful graphics.
        
       | ElFitz wrote:
       | I wonder.
       | 
       | Since this runs in the browser, does it mean that we could
       | dynamically use different assets based on device and bandwidth?
       | 
       | Or start with lower res assets and progressively get better ones,
       | like jpeg progressive downloads?
        
         | greggman3 wrote:
         | Of course, why not?
        
           | ElFitz wrote:
           | Neat!
           | 
           | I've never done any WebGL so far, hence the question. I'm
           | even more interested now.
           | 
           | Thanks!
        
         | nirui wrote:
         | Don't stop there. You can also dynamically update the game
         | program by sending WASM/JavaScripts via WebSocket/WebTransport.
         | 
         | WebGL games will have a bright future.
         | 
         | Also, this game is very well designed, I found all 5 secrets
         | and I loved the process :)
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | No they won't, as native and streaming provide much better
           | tooling and access to modern hardware features.
           | 
           | All Flash indie games moved away from the browser, and don't
           | have any reason to come back.
           | 
           | Examples like this one are the exception.
        
             | chongli wrote:
             | Yeah. There were so many great indie flash games on sites
             | like Newgrounds. Quite sad that it's all gone away. I wish
             | flash had been open-sourced rather than just killed off.
        
             | nirui wrote:
             | A good developer knows how to utilize the features provided
             | by the tools while endure it's limitations.
             | 
             | Tooling grow as the ecosystem grow, and modern hardware
             | features don't necessarily give you a good game. There are
             | many good games out there don't rely on modern hardware,
             | and yet they are still fun to play.
             | 
             | It eventually comes down to how smart the developers are,
             | not how many modern features gets utilized.
             | 
             | Plus, with help of game engines, a game can run on multiple
             | platforms, including both native and WebGL. Some company
             | might be interested in expanding into this territory.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | That is why retrogaming is taking over the games
               | industry.
        
       | 123pie123 wrote:
       | this is great
       | 
       | the ability to send a message to other players would awesome
        
         | andai wrote:
         | Jump in morse code :)
        
           | neatze wrote:
           | --. .-. . .- - / .. -.. . .- --..-- / -... ..- - / -.. ---
           | ..- -... - / .- -. -.-- / --- -. . / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / ..-
           | -. -.. . .-. ... - .- -. -.. .-.-.-
        
       | cush wrote:
       | This is delightful. So smooth on ios safari
        
       | intrasight wrote:
       | Has the seeds of a place that I'd like to keep visiting. I've
       | already returned twice. First time I visited, I started posting
       | here interesting things I found. But then realized these are
       | secrets that visitors should stumble upon on their own so I
       | deleted those comments.
       | 
       | Grow this into a more interesting place and many will come and
       | visit. Or buy beachfront.
        
       | peteforde wrote:
       | Is the code posted for this?
        
       | ge96 wrote:
       | Wow that's great. Nice color palette. Ran on Android Chrome
        
       | kylehotchkiss wrote:
       | Really cool experiment. Runs remarkably well on Safari on M2 Air.
        
       | adenozine wrote:
       | Insanely cool demo. I'm amazed I can open this and it run at
       | 60fps within a ~~second~~ on my iPhone. Crazy the power that I
       | have with it, when it spends most of its time in my pocket or
       | playing music.
       | 
       | I wish we could show some of the early computer engineers some of
       | this kind of thing.
        
         | karlshea wrote:
         | > I wish we could show some of the early computer engineers
         | some of this kind of thing.
         | 
         | I often fantasize about this, just knowing even what 10-year-
         | old me would have thought about it.
        
           | Antrikshy wrote:
           | The 80s is the perfect sweet spot for my go-back-in-time-and-
           | share-modern-tech fantasies. It's recent enough for people to
           | know about computers but just barely enough that they'd be
           | absolutely blown away.
        
         | bjelkeman-again wrote:
         | It crashed the browser or the os on my iPad. I was back to
         | login screen.
        
         | arendtio wrote:
         | They would be amazed by what is possible and appalled by the
         | things we do with all that power.
        
         | n1b0m wrote:
         | I'm curious, how can you tell it runs at 60fps? Is there some
         | debugging that can be turned on?
        
         | slim wrote:
         | most of early computer engineers are alive and doing well
        
       | modal-soul wrote:
       | I made friends with someone else who kept circling around. The
       | look of it reminds me of Boku no Natsuyasumi.
        
       | gpderetta wrote:
       | Very beautiful art style (that matches the evocative title) and
       | works wonderfully on my potato of a phone.
       | 
       | Please make something out if this .
        
         | robga wrote:
         | The art style reminded me instantly of Alba: A Wildlife Game,
         | available on most platforms.
        
       | monkeydust wrote:
       | Really nice.
       | 
       | Find it interesting this was posted on HN 4 days ago with no
       | comments now it's top at time of writing. I guess talks to merit
       | of allowing reposts as I would have missed this.
        
         | kqr wrote:
         | It may well have entered the second chance pool, rather than
         | been reposted.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | Perhaps it's try to recreate this in WebGL
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j4gO9sR7zs
        
       | antegamisou wrote:
       | This is beautiful!
       | 
       | Sprinting is a bit too slow though.
        
       | tunnuz wrote:
       | What a lovely atmosphere <3 this is beautiful.
        
       | meling wrote:
       | Crashed both Safari and Chrome on iPad Pro 3rd gen :(
        
         | r2vcap wrote:
         | Webkit is the only browser engine allowed on iOS. Chrome and
         | Firefox use the same engine as Safari, so blame Safari and
         | Apple. Apple doesn't want browsers to be as powerful as native
         | apps on iOS.
        
       | hi_hello wrote:
       | Wonderfully rendered, in all senses
        
       | fruit2020 wrote:
       | Can anyone recommend some chill games like this one, seems like
       | an ok game for a kid to play. I remember the adventure game from
       | the 90s where I was playing a little dog.
        
         | Matumio wrote:
         | Townscaper is pretty chill:
         | https://oskarstalberg.com/Townscaper/
        
         | rbits wrote:
         | This kinda reminded me of A Short Hike. It's a great game
        
         | larschdk wrote:
         | A short hike. Alba: a wildlife adventure. Alpaca Stacka (free).
        
         | Macuyiko wrote:
         | Just played through Lil Gator Game with my 3.5y old and she
         | loved it.
        
         | jaeh wrote:
         | sky is wonderful:
         | 
         | ios: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sky-children-of-the-
         | light/id14...
         | 
         | android:
         | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tgc.sky.an...
        
         | 5- wrote:
         | collating some other replies and adding my own recommendations:
         | 
         | more exploratory:
         | 
         | https://www.albawildlife.com/
         | 
         | https://annapurnainteractive.com/en/games/journey
         | 
         | https://curvegames.com/our-games/proteus/
         | 
         | https://www.thatskygame.com/
         | 
         | https://ashorthike.com/
         | 
         | more arcady:
         | 
         | http://sunbreakgames.com/projects/buddy-and-me/
         | 
         | https://www.myabandonware.com/game/tigger-s-honey-hunt-e7m
        
         | BananaaRepublik wrote:
         | "Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation" is a
         | relatively new game on steam and switch. And of course the
         | major slice of life games like stardew valley, animal crossing,
         | harvest moon, rune factory etc. The Japanese quite like these
         | stuff.
        
         | rvba wrote:
         | "Where is my water" is really nice, although something else
        
         | TrackerFF wrote:
         | As far as graphic and feel goes, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind
         | Waker maybe?
        
           | sh4rks wrote:
           | Wind Waker is nice, but it has a lot of sailing. Breath of
           | the Wild would be a better game if you prefer walking/horse
           | riding.
        
       | nxpnsv wrote:
       | My iphone 11 runs this super smooth... even the touch ui is good,
       | i love it!
        
       | bungil wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | hem777 wrote:
         | No it wouldn't.
        
       | nojs wrote:
       | This is magic, and works beautifully on my phone!
        
       | honkler wrote:
       | I saw another player perhaps (with the same hat and clothes as
       | mine). is this a multiplayer thing?
        
         | Sateeshm wrote:
         | I think it is. I saw 5 people.
        
       | superpope99 wrote:
       | Love this.
       | 
       | Reminds me of "Short Trip"
       | https://alexanderperrin.com.au/paper/shorttrip/
       | 
       | HN Discussion from 2017 - posted as "Scenic Tram Ride"
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15324954
        
       | bbbobbb wrote:
       | Opening this in Brave on an iPad immediately crashed and rebooted
       | the device. I don't think that has ever happened to it.
        
         | kevincox wrote:
         | Might want to reach out to a security researcher. It could be
         | an exploitable bug.
        
           | fulafel wrote:
           | Safari also has a bug bounty program so this could be worth
           | $$. At least on the Chrome blog WebGL bugs regularly net
           | people bounties.
           | 
           | (Example:
           | https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2022/08/stable-
           | channel... - the bountied ANGLE and SwiftShader bugs are
           | WebGL. You don't need to craft exploits at least in Chrome's
           | program, just demo crashes that look concerning)
        
         | numlock86 wrote:
         | An iOS device crashing and rebooting because of something you
         | open in your browser? Now that's something completely new and
         | unheard of. /s
        
           | omeid2 wrote:
           | It is indeed very rare. Can you please explain the sarcasm
           | with some examples?
        
         | speleding wrote:
         | Can confirm, opening it in Safari on iPad consistently crashes
         | the device too.
        
       | kmos17 wrote:
       | wonderful! such elegant simplicity of design and crazy that this
       | can load so fast on a mobile phone browser and is multiplayer
       | too! works flawlessly on firefox on ios Found the ufo :)
        
       | bluSCALE4 wrote:
       | This was pretty nice. Went into it blindly, figured it out, then
       | helped someone else find a few things. Felt kinda like a kid for
       | a few minutes.
        
         | Seb-C wrote:
         | Nice, I just followed someone and it helped me find a statue in
         | some kind of ruins. I wonder if it was you :)
        
       | None4U wrote:
       | This feels a lot like Alba
        
       | jaden wrote:
       | I'm amazed how well it works on mobile. So smooth!
        
         | epolanski wrote:
         | Don't be surprised at how powerful modern mobile devices are.
        
           | dorkwood wrote:
           | There are a lot of WebGL sites that don't run nearly as good
           | as this one. It's not just the device!
        
           | NemoNobody wrote:
           | My 2017 PH-1 running vanilla Android 9 played this without a
           | single issue. Not only new phones - feels future to me
        
           | gofreddygo wrote:
           | I am surprised especially in contrast to many other "native"
           | apps on my powerful device.
        
       | lampe3 wrote:
       | This is how the new Pokemon games should have looked like :D
       | 
       | I really like the art style!
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | foobarbecue wrote:
       | Is this multiplayer? Or are the other "people" NPCs?
       | 
       | Edit: wow, multiplayer.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-21 23:01 UTC)