[HN Gopher] Show HN: Balancing game for the mobile browser with ...
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Show HN: Balancing game for the mobile browser with increasing
difficulty
I made this 10 level Game. Excited for people to try it. :) Stay
Balanced :)
Author : nargaw
Score : 245 points
Date : 2024-04-23 10:22 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.balanc3dgame.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.balanc3dgame.com)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Very cool! An issue I immediately had is that it seems to be
| coded for a horizontal plane being zero. This means I must hold
| my phone looking down at it, which isn't how I want to hold my
| phone.
|
| One idea is to sample orientation for a little bit at start, then
| consider the average to be zero. Then have a button that zeroes
| motion to whatever it currently is as a backup.
|
| That way I can play your game without getting up from bed just
| yet.
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| My neutral position is tilting away from me, even. Not ideal
| but fun game either way. Reminds me of Oxyd:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyd (I've only played the
| nineties mac version)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Oxyd was core to my childhood gaming as a Mac-only household.
| Theres a free version called Enigma that has the Oxyd levels
| by the way!
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| http://www.nongnu.org/enigma/
| spuz wrote:
| I feel like that would make intuitively finding the zero point
| hard. At least with the zero point being horizontal, all you
| need to do is look at the world around you and see which way
| things fall.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| You can always have a "bubble level" showing you the
| orientation. Anything is better than requiring a player to
| orient themselves very specifically to play at all.
| maremmano wrote:
| I'm unable to go forward. I'm using arrow keys.
| bitdivision wrote:
| It's accelerometer based, though arrow keys do seem to work for
| me on Chrome / Linux
| paranoidxprod wrote:
| Arrow keys also seem to work on Firefox 126 Beta / Linux for
| me
| dotancohen wrote:
| Yeah, the arrow keys also work on IE4 in Win98. No
| accelerometer though.
| ttrrooppeerr wrote:
| Worked for me using A/S/D/F
| kosolam wrote:
| Nice. How did you build it?
| skilled wrote:
| Looks to be React with Three.js. No GitHub repo but source can
| be seen using dev tools.
| andai wrote:
| Three.js games run fine on my old phone. Even with physics!
| Buttery smooth.
|
| React games however (even 2D ones) are a slideshow.
| udev4096 wrote:
| Finished all levels without falling at once. Great game!
| tromp wrote:
| I lost a bunch of times on level 7 and then was sent back to
| level 1. Is there a way to avoid redoing completed levels?
| otteromkram wrote:
| Get better, then you won't have to redo any of them ;-)
| risenshinetech wrote:
| This is what we like to call a "skill issue".
| luplex wrote:
| Didn't work on Brave on Android, but it did work on Chrome :)
|
| Kind of fun
| logrot wrote:
| And Firefox
| hanniabu wrote:
| I'm on chrome on android and it's not working for me.
|
| I see 3 dots on the left, a 1 on the right, but nothing seems
| to happen when clicking/swiping
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| You have to tilt your phone.
| JohnSSS1978 wrote:
| Very cool game!
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| having only 3 lives for all levels is a bad idea imo
|
| Gave up once it started again from scratch, its not fun just re-
| doing all the levels to try again
| bogtog wrote:
| The fear of needing to start all over adds a lot of suspense,
| which is cool
| risenshinetech wrote:
| So to clarify:
|
| With infinite lives, it would have guaranteed you made it to
| the end, at which point you would stop playing anyway.
|
| So in both cases you stop playing, but at least in one of the
| cases the game remains hard for people who like a challenge.
| Win win!
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Modern game design would suggest it's better to simply put a
| death tracker for those who want a challenge rather than
| impose tedium on those who just want to play the game
| casually
|
| "Stop playing" is not a meaningful metric
| latexr wrote:
| A win win would be if both types of people were happy, but
| the status quo frustrates one of them. It's only a win if you
| stop playing because you're satisfied, not because you're
| annoyed. Games are supposed to be fun.
|
| Plenty of games have a "zen mode" or "story mode" or
| "explorer mode" or any other kind of name to enable an option
| where're you're not severely punished by mistakes. Better
| yet, they usually allow you to switch modes mid-game. Which
| means you can progress at your own pace and appreciate
| everything without getting stuck and rage quitting.
|
| Anecdotally, even if I never turn those modes on I find that
| the games who have them tend to be more fun and better
| designed in terms of difficulty progression. Examples include
| Celeste and Cross Code.
|
| For this game, such a mode would even allow someone to see
| all the levels or practice in one where they're stuck and
| then try again with lives turned on. _That_ would be a win
| win.
| logrot wrote:
| I like it!
|
| Unsolicited improvement suggestion: When I finish a level, let me
| see how well I did compared to others.
| developer1000 wrote:
| very good idea
| wanttosheeddp wrote:
| I did it with arrow keys on desktop. Got lost 2 lives at level 9
| and got frustrated so I hit full throttle ahead and basically
| bounced over all of the gaps. Then on mobile got to level 5.
| Cool! Thanks!
| recursive wrote:
| Arrow keys! Thank you! I could not figure out how to do
| anything.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| this has the feel of an old game called Ballance ... it was
| amazing and begging for level editor.
|
| Amazing job.
| cuechan wrote:
| When you put Smartphone upside down, the ball will fall up
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wonder what could be done with a Super Mario Maker style
| community of people who make obscenely difficult maps. I guess
| maps where you have to hover the ball by rapidly flipping the
| phone would be just the start.
| 2dvisio wrote:
| Came here to say the same. Also one can combine that with
| extreme tilts to accelerate massively and win easily
| oxcabe wrote:
| Cool game!
|
| Level 9 made me realize there's some inner dread deep within me
| when it's about playing web-based games with mazes.
|
| Especially for those where you can fall off the path.
| M4v3R wrote:
| One of the first big games on the original iPhone after the App
| Store was shipped was "super Monkey Ball", a port of a popular
| console franchise. It was basically this but with fancier
| graphics, many more levels and mechanics and cute characters. I
| remember being amazed how well it worked with the phone's
| accelerometer and how good it looked back then. Hard to believe
| that was ~15 years ago already.
|
| [0]
| https://supermonkeyball.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Monkey_Ball_(i...
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| If you liked monkey ball you may like Marble Blast, it even
| runs on web https://github.com/RandomityGuy/MBHaxe?tab=readme-
| ov-file
| joshstrange wrote:
| It doesn't have a privation aspect but if you like games like
| this you might want to check out "Road to Ballhala" [0]. I
| haven't completed it yet but I've been enjoying it quite a bit.
| The "dialog" is very well done.
|
| [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/425410/Road_to_Ballhalla/
| georges_gomes wrote:
| A leaderboard for speed runners would be interesting :)
| georges_gomes wrote:
| The keyboard controls are particularly satisfying. Well done.
| sen wrote:
| Marble Madness vibes. One of my favorite nostalgia games.
|
| I think having 3 lives per level with it resetting just that
| level might be better for starters, then the 3 lives for the
| entire game being a "hard mode".
| codingdave wrote:
| > Marble Madness vibes.
|
| Those are the exact words I head in my head while playing as
| well. I'd love to see a remake on modern devices.
| sunday_serif wrote:
| For me, this took me back to Marble Blast Gold. An early 2000s
| game with essentially the same concept.
|
| Great fun :-)
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| https://github.com/RandomityGuy/MBHaxe?tab=readme-ov-file
|
| You're welcome
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| In zoom meetings, I prefer this one, based on "Knot Theory":
| https://brainteaser.top/knot/
|
| Not sure I learned anything about Knot Theory from playing this,
| but that was fun.
| SamBam wrote:
| Awesome! Make it a daily Wordle-style game! I need something new
| in my morning routine.
|
| I think having a universal 3-life max is very harsh. I died on
| level 9 and was sent back to level 1. No way am I going to do the
| first 9 again, so I won't find out what was on 10.
|
| I think it would be more casual friendly to have infinite repeats
| in every level, but you could have a total count of deaths, for
| people who care about their score.
| swagmaster8008 wrote:
| BUG: If I make it to under the finish square by accident (falling
| off right before the end of a level), it still counts as a win
| when it should count as a death.
| Aromasin wrote:
| Very responsive; can't say the same for most browser games so
| well done.
|
| I managed to complete it in one shot. The old dog still has it :)
| yashg wrote:
| It is cool, but having to redo from the first level after 3 drops
| kills the fun for me. Of course some would like that aspect, but
| for me as a casual fun game it's a no.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I felt the same way at first, but it's ten levels, so you'd be
| done in one session if you could redo every level infinitely.
| This extends the fun a bit.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| It's ok to be done in one session
|
| Replaying a level is boring
| rjmunro wrote:
| After 10 levels, it could be the same levels again, but with
| a time limit that gets shorter for each cycle, or something
| else to make it harder, like wind that blows the ball off
| course and changes direction all the time.
| brospars wrote:
| Nice and very precise. I was expecting controls to be less
| reactive.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Doesn't work in Firefox for Android.
| toss1 wrote:
| Also doesn't seem to work on FF for Windows. Can click thru
| initial [Start] screen, but no clicks are effective on the
| initial game screen showing the layout and [start] (at least
| none that I could find).
| k1t wrote:
| You may (like me) have been trying to interact by
| tapping/dragging/etc.
|
| You need to physically tilt your device to play.
| nebulous1 wrote:
| It worked FF/Android for me, but it froze for a second every so
| often.
| speg wrote:
| The ball just falls off and then endlessly falls through space...
| Laremere wrote:
| Nice work! Some thoughts:
|
| The camera is tilted instead of looking straight down, and my
| phone needs to be flat to be in the no movement neutral position.
| This is unpleasant in to ways: How I'm sitting right now makes it
| hard to look at my phone while it's flat; it would be much nicer
| to be able to set my neutral point so I could play with the phone
| mostly vertically. The combination of flat phone and camera angle
| is awkward, as when you're looking straight down at the flat
| phone it looks like the level is tilted, and the ball should be
| rolling. If you're sticking with flat always being neutral, the
| corresponding camera angle should be from directly above, imo.
|
| After trying the phone and dying, I ended up playing on the
| desktop with the arrow keys, much more pleasant.
|
| Your light is coming from a direction where the magnitude is the
| same in x,y, and z. This means there's no difference in shading
| between three of the visible faces. (Or, you're using shaders
| which does this for some other reason.) This may be an
| intentional choice on your part, but I think it'd probably look
| better with a light angle which gives more definition to the
| geometry. Especially the level text suffers from this.
|
| On the last level, is the spinning obstacle at a slightly offset
| pace from the first moving platform? When I first saw the level,
| they were very poorly timed with the obstacle sweeping past where
| you'd go to get on to the moving platform right as the moving
| platform came closest. Waiting a bit seemed to slowly improve the
| situation, and I eventually got tired of waiting and just went
| for it. Still unsure if they're actually in sync or not.
|
| I died the third time on the last level, and called it quits when
| it put me back at the start. A very harsh punishment.
| s3krit wrote:
| For the last level, you can get onto the moving platform on the
| first cycle if you're quick
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Third death being a reset to the beginning is indeed a harsh
| punishment.
| krisoft wrote:
| Yeah, that is where i said to myself "f-this, you are not
| paying me enough to put up with this" and closed the "game"
| lwansbrough wrote:
| +1, tilt should be dampened towards the natural orientation the
| phone was in during initialization
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I think setting a different "up" point ruins the metaphor and
| you're trying mentally map tilting into arrow key inputs.
|
| I'd recommend instead forgetting that your phone has an up.
| Hold it in landscape and rotate it as needed to get the angle
| you want before tilting.
| grasseh wrote:
| Managed to make it through by only losing a life on Level 6. The
| last two were very scary (and I think I got very lucky on the
| last one).
|
| But I guess I played enough Super Monkey Ball as a teen to still
| have a lot of practice for this.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Nicely implemented; controls felt very intuitive on the keyboard.
| mopierotti wrote:
| Idea: It would be super cool if the camera angle also shifted a
| bit when you tilt your phone, making the level look more like a
| real object. You would have to assume the relative position of
| the phone from the viewer, but that assumption is already being
| made (given that the view of the level is not from directly
| overhead currently).
| stpedgwdgfhgdd wrote:
| Doesn't work on ipad? I can click Start, but in the next screen
| nothing reacts to input.
| brightball wrote:
| Awesome work Nate!!!
|
| I've been following your work ever since that Lightning talk on
| Three.js at the Carolina Code Conference. You've got a lot of
| talent and motivation, which is a killer combination.
| ghnws wrote:
| Nice! I would like it more without the "lives" though.
| holoduke wrote:
| Create a webapp from it. The typical usecase for an installable
| version. Add service worker and a manifest.json. that way on
| android phones you have an icon.
| sufficer wrote:
| Doesn't work on Chrome for android. Mid range android phone
| though
| dfc wrote:
| Works like a charm on my Pixel 7.
| nayuki wrote:
| This reminds me a bit of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyRoads_(video_game)
| dlivingston wrote:
| What engine / library was used to make this?
| developer1000 wrote:
| very nicely done with all the graphics and motion. One thing i
| would add is autofocus attribute on the next button so that i
| just have to hit enter.
| atum47 wrote:
| Nice. I made one where you should guide a sphere into a hole a
| few years ago. It was in 2D and I don't think it worked all that
| great. I'll see if I find it and post it here
| xyst wrote:
| I was laying on my back. Started up the game without resetting my
| phone to a flat state. Then the ball fell off the map. No
| automatic reset like the other levels.
|
| Maybe this is a speed run tactic that can be used later ;)
| nasso_dev wrote:
| you can speedrun by playing with the phone screen facing down.
| tilt it slightly and the ball will go super fast. you can sort of
| "fly", too, and climb up walls. i got to level 9 in like 30 secs
| like this
| thsksbd wrote:
| Awesome. Thanks. I made it to level 10 like that
| Liftyee wrote:
| Can confirm. "Finished" all 10 levels in a minute on my first
| try of this strategy. Maybe the end detection area is too
| high...
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I liked it - thank you.
|
| Can I suggest that you put something like "hold your phone flat
| and face up" On the instructions / landing page
|
| And make sure the start button can be seen in landscape mode
|
| I gave up and it's only because HN gave me those hints that I got
| tomplay at all
|
| But - well done - you shipped ! Brilliant :-)
| matthewhartmans wrote:
| Absolutely love this! Well done OP!
| IshKebab wrote:
| Needs to have some visual feedback of the orientation. Also the
| ball is too heavy & slow. And as someone else said the
| perspective is wrong.
| yzzyx wrote:
| This is awesome! Makes me wanna play Monkey Ball!
| pyryt wrote:
| You can get the ball off the ground if you turn your phone upside
| down. Then you can just sort of fly over the places where you'd
| normally fall. Takes maybe a minute or two to complete all the
| levels.
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