[HN Gopher] Show HN: King Thirteen: 2048 with chess pieces, in u...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: King Thirteen: 2048 with chess pieces, in under 13 KB
The game is vanilla JS, with SVG for graphics. Written for the
js13kGames coding competition. Notes on the game design:
https://mvasilkov.animuchan.net/king-thirteen
Author : animuchan
Score : 83 points
Date : 2024-09-23 08:41 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (js13kgames.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (js13kgames.com)
| gus_massa wrote:
| It would be nice to disable sound completely.
|
| When the board is almost full, it's difficult to know which
| pieces can move. Perhaps add some green shade to the ones that
| can move.
| animuchan wrote:
| Thanks for playing! :)
|
| Both are on the list of improvements for the final version --
| couldn't get the fixes in time for the compo deadline.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I won my second game :) Then I read the instructions :)
|
| (I think it's worth reading the instructions / design
| discussion, even for someone that is not going to play the
| game.)
|
| [spoiler alert?]
|
| I didn't realize the "combo" mechanics, but I intuitively
| made many combos because I usually used the bigger piece to
| capture the smaller piece. So, for e it's a success in the
| design.
|
| Is it possible to win only with knight? My strategy was to
| keep alive as many queens as possible.
| animuchan wrote:
| Yup Knight-only was possible, but clunky. Queens sure
| provide a nice power spike towards the end.
| mdaniel wrote:
| This is just _incredibly_ fun, congratulations! It reminds me of
| "Really Bad Chess" which I also love:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noodlecake...
|
| Two things, one on-topic and the other off-topic:
|
| The thing which makes 2048 moderately easy to reason about is
| that incoming pieces are always "1". However, this game appears
| to spawn in random pieces, with random point values. I tried to
| follow the to-and-fro of the design blog in order to find out why
| this is, and I get the impression it's for avoiding getting the
| player stuck, but it does have the disadvantage of making
| planning incredibly hard. The good news is that by reading the
| blog I finally understood what was going on with the screen shake
|
| _off-topic:_ that "Subscribe to me blog" modal is not only bad
| UX _(imho, of course)_ , but also doubles down on the UX tire-
| fire by resetting my reading position to the top of the page.
| It's almost enough to warrant a command-w right there. Just one
| datum, but it for sure made me sad
| animuchan wrote:
| Thanks a lot for the kind words!
|
| I was afraid people would abandon good runs if too long, so
| started spawning 4 and 8 sometimes to speed it up somewhat.
| (There's 180-odd entries participating in the compo, so even 10
| minutes of play time per entry is a huge commitment for people
| looking to vote on most / all games.)
|
| Re: Subscribe popup: this is the sole reason I'm looking to
| migrate from Hashnode! All of their UX "improvements" are
| egregious, but this one surely takes the cake. I very much
| agree with your sentiment.
|
| When I joined, it was a nice technical writing-oriented site,
| but these days it has entirely succumbed to terrible product
| managers. E.g. their blog post editor's main function is
| seemingly to upsell their generative AI wrapper.
| cjpearson wrote:
| Thanks for sharing!
|
| I'm seconding the "incredibly fun" comment, but I would keep
| the occasional big numbers. It probably took me an hour to
| finish the game and I wouldn't want to slow it down further.
| The little extra bit of randomness/luck it adds is nice too.
|
| When it comes to the UI, I was a bit confused about how the
| gameover and piece removal works. I guess if there are no
| legal moves it removes a piece?
|
| Also, the multiple move mechanic where the last piece to move
| is automatically preselected sometimes tripped me up a few
| times and caused me to accidentally downgrade a piece.
| teolandon wrote:
| Every version of 2048 I've played spawns 2s and 4s. 4s are more
| rare.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| This is gonna destroy sooooooooooo many engineering school GPAs.
| kazcaptain wrote:
| this was a lot of fun, great job
| tantalor wrote:
| How to play: * Join forces * Claim the throne *
| Revel in glory
|
| No really... how to play?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| It's just like the game 2048, except with chess pieces. There's
| a 'play' link at the top of the page.
| jsnell wrote:
| It's not just like 2048 though, since you only move one piece
| at a time. In 2048 you move all the pieces in the same
| direction at the same time.
| tantalor wrote:
| Indeed, that was the first thing I tried (using arrow keys)
| and when nothing happened I said, "Oh so it's not like 2048
| at all, okay... let me check the game instructions since
| I'm lost now."
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| and then there's no instructions :clownemoji
| dzdt wrote:
| agree! how to play??? I found I can click and join knights by
| knight move with the same subscripts. but what is the king
| doing? there are no directions and its not obvious!
| aftbit wrote:
| Yeah I am very confused. This isn't like 2048 at all. The
| pieces move individually? And why are there multiple different
| colors of knights? What is the king doing? How do I mute the
| game entirely?
|
| Interesting take but needs some more polish and a good demo
| video or something.
| gweinberg wrote:
| The "notes on the game design" page tells how it works.
| https://mvasilkov.animuchan.net/king-thirteen
| jsnell wrote:
| Very nice work, congrats!
|
| The combo UI just doesn't work for me. I didn't understand what
| was happening until reading the blog post, the game just felt
| broken since it was inconsistent whether a piece maintained focus
| or not. And even after knowing about it, I was constantly making
| misplays due to clickin on a unit I wanted to move, and instead
| having the pre-selected unit capture the clicked unit.
|
| It might be worth trying out a model where the combo piece is
| highlighted graphically, but you still need to first click on
| that unit first if you want to move it.
| Straw wrote:
| Was not expecting Touhou music!
| chambers wrote:
| Kobito of the Shining Needle ~ Little Princess
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv1yYDzvFtQ) is one of my
| favorite Touhou songs.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Looks very nice, but definitely needs some explanation, not
| everyone is familiar with 2048. Not that the website even
| mentions 2048 :P
| zug_zug wrote:
| This song is amazing, it's like midieaval FTL. The game's good
| too.
| theideaofcoffee wrote:
| Loved the little twist on the mechanics of 2048, instead of just
| mindlessly pushing down-left-down-left most of the time, you
| actually had to think about the proper moves of the pieces. Nice
| to add a second dimension onto the play, had my rusty wheels
| turning for a little bit before it bit me.
| nvr219 wrote:
| This is great. Good job.
| edent wrote:
| Really enjoyable. Only after my 1024 piece got captured did I see
| the undo button.
|
| Managed a score of 6,000 ish. What a nifty twist on a couple of
| old games.
| tln wrote:
| This is fantastic
|
| I hope you post again when you've made a standalone page and/or
| mobile versions, this game deserves lots of success :)
| donaldihunter wrote:
| Incredibly fun, and makes sense now that I have read the
| design/instructions.
| pyrolistical wrote:
| As a colorblind person I didn't know there was multiple colours
| until very late
| gweinberg wrote:
| I don't think the colors mean anything. But I don't know.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Fun game! Won on my first try and it felt a satisfying
| playthrough. Still don't fully understand the rules.
|
| Eg. Are new pieces random? Since the king can eat clutter does
| that prevent you from losing?
| rkagerer wrote:
| The "game design" link above offers insight into the rules and
| nuances of the game. Eg:
|
| _The King resorts to violence only when he is cornered and has
| nowhere else to go. It 's below him to kill commoners
| otherwise.
|
| If there's no unobstructed path for the King, he will take the
| highest-value piece in his vicinity. However if you might lose
| due to the board being full, then the King won't help you by
| clearing the board; he'll just skip his turn._
|
| Also, free tip: The King's value is 1024 if you want to
| contemplate regicide.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Hey, fun Game. Took me a few rounds to find the right strategy
| (which is spoiler ... The 2048 strategy to aline powers of two on
| the border, which for me often lead to a sequence of Queens) and
| then it's unfortunately leading to the 2048-problem that one
| plays relatively simple strategy with annoyance by random
| generator ... it is a bit better as one needs "powerful" figures
| on the sequence (while not having a queen once can be fixed by
| the next queen ...) and can be interesting to force the king into
| a corner and locking it there. Were quite a few fun rounds, but I
| think I am "through" especially as it stops on the 2048, just
| like the original 2048 did.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Really fun game, well done. People are complaining about the
| rules not being clear enough but IMO figuring out the rules as I
| went along was (unexpectedly) part of the fun. I had no idea how
| to win (or if the game even could be won) until I realised that
| my queen was now the same colour as the king, and then the penny
| dropped.
| davidguetta wrote:
| mmm honestly at some point i was wondering if it was actually
| possible to lose. i tried actively and it took me sooo long. Felt
| like the numbers were actually coming specifically to help you
| have moves
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-25 23:00 UTC)