[HN Gopher] Show HN: King Thirteen: 2048 with chess pieces, in u...
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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 : 234 points
Date : 2024-09-23 08:41 UTC (3 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.
| mdaniel wrote:
| > a huge commitment for people looking to vote on most / all
| games.
|
| I wanted to say that I went to vote for your game but they
| seem to only support GitHub login and their GH app does
| crazypants shit like "Act on your behalf" versus the much
| more sane "user:email"[1] or whatever which would prove that
| I'm a person without granting some rando website "sure, bro,
| take GitHub actions for me"
|
| So, my HN upvote will have to suffice for Internet Points of
| Appreciation
|
| 1: https://docs.github.com/en/apps/oauth-apps/building-oauth-
| ap...
| animuchan wrote:
| Thank you! :) And yeah I'll ask the orgs why does the bot
| request these permissions, might be an oversight.
| alcore wrote:
| The site only requests read access to your email, as the
| login flow message _actually_ shows.
|
| The "act on your behalf" statement is GitHub's standard
| message for all GitHub apps, regardless of whether they
| actually ask to be granted any permissions that would let
| them perform such actions. There's a "learn more" link
| right at that statement, that would've explained pretty
| much exactly this. I find it curious that you bothered to
| venture into docs and link them, but did not bother to
| click _that_ one to understand what's actually going on.
|
| It says, i.a.: "The GitHub App can only do things that both
| you and the app have permission to do.". Since the site
| only asks for read access to your email address, it cannot
| actually do anything else. As simple as that.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I hear you, and it's possible you're right, but that's
| not what the dialog said and the very link that you
| mentioned has -- as its very first sentence -- "Once you
| authorize a GitHub App, the app can act on your behalf."
| and shows an example of commenting as me
|
| So, I guess just to vote on a cool game I should
| definitely roll the dice with my github account and trust
| that some Internet comment is right, or, I guess upvote
| and be sad for them that they tried to be kewl by
| creating a GH app instead of oauth2 like a sane person.
| Naming it "Kilobot" for sure inspires confidence for its
| fewer than 1k installed users, too
| alcore wrote:
| Once again, curious that you bothered to remember
| something that is relevant to community inside jokes and
| take dumps on that, even bothered to remember a number,
| but did not bother to read up on what you're dumping on.
|
| FYI #1 It very much is a standard oAuth2 flow. Just GHs
| 'always on' message is unfortunate, and that's all there
| is to it. There's been topics like
| https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/37117 on
| this ever since they had been introduced. Which, again,
| you could've encountered if you put your energy into good
| faith, instead of focusing that bad faith mojo on a small
| community. If you really feel like proving how "sane" and
| above "kewl" you are, go take your dump on GitHub - i.e.
| the one actually responsible for those misleading
| messages.
|
| FYI #2 Your vote would not count anyway, because only
| community member votes actually get included in scoring.
| Although as an outsider you'd been welcome to leave
| feedback.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I didn't have to "remember," they're on the tab right
| next to this one. I'm sorry you're butthurt about someone
| wanting to vote who isn't a part of the l33t insiders
| club. Anyway, right under the game in question it says
| "Voting for this edition's games is in progress - sign in
| to vote on this game." so how would any sane person know
| that it's only for insiders?
|
| Sorry I raised your bloodpressure about something that
| doesn't matter to you since I'm an outsider. I'll send
| you virtual flowers using my totally safe GitHub App
| alcore wrote:
| GitHub has been a partner of the competition for years
| now. They help actively promote it, participate in
| providing feedback to contenders, integrate it with the
| platform (https://github.com/topics/js13kgames). The
| competition is organized by
| https://stars.github.com/profiles/end3r.
|
| But yeah, sure, you're free to tell yourself whatever you
| want.
|
| And no, it's not only for insiders - thus the message.
| Outside votes get whitelisted when they meet the compos
| fairness criteria. It's not a popularity contest. Your
| vote would not count on this basis (amongst others).
| 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!
| ynoxinul wrote:
| The king has just taken my largest piece after no moves were
| left. I guess when you reach 2048, you can take the king and
| win.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| Apparently he is worth 1024 so you can take him when you
| have a 1024 piece, and win. I didn't realise this (or that
| he takes pieces when cornered - I avoided that, assuming a
| stalemate would mean losing) so played it right through to
| a regular 2048 which took a verrry long while.
| 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.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| What song actually is it?
| WCSTombs wrote:
| It sounds like a chiptune remix of "Kobito of the Shining
| Needle ~ Little Princess" from Touhou 14.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv1yYDzvFtQ
| animuchan wrote:
| Didn't even know this melody was reused for several
| different tracks in Touhou! Thanks for posting this.
| animuchan wrote:
| It's a variant of Magical Power of the Mallet, composed by
| ZUN of Touhou fame.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdcF2IdyZY
| 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.
| pimlottc wrote:
| OMG, I had no idea either!
| askvictor wrote:
| I'm not colourblind, but found the colours weren't useful at
| all (compared to 2048). They're just too similar and you need
| to rely on the numbers, which takes more thinking
| 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
| neilv wrote:
| Without reading any instructions, I really liked this game...
| until my top piece got removed. :)
| abound wrote:
| Super cool game! I sunk well over an hour into it, but I rage
| quit when the king stole my 1024 piece...I didn't realize that
| was an option. In retrospect, I guess that's what the shaky
| screen meant.
|
| This was my game just before I stopped (the 1024 was next to the
| 256): https://ibb.co/gv0QR89
| timvdalen wrote:
| The king is worth 1024, so as soon as you have a 1024 piece on
| the board you can capture the king to make 2048 and win the
| game
| mattmar96 wrote:
| Love the styling and the music, great job!!!
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| I didn't see any rules/explanation of how to play Is that
| intentional or maybe I'm missing it on mobile?
| kapep wrote:
| I also don't see any on desktop, neither on the linked page nor
| ingame.
| listeria wrote:
| I thought I'd lose if the king was trapped--like some sort of
| stalemate--so I played through the game with that in mind. It
| might make for a fun variant.
|
| I should add I didn't expect to find the rules in the Post-
| mortem, so I gave up on that after skimming through the page and
| jumped right into the game.
| qq66 wrote:
| If the king is trapped he eats the highest-scoring neighboring
| piece and takes its spot.
| Syntonicles wrote:
| It's worth noting if the board is full this doesn't happen.
| This was helpful in my strategy because I could set up
| several pathways like I was playing checkers without fear of
| losing anything.
| noitpmeder wrote:
| This is awesome
| zac256 wrote:
| Please consider crediting Threes, not 2048 as the "ancestor". The
| designers of threes have a well-written blog post on how they
| feel 2048 ripped them off. It's a good discussion on iteration in
| game design, among other topics.
|
| https://asherv.com/threes/threemails/
| animuchan wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this! I had no idea, will add this to the
| repo's README.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| Numberwang is the true OG
| Syntonicles wrote:
| This game was way too good. I stuck with it until I beat it and
| loved everything - the music, the idea, and the moves felt so
| satisfying - especially the final one.
|
| The first time I played I thought king would take my pieces with
| some probability if they weren't guarded. I spent way, way more
| effort than was necessary playing with higher stakes.
| usr1106 wrote:
| This is how sustainable software development should work. Not a
| 100 MB iPhone app or a 60 MB Android app.
|
| Or 600 MB as in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41459629
| GeertB wrote:
| This game is so fun! I spent entirely too much time playing it
| just once last night, and got to the 1024 piece in the first run.
| I don't know how long it took me, but it was long. With 2048 my
| runs are far quicker.
| conartist6 wrote:
| Dang that king is bloodthirsty. I played for a while and it ate
| all the best blocks I ever made (a 512). Can my high score be the
| best I was doing before I lost it all?
| anentropic wrote:
| Took me a while to realise, but I think the king only eats
| blocks when it is completely cornered and has no other space to
| move ... ?
| ebfe1 wrote:
| Scored 9876 and won it on first run but i did use the undo
| button! :) I stumbled the first half a bit but got the hang of it
| in the end and after finishing it I think i had more fun than
| original 2048. This is because this game requires you to
| carefully place the pieces each time while in original 2048, you
| could get to 1024 with just a lot of repeated movement (down+left
| for me) to group all biggest numbers to a corner
| sacado2 wrote:
| That's a really great game, congratulations!
| smokedetector1 wrote:
| This is incredibly well-done and fun and just plain works!!!!
| Congratulations!
| gowld wrote:
| I don't understand the rules for when a piece is allowed to
| capture another piece.
|
| EDIT: Oh, a piece can merge with any piece that has the same
| numerical value. This makes the game far more playable.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| Great idea for a game and very playable. As others have said, it
| is much more interesting than 2048 due to the reduced repetition.
| It still seems beneficial to stack high value pieces out of the
| way (e.g. your biggest in the corner and then next biggest on an
| adjacent edge square). Towards the end it was getting quite
| frustrating having rooks appear in corners, but a good kind of
| frustrating!
|
| Could the score be visible during the game to give a sense of the
| scoring rules? I didn't know the king eats pieces until I read
| the comments here... I would expect that to lose you points, but
| hard to tell unless the scoring is maybe documented somewhere I
| missed?
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