[HN Gopher] Show HN: Eonfall - A new third-person co-op action g...
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       Show HN: Eonfall - A new third-person co-op action game built for
       the web
        
       Hi all, I'm excited to share Eonfall with Hacker News Community!
       It's been 2-years in the making built by a 2 man team. Eonfall, is
       a new third-person co-op action game with rogue-lite elements built
       exclusively for the web! We've finally reached a release candidate
       state and set our official public release date for Jan 15th! The
       game's current version 5.0.0-beta is live and available to test
       play today!  Unity game engine was used to develop the game along
       with other services to handle the backend, and Nuxt 3 + Nuxt UI to
       handle the front-end.  We welcome any and all questions, feedback &
       suggestions!  Thanks all, Jon
        
       Author : jonkuze
       Score  : 203 points
       Date   : 2024-12-21 16:45 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (eonfall.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (eonfall.com)
        
       | palmfacehn wrote:
       | Crashed upon joining the game in Firefox. A modal dialog with a
       | stack trace appeared.
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | Same with Chrome, Win 11.
        
           | cchance wrote:
           | Same with Arc on Mac...
           | 
           | I saw people jump and sound for a second then crashed, hope
           | hes got some error logging on the server side
        
         | lexlambda wrote:
         | Yep. So much for "built for the web". While I know that a lot
         | of software is only tested on Chrome and Safari, I would expect
         | different when marketing as being web-based.
        
           | shermantanktop wrote:
           | It's out for "test play" so I guess these are test results.
           | It's a two-person team, cut them some slack.
        
           | Kiro wrote:
           | Getting the same on Chrome though so not sure what you're
           | referring to.
        
           | jonkuze wrote:
           | Give it another shot after we pushed a fix earlier today. =)
        
         | tgdn wrote:
         | Same on Chrome and Safari on mac
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanksss fix coming shortly!!
        
       | mlok wrote:
       | I am on Brave on iOS and I have no idea how to start the game.
        
         | thepill wrote:
         | Sign-up/in appears only in landscape mode
        
           | pmontra wrote:
           | Firefox Nightly Android: the signup button appears in desktop
           | mode, both portrait and landscape.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | sorry the game is only playable on desktop at the moment... we
         | will try to support mobile next year.
        
           | jmpavlec wrote:
           | It might be worthwhile to point this out explicitly on your
           | home page for all the people checking it out on mobile. It
           | wasn't inherently clear to me that I could play right now.
           | Only found out it was playable by reading the comments here.
        
       | abc-1 wrote:
       | Looks really good, you should be proud.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Thank you!!! = )
        
       | nahnahno wrote:
       | Looks great
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Thanksss!! =)
        
       | Its_Padar wrote:
       | > _Please make it easy for users to try your thing out,
       | preferably without having to sign up, get a confirmation email,
       | and other such barriers. You 'll get more feedback that way, plus
       | HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops._
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638
       | 
       | > _Off topic: blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and
       | other reading material. Those can 't be tried out, so can't be
       | Show HNs. Make a regular submission instead._
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
       | 
       | This looks very interesting but Show HNs need to be usable easily
       | without making an account
        
         | emaro wrote:
         | You don't need to sign up. But I saw the play button only in
         | Firefox. In Chromium the Play button wasn't there.
        
           | Its_Padar wrote:
           | Odd but still not within the guidelines as
           | 
           | > _HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops_
           | 
           | Is in them
        
             | pvg wrote:
             | It just isn't the case that you can't have a Show HN
             | without signups - it's preferable for the friction-to-try
             | be as low as possible but sometimes 'as low as possible'
             | is, in the given context, still a fair bit of friction.
             | Lots of Show HN's are in very early stages and unpolished,
             | some use finicky/newish technologies, etc. If this
             | particular one is too much of a hassle and you bounce off,
             | that's fine but the suggestion the poster is breaking some
             | sort of rule here is inaccurate.
        
             | cchance wrote:
             | what hoops? i clicked, play .. play now and got in... it
             | crashed, on Arc (osx) but it started to load and i saw
             | people moving around
        
             | Kiro wrote:
             | You click "Play now" and you're in the game. That's less
             | friction than most Show HNs. You're misinterpreting the
             | rules and being overly zealous for no reason.
        
               | Perenti wrote:
               | No "Play now" button on Firefox for me, only "Sign up"
               | and "Log in".
               | 
               | No corporate webpages, only anti-social media links to
               | invite people.
               | 
               | No "FAQ", "About" etc links.
               | 
               | Not human friendly.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | you don't need to signup at all to play! thank you for the
         | feedback
        
           | Perenti wrote:
           | Firefox 133 no play now button at all. only "sign up" and
           | "log in".
        
       | rakibyte wrote:
       | I played one game without signing up for a quick tour. I played
       | against one wave then quit. The game is good for a browser game
       | there are server issues but I guess that will be fixed before
       | public release. I was getting ping around 21.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks for testing the game, really appreciate it. We will be
         | looking into improving things for sure between now and official
         | release date. Thank you.
        
       | lovegrenoble wrote:
       | Very clean job
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thankk you! =)
        
       | lovegrenoble wrote:
       | Blocked in the store, asked to purchase some stuff ((
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | if you unequip the premium items you can play!!
        
       | skndr wrote:
       | Congrats on the launch! Looks like you can only play one game as
       | a guest before getting stuck in a loop when hitting "play now"
       | between "forgot to buy items?" and "you must be logged in to
       | buy". I also wasn't sure which one was the base to defend once
       | I'd wandered off.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thank you!! ahh stuck in loop because maybe you selected some
         | premium items? thanks for the other feedback will for sure
         | improve the onboarding.
        
       | avree wrote:
       | Arc browser, get stuck in a loop of "Connecting to server" and
       | "Unable to Join! Connecting to New Server..." when I try to join.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks for feedback! New build should be coming shortly to fix
         | this!
        
       | doright wrote:
       | Reminds me of the days of spending dozens of hours in Sherwood
       | Dungeon in my youth.
        
         | polishdude20 wrote:
         | I haven't thought of that game in ages! The nostalgia hits
         | hard.
        
         | Snacklive wrote:
         | Dude i remember that game it was so fun to wander around. One
         | of the best memories of my childhood
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ahhh yess use to play that game too!! I've been working on web
         | games since about that time when adobe shockwave game became a
         | thing. Fun times! = )
        
         | rnewme wrote:
         | Now that's something I haven't thought about for almost 15
         | years, but have some nice and vivid memories about. Cool!
        
         | tiznow wrote:
         | This took me back to a very fun time in my life.
        
       | geor9e wrote:
       | Doesn't work. Perhaps too much hackernews traffic at the moment.
       | Unable to Join! Connecting to New Server... Joining, Please
       | Standby... Unable to Join! Connecting to New Server...
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Try now... I think it's working OK after we pushed a quick
         | patch update earlier today.
        
       | robblbobbl wrote:
       | Here is the error log of the error I get when trying to connect
       | https://pastebin.com/YMXijJhB
        
         | sourthyme wrote:
         | Looks like a shader doesn't support your GPU. Sharing what GPU
         | you have might be helpful. I'm not sure if it is in the logs
         | somewhere.
        
       | swirly-mcswirl wrote:
       | I'm unable to play it on my chrome. No extensions enabled. OS Mac
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ah you mean chromebook? YEs some chromebook may not have good
         | enough GPU to run it.
        
       | dimgl wrote:
       | Super cool! For some reason my mouse doesn't work on Chrome,
       | Windows :( I get a WASM error message and then it immediately
       | stops working. Shame!
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | this WASM error should be fixed now...
        
       | fidotron wrote:
       | Very nice work, and congrats on getting so far with this! I have
       | a few odd questions though:
       | 
       | Is the networking websockets or webrtc underneath?
       | 
       | Did you have tech challenges with the Unity side at all?
       | 
       | What's your business model?
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thank you! - using Mirror Networking Library w/ Websockets - No
         | tech challenges except for the super slooow build times lol -
         | Business mode Ads, Ad Rewards, and Virtual Currency to buy
         | premium cosmetics
        
           | fidotron wrote:
           | Hey you could always try Unreal for even slower builds!
        
             | jonkuze wrote:
             | haha too funny!
        
             | intelVISA wrote:
             | shame they abandoned their web targets in UE5
        
           | bcjordan wrote:
           | Curious, are the slow build times locally, your own CI or
           | Unity Cloud Build? (If local/own builders may be some ways to
           | dramatically lower the build times eg by managing the
           | Library/ cache per-platform.)
           | 
           | Happy to help anyone with optimizing these approaches it's
           | been a pain to figure out
        
             | jonkuze wrote:
             | Slow builds locally, but last I tried cloud build it was
             | about the same.
        
               | bcjordan wrote:
               | In the most recent game I automated builds for the
               | initial build took 1-3 hours, but subsequent builds with
               | the Library/ folder cached took 5-10 minutes.
               | 
               | Are you switching platforms between builds locally? (like
               | building one for web / server / pc / mac etc). Platform
               | switching essentially blows away the cache, making it
               | take the full build time each time. There was an asset
               | years back that would create folders for each platform's
               | Library/ cache and switch between them when you switched
               | build platforms.
               | 
               | In CI (eg using https://game.ci) you can prefix build
               | cache keys with the platform to manage that
               | automatically.
               | 
               | Unity Cloud Build is in general slower/more
               | flakey/sometimes has cache issues compared to DIY CI, but
               | it should speed up after a successful first build as long
               | as it caches the Library/ folder, and they do separate
               | that out by build platform properly. (Worth checking each
               | build config setting is set to cache that)
        
               | jonkuze wrote:
               | Nope not switching between platforms. I'm actually using
               | ParrelSync that allows me to have 2 instances of Unity
               | open working off same codebase. One instance is set to
               | Server and other to WebGL platform. The purpose of it is
               | mostly for faster multiplayer development & testing.
               | 
               | Server Builds are super quick, it's the Unity WebGL
               | Client builds that take forever even if I have cache.
               | Although I have not migrated to Unity 6 yet, that's
               | actually next on my to-dos which I believe there are lots
               | of improvements for WebGL builds there. So I'm hopeful
               | for better dev experience there.
               | 
               | I never knew about game.ci seems like it could be very
               | helpful! Going to check that out... thank you!!
        
           | ciaoben wrote:
           | I am curious, what are the best Ads, and Ads Rewards platform
           | for the web? Last time I dig into this I could not find
           | anything on par with the offer for the mobile platforms.
        
       | pravosleva wrote:
       | Broken link?
        
       | gcr wrote:
       | Really exciting!
       | 
       | Arc on OSX gives me a javascript alert() with a giant wasm stack
       | trace about 2s after joining the match. Music continues to play
       | but the graphics stop updating.
       | 
       | Edit: Chrome works fine on OSX, oddly enough. (M1 mbp)
       | 
       | Wonder if windows users are having trouble? Chrome on mac is
       | infamously bad for OpenGL content
        
         | robpco wrote:
         | Also crashes with a Javascript alert on Firefox 133.0.3 on
         | macOS Sequoia 15.2
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ahh yes fix is coming shortly!! Thanks for reporting
        
       | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
       | Congratulations on the launch!
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks soo much!! =)
        
       | kc711 wrote:
       | Stuck in a join lobby error loop, but can't wait to try it out!
       | 
       | One thing i will say, I LOVE the color picker options. I cannot
       | stand games who nickel and dime for basic ass colors and you have
       | an entire color wheel for free so kudos!
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ahhh shoot i think the next build pushing shortly should fix
         | the error you saw!! and yea haha i can't stand that either
         | charging people for dang colors.
        
       | reynaldi wrote:
       | Very cool, I am surprised how it loaded so fast!
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks!! glad its working well for ya = )
        
       | ineedaj0b wrote:
       | ran on a depreciated 2013 chromebook. impressive
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | whoa! niceee thanks for checking the game out
        
       | cjrd wrote:
       | Really enjoyable overall.
       | 
       | As a noob, I did feel like I spent the majority of my time just
       | running around trying to figure out what to do.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thank you for feedback... ah yes we are totally missing a
         | tutorial with good guidance for noobs! we plan to work on that
         | too.
        
       | pentagrama wrote:
       | Feedback: Got this error after pressing Play Now
       | https://imgur.com/a/VCzACsF
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks for sharing... actually pushing a new build to fix this
         | shortly! it only happens when other players are in-game with
         | the squads (friendly ai spawned) fixing sooon!!
        
       | dintech wrote:
       | I need look inversion. I can't play it this way.
        
       | devmor wrote:
       | Clicked "Play Now", made my little avatar, and it immediately
       | told me to pay money. Not a great first experience.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks for feedback... although I think you selected items that
         | are premium items... some stuff can be purchased for cheap
         | which all players get a starting credit of 200. Other more
         | expensive stuff need credits for that. We gota pay the hosting
         | cost somehow =)
        
           | devmor wrote:
           | Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that pattern,
           | but it is an unpleasant experience when trying out the game.
           | 
           | Perhaps make it obvious via the UI that these are premium
           | items when selecting them?
        
             | jonkuze wrote:
             | thanks for feedback, yep you are right we could certainly
             | improve the UX here. Thank you.
        
       | legohead wrote:
       | Looks interesting. Some feedback on the trailer: I wouldn't waste
       | the precious first 5 seconds on guys running at the camera, and
       | your post says something about roguelite. Are there skill trees?
       | Items/equipment? Shops? Different zones? I assume the characters
       | running at the start represent classes but there's no way to
       | tell. I'd showcase clips of what all the game has to offer, not
       | just combat the whole time.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks for the feedback... regarding the roguelite elements.
         | Eonfall features dynamic missions & enemy spawns, and
         | permadeath. You are right, would be good to incorporate more of
         | that within a future game trailer somehow. Thanks again.
        
         | torginus wrote:
         | Does it though? I thought this was a web-native engine written
         | for WebGL/JS or wasm. But it's just an n+1th Unity project that
         | got exported to the browser. There are (tens of) thousands like
         | this on itch/Steam/mobile app store.
        
           | jonkuze wrote:
           | I don't see what's wrong with Unity or any other native
           | engine that can export to WebGL via WASM. It's still building
           | for the web none-the-less.
           | 
           | With tools like Unity you can focus more on the actual game
           | development instead of building the tools for the game and
           | then risk never releasing the game.
        
       | kwanbix wrote:
       | I really like it. My only concern would be the controls. It feels
       | weird compared to doom or fortnite for some reason.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Thanks for the feedback. Did you try updating your key
         | bindings? You have total control to assign the keys to your
         | liking under controls.
        
           | hnuser123456 wrote:
           | It feels like the character continues walking for a second
           | after letting go of a movement key, so it feels a little
           | unresponsive from that. A bit of momentum is good but this is
           | a little too long.
           | 
           | Also, my s.o. started talking to me so I started listening to
           | her, and I got kicked after only about a minute, could you
           | bump the idle kick to something like 5-10 minutes?
           | 
           | Additionally, I customized my character and hit play, and
           | didn't realize I picked premium cosmetics until after I tried
           | to play and got a message that I may have forgotten to buy
           | the cosmetics. Maybe a clearer indicator on the item
           | selection UI itself would help.
           | 
           | Lastly, could you add a public server host/join option, for
           | people who just want to play with others who are online?
           | 
           | Besides that, it seems like you have a great foundation here,
           | good character and enemy art and animation, and great sounds.
           | Feels kind of like risk of rain 2, and that's a good thing.
        
       | anovick wrote:
       | After choosing character, loading the game, got an alert with
       | some error about wasm.
       | 
       | Second time I tried, was able to load the game.
       | 
       | Sadly my 2012 Thinkpad is not able to keep up even on Low
       | graphics (12 FPS) and looks like there's only a server in US,
       | which meant 200+ Ping for me
       | 
       | Looks pretty cool tho. Good luck working on the rough edges!
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Thanks for feedback! Sadly yea the game may not run well on
         | some older model laptops and anything with lower than mid-tier
         | GPUs. We optimized as best we could to reach most hardware
         | possible. We actually have servers globally, but depending on
         | your region you will auto connect to servers closest to you.
        
         | araes wrote:
         | Similar experience. On an older laptop with integrated graphics
         | it looks ok, just not playable. Even moving the camera around
         | is stroboscopic.
         | 
         | Graphics setting did not appear to change anything.
         | 
         | High, medium, low - 5-8 frames per second. Started at 2-10, yet
         | that may have just been log in delay.
         | 
         | Ping started at 600, eventually stabilized at 300.
         | 
         | Seems like an interesting idea, just seems like it needs a
         | better computer than what I have.
        
       | jonkuze wrote:
       | Hey all, we just pushed a new build that should resolve the crash
       | that was happening upon joining a game!
        
       | tuzemec wrote:
       | Is there a way to reverse the mouse Y axis?
       | 
       | Btw, the music is dope!
        
         | imp0cat wrote:
         | Couldn't find any setting to invert mouse. Sad. :(
        
       | bartleeanderson wrote:
       | I just noticed that clicking on Terms of service link doesn't
       | work and don't know where to find them to know what I am agreeing
       | to. Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Found it on the Sign Up popup
       | as I was investigating and thinking about playing. I will assume
       | they are innocuous and that I don't intend on doing anyone any
       | harm so I will just go ahead and see if it is something I like
       | even.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ahhh yess Terms shoot need to get that fixed! Sorry about that.
        
       | marwis wrote:
       | Worked fine in a window but too slow when fullscreen on my
       | Surface Pro 8.
       | 
       | Should have dynamic resolution to maintain FPS.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks so much for the feedback, will certainly take note of
         | this.
        
       | rglover wrote:
       | This is great! Really polished and fun to run around the map.
       | 
       | Do you have an announce list for the official release?
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Thank you!! When you say announce list, do you mean like an
         | email list of publishers or press that i'll be reaching out to?
         | I have a few sources.
        
           | rglover wrote:
           | Just an email list for interested players. I'd like to sign
           | up for updates if possible (followed on Bluesky but I'm not
           | on there all the time).
        
       | Cilvic wrote:
       | Super cool music. Great vibes.
       | 
       | on Firefox with ublock origin the playbutton wasn't visible so I
       | made an account first. Pretty slow fps not sure why + hard to
       | figure out where to go.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Thanks for the feedback. What is your computer specs, do you
         | have about a mid-range GPU or better?
        
       | tpoacher wrote:
       | Couldn't get past the consent banner. I am _not_ going to click
       | on a thousand  "legitimate interest" toggles just to watch a
       | trailer (and most certainly not going to "accept all" just to
       | remove the banner). No idea what the game is about as a result.
       | 
       | Not the best onboarding experience, I must say...
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | I know it doesn't address your concern about the website itself
         | but you can also view the trailer directly on YouTube:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/i2gPwAsKxCE?si=lx_61nxRWf5kTPN_
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ah thanks for the feedback! I agree, not the best onboarding
         | experience. I'll certainly look into this.
        
           | esher wrote:
           | Looks like the banner is opt-out rather than opt-in. Do you
           | need 150+ legitimate interest partners and what for?
        
             | jonkuze wrote:
             | It's for curated targeted Ads through our Ad platform
             | AdinPlay. I'll certainly review this and see if we can
             | improve that consent experience.
        
       | aetherspawn wrote:
       | Would be nice to play on mobile.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | ah yess we will certainly be looking into this in the new year.
        
       | Perenti wrote:
       | Sorry, but if I can't see what it's about without an account I
       | don't want to know.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | You can play for free, no account required. Just click Play
         | Now!
        
           | Perenti wrote:
           | No. There is no such button on my Firefox. Nor anything about
           | who wrote this, what it is, or what it does. Lots of social
           | media "invite" type things though.
        
       | dtagames wrote:
       | Congratulations on your launch as an indie studio! It's a
       | significant achievement and the game looks great.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | thanks soo much! yeaa it's been a long road... feels great!
         | Thank you.
        
       | Gollapalli wrote:
       | Congrats! I played it for a bit and it looks great!
        
       | laconicmatt wrote:
       | Congrats on the launch. Looking forward to giving this a shot.
       | 
       | Using firefox on android and the play button was hidden, even
       | when I flipped my phone (zfold).
        
         | Abishek_Muthian wrote:
         | I concur. On a 1440 x 3216 screen I see the login/signup in
         | landscape.
        
       | Abishek_Muthian wrote:
       | Congratulations.
       | 
       | Do you have any advice for anyone starting with a web first game?
        
       | NetOpWibby wrote:
       | I've always wanted to build an internet-wide MMO available to
       | anyone with a browser (Megaman Battle Network style)...I don't
       | have 3D knowledge though.
       | 
       | This looks incredible.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | You can certainly do it!! Ofcourse will take time and a
         | commitment to learning but you'll get there. =)
         | 
         | You can always outsource some parts of development if you don't
         | have the time to learn some parts as long as you got the money
         | to invest it's possible.
         | 
         | Thanks for checking it out.
        
       | eclipxe wrote:
       | Lots of fun, really enjoy it! And Woohoo, love Nuxt!
        
       | sroussey wrote:
       | I take it that it's desktop only? All I see is the opportunity to
       | watch a trailer.
        
         | jonkuze wrote:
         | Ah yes, unfortunetly just playable on desktop for now. I should
         | put a notification of sorts to inform mobile users. Thanks for
         | that feedback.
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-22 23:01 UTC)