[HN Gopher] A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny pl...
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A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet
Author : thecupisblue
Score : 1927 points
Date : 2025-09-27 15:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (messenger.abeto.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (messenger.abeto.co)
| Liftyee wrote:
| I love the art style, and it plays super smoothly on mobile! No
| tutorial, but the controls are so intuitive that I didn't need
| one (joystick touch control that's in almost every 3D mobile
| game). The sense of exploration and discovery is pretty fun.
| seabass wrote:
| Really beautiful! Love the artwork and the fact that this runs so
| well in the browser. Was surprised to realize it was multiplayer!
| _pdp_ wrote:
| It will be nice to know more about how this was made.
| qingcharles wrote:
| The creator's web site says nothing:
|
| https://abeto.co/
|
| Their Twitter has three posts:
|
| https://xcancel.com/abeto_co
|
| Three of the people behind it:
|
| https://xcancel.com/vlucendo
|
| https://xcancel.com/michaelsungaila
|
| https://kevincolombin.bandcamp.com/
| Biganon wrote:
| It say nothing but boy what a beautiful website
| unglaublich wrote:
| This is amazing. Impressive.
| ptak wrote:
| Beautiful!
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Beautiful. I got stuck in the corner behind Steve and game over -
| couldn't figure out how to navigate out, just kept triggering his
| dialog.
| 6581 wrote:
| There's lots of spots where you can get stuck. Really needs a
| "reset position" option.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Yeah, I had to end the game due to getting stuck between the
| fencing on the sea side and the chemical plant columns.
| firefoxd wrote:
| The font? The art style? The fluidity on a mobile device? It's
| fantastic.
|
| I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be
| mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.
|
| Edit: I did figure it out and completed all the deliveries. So
| many potential. It reminds me a bit of Sky by thatgamecompany
|
| Edit 2: for the author, I noticed several players approached me
| and tried to communicate. Please explore games like Journey
| (thatgamecompany) to see different ways people communicate
| without chatting. People can help each other, veterans can guide
| newbies all without using words. Every time I met a player in the
| game back in the days, they sent me a heartfelt message.
| logicallee wrote:
| I played for a few minutes. I wasn't able to deliver packages
| either.
| riggsdk wrote:
| The game doesn't really explain that too well. You have to go
| find the packages first before you can deliver it. For
| example the old lady asks you to deliver an offering at a
| temple.
| snerbles wrote:
| Teaching gameplay without an overt tutorial is a difficult
| skill, maybe this dev can pull it off? It's hard to get
| into the "new player" headspace without feedback from
| actual playtesters.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| After clicking through the first popups with the player's
| inner monologue, I fully expected some help text like
| "Use W S A D to move" to pop up.
|
| I had no real reason for that expectation, except this is
| how several games I played in recent years handled it -
| which made me realize now, that explaining gameplay to
| new players is something that's actively evolving. There
| may not be a rulebook, but there are clear trends.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| He did not pull it off. You can't click on things, there
| are no "you can't do this yet" signs if you get to the
| temple without a package, there is no "following your
| nose at the start leads to your first quest". Utterly
| inscrutable.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| If you find a guy in a cave, you're on to your first
| delivery.
| DenisDolya wrote:
| I also didn't really understand how to do it, but I liked the
| game, it's so beautiful and peaceful, it's a shame there's no
| chat and you have to speak through emojis.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| Some people have an arrow on top of their head, and when you
| approach them there is a dialog balloon with "...". If you
| click on them they give you a task.
| DenisDolya wrote:
| Thanks
| kaismh wrote:
| You need to click on npc to start conversation, one of them is
| office worker, he will give you a delivery
| fouc wrote:
| I thought it could be operated entirely from the keyboard,
| thanks for the tip on clicking! lol
| shayway wrote:
| It really is lovely. I had the same thought about refining
| interactions a bit -- I would also suggest Meadow by Might &
| Delight as an example of nonverbal communication done well.
| Blahah wrote:
| The game is wonderful and I'm so glad it doesn't have chat! My
| 9yo niece and I played it through side by side and if it had
| chat or consistent remote player presence that wouldn't have
| been appropriate.
| firefoxd wrote:
| That's why I suggested other means of communication other
| than chat.
| web007 wrote:
| There's a poop symbol on the bottom right, click it to see
| ways to communicate.
|
| I was surprised to learn the random messengers are other
| humans!
| Blahah wrote:
| Absolutely - I love those. I wonder if there are any other
| simple web games like this that run on mobile with more
| nuanced interplayer comms as you suggest.
| colkassad wrote:
| Hearthstone (while not web-based) is a deck building game
| that you play against others and you can only communicate
| with a small set of inoffensive phrases that cover broad
| sentiments. Makes multiplayer endurable, and you can turn
| them off if you like.
| Levitating wrote:
| I think it's the curvature of the world that's making it run so
| well on mobile. There's never to much models on-screen to draw.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Don't neglect that 2020+ mobile chips are better at graphics
| than PlayStation 4.
| crumby wrote:
| I did not know that.
| peanutz454 wrote:
| Even if it is only true in theory, it is still amazing to
| know.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| Fun quip but doesn't seem to be true in practice (if we're
| talking strictly smartphones, not tablets).
|
| PS4 specs: ~1.84 TFLOPS FP32, 18 GCN CUs @ 800 MHz, 8 GB
| GDDR5 @ 176 GB/s.
|
| I think maybe some released-yesterday phone might get close
| on spikes/bursts, but not on any sustained loads, like
| gaming, nor would the beat the PS4 on image quality either.
| hedora wrote:
| The CPU on the iPhone 13 mini (apple's last phone, in my
| opinion) wins:
|
| https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-
| sony_playstation_5...
|
| Shader throughput (shader count times base clock) is
| similar too:
| https://gadgetversus.com/processor/apple-a15-bionic-vs-
| amd-l...
|
| The iPhone wins on boost shader throughput by a lot, but
| that'll throttle. The ps4 has more, slower gpu cores. Not
| sure how gpu memory bandwidth compares.
| Cloudef wrote:
| The curvature makes the world seem big and gives quite
| beautiful scenic view when you are on the rooftop of a
| building in the town.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It also gives an eerie, otherworldly feelings when there's
| only sky ahead, taking more than 2/3 of the screen, and
| looking more like water flowing vertically. I had few
| moments when I suddenly felt like I'm inside a bubble,
| staring at its wall curving upwards.
|
| This game is beautiful in every way.
| maplethorpe wrote:
| You can communicate by sending emojis with the menu in the
| bottom right.
| araes wrote:
| If you have a keyboard, then upper keys 1-2...9-0 do all the
| emojis as hotkeys. Ex, 9 does the takeout food, which is
| probably meant to be "busy, eating" or something similar.
| bitbasher wrote:
| I had a great time jumping around and some other runners joined
| me and I realized I wasn't the only one playing. We began to
| communicate via jumping.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Reminds me of dancing with random strangers in "Playstaion
| Home" on the PS3
| Den_VR wrote:
| I'll admit to missing PlayStation Home. In some ways it was
| ahead of it's time. And looking at what's available now,
| I'd argue it seems it still is.
| antfarm wrote:
| If you want to play as the only player, use Safari on the Mac.
| The downside is, your clothes are constantly changing.
|
| I do not play video games, but I played this one through till
| the end and wish there was more to explore.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _The fluidity on a mobile device? It 's fantastic._
|
| Said more about it here[0] already, but the game works
| perfectly on a foldable and takes the folding/unfolding in
| stride, without breaking a sweat. You can also see it on
| desktop by resizing your browser window to change size and
| aspect ratio (it's probably the same code paths handling it
| anyway).
|
| Given how almost all mobile and web games I played manage to
| get this scenario wrong in some way, I applaud the authors for
| making all the right choices.
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45403407
| BrS96bVxXBLzf5B wrote:
| The font is really awful. Misunderstanding aesthetics from
| difference cultural sources to feed to people who will take
| them at a surface level, there's nothing of substance. It's
| giving [0] and it's bad vibes, nothing should aspire to this.
| It leads me to question every other emotional connection I
| might otherwise have with the experience.
|
| [0] https://i.redd.it/jv2yw7uqmu3e1.png
| opem wrote:
| > ....The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic...I
| wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be
| mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.
|
| exactly, realy well made!
| temporallobe wrote:
| Love the design and concept of a tiny planet - reminds me of
| Super Mario Galaxy in that way. Definitely needs a tutorial or a
| short "How to Play" dialog or page.
| seabass wrote:
| On the other hand, I'm so glad it didn't. I enjoyed a few
| minutes of exploration before realizing what I was meant to be
| doing.
| freehorse wrote:
| Second this. Pretty much standard/intuitive controls, it was
| fun discovering what the game was about while captivated by
| the beautiful music and graphics.
| upmostly wrote:
| Absolutely stunning experience. The way the houses rolled over
| the hill as I walked. Incredible.
| raincole wrote:
| Stuck at loading screen for a few minutes. Hugged by HN?
| capitainenemo wrote:
| not likely to be your problem, but if you are using firefox
| resist fingerprinting, you need to whitelist most webgl apps
| that use large textures, since resist fingerprinting forces a
| standard texture size that is a bit on the small side. or maybe
| your machine is really old and you're hitting same problem for
| real. the game doesn't really detect errors.
| munchlax wrote:
| Looks like nothing more than an animated GIF here as well.
|
| _shrug_
| tyleo wrote:
| Agreed with everything said here about the beauty. I found the
| camera controls pretty clumsy though. I played in portrait,
| landscape probably would work better.
| doophus wrote:
| Yeah the camera's horrible. I found myself snaking left and
| right just trying to walk in a straight line.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Isn't this how camera in these games always used to work? You
| have to nudge your character to control it.
| seabass wrote:
| I'm curious how you build something like this. I see file types
| in the network tab which, as a web dev, I've never worked with
| before. ktx2 and drc extensions, for example. I'm also seeing
| some wasm and threejs. Is there an engine that outputs these
| things or is it more of a manual process to bring everything
| together?
| holoduke wrote:
| Threejs is like the jQuery for building 3d stuff. But it's not
| a platform like Unity or Unreal engine. But it doesn't look
| overly complicated.
| fatbird wrote:
| Having done some non-trivial things with threejs, I'd guess
| it's basically like this: 3JS is the rendering engine (taking
| advantage of WebGL); game logic is in Javascript; ktx2 is an
| OpenGL container holding the world data and other meshes; from
| looking at the filenames, WASM bits are used for loading the
| ktx2 data (draco_decoder.wasm). ogg files are for sound. The
| multiple worker files imply that the app is using web workers
| to run the WASM performantly to load the world.
| paxys wrote:
| ktx2 = textures
|
| drc = 3d shapes (I think)
|
| ogg = audio
|
| All of these would normally be bundled in the game installer,
| but are sent down piece by piece over the network in this case.
|
| Then there's some wasm and js for the game's business logic.
| The browser has WebGL APIs that enable running all of this.
|
| I'm assuming they used a library or engine like Unity, Godot or
| Three.js that supports WebGL as an execution target.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| Definitely Three.js or at least something similarly low-
| level. I doubt you can get this kind of performance with
| Godot or Unity on the web.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| There is Needle.Tools for porting Unity projects to
| WebGL/3js
| bdcp wrote:
| The NPC at the top of the building sais it's three.js
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| ktx is Khronos Texture a format for storing compressed textures
| (=image data) so that they can be uploaded to GPU memory
| without decompressing step inbetween
|
| drc is Draco Compression, it's a library from Google to
| compress mesh data
| jsheard wrote:
| KTX _can_ just store compressed GPU textures as-is, but in
| this case they 're using the Basis Universal codec which is a
| bit more involved. Basis stores textures in a super-
| compressed form, which is decompressed at runtime to produce
| a less compressed (but still compressed!) format that the GPU
| can work with. The advantage is that it's smaller over the
| wire and one source file can decompress to several different
| GPU formats depending on what the users hardware supports.
| DJBunnies wrote:
| Neat. Mini map would be cool.
| bavaga wrote:
| Beautiful piece of art
| ionwake wrote:
| mind blown.
|
| Can I ask the author if AI helped him with this? Is it
| multiplayer too?
|
| I ask as I have been deving a webgl game for a few years
| tomgag wrote:
| Beautiful. Plays super smoothly on Firefox with NoScript, uBlock
| Origin and many other privacy extensions. But it lacks a player
| tutorial IMHO.
| msephton wrote:
| So does life. Just jump on in, try your best, make some
| discoveries, and have fun
| msephton wrote:
| In other words: it's the journey not the destination.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Is it truely a tiny planet or just shader effects?
| npinsker wrote:
| Probably shaders. The curvature's too extreme, and the way
| shadows move as you get close to them doesn't match physical
| reality.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Meh, that's too bad, would have been awesome to see a
| planetoid engine.
| reactordev wrote:
| I think people are confused that they have to deliver packages
| they already possess. Instead the instructions should read...
|
| "Explore and Make Deliveries"
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Is this multiplayer? There are a lot of delivery people walking
| and jumping erratically.
| npteljes wrote:
| I'm not sure if they are real people. I started two sessions
| and I didn't see my other self, despite being in the same
| location. Also, both times, the starting place was the same. If
| that would be the case for everyone, there would be many people
| there who just start the game.
| andrecarini wrote:
| There's probably a bunch of different rooms/shards/servers
| and you get randomly allocated to one when starting
| npteljes wrote:
| Yes, you are right! I opened one game, and then opened like
| 5 other of them, and the final one got the same server as
| my first. Multiplayer confirmed!
| flockonus wrote:
| Idea for letting the player move the camera alone: Top 1/3
| portion of the screen is for camera movement alone, bottom 2/3
| keep as is for player movement
| zobzu wrote:
| very well done
| ta12653421 wrote:
| great effort, consistent styling, nice gameplay!
|
| huge success as side project and for the CV!
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| It could use a tutorial but this is probably the first time that
| I didn't care about the actual aim of the game because of how
| beautifully it looks and sounds. I could just run around in your
| little world forever and feel nice. It's really well done.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Kind of curious about the physics of this; the planet would
| obviously have to be ridiculously dense, but just how dense?
| c0balt wrote:
| Awesome game, the graphics especially were nicely made. The cel
| shading (iirc) went well with the art style.
|
| Played through all missions and at the end had enough of the
| concept but appreciated the AOD. Especially the little bits of
| the environment, like the sleeping fox in the forest, were nice.
| andrewrn wrote:
| What a delightful little game!
| sheerun wrote:
| I've played it through, very relaxing and esthetically pleasing
| fallinditch wrote:
| The spherical game environment works really well, would be great
| if it expand as you play more
| iandanforth wrote:
| Lots of fun! Just the right amount of gameplay.
| zkmon wrote:
| Oh, this is beautiful. I did a bit of WebGL and I wonder how they
| achieved fluidity like this.
| jackblemming wrote:
| Just chiming in with more positivity: was pleasantly surprised
| how fast this loaded and ran on mobile. Impressive work.
| gettingoverit wrote:
| Loved the artstyle, but controls... uhh... let's say they were on
| par with a bad PC port of Sonic Adventure. I can barely control
| where I'm going, because the camera just rotates randomly.
| Something I'll never miss from the old days.
| bob1029 wrote:
| The controls are the only gripe I have with this amazing work.
|
| If I was in Unity, I would address this issue by manually
| placing a bunch of virtual cameras in the world and using
| cinemachine to blend between them. The size of this world is
| small enough to justify manual placement and configuration of
| each. You could also just focus on the complex areas and let
| the default follow cam handle the rest.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| This really wants to be controlled by twin thumbsticks.
| lavela wrote:
| ..or mouse for camera.
|
| But I kind of understand it. I did a somehow similar project
| before and for people who are not trained in video game style
| controls it is quite hard to get used to them ad-hoc.
|
| Assuming this project is at least partially aimed at art
| directors, project leads and such aka people who aren't
| necessarily gamers, detached movement/camera controls are a
| bit risky.
| araes wrote:
| The mouse look was actually something I was kind of wanting
| wandering around.
|
| There were a lot of cool scenic locations, that almost beg
| for the ability to just stand somewhere and look around,
| yet you can't really look down or up very conveniently.
|
| Also, walking locations where you might fall, be kind of
| nice to be able to look at where you're aiming at. Minor
| nit mostly, just fit the explore a scenic island theme.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| There is some level of mouse look. I suspect together
| with not locking the cursor/the cursor leaving the
| window, this is part of why people report issues.
| sram1337 wrote:
| I appreciate what seems like an attempt to make a "smart camera"
| that gets out of the way of the player and unburdens them from
| having to control both a player and the perspective of the
| camera. That burden, of controlling two entities (player and
| camera) is large for people who are unused to playing video
| games.
|
| Was this dynamic on your radar when building the game and camera
| system? Would love to hear your thoughts.
| laurentlb wrote:
| I'd rather have the choice to control the camera (the "smart"
| camera could be used only if I don't control it), because it
| didn't work well for me.
|
| Nice game otherwise.
| cubefox wrote:
| Modern camera systems are often smart in this way. Zelda
| Ocarina of Time on the N64 was one of the first (if not the
| first) that got "out of the way" by itself.
| npteljes wrote:
| Also visit their main site: https://abeto.co/ . The animation is
| mind-blowing.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| It's not obvious how to access any content on that page? The
| animation is cool though.
| lexicality wrote:
| I think the content _is_ the animation (and the contact link)
| shae wrote:
| When you finish the game you get the credits for who created it.
|
| There's also a threejs reference in a hard to reach area.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Absolutely stunning. Well done.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| This is absolutely adorable. I love the art style and the vibe. I
| love the tiny planet concept. Great work.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| haha this is cool
|
| immediately hit a bug where i had like 3 character skins at once
| though
| onevarez wrote:
| This is beautiful, kudos. I'm more than interested to read about
| the building process of this masterpiece.
| MrDisposable wrote:
| This is fantastic.
|
| If I may ask, how did you do the environment models? Did you use
| textures and UV mapping? or just untextured models with a shader
| for the contours?
| softfalcon wrote:
| Am sitting at a game jam right now and took a break to browse HN.
| Found this and started playing for a bit. Now everyone is asking
| about it, this is a really polished and fun WebGL game. Amazing!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It took me longer than I'd care to admit to realize it was a font
| of readable text and not just random glyphs. I like the style of
| them.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I got Hayao Miyazaki vibes about this game. Arigatou.
| computerdork wrote:
| Me too:)
| Keyframe wrote:
| The boss reading the letter even looks like the guy.
| FpUser wrote:
| Some really beautiful style and graphics. Never mind delivery I
| was just admiring the style.
| umvi wrote:
| Took me way to long too realize the other in-world delivery
| people were other players and not NPCs
| Jotalea wrote:
| I spent more time enjoying the graphics and style than actually
| playing. it runs so well on a mobile device, I've never seen
| something like this.
|
| as for the game itself, I couldn't understand how to deliver the
| messages.
| HardwareLust wrote:
| Thank you, I thought it was just me .
| mountainriver wrote:
| Reminds me of Jet Set Radio
| keanebean86 wrote:
| I have a cheap android phone that's 4 years old. This game is
| still playable. Very impressive!
| tapia wrote:
| I was very surprised that it worked perfectly in my 10-year old
| notebook. Normally, nothing this fancy is playable in a web
| browser for me. The CPU was about 20% (I only have two cores, 4
| threads).
| MattRix wrote:
| The "messages" stuff is a bit confusing, but really they're
| just simple quests. You don't start with the mail on you, but
| all you have to do is wander around and find quest givers who
| will tell you what to do.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Woah, is this the same author as
|
| https://summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com
|
| ?
| 5- wrote:
| well spotted! seems to be the case:
| https://x.com/vlucendo/status/1971219342231732516
| tetris11 wrote:
| I noticed the movement UI style was the same
| Rygian wrote:
| The alien sunbathing at the beach is a nice wink.
| V__ wrote:
| I remember that. What a talent.
| geuis wrote:
| Love the beach guy makes an appearance in both.
| mlok wrote:
| The flying saucer is also there too :)
| KevinMS wrote:
| controlling movement is much easier. Something is wrong with
| the movement in the OP game, at least on a browers
| Retr0id wrote:
| Feels about the same to me, I think the map is just more open
| on this one so the camera is less likely to be pointed
| somewhere annoying.
| esjeon wrote:
| An interesting contradiction is that, in Summer Afternoon, you
| are in a wide empty town, but, in Messenger, you're stuck in a
| small planet AND limited vision. You can only see near-by
| stuffs and never the whole town.
|
| The design of the latter allows packing more details in a
| smaller space. Also, players are forced to face a lot of
| unexpectedness, as navigation becomes a natural challenge
| (which isn't difficult to overcome, which is exactly the
| point). It's like the blind men and the elephant, and can feel
| very limited, but you end up using your brain, and, in that
| process, you fully embrace the world details.
| sueszli wrote:
| This is just wonderful
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Amazing.
|
| Its got a Zelda Wind Walker vibe that I love. It was fun just
| running around exploring.
| iib wrote:
| How do you solve the second mission (the man that is hiding
| somewhere)? I've managed to find even the three.js mention, but
| nothing to start that one.
| ryancanzo wrote:
| He's in a cave near the forest. Turn right when you see the
| tree stump with the owl on it.
| SamBam wrote:
| Beautiful, as others have said.
|
| The one thing that transported me out of the game was the
| arbitrary blocking around the ocean / the end of the stream. (I
| assume those go to the same place, from different sides.)
|
| It seems on such a tiny world the water should never be more than
| waist deep, so why not just let us explore the whole thing. I
| didn't quite feel like I got to go all the way around the tiny
| world, and being fenced by an invisible barrier broke the fourth
| wall.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| So Impressive
| prameshbajra wrote:
| Oh my god. This is amazing.
| latexr wrote:
| The camera, controls, and difficult to discern invisible walls
| were frustrating to the point I had to just quit the game, even
| after completing over half of the deliveries. On Safari on macOS
| there is also a glitch where the character's clothes keep
| changing, and I can't see any other players there (it was only
| when I tried it on iOS that I realised this is Journey-like).
|
| But the game is beautiful and peaceful and I'm still glad I got
| to experience it. I'll definitely share it with some friends.
| Thank you for making it.
| Skullfurious wrote:
| Pretty damn cool experience. Definitely the most polished browser
| game I've tried. The limited scope really makes it fantastic and
| since it's such a small vertical slice the world feels very full
| of detail. The art style is fantastic as well.
| chistev wrote:
| Programming is magic
| nicexe wrote:
| Decentraleyes extension on Firefox results in garbled text. Not
| sure why this happens. It is supposed to serve some common assets
| locally instead of requesting them over the network.
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| Damn I'd love to play a Zelda game with that level of NPC detail
| and style.
| ghurtado wrote:
| You can, that game is Wind Waker
|
| Besides the visual style being very similar, there's an island
| in the game with about the same amount of NPCs, and they all
| have their own lives and many give you chores like this one.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| has a lot of potential
|
| feedback after 5m
|
| * there should be a help section, all i could figure out is how
| to walk with up/left/down/right, and w/a/s/d. And the mouse. * I
| got nauseous after a bit, not sure if that is everyone or just me
| but I did have some bad nausea on a ride (teacups) at the local
| carnival/fair a few months ago, and it comes back every now and
| then. * the controls on desktop seem too sensitive. I had to
| eventually walk with W and then go left and right with the arrow
| keys, but even then it was too sensitive
|
| I left after 5m because of the nausea.
|
| I liked the music and peacefulness.
| la_oveja wrote:
| camera control is non existant, you just go and game chooses
| what you see. let me control the camera please
| bilkow wrote:
| Yeah, I also got motion sickness from the camera! I managed to
| complete as I really liked everything else but I'm still a bit
| nauseated.
| correct_horse wrote:
| I also got nausea from this game and I've never gotten nausea
| from a video game before. The style is amazing, but the camera
| controls need some work. I don't know what the camera needs
| besides a more standard mouse control.
| mat0 wrote:
| same. sensitivity of the camera is just too high. it handles ok
| but so much sensitivity creates this motion sickness. had to
| quit after 30 seconds and I still can't recover. but beautiful
| game though!
| arkensaw wrote:
| This is stunning, and I adore it. I had an idea to build a game
| set on a tiny planet but I never even started, and here you have
| created something that's awe-inspiring. keep it up!
| geuis wrote:
| Love all of it except for the camera controls on iOS. Not sure
| how you could improve them but they need some work. Camera gets
| too close to the character a lot. Might consider two touch
| controls that separate movement direction and camera position.
| xixixao wrote:
| Agreed. Same for movement. It's a little too hard to run
| straight sometimes.
| kouru225 wrote:
| Too sensitive on the turning
| johnsillings wrote:
| would be fixed by adding controls - probably q and e - to turn
| the camera left and right and pivot the character
| jakubmazanec wrote:
| Beautiful design, but uncontrollable and unplayable. Edit: on a
| phone I'm constantly bumping into walls.
| Biganon wrote:
| What? On desktop? Found it extremely easy to control...
| cdelsolar wrote:
| i can't find the mountain temple :(
| _qua wrote:
| Neither can I. I feel stupid
| DanLol wrote:
| Me either XD I keep finding new places I haven't explored yet
| and getting distracted.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| It took me a while, but it's there. There's an owl-looking rock
| in the side of a mountain. To the right of it you can fall all
| the way down to the beach with the guy on the lounger directly
| below (but getting back up is a bit roundabout). Once you find
| the owl-looking rock you're very close to the person at the top
| where you need to deliver the message.
| Titan2189 wrote:
| same
| _qua wrote:
| Finally found it. In the Main Square you go down that side
| street where the guy is standing next to his scooter. Then you
| turn left through the gate and there is a little rocky
| outcropping there where the temple is.
| hkon wrote:
| Smooth, I enjoyed it a lot.
| Biganon wrote:
| This is the loveliest thing I've ever seen on the web. The
| feeling of being immediately immersed in a universe. A work of
| art.
| nfbx wrote:
| this is the most cute, beautiful shit i've seen all year. i love
| the fact that there are other players everywhere, since it's so
| convenient to dive into it via browser.
| rdrd wrote:
| Beautiful. You can just tell when things are made with the core
| premise of how they wanted someone to FEEL playing it. Not some
| lore, not some "cool" gameplay ideas they had, not some fancy gfx
| concept they'd prototyped. It just feels different when you know
| it's been approached from a completely emotional perspective.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Nice one
| saint11 wrote:
| Wow this looks amazing, but the camera made me very nauseous, I
| had to stop playing.
| bdcp wrote:
| I'm proud i found the UFO lmao
| Levitating wrote:
| I haven't found any UFOs but I did find an alien
| bdcp wrote:
| His ship is the opposite side of the water. It's a bit tricky
| to find :D
| yndoendo wrote:
| Cliff note, take a look way yonder.
|
| Developer, my friend, you are the reason I map key bindings
| in the keyboard.
|
| WASD ... esdf for life ... be the center.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Was having fun. Completed all but the scientist objective as I
| couldn't find the last person. I found what looked to be a hidden
| location and as the person there said "Hello" it crashed the
| page. oof.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Happy to find out it remembered my progress. And I found the
| final delivery and completed the game. And yes, I'm sure the
| girl on the roof is a 'hidden' thing. She talks about three.js,
| game development, and art.
| samplifier wrote:
| I'm a recovering completionist. Don't do this to me! I've
| been trying to find a secret area by walking on the pipes but
| that is probably a red herring. But why is there a gauge
| there? I also haven't found the girl on the roof yet, multi-
| wall jumping doesn't seem to work :)
|
| SPOILERS AHEAD (for another game, which you should have
| played by now, if you enjoy this game, in my opinion) There's
| also a hiss at the industrial site which reminds me of the
| game Full Throttle where you have to kick the wall at the
| right time. But that can't be a thing, right? But the gauge!
| lsaferite wrote:
| In one of the alleys there a trash can with one open lid
| and a small box on the ground next to it/ You notice an
| exterior stair just above teh trash can. You hop on the
| box, then the closed side of the trash, then the open, then
| the stairs. I'll leave the rest of the puzzle for you to
| figure out. You want to make it to the top of the building.
| pkdpic wrote:
| This is like a masterclass in game design, mobile UI, wasm,
| character design, game dialogue and interactive paychogeography.
| I'm gonna show this to my kid's computer club next week. Really
| fantastic, bravo. Is this seriously a solo developer project??
|
| If anyone knows of similar games / apps / software tools that I
| could show as examples of solo developer small scope simple UI
| games I'm always trying to find more..
| colkassad wrote:
| Return of the Obra Dinn!
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/653530/Return_of_the_Obra...
| abustamam wrote:
| Haven't played Obra Dinn yet (it's on my list of games to
| play together with my wife), but anything by its developer
| Lucas Pope is a masterpiece. Papers Please, while it
| infuriated me at times (apparently I suck at following rules
| and spotting differences) was just amazing. Available on
| mobile and PC.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papers,_Please
| darkvertex wrote:
| Also if you have the delightful "Playdate" game console,
| his game Mars After Midnight is charming and not stressful.
| abustamam wrote:
| I would love to play that! I love the idea of the
| Playdate but with a Switch that is gathering dust, I
| don't think I can convince my wife to let me get another
| handheld :')
| araes wrote:
| From qingcharles post earlier, three people with abeto.co
| (https://abeto.co/).
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45397933
|
| > https://xcancel.com/abeto_co
|
| > https://xcancel.com/vlucendo
|
| > https://xcancel.com/michaelsungaila
|
| > https://kevincolombin.bandcamp.com/
| MattRix wrote:
| The iOS game Tiny Wings was made by a solo developer (Andreas
| Illiger). I highly recommend it. It's over a decade old now,
| but it just got update this year, and it still stands out in my
| mind as one of the best mobile games ever made.
| codys wrote:
| There's also an article on another game by the same folks
| that's similar (but earlier) which describes some details on
| building it
|
| https://www.awwwards.com/summer-afternoon.html
| zghst wrote:
| Completed the game, really awesome!!
|
| --from San Francisco
| hei-lima wrote:
| Amazing! I've never seen a game with this artstyle, really,
| really classy!
| 5- wrote:
| obligatory list of similar stuff.
|
| - alba: a wildlife adventure. more gameplay but somewhat similar
| controls/feel
|
| - a short hike. isometric but similar feel (thanks thrance)
|
| - the legend of zelda: the wind waker. haven't played, but
| mentioned in a few other comments
|
| - proteus. first person and more subtle gameplay
|
| anything else?
| thrance wrote:
| If we're going off vibes alone, I believe "A Short Hike" would
| be closer.
| 5- wrote:
| yes, thanks! i was unsure whether to include it because it
| _looks_ quite different. but you are right, it has the
| similar exploratory vibe and is a great game.
| thrance wrote:
| I feel like a thief playing this for free. This is leagues better
| than most mobile "games", and actually online too!
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Very fun! And multiplayer too! Had some fun spamming emojis at
| other people :)
| Geste wrote:
| This should have been a steam game. I played worse games there !
| bob1029 wrote:
| It still can be. This is a really good use case for electron.
| Steam doesn't care what kind of program it's launching.
| lukebechtel wrote:
| well done!!
| nclgrt wrote:
| Gorgeous. Would love to know how they managed to create a
| reliably good-looking outline post processing shader with notches
| (the sketched look).
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| This is beautiful. Congrats.
| Brainfood wrote:
| @thecupisblue. Amazing work. Logged in just to tell you this.
| This has just given me goose bumps and made me excited about the
| web again. I've been struggling to find my groove in the dev
| world post AI and have been digging back into AR and WebXR just
| for the fun of it. Thank you for the game and more importantly
| the renewed inspiration to make something cool!
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| WebXR is massively underrated
| baw-bag wrote:
| It's really unique and beautiful. I want to see more of this. I
| grew up with random interactive experiences in Flash, this is far
| more amazing that those days but we need more of this and less of
| the form crud crap.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I found movement controls rotated too aggressively on mobile in
| portrait mode. Switching my phone to landscape orientation made
| it easier to control, but the url bar was then stuck along the
| top.
| Razengan wrote:
| Oh man I love "tiny planets" and anything based on them!
| chr15m wrote:
| Absolutely masterful. Setting the standard for web based games.
| Congratulations!
| alextingle wrote:
| Great game. Had to quit as it's giving me motion sickness.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| I can echo everyone here in saying the graphics of the game and
| the execution is fantastic. The keyboard controls on desktop and
| the thumb control on mobile works great. This got me very excited
| about the future! Can't imagine the amount of effort that would
| have gone in this.
|
| One additional input, although I could play it well on the
| desktop - the mobile gameplay made me a tad nauseous. I am
| someone prone to nausea in VR too, but I've never felt this in
| any other mobile game before. I think it's probably the amount of
| motion (hilly topography) and the very narrow field of view,
| along with the way the mobile controls behave. This was on iOS
| Safari btw (iPhone 16 Pro Max).
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| Yes I had to take a break due to the game making me feel off,
| but then I came back later and managed to finish it
| snerbles wrote:
| Got a little nauseous playing it on desktop. Needs an FOV
| slider and maybe the ability to dampen camera movement.
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| One thing I found is the field of view is much better in
| landscape orientation on my phone than portrait. Still a little
| small but not nearly as bad.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's perfect on the almost square-ish main screen of a
| foldable.
|
| In fact, it's the best looking game experience on a foldable
| I've seen so far (most games are designed for either mobile
| or tablet form factor, and can't quite handle the in-
| between). And it's cool how you can just fold or unfold the
| device on the fly, and the game just adapts without anything
| more noticeable than the camera pivoting a bit if needed to
| keep the character on-screen. No stutter, no half-second
| pause for UI to realign, not even perspective change.
|
| EDIT: I just realized it's probably not a mobile-specific
| thing, and sure enough, on a desktop you can just resize your
| browser window to see this.
| dmbche wrote:
| I know most comments are just saying wow - but wow indeed. Felt
| like a kid on Newgrounds once more. Blown away
| m13rar wrote:
| . Loved it. The art was refreshing and interactions so fluid.
| linehedonist wrote:
| Beautiful. Feels like the Japan of 90s Studio Ghibli movies.
| em-bee wrote:
| i don't know if it is a browser issue, but on firefox the text in
| messages is invisible.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Worked fine for me, even on Linux. Maybe you have some sort of
| blocker extension?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Beautiful. I especially like how *obviously* Japanese the village
| looks.
| jsmo wrote:
| Beautiful, thanks for sharing!
| AIVoiceCleaner wrote:
| Absolutely love this. The art is gorgeous and it runs beautifully
| on mobile. But the best part is the silent communication with
| other players--jumping around and using emojis really captures
| that magical feeling from games like Journey. Brilliant design.
| souldzin wrote:
| What an inspirational work of art. Thanks for making this and
| sharing it.
|
| I've only played a few minutes (will have to revisit with more
| time). On first impression, the art style / characters / dynamics
| feel like a mix of "Little Kitty, Big City" and "Olli Olli
| World". Really great vibes!
| hijp wrote:
| This is so neat! Is there a debug mode where I could just fly
| around and examine the planet?
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Holy crap this game beautiful. It's inspiring, in the way I used
| to feel when I first loved video games.
| zeeqeen wrote:
| Fantastic I love it
| cornhole wrote:
| this is truly a strand type game
| mattdw wrote:
| This is really great - great style, charming little world. Love
| it!
| motbus3 wrote:
| It is lovely overall. I just think the camera is almost too close
| for the character. It could be just a little tad farther so I
| could control it better when playing on my phone
| _ZeD_ wrote:
| Ummm... it seems that it doesn't work on Firefox mobile for
| android. I just see a black screen.
| mfcl wrote:
| Strange, I am also on Firefox for Android and the game works
| fine.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Beautiful!
| vicnov wrote:
| Very pleasant. happy to report -- i delivered all packages.
| stevage wrote:
| I am completely blown away by this.
|
| As a web developer who doesn't make games...I'm a bit overwhelmed
| by the vast knowledge gap that clearly exists between what I know
| and what would be required to make this.
|
| Wow. It's so beautiful and enjoyable to wander about in.
| dsq wrote:
| There is something humbling seeing great work.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Did anyone else felt a bit nauseous after playing for a while? I
| think the overcorrection on sustained turns could be a reason.
| Lovely game but I had to stop playing due to this.
| snerbles wrote:
| It took me about 30 seconds. Which is a shame, this is the kind
| of game that immediately draws me in.
| tomcam wrote:
| This is a masterpiece
| kettlecorn wrote:
| One of the most impressive things about this is that it transfers
| only 5.7 MB of data on initial load and then caps out at 17.5 MB
| for the final load.
|
| It seems to be making smart choices about compression techniques.
|
| This is a good showcase of how well games can work on the web if
| done well.
| noduerme wrote:
| So many techniques that made web games good, in terms of smart
| loading, have been lost or abandoned since the mid-2000s when
| bandwidth limitations were common, and at the same time
| "engines" like Away3D and Starling were starting to leverage
| AS3's ability to handle async calls and async uploads to the
| GPU. JS engines now try to bundle that behavior into
| asynchronous asset loading calls, but it's not ever really
| dialed in to make sure you don't experience freezes or hiccups
| in gameplay, so usually it's loaded by game level and not
| fluidly as you move around a world. It's not as if the authors
| of this game couldn't have put it all in a 17.5 MB package, and
| most people wouldn't have noticed anymore because the world has
| gotten used to long initialization screens. What's awesome is
| to see someone do the art of lazy loading so elegantly.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I wouldn't say the techniques are lost. I think a LOT of work
| goes into streaming assets in games. It's just focused on
| streaming from disk.
|
| There's no market for flash style web games so you don't see
| it.
| high_priest wrote:
| I was shocked that the game loaded fairly quickly on a 128kbps
| connection. I only wish it would say that it is loading
| additional data, because I was stuck on white screen for a bit,
| with no info on the state.
|
| I love it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Am I wrong in feeling that 5-15MB is... more than enough data
| for the world we see? There's not _that_ much information here.
|
| I'm not trying to be a demoscene smart-ass here, either (I
| expect demoscene masters would've packed the equivalent in
| under 1MB). Just that, models are low-poly, the world is small
| and made up from pieces that feel simple to describe; as long
| as you're not trying to bake everything into a static set of
| meshes, but willing to encode them at a higher level, 5MB seems
| like plenty.
|
| For a dimensionally reduced analogy, the 2D equivalent would be
| a perfect example of an image that's very large in raster form,
| but quite small in vector form.
|
| Are my intuitions widely off here?
|
| Note that this does not make it any less impressive - on the
| contrary, I'm amazed by how much detail and _soul_ is there to
| this world, despite apparent simplicity. I 'm also amazed at
| how navigable this world is. I've made many stupid moves that I
| was dead sure will wedge me between walls, or get me stuck in a
| nook with no way of going back; but none of that happened. They
| must've put a lot of thought into the design, and it wouldn't
| surprise me if they manually mapped out the world to ensure
| there's no one-way paths.
| hedora wrote:
| I thought it was higher, but median page weight is over one
| mb, and 90'th percentile is 7-8 mb:
|
| https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2024/page-weight#fig-37
|
| So, 5-15 for a video game (vs a static document) is pretty
| good!
| m-schuetz wrote:
| 10MB for non-procedutal content is really really good. The
| world is quite rich in detail for a low poly world, that
| quickly adds up.
| kettlecorn wrote:
| It's pretty good! I peaked a little bit under the hood and
| most of the size is going into the 3D models and secondly the
| sound effects. The largest single asset is the looping music
| track which is 2.3 MB.
|
| The 3D models are compressed with 'Draco' compression. So for
| example the largest asset is a model of the entire world
| which is 333 kB. It consists of 81k vertices. Unoptimized
| that would mean at least 3 32 bit floats per vertex, which
| would be at least 972 kB uncompressed. So Draco compression
| is doing a pretty good job getting the model sizes down.
|
| I'd have to dig into it more but I suspect if they wanted to
| they could have trimmed the size down quite a bit, but it may
| not be worth the effort. They could have used more repeat 3D
| models, but instead it looks like they went for a more artist
| driven look where most of the world is uniquely modeled.
|
| It also looks like they're sending a bunch of lower res
| levels of detail per model over the network. That also is a
| tradeoff. Still with network speeds as they are nowadays it
| may be faster / simpler to send those over the wire each time
| instead of regenerating the level of detail.
|
| The textures are a similar story. Well compressed but they're
| sending procedural noise over the network. Those could be
| generated but it's also trivial to send them over the
| network.
| noduerme wrote:
| Wow. This is gorgeous. Chef's kiss. It's been so long since I've
| seen someone put this much effort into a web-based indie game (or
| even an app store indie game, actually). I am assuming this is a
| small team. The concept is really clever and original. There's
| almost no load time and a perfect frame rate on a low-end phone
| over 4G. It's clear how much time went into optimizing it for
| seamless performance. I'm making some assumption that this is an
| original one-off game engine, but I'm very curious to
| investigate. The art is also beautiful in a way that makes almost
| any view look perfect.
|
| This feels so well thought out in all ways. It may be the best
| original work I've seen on HN in a long time.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| ,,Wow, I got promoted? Who would have thought that acting on my
| lowest instincts would bring me advancement in the corporate
| world!"
|
| Clever text as well :)
| patrick4urcloud wrote:
| amazing job !
| rjim86 wrote:
| Absolutely fantastic. Animation is smooth in desktop and mobile
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| When experience meets creativity, imagination delivers
| simplicity.
| sspiff wrote:
| This is the most beautifully soothing thing I've seen all week.
| Thanks you.
| ghoshbishakh wrote:
| how is it so damn fast
| boogieknite wrote:
| ive read some criticisms of fiddly movement and lack of
| tutorials. i thought it added to the experience. tbf i am on my
| laptop
|
| the stakes are so low, the music is so relaxing, and the
| environment is so detailed and pretty that it pushes the player
| slow down and try clicking around and pressing some keys. each
| little discovery feels great and theres no downside to sitting
| around and trying things out for 30 seconds
|
| my favorite part is that there is some tough platforming if you
| look for it. i make it to a few places that were only accessible
| with a running jump across a balanced ledge. the fiddly controls
| added to the experience. a splash of emergent game play in such a
| distilled hangout game
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| Huh, I played on mobile and move and jump were exclusive afaict
| in the touch controls. I climbed up a fire escape and almost
| got on top of a building but couldn't make the last step to get
| up there. Maybe I'll have to try on desktop.
| modernerd wrote:
| One of the artists behind this, Vicente Lucendo, has a case study
| here explaining how they made a previous project (Summer
| Afternoon):
|
| https://www.awwwards.com/summer-afternoon.html
|
| And a talk here on the same project:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0
|
| It's full of tips that likely informed this new project. In
| short, seems like:
|
| - No game engine
|
| - Three.js plus https://github.com/gkjohnson/three-mesh-bvh
|
| - Houdini and Blender for modelling
|
| - Substance for texturing
|
| - Figma and Affinity Photo for UI
|
| - GSAP and vanilla JS for animation
|
| - Davinci Resolve for sound
|
| - WebSocket/Node.js for multiplayer
|
| Plus a lot of experience, creativity, and artistry to solve other
| challenges (e.g. shaders, shadows) and wire everything together
| into this pretty performant piece of art.
|
| The studio also has a case study here of another project they
| made, with other hints about their tooling and process:
|
| https://www.awwwards.com/igloo-inc-case-study.html
|
| Just for anyone like me who played this and spent the whole time
| thinking, "this is beautiful, who are you and how did you make
| this?" The author names are only revealed in the credits at the
| end:
|
| https://vlucendo.com/
|
| https://x.com/michaelsungaila (nice work on the beach shader!)
|
| https://www.kevincolombin.com/ (music)
| Sobrino wrote:
| I made a reply asking if anyone has some behind the scenes
| information on making games like this! Thanks for sharing!
| ionwake wrote:
| Thank you so much for this post, excellent
| EmilyHughes wrote:
| This is impressive but I don't get it. All that work and you
| have a game written in JS of all things. Why not write it in a
| desktop language und port it to JS. Now this will always need a
| browser to run, feels like a waste of time to me.
| sh4rks wrote:
| Can always use Electron or Tauri to turn it into a native app
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Electron and native do not belong in the same sentence
| AFAIK unless you mean 'native to the browser (which happens
| to be included in the package)'. Tauri is the same, just
| bring your own 'browser' (webview, really).
| yurishimo wrote:
| We all build on top of something. Today's browser will
| look like a native platform in another 20 years. Just
| like assembly does to our point of view today.
| modernerd wrote:
| Or, reframing:
|
| - This will _only_ need a browser to run. No console. No PC
| rig. No Steam account. No account at all. You just need a
| link to play it.
|
| - Why use a heavy game engine and all the baggage that can
| bring when you can make a lightweight prototype in JS, prove
| value in the browser, then port to desktop if you choose to.
|
| Browser games are an underexplored art form.
| cluckindan wrote:
| First you make the money, then hire someone else to port it
| to native. That's what Vampire Survivors did.
| DecoySalamander wrote:
| You're looking at it in the wrong way. It's written in the
| native language of the best content delivery platform we have
| available.
| hedora wrote:
| It'll also run pretty well on pretty much any OS. If I had
| a BSD box with GPU acceleration laying around, I'd give it
| a spin.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Now this will always need a browser to run, feels like a
| waste of time to me.
|
| As opposed to creating binaries for every platform and be
| subject to every possible store scrutiny on Android, iOS,
| Windows, Mac?
|
| That not a waste of time for sure.
|
| What am I ever reading?
| retinaros wrote:
| what was the approach for the cell shading look do you know?
| modernerd wrote:
| Custom tooling, mentioned briefly here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0&t=1177s
|
| But this new game seems to make use more textures and cell
| shading.
| araes wrote:
| On that subject, and since the Summer Afternoon direct link was
| not provided, can anybody actually get the project to work?
| Apparently made it on to HN 2.5 years ago.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34461808 Not sure if its
| just my system, yet I always start stuck in the ground unable
| to move.
|
| https://summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com/
| modernerd wrote:
| Still plays fine for me. (Chrome, macOS.)
| araes wrote:
| Ok, thanks. Firefox, Windows was what was tried. Seems to
| have issues. Try Chrome and see if it works better. EDIT:
| Yep, works on Chrome, Windows. Must be a Firefox specific
| issue / feature not supported.
| Sobrino wrote:
| This game is absolutely beautiful. Everytime I restart learning
| WebGL I dream of making small little experiences like this but I
| never seem to get past "box in a scene with lightning"-phase.
|
| Anyone has any tips on building games like this?
| TestUser00 wrote:
| amazing
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Really impressed by this. The art style is fantastic, and you've
| done a spectacular job making everything feel cozy despite being
| wrapped around such a tiny sphere. The number of distinct
| locations is absolutely incredible.
|
| Keyboard controls were a tad frustrating, but hell of a job
| overall.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Graphically the game looks great, this is the kind of stuff that
| Web 3D needs, given the difference on OpenGL ES offerings on
| native mobile games and what most stuff looks like.
|
| However I gave up playing on mobile, the system randomly mixes
| fingers movement between moving the character and zooming, thus
| breaking any gaming experience, I guess it was mainly tested on
| desktop.
| maplethorpe wrote:
| I think you have mistaken the camera zooming to avoid clipping
| with the environment with your fingers controlling the zoom.
| Unless there is some secret zoom gesture I'm missing.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The game is the one mistaking it, all happens with single
| finger movement.
|
| One second it is going forward, sundenly the next second
| zooms in.
| maplethorpe wrote:
| Well perhaps you are experiencing a bug since mine only
| does that when there is an obstacle in the way of the
| camera.
| 55555 wrote:
| I don't play games. I clicked the link and played through the
| entire game. With a little work you could turn this into a modern
| Myst-type game, with a compelling story and atmosphere and
| mysteries/puzzles. I think this would be really fantastic.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| > I don't play games.
|
| Like ever? Are you talking about any sort of game or you mean
| strictly "video games"?
| 2wrist wrote:
| This is lovely! well done.
| dodobirdy wrote:
| It made me young again man. Wandering around, exploring. The
| Pleasure of Finding Things out. Cheers bro.
| rossant wrote:
| Really amazing. A rare drop of meticulous, hand-crafted beauty in
| an ocean of AI slop and bloat, so refreshing.
| frays wrote:
| This is amazing.
| renerick wrote:
| After listening to a certain science fiction podcast and playing
| through a certain space puzzle game, I think I've got a bit of a
| soft spot for tiny worlds, especially a world this charming! Good
| work
| wolfgangbabad wrote:
| Again, the proof that music and sound is 50% of success of a
| game. Even if the game flops the OST will live on. I always
| invest time in music and sound as much as possible.
| cubefox wrote:
| One thing I really like about the graphics: the black "comic
| book" outlines have lots of gaps, which gives the game an
| imperfect, hand drawn look which other cel shaded games lack.
| imdoxxingme wrote:
| It's gorgeous. But I can't figure out why they didn't just use
| real japanese text instead of fake text.
| christophilus wrote:
| A lot of games do this. They want you to get a particular
| feeling without a real language breaking that spell for some
| folks.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| 'cause most people would not be able to read it and would
| relegate the game/site/project/... as something tailored to the
| 130 million (or thereabouts) of more than 8 billion people who
| do read Japanese and most likely sideline it.
| gustavorg wrote:
| Everyone is celebrating and praising this beautiful and well-
| crafted game, and here I am maliciously thinking that if this
| game were to come to Steam, some evil curator would say "Not
| recommended" followed by a nonsensical and absurd explanation.
| ranguna wrote:
| I just went through some thought stuff recently, so opening HN,
| of all things, and playing this jam relaxed my quite a bit. Thank
| you.
| alterom wrote:
| This game is perfect. I've finished all the deliveries, and have
| found both the special visitor and their vehicle :)
|
| Wish there were achievements for that!
| arendtio wrote:
| It even works with a controller (steam controller) :-)
| Narushia wrote:
| I think I got softlocked, I dropped from the top of a factory
| building into an area where I'm just stuck lol.
| numa7numa7 wrote:
| This is spectactular.
| drob518 wrote:
| Works really well on a tablet (iPad), which is quite rare for JS
| games, I've found.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Super nice game. Anyway, I hit a border where the stream of water
| ends. Has someone checked the topology? It's a sphere or just a
| rectagle with an impossible curvature in both directions?
| tigerBL00D wrote:
| A very cool game! I just wish I could look around while standing
| still. Well done.
| davedx wrote:
| Lovely game, it was over too soon!
|
| The speech sound effects and environments reminded me of Stray a
| lot. I miss that game so much.
| ksynwa wrote:
| Runs great on Firefox on Pixel 3 so already GOTY
| bartread wrote:
| This is beautiful, and works well on mobile in many ways.
|
| I'm not unfortunately a fan of the way the touch controls work.
| Given the player is on a tiny spherical world I'd expected to be
| able to drag the world around under their feet to make them
| walk/run, whereas the way it works at the moment, on a smallish
| phone screen, feels somewhat backwards.
| bytehowl wrote:
| I really liked the chill vibe and it ran surprisingly well for a
| 3D browser game. Are there any "secrets" besides the alien, space
| ship and the girl on the roof who talks about Three.js?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Amazing!
| mattbruv wrote:
| This is beautiful. Like others, I don't really play video games,
| but walking around and appreciating the visual style is just so
| comforting and compelling. Incredible work.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Great job, Vicente and Michael!
|
| * I love the writing, it's witty and poignant
|
| * I was impressed that WASD controls worked with my keyboard set
| to Dvorak :)
|
| * Unfortunately have to second the comments about nausea; the
| oddly paced camera (it feels like it is panning through molasses
| then suddenly accelerates to switch views) is probably
| responsible, I'm guessing the "overshoot view then correct"
| "feature" is also a factor. Additionally seconding the comments
| about allowing the camera to follow the mouse (if feasible
| somehow while not losing cross-form-factor support) would go a
| long way to help here as well.
|
| * The font that shows you where you are is cute in an orientalist
| sense, but imho it is very difficult to read (even knowing what
| it says from context clues and previous hints)
|
| * Not a criticism but it is odd to have jumping when there is no
| mechanism that uses it in-game
|
| * 99.99% a me problem: I had a hard time with spatial awareness
| and a difficulty building a mental map of the world and my best
| guess is that it's because I personally found the default field
| of view to be too "zoomed in".
| joduplessis wrote:
| Fantastic work! We need more of this on the web.
| scoopr wrote:
| Heh, little prince tries gig work ;)
| brewtide wrote:
| 100% had the same little prince connection the moment it
| loaded. Quite pretty indeed.
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| The guy in the cave having the midlife crisis and his wife
| sending him clothes had me in tears. The lost kid in the woods
| who can hear his dad. The lack of any meaningful gratitude... he
| just seemed so checked out. I felt so jealous of his wife who
| still cared. Who kept saying tulips take time.
|
| Not even a complicated storyline but very poignant.
| textlapse wrote:
| If only there was an equivalent of the Arts funding for legit
| beautiful art via new media...
|
| It may be hard to find an audience (revenue) but these kind of
| gems should be encouraged similar to traditional art form.
|
| It is somewhat obscene that there is art in galleries out there
| with far less effort and talent that go for millions in both
| funding and revenue.
| lebimas wrote:
| This is beautiful
| darepublic wrote:
| It took me a while to realize you need to click on the word
| bubble with the ellipsis to begin the conversation
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