[HN Gopher] Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game ...
___________________________________________________________________
Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single
HTML file
Author : iceberger2001
Score : 538 points
Date : 2026-04-09 01:52 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (playstarfling.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (playstarfling.com)
| iceberger2001 wrote:
| Hey HN, I built STARFLING, a simple hyper-casual space game you
| can play right in your browser.
|
| You orbit a star with a ball. Tap anywhere to release and sling
| it through space. Catch the next star to lock in orbit and keep
| going. Miss and it's game over.
|
| The whole thing is just one HTML file with vanilla JS, Canvas,
| and Web Audio. No frameworks, no build step. Loads in under 2
| seconds on phone or desktop.
|
| There's a combo system if you release quick, a skip bonus for
| jumping over stars, and it gets harder the longer you last. When
| you die you get a cool trail art picture of your whole run that
| you can share.
|
| Audio is all generated on the fly and it has haptics too. Pretty
| satisfying once you get the timing down.
|
| Play it here:
| https://playstarfling.com?utm_source=hn&utm_medium=showhn
|
| Would love your thoughts on the feel, difficulty, and whether the
| trail art is fun or not.
|
| Thanks!
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Really like this game. A few bits of feedback:
|
| - Can you add a keyboard key that also launches, rather than
| always have to be a click - Can you make it so it restarts
| without having to click the play again button? Maybe use the
| same keyboard button as above? - When fail, why does the ship
| fall to the floor? Maybe a gentle curve away would be more
| "realistic" - Why is the bg squares? Maybe it should be more of
| a subtle space bg
|
| Thanks for making it!
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| +1 on keyboard to launch and restart!!
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Oh, and it's completely different on mobile. Game is slower and
| much easier to score well.
|
| My feedback above was on desktop.
| tuyiown wrote:
| It's great but the animations when catching a new orbit (sparks
| and combo announcements) is making hard to follow the ball, I
| realized I missed many shots due to this after some games.
| metalrain wrote:
| I noticed that gameplay speed depends on the window size. I'm
| assuming that larger canvas takes longer to render. It seems
| too fast at small window sizes and maybe too slow at 4K, not
| sure what is the intended speed.
| cheschire wrote:
| The "better than X%" of players seems way off. If I get zero,
| somehow still better than 32% of players? and 25 planets is
| >99% of players?
|
| The dotted line starting wide and slowly shrinking to the real
| orbit is a great touch. It makes the quick/fast/blazing/insane
| moves harder and more satisfying when they work. The angles
| encourage skips frequently enough to feel good.
|
| I think the only improvement I would make to the look is
| perhaps the background. I still think the cyberwave aesthetic
| works and isn't played out quite yet, especially on mobile. But
| maybe instead of a boring flat grid, some very faint parallax
| points moving across the background might work better to give
| the game a bit more depth.
|
| The pause->restart flow is way faster than clicking the restart
| button at the bottom of the screen. If your intent is to
| capture the end of every game to advertise the upcoming mobile
| game, then you might want to capture that method of restart as
| well.
|
| Great game, thanks!
| Sharlin wrote:
| > and 25 planets is >99% of players?
|
| That doesn't sound so strange because the presumably the
| majority of visitors are going to try once or twice and then
| carry on, and it's actually pretty difficult to get even 25
| points in this game.
| bspammer wrote:
| This is a really nice little game. My feedback is that on
| mobile at least, the text that pops up often blocks vision of
| the ball, which is quite frustrating. I would move it down a
| bit
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I liked this game a lot!
|
| One thing I noticed is that I found the game to be pretty hard
| if I just tried to tap based on where I thought was a good
| "launching point". But then I realized I could use the dashed
| lines in the orbit circle as basically "arrows" pointing to
| where the ship would go if launched at that point in the orbit,
| and I instantly got _much_ better if my strategy was (a) pick
| the dash in the orbit circle that points to the next planet,
| and (b) just then only focus on tapping when the ship hits that
| dash in the circle.
|
| I think a "hard mode" would be to get rid of the dashes in the
| orbit circle and just make it a solid line.
| porterde wrote:
| This comment instantly made me 10x better player
| hapidjus wrote:
| I did something similar, tried to click when the ship was at
| an 90 degree angle to the line connecting the planet to the
| next.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I still can't figure it out. It just seems to randomly curve
| away from where I want it to go. It gets boring to lose every
| time, so I just gave up. Could use a difficulty setting.
| bjackman wrote:
| Nice work! Really low frame rate on Firefox on Android (pixel
| 10), might be something worth checking.
| nmstoker wrote:
| On a Pixel 10 Pro with Firefox it's not too bad but it's
| definitely a touch less responsive than on Chrome also on
| that same phone
| bhollan wrote:
| I cannot express to you how much fun this simple little game
| is! I'm really enjoying it!
|
| If I got to work on this game for 90 seconds, I would move the
| "bonus text" down to the bottom. It gets in the way of tviewing
| the literal most important thing SO MUCH!!!
| adito wrote:
| Thanks for making this, fun game, but the contrast is too low
| for my old eyes. I can't see the orbit most of the time. Maybe
| add options to make the orbit more visible?
| cush wrote:
| Love it! Thanks for sharing!
| Cort3z wrote:
| I really like it. Here is my 2 cent:
|
| - the gravity is weird in my opinion. There is basically a
| gravity going down the screen. I would have expected there to
| be some "pull" towards the planets. I get why though, you try
| to prevent mega-long straight shots upward. Perhaps experiment
| with some drag, where the ball slows down over time. Or perhaps
| have the walls be gravity points, pulling the ball towards
| them.
|
| - i would add a long- press to restart immediately, so
| restarting is faster.
| hdjrudni wrote:
| Maybe add blackholes to prevent cheesing too hard. I found
| the downwards gravity unexpected too.
| flkiwi wrote:
| There was an old flash game called, I think, curveball that was
| kind of like 3d perspective, 2d plane Pong. I could play that
| gave for so, so long and not get tired of it. This might end up
| being a replacement.
|
| EDIT: Uh oh. I found it again. I'm screwed.
| olelele wrote:
| Love this. Hit me up if you want a chill soundtrack for it, I
| can make something for free.
| circadian wrote:
| Lush, perfect to take my mind off existing for a few minutes.
| Always a strong sign of a winning concept. Kudos :)
| lossyrob wrote:
| This game is so fun, great job.
| vunderba wrote:
| Nice job. Consider allowing the use of a key (Z, spacebar, etc)
| in addition to the mouse.
|
| Related but I played a similar orbital minigame a while back on
| Itch.io which has a bit of a 2D Mario Galaxy feel to it as well.
|
| https://danceswithpixels.itch.io/orbital-slingshot
| kokopelli wrote:
| This is great. Very addicting.
| ericskiff wrote:
| Fun, but the way they fly doesn't quite match my intuition. Why
| would an object curve when I send it out on the tangent? Wouldn't
| that be a straight line unless it's affected by a different
| gravity well?
| lemagedurage wrote:
| Yes, you have to imagine a much bigger star beneath the
| viewport.
| kaffekaka wrote:
| I imagine it as slingshotting my way up a tree.
| muti wrote:
| Fun. Not sure if this applies on desktop, but on mobile the
| quick/fast/blazing/skip text often blocks vision of the ball
| making it harder than it should be to make combos
| disillusioned wrote:
| This precisely.
| high_priest wrote:
| Major problem
| tux3 wrote:
| Very much applies on desktop. The restart button is also
| strange on desktop, it plays animations instead of restarting.
| I recommend pressing pause and restarting from the pause menu,
| which is instant.
| JohnnyLarue wrote:
| I have never been worse at a game than I am at this one
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Same! I suck at this! I noticed that clockwise slingshots seem
| harder to time for me than anti-clockwise ones... weird
| lagniappe wrote:
| This thing is so fun. My best was 17, better than 94% :)
| rikschennink wrote:
| Nice, enjoyable.
|
| I did however expect the stars to attract my ship, that combined
| with the top down gravity vector made it less intuitive.
|
| It also makes it feel like a game happening in earths atmosphere
| instead of space, it impacts the possible sense of scale.
|
| Still fun :)
| potatoproduct wrote:
| Good fun, my highest was 30, it took a while!
| Uncorrelated wrote:
| I got 54, allegedly better than 99% of players. But I also note
| that a score of zero is apparently better than 32% of players.
|
| Very fun.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I actually love the idea of opening the game and then not
| playing resulting in a negative score. To quote Garfunkel &
| Oates, "It's better to be a loser than a spectator."
| karim79 wrote:
| Brilliant game. Thank you so much for this.
| Twirrim wrote:
| Fun, but dark grey text on a dark background? Bit hard to read a
| bunch of the text.
|
| It also seems like there's gravity coming from off screen assets
| (or maybe it's the bottom of the screen?) causing the projectile
| to curve in unexpected ways, and not be captured as strongly by
| the gravity of the visible objects as I'd expect.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| I don't see the "orbital" part. Ship flies in straight lines
|
| Doesn't seem that hard, just a boredom endurance
| foresterre wrote:
| Fun :)
|
| Small idea for improvement: the "fast" text is often over the
| same space as the ball, which makes it harder to see where the
| ball would be going.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| The use of the Web Vibration API _Navigator.vibrate()_ is well
| done! I haven 't seen it used much, but it really adds to the
| game.
|
| (Apparently iOS still doesn't support it [1]? It's been in Chrome
| for the past 12 years. Maybe someday.)
|
| 1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Vibration_A...
| tuo-lei wrote:
| The single HTML file as a distribution format is really
| underrated. No server, no CORS issues, no CDN -- just open the
| file. It works offline, you can email it, and it'll still work in
| 10 years.
|
| I ship self-contained HTML files for a different project and the
| sneakiest gotcha is </ sequences inside inline <script> tags --
| the browser sees </ and tries to close the script tag
| prematurely. You have to escape them as <\/. Curious if the
| author ran into that one.
|
| Fun concept for the format too -- games are the perfect use case.
| cubefox wrote:
| That's the silliest LLM comment I saw in a while.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| Scoring 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 all say better than 32% of players.
| Something isn't right.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| You have to get up to about 8 or 10 before you really start
| climbing the ranks
| yuppiepuppie wrote:
| This is good fun! I've added it to the HN Arcade :)
| https://hnarcade.com/games/games/starfling
| systemsweird wrote:
| Seriously fun! A first it felt frustrating but it was interesting
| that at a certain point (after about 10 minutes) I suddenly got
| an intuitive feel for the ball's trajectory and it became
| addictive at that point.
|
| My only gripe is you render the bonus notification too near the
| ball and it distracts me and makes it harder to keep a combo
| going.
| rustyhancock wrote:
| Love it, but bro you got to make the process of staying playing
| in the first 2 minutes simpler.
|
| Right now the first 5 or so times you miss. Probably the first 5
| times you try.
|
| You get an annoying process of having to shift you hand to press
| the play again button.
|
| The solution is easy as checking what the game score and high
| score is, if it's 0 just restart.
|
| I don't need or want to hear about how to sign up to your mailing
| list if I've just fallen flat on my face!
|
| There's a reset button but it seems to do nothing and you end up
| at the play again screen.
| ewatch wrote:
| Really nice and very fast becoming addicted :D. Feedback from my
| side:
|
| - on desktop (tested in Brave Browser) the speed is faster than
| on mobile (is this supposed to be ?)
|
| - on desktop would be nice to have a short cut to instantly start
| a new game (may be on mobile you could calculate early on if the
| balls curve would have a collision and show a button to directly
| restart)
| kortex wrote:
| Super fun! But the text does get in the way mid-combo.
| est wrote:
| hmm, it isn't strictly gravitational projectile movement isn't
| it?
| RobotToaster wrote:
| >single html file
|
| _Looks at imports_
|
| >Google Tag Manager
|
| -_-
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Firebase. Likely needed to keep scores.
| modinfo wrote:
| Cool game! I scored 7581 (120 stars) on STARFLING :P
|
| https://pod.sekor.eu.org/@modinfo/statuses/01KNXT3ZQDTHZBDYF...
| mixtureoftakes wrote:
| who are you.
| vavkamil wrote:
| rookie numbers, paste this to the browser JS console
| https://pastebin.com/rjGgyp4V
| b3orn wrote:
| Reminds me a little of an old game called Slingshot[0], I think
| it implemented the idea much better as you actually had to
| slingshot and consider gravity. Someone should turn it into a
| browser game, would be much more fun than this.
|
| [0] https://sourceforge.net/projects/slingshot-game/
| Jaxan wrote:
| I played that too!
| b3orn wrote:
| I implemented a very rudimentary copy of it at
| https://fac3.org/slingshot.html
|
| Drag on the red circle to set angle and velocity, let go to
| launch it, try to hit the green circle, avoid the blue circles
| (planets with gravity). To try again hit "r" or reload the page
| to create a new random set of planets. Doubt it works at all on
| mobile, only tested it in desktop firefox.
| imiric wrote:
| This is neat, but the tap to release controls are unintuitive for
| me. I much prefer the variant of this game that uses hold, drag
| and aim as input. This allows much greater control, is more
| engaging, and thus feels more rewarding and fun. Plus, there's no
| waiting period for the ball to circle back to where you want it
| to be.
|
| Tangentially, this is also why I dislike the modern trend of
| auto-shooters and idlers. The twin-stick shooter is by far the
| superior control scheme for this type of game, yet for some
| reason people enjoy having _less_ control and engagement. I never
| got the appeal.
| panstromek wrote:
| The game is pretty fun. Page height is a bit wrong on mobile, you
| probably need some dvh height?
| panstromek wrote:
| Also, the game is much faster on desktop, looks like it's maybe
| not framerate independent?
| cpcallen wrote:
| I am completely confused about the orbital mechanics in this
| game. They seem completely broken; at any rate they do not work
| remotely like any other simulation I've played with (e.g.
| Gravitation or Kerbal Space Program). The bodies other than the
| first body appear to actively deflect the spacecraft away!
| wolframhempel wrote:
| I don't think it has any expectation of being an astrophysics
| simulation. I mean, if the "spaceship" misses, it falls towards
| the "floor"...
| andai wrote:
| You have elucidated a real gap in the marketplace: physically
| accurate mindless tapping orbital mechanics sandbox.
| wafflemaker wrote:
| Not really. Flight of Nova fills that gap, and I think I know
| how I'm going to spend this afternoon now.
| oezi wrote:
| 19:50 Put codex and claude (thinking high) to work in
| parallel to see who could come up with the better physically
| accurate mindless tapping orbital mechanics sandbox.
|
| 20:10 Both codex and claude finish pretty much at the same
| time, but my kids say claude's version is more fun.
|
| 20:50 Claude runs out of its 5h session limit while
| finetuning some things, while Codex has 80% left (!).
|
| https://coezbek.github.io/orbital-tap/
| progval wrote:
| It's still pretty far physically accurate because there is
| infinite acceleration the moment a ship reaches the target
| orbit.
| oezi wrote:
| True. Hard to square it being a game, fast-spaced and
| accurate.
| pigpop wrote:
| That sounds like it would be a completely different game
| and probably not as fun since you'd have to use some very
| fiddly controls to manually get into orbit. If you
| eliminate orbit entirely then it's just a slalom race.
| "Hitting" each star/planet is the immediate feedback that
| makes it fun.
| throwthrowuknow wrote:
| I like this version of the game more, keep at it!
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Unfortunately it doesn't let you skip planets.
| oezi wrote:
| I tried it, but it doesn't make for good gameplay, it
| just gets too easy. Could maybe subtract points, but that
| also feels strange. I updated gravity to do things, but
| orbiting isn't permitted.
| em-bee wrote:
| i love the gravity. but sometimes the orbital speed is to
| fast to be able to make the next jump. that's
| frustrating.
|
| a slow mode, or an option to hit the brakes might be
| nice. or going slower as the orbit decreases. smaller
| orbit is harder but slower speed is easier. you just have
| to find the right moment
|
| the quick bonus should not be more than one point. maybe
| an extra point for hitting 5 quick jumps in a row.
| love2read wrote:
| This version is better than OP's
| 47282847 wrote:
| Nice! For my taste you could remove the TAP OR PRESS bar
| after some time, maybe after score 3 or so including
| restarts.
| FranchuFranchu wrote:
| There's a 2014 game that is just that. Lim Rocket: slingshot
| around planets while also avoiding crashing.
|
| https://dan-ball.jp/en/m/pc_lim/
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's a gap, but not due to lack of trying.
|
| I made https://github.com/TeMPOraL/cloze-call a little over
| 16 years ago, and this itself was inspired by something then
| at least that much old.
|
| Screenshot: https://jacek.zlydach.pl/old-
| blog/download/projects/ClozeCal...
|
| Wonder if I can turn this into browser-playable version with
| just LLMs.
|
| EDIT: Put Claude Code on the task (reason for choice: Claude
| Desktop lets me just throw it at a folder with unzipped
| bundle of sources and assets I found laying around my blog
| archive).
|
| EDIT2: Holy shit it worked. Will upload it somewhere soon.
|
| EDIT3: Here it is, in its full 800x600, 30 FPS cap glory:
| https://temporal.github.io/ClozeCall-Web/
|
| The process I used was, have CC run over the original sources
| and create this document:
|
| https://github.com/TeMPOraL/ClozeCall-
| Web/blob/main/design.m...
|
| Then after verifying it matches what I remembered and
| clarifying some decisions (section 4 and 5), just told it to
| make a static client-side no-build-step no-webshit-frameworks
| game deployable to github.io, and it did it in a single shot
| (+ a second small request to add a fix to transparency of
| some assets). Personally, I'm impressed at how well it went,
| what a nice highlight of the weekend for me.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Past my edit window, so - a modernized port true to the
| spirit, but with some QoL updates, more performant and
| works half-decently on mobile:
|
| https://temporal.github.io/ClozeCall-Web/index-ng.html
| Applejinx wrote:
| Yup. I figured it out and went from zero to five immediately
| when I figured out it wasn't in the least orbital, but rather
| it was Undertale: you had to click when it was exactly tangent
| to the target, and then hitting anywhere within the target area
| was a win.
|
| That's also when I lost all interest, which isn't quite fair in
| that it's still a slingshot game, just not in the least
| orbital. It's just a slingshot. No stars required.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| When you go fast, the text in the center ruins visibility, hurts
| gameplay
|
| Good art style, terrible UX
|
| You didn't play the game you created
| fifilura wrote:
| Took a little bit of figuring out why I always exploded. The
| restart button was right where I tapped to launch.
|
| I loved the simplicity, it was fun!
| dawie wrote:
| Super cool, super addictive :-)
| haarlemist wrote:
| Looks and plays quite nicely. I don't know how well it represents
| the real slingshot physics, but it's quite fun.
|
| I've made a similar little web game based on Lunar Lander, check
| it out!
|
| https://landed.theelderscripts.com/
| fathermarz wrote:
| I love this and it's very clean. Only piece of feedback, put the
| play again button where the scores are as that is where the thumb
| sits on the phone to do the tapping. Mind numbingly groovy
| rkagerer wrote:
| Neat, and nice audio, but I wish it were a little more forgiving.
| Eg. Combos or surviving several jumps might collect "lives" that
| recover your last orbit if you screw up.
|
| Might also be fun if you encountered powerups as you explore
| deeper into the map (eg. gravity attraction, project path, etc),
| or even got to pick between forks in the route. The trail art
| reminds me of Out There.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| I don't get the gameplay.
|
| Ok on touch gravity of the orbiting takes off. And if I don't
| land the next I start again and get prompted for my email each
| time.
|
| It reminds me of certain games on NES which could be played for
| hours, once you lose your 3rd life you start all the way from the
| beginning.
|
| Here it's the same. With one life.
| throwthrowuknow wrote:
| The text that pops up in the middle obscures the current position
| making it hard to immediately launch again. Maybe it should be
| closer to the bottom of the screen?
| zerobitflip wrote:
| This is pretty cool, Great stuff!
| weezing wrote:
| Lack of proper physics really bothers me in such game.
| oh_fiddlesticks wrote:
| Its a nice start, but there is a certain irritation in that the
| popup text is directly over the puck. I felt like I was losing
| more because I couldn't see the puck under the combo counter than
| anything in the game.
| 0x3f wrote:
| I would make restarting much much faster than it is now. That's
| the most annoying part and it breaks the satisfying chain
| completely for me. I miss and then have to watch it slowly fall,
| or struggle to find the reset button. And even if I hit the
| reset, I have to go through the menu.
|
| At the very least, put the reset and play again buttons in the
| same spot, so I can just keep tapping/clicking there.
|
| Super Meat Boy is how all games like this should be.
| cachius wrote:
| I nearly stopped playing because of this, before reaching 11.
| Just leave out the interstitial when clicking restart at the
| bottom.
| igravious wrote:
| Tampermokey userscript -- <space> to launch and restart <esc>
| to give up
|
| ```javascript // ==UserScript== //
| @name StarFling Spacebar // @namespace
| https://playstarfling.com/ // @version 2026-04-11
| // @description Spacebar to launch and restart StarFling
| // @author Claude Code // @match
| https://playstarfling.com/* // @icon https://www
| .google.com/s2/favicons?sz=64&domain=playstarfling.com
| // @grant none // @run-at document-idle
| // ==/UserScript== (function () { 'use
| strict'; document.addEventListener('keydown',
| function (e) { if (e.code === 'Escape') {
| e.preventDefault(); // During play, click give-up
| to trigger the death/restart screen const giveup =
| document.getElementById('giveup-btn'); if (giveup)
| giveup.click(); return; }
| if (e.code !== 'Space') return; e.preventDefault();
| // If the game-over screen is visible, click retry
| const gameOver = document.getElementById('game-over');
| if (gameOver && !gameOver.classList.contains('hidden')) {
| const retry = document.getElementById('retry-btn');
| if (retry) retry.click(); return; }
| // Otherwise simulate a tap on the canvas (start from menu /
| release orb) const canvas =
| document.getElementById('c'); if (canvas) {
| canvas.dispatchEvent(new PointerEvent('pointerdown', {
| bubbles: true, clientX: window.innerWidth / 2,
| clientY: window.innerHeight / 2, })); }
| }); })();
|
| ```
| hirako2000 wrote:
| I got so annoyed I fixed the annoyances.
|
| https://orbitup.surge.sh/
|
| - FPS tweak to fix variable speed - Can bounce - Life points
| instead of sudden death - Levels - A few effects - Better
| adjusted difficulty
| beAbU wrote:
| No attribution to the original game?
| hirako2000 wrote:
| yes, I should. In case someone outside this thread comes
| across that 'fork'.
|
| Edit: I added due credit. thanks for pointing that out.
| arcza wrote:
| Nice! Some ideas: Please can you remove the text that hides
| the main game view. This is the biggest annoyance on both
| games and slows you down a lot. Also the gravity / physics
| feels off. Orbit is too slow.
| CyanLite2 wrote:
| you removed the "spacebar" functionality
| rustyhancock wrote:
| This thread is a perfect showcase of "You NEED a moat".
| 0x3f wrote:
| Also, put your business logic on the backend
| Cort3z wrote:
| I would add long-press to restart
| niklasd wrote:
| Very fun! If you play it on a big monitor, the games slows down
| for some reason.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Love this! Only request is don't display Godlike etc where you
| are because I've found when it comes up, you can't see where you
| are and so miss the next first-chance
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Ideas for hard mode: - when you land, the
| ring starts shrinking, and you die when the ring gets to r=0
| - stars move
| client4 wrote:
| If I miss but land back in the old gravitational field, I'd like
| a retry
| em-bee wrote:
| or even if i land in any gravitational field i'd like to
| continue from there
| ofjcihen wrote:
| 56 Stars Better than 100% of players
|
| Git rekd nerds
| oliver236 wrote:
| allow me to use space and not click!!!!
| OneMorePerson wrote:
| I like it! One complaint is that if you are going fast it starts
| to display a "Quick!" (or something like that) message on top of
| the middle of the screen. This makes me want to continue going
| quickly, but the message is blocking me from properly seeing the
| orbit, so I end up trying to keep the streak going and most often
| launch and miss cause I can't see. Maybe display it off to the
| side in empty space?
| bhollan wrote:
| I've been looking for a game from the "flash era" that's
| incredibly similar to this one! It was "fling-this-wad-of-duct-
| tape-to-clog-the-black-hole" as a metaphor, but I forget the
| name. It had similar "orbit" dynamics, but the entire game was
| setting the initial angle/velocity and then the orbits just 'did
| their thing' from there. This looks really cool! I'm already up
| to 11 as my best!
|
| If you like this, you will for sure love the game "12 Orbits"!
| abcde666777 wrote:
| Fun game, though a difficulty of playing it on a phone is your
| primed finger gets in the way of seeing the ball!
| nrawe wrote:
| This is an excellent and distinctly frustrating game Echo
| comments on restart being faster; maybe having the % stats in the
| main ui somewhere. Will be recommending this to some friends.
| onion2k wrote:
| I gave Codex 5.4 Playwright MCP access to the site and a prompt
| of "Use Playwright CLI Skill to open https://playstarfling.com/
| and load the game. Work out how to play it, and devise a strategy
| to win." After a about half a dozen attempts it had figured the
| game out. Then I prompted it to "Score as much as you can." It
| wrote itself an auto-play script that just keeps going.
|
| I stopped it running at 10866. That's currently the high score. I
| appreciate that this is pointless and proves nothing, but I've
| been experimenting with automating testing games (I work at a
| gaming company at the moment) so it felt like an opportunity to
| try an experiment.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Do tell? How did it play the game, did you watch? Just took
| forever with every shot, or how did that play out with the LLM
| induced latency?
| onion2k wrote:
| It didn't exactly play it using the LLM, but it used
| Playwright to execute code in the browser to work out how it
| works and then wrote a script to inject into the page to play
| it. It was basically perfect AI getting skip * 2 on every
| shot even after a hundred planets. I didn't expect it to do
| quite so well with only 2 prompts.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| Are you sure the script is actually testing the gameplay? Given
| it can see the entire source code of the game.
| onion2k wrote:
| It started out using browser.click events and then switched
| to using browser.evaluate script injection. That's entirely
| valid for my use case.
| florbo wrote:
| Game is fun, sure the mechanics aren't like real transfers but
| this appears to be a quick reflex challenge, not a lesson in
| astrophysics. The only gripe I have is all the flashes and
| distractions if I go to fast. I don't want ANY extra visuals when
| I'm concentrating on rapid shots.
| arcza wrote:
| Agreed. This totally ruins it for me and by the sound of it
| many other commenters. Nice game otherwise.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Spacebar should launch. I should be able to use arrow keys to
| speed it up.
| pea wrote:
| Good fun! Spacebar should launch, r should reset, maybe I'm
| imagining it, but it's a lot slower and thus easier on my phone
| than my MBP.
| AFF87 wrote:
| Maybe having some saves?
| deviation wrote:
| Paste this bad-boy into your console and watch the real expert
| play:
|
| (function () { "use strict"; // -- CONFIG
| -------------------------------------------------- const
| AUTO_RESTART = true; const RESTART_DELAY = 800; // ms
| before auto-restart after death const MUTE_SOUND = true;
| // silence during autoplay const SIM_FRAMES = 350; //
| max frames to simulate per check //
| ------------------------------------------------------------
| let running = true; let totalGames = 0; let botBest =
| 0; let scores = []; if (MUTE_SOUND && typeof snd
| !== "undefined") snd = false; function
| wouldHitTarget() { if (st !== 1 || !bl || !bl.orb) return
| false; var targets = []; for (var i = cWI +
| 1; i < Math.min(wl.length, cWI + 3); i++) { if (wl[i]
| && !wl[i].caught) targets.push(wl[i]); } if
| (targets.length === 0) return false; var ta =
| bl.angle + bl.dir * Math.PI / 2; var nw = wl[cWI + 1];
| var spd; if (nw) { var ddx = nw.x - bl.x, ddy =
| nw.y - bl.y; spd = Math.max(4.5, Math.min(7.5,
| Math.sqrt(ddx * ddx + ddy * ddy) * 0.038)); } else {
| spd = 5.5; } var x = bl.x, y = bl.y;
| var vx = Math.cos(ta) * spd; var vy = Math.sin(ta) * spd;
| for (var f = 0; f < SIM_FRAMES; f++) { vy += 0.06;
| vx *= 0.995; vy *= 0.995; x += vx;
| y += vy; for (var t = 0; t < targets.length; t++)
| { var dx = x - targets[t].x, dy = y - targets[t].y;
| if (Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy) < targets[t].radius + 20) {
| return true; } } if (y >
| 2500 || x < -400 || x > W + 400) return false; }
| return false; } function autoRestart() {
| if (st !== 2) return; var go =
| document.getElementById("game-over"); var rp =
| document.getElementById("revive-popup"); if (go)
| go.classList.add("hidden"); if (rp)
| rp.classList.add("hidden");
| document.getElementById("pause-btn").style.display = "flex";
| document.getElementById("sound-btn").style.display = "flex";
| st = 1; init(); } function tick() {
| if (!running) return; if (st === 0) {
| handleTap(); } else if (st === 2 && AUTO_RESTART) {
| totalGames++; scores.push(sc); if (sc >
| botBest) botBest = sc; console.log( "Game
| #" + totalGames + " | Score: " + sc + " |
| Jumps: " + jmp + " | Combo peak: " + cc +
| " | Bot best: " + botBest );
| setTimeout(autoRestart, RESTART_DELAY);
| setTimeout(function () { requestAnimationFrame(tick); },
| RESTART_DELAY + 50); return; } else if (st ===
| 1 && bl && bl.orb) { if (wouldHitTarget()) {
| release(); } }
| requestAnimationFrame(tick); } window.stopBot =
| function () { running = false; console.log("Bot
| paused. Call startBot() to resume."); };
| window.startBot = function () { if (running) return;
| running = true; console.log("Bot resumed.");
| requestAnimationFrame(tick); }; window.botStatus
| = function () { var avg = scores.length ?
| (scores.reduce(function (a, b) { return a + b; }, 0) /
| scores.length).toFixed(1) : 0; console.log(
| "Games: " + totalGames + " | Best: " + botBest +
| " | Avg: " + avg + " | Running: " + running );
| }; console.log("=== STARFLING AUTO-PLAYER ===");
| console.log("Controls: stopBot() | startBot() | botStatus()");
| requestAnimationFrame(tick);
|
| })();
| gverrilla wrote:
| I don't like the game. The sounds. The way movement flows. Also
| the game loop is slow after I lose or realize I'll lose.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Hmm, you can't fall back to a previous orbit. Those don't detect
| your presence
| imglorp wrote:
| I love it.
|
| But why make apps for it? The web page is perfect as is
| hdjrudni wrote:
| It's cool but the marketing is deceptive and through me off at
| first.
|
| You're describing this as "orbital" and "starfling" but there
| seems to be constant _downwards_ gravity. That 's not at all how
| space works. I was expecting every 'star' to have its own gravity
| that would suck it in.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| My most planets is 14, but my highest score is 25 with 8 planets.
| mark124mj wrote:
| Fun game! One thing I'd love to see is difficulty modes. An easy
| mode with some kind of aim guide (maybe a trajectory preview on
| tap-and-hold?) could help new players get the feel for it, and a
| hard mode where you control launch speed or angle would add a
| nice skill ceiling for people chasing high scores.
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