

SkiFree in the Browser - basicallydan
http://basicallydan.github.com/skifree.js

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winestock
Twenty-nine comments and no one has posted the site of the author of the
original SkiFree?

<http://ski.ihoc.net/>

SkiFree was originally written for VAX/VMS on VT100 terminals. Scroll down
that page to see a small animated GIF showing where abominable snow monsters
come from.

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kenrikm
Wow this really brings me back, what was the name of the game with the bow and
arrows? that was another favorite of mine "back in the day" Thanks for making
this!

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fratis
I think I remember what you're talking about (pretty sure it was just called
Bow and Arrow) and I think this is it: <http://www.download-
central.ws/Win16/Games/B/Bow-and-Arrow/>

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dereferenced
Some differences from the original:

1.) You can't press right twice to stop, then up repeatedly to climb.

2.) You can't press various arrow keys after jumping to do a trick pose that
gives you extra points.

3.) There's only 1 degree of 'turning right', not two. Same w/ left.

~~~
the_cat_kittles
4) There aren't those rock/?? things that when you hit turn into
mushrooms/tombstones/??

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ygra
5) There are no bare trees that catch fire when you hit them in flight.

6) You cannot jump by clicking the mouse.

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lowglow
Confirms that I'm still terrible at this game over 20 years later.

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eksith
Don't worry. Soon there will be a version for Google Glass that will
superimpose trees, rocks, other skiers and so on. And then...

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arcatek
Are you saying that soon, there will be monsters which will try to catch me in
the street ?

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eksith
I watched Harry and the Hendersons as a kid so I'm fairly sure his mountain
cousin is a similarly misunderstood gentle giant.

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networked
Nice. I expect SkiFree to finally get a modder community after you complete
this version. :-)

Unfortunately, the player's movement seems to come to a halt every 14-15 m or
so in Firefox 18.0.2 on Linux x86_64. That is not the case in Chromium
24.0.1312.56 on the same platform.

Edit: there are also visible lines over and under the tall fir trees in
Firefox: <http://imgur.com/3wnXSqs>.

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basicallydan
Brilliant feedback thank you :) I get the same line issue in Mobile Safari but
can't work out why without setting up debugging tools so maybe solving the
issue in Firefox will help.

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silverlight
Played just to confirm that the yeti ate me :-D. Good times!

~~~
Yoni1
<http://xkcd.com/667/>

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the-come-ons
This is great. I miss the pooping dog though. :)

~~~
basicallydan
Hahaha! I will get on it!

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ComputerGuru
Time to make it an MMO with websockets.

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networked
Joking aside, it could be useful to implement ghosts [1]. You'd have to have
non-random (fixed seed) tracks for this, though.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%28video_gaming%29>

~~~
basicallydan
Oh my god that is an amazing idea. What a perfect excuse to learn how to
implement another classic racing game feature. Thanks!

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h4pless
Just realized you have to run the yeti into trees to keep them from eating
you... Feels like a good moment for a facepalm.

~~~
basicallydan
Haha! This wasn't a feature in the I original but I thought it might add some
balance to my version which was lacking some features which are useful for
accruing points!

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CoryG89
Awesome! Just got transported back to my parents living room on Windows 95.
And yes, I still suck at this game.

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jbrooksuk
I love it. This game brings back so many memories for me! As it's written in
JavaScript, I intend to take it, add some realtime players via Node.js and get
this up and running. So much fun for a side project and with a great starting
point!

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mikesmullin3
hey he doesn't do tricks and he doesn't get fully eaten by the yeti

~~~
basicallydan
Nope, not yet. He has five lives because I haven't quite worked out the
difficulty of the Yeti yet. Tricks will happen, too, eventually :)

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Filligree
You're also missing the "speed up to escape the yeti" binding. ;)

~~~
basicallydan
The "F" key should work :) but it doesn't last forever, I put a limit on it.

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jggonz
Ooh, I loved this game!

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bdg
:( The controls aren't the same. I want to make him walk up forever really
really slowly.

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NamTaf
I noticed this too. In the original, the left and right arrows rotated you. In
this, they correspond to 'face left' and 'face right' respectively.

The difference is, in the original if you were facing left and hit the right
arrow, you'd rotate one position to the right. This would put you as facing
down again. In this, if you're facing left and hit right, you immediately face
right. To face down you have to press down.

It's still confusing my muscle memory :(

~~~
basicallydan
Sorry guys, I'll get to it when I can :) if you fancy helping out and beating
me to it you're more than welcome to do a pull request!

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nextstep
Amazing! Works super well on Mobile Safari and it has the yeti attack at the
end!

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bromagosa
It's amazing how something as funny and non-scary as this monster could scare
the hell out of me when I was a kid... I remember myself playing and almost
getting a heart attack every time the monster showed up.

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xlevus
If you crash when the yeti is chasing you, the yeti disappears.

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3327
amazing finally! you could do tricks though in the original one maybe an
addition to patch on the following release ?

~~~
enneff
The controls are wrong, too. Left and right should rotate the character, but
right now they make him turn hard left and hard right. In the original there
were also two degrees of left and right turning, so you could navigate with
more precision. You could also turn fully horizontal and then use the up arrow
to climb the hill sideways.

Please fix this! :-)

~~~
mcmire
I knew the original was somehow different too.

Also, couldn't you right-click in the air to do tricks or something?

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enneff
You could press up or down while mid-air to have the player flip back and
forwards.

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kungfooey
Now if we could just get a JS version of the Johnny Castaway screensaver,
reliving my youth would be quite possible.

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d0m
I swear this game is better than most of the game I've played this and last
year. Graphics aren't everything.

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twodayslate
Wasn't this posted a couple weeks ago?

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basicallydan
You may be thinking of my submission to /r/webdev on reddit?

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twodayslate
Ah. Probably. I am so used to getting all my original content from HN :P
Sorry!

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basicallydan
If you haven't tried this in mobile Safari or Chrome yet please do, it works
surprisingly well!

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shocks
I don't remember the controls being like this. The controls here seem far less
intuitive.

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chrismorgan
I'm glad the yeti has taste. It's not interested in snowboarders.

~~~
basicallydan
Hahah! Maybe the Yeti is trying to clean up the slopes though, eh? ;)

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pehrlich
Damn, I'm itching for pressure-sensitive arrow keys.

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guru_shastry
Your next project - Elasto Mania in the browser!

