

HelloRun - A WebGL 3D Game - uptown
http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/

======
munificent
Beautiful but restarting from the beginning on the slightest mistake makes
this game negative fun to play.

~~~
HeyItsJames
Agreed. I'd love to be able to restart where I left off. Maybe the high score
could reset, but the music could continue. The music's great, and coupled with
the color change at the drop, it could be really cool.

~~~
tsumnia
I disagree, think of it like Bit.Trip Runner, the beat builds as you progress,
but you have to start over if you fail.

~~~
jerf
Yes, but look how they do it. The music never skips a beat and certainly never
cuts to straight silence, and Runner taps his feet for an appropriate number
of beats so he launches himself at the right time. It's still a shock to lose,
but it's not a bucket of cold water to the face like this.

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ahsanhilal
This is really really cool. Am I the only one who wanted to play just because
I wanted to hear more of the song? It makes sense that the motivation to play
a little more could be tied to how much of the song you hear. Even though I
have heard this song before multiple times, the gameplay aspect of song
revelation makes it more fun.

This got me thinking about how shortsighted are artists, musicians and
producers, who are not thinking of reaching out to fans through interactive
digital experiences rather than simple publishing deals. The music industry
profitability is going down the drain and the only way to make people pay a
premium would be to invest in thoughtful interactive experiences attached with
the music. Games could be one of those but definitely not all of those.

~~~
alainbryden
And if you just can't conjure up the skill required to hear the whole song,
the main menu fortunately links to its soundcloud:
[https://soundcloud.com/dutoncmusic/du-tonc-surging-
memories](https://soundcloud.com/dutoncmusic/du-tonc-surging-memories)

------
mattmoss
Cool… the fog color matching the gate color often makes it difficult to
discern which section is the opening.

~~~
worldsayshi
It's supposed to be challenging. You will learn to discern.

~~~
bengotow
I agree—this game is really frustrating because it's difficult to see the
barriers. Challenging games are often frustrating, don't disagree with you
there - but this particular flavor of challenge isn't really fun. I'd prefer
"it came too fast" or "it was moving and hit me" to "the wall looked just like
the opening." I definitely got better after my first few plays at discerning
the walls from the openings, but it took me a few tries to even realize that
that's why I was dying. I imagine many people will give up before I did.

~~~
sillysaurus2
Just chiming in to agree with this. Games that are difficult because of their
UI usually aren't very fun.

Also, it seems important for the game to quantize input. I.e. right now you
can occupy a continuous height anywhere from "0.0 to 1.0", but it would be
much more fun if the game would automatically snap your height to either
"bottom, middle, or top." It's quite frustrating to lose because you just
barely clip a gate.

~~~
cowward
I didn't realise it was a continuous range of heights, 3 set heights would
definitely be better as the holes are at set heights. Fantastic game and
music, though. Really demonstrates how capable WebGL actually is.

------
azakai
On Firefox, fails with

[15:54:39.366] TypeError: k is null @
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/three.min.js:412](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/three.min.js:412)
[15:54:39.366] "Error creating WebGL context." [15:54:39.368] TypeError:
this.view is undefined @
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js:1](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js:1)

On Chrome, I see some rendered triangles, but just wireframe, and the game
does not seem to work.

~~~
comicjk
Firefox 17 for Linux 64-bit: NS_ERROR_XPC_BAD_CONVERT_JS: Could not convert
JavaScript argument arg 0 [nsIDOMCanvasRenderingContext2D.fillStyle] @
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js:4](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js:4)

Update: I pass all the WebGL compliance tests at
[https://www.khronos.org/registry/webgl/sdk/tests/webgl-
confo...](https://www.khronos.org/registry/webgl/sdk/tests/webgl-conformance-
tests.html).

~~~
chc
You might want to check your update button. The current version is Firefox
23.0.1.

~~~
simcop2387
Sounds like he's on debian, which only uses the ESR release by default

~~~
Poiesis
I had similar problems with WebGL on Firefox (Ubuntu) that went away when I
upgraded to 23.

------
egypturnash
what is this why is it just a static piece of --- Oh, cool. Really needs some
kind of "hang on, loading" for the initial preloader.

Sadly it didn't work too well with my Leap. I mean, aside from the basic
gorilla arm problems, I found that I got a TON of framerate hiccups and
sometimes it just totally ignored it.

edit after playing some more, with a high score of 70.

I also have some issues with the game itself. The thumping beat and the "run
on shift" behavior makes me feel like this is a game that wants to be about
zooming down a tunnel at high speed, but it defeats itself - the barriers are
way too close to be able to run through them unless you see that an entire
path segment has holes in the same places, and it's just too damn hard to see
them half the time. And I say this as a person who has loved playing Jeff
Minter's "Space Giraffe", which is basically a Tempest variant dropped inside
a music visualizer with the intensity set to 11. I am a life support system
for a visual cortex,and _I_ think these gates are hard to make out - I think
this means there's something wrong. If they had a white sheen or something
this would be more playable.

The scoring seems to encourage MOVE FAST ALL THE TIME too - you get 1 point
for moving through a gate, and 2 for running.

Also the visuals worked against the gameplay for my first few plays. The
detailed, realistic corridor with cables hanging down made me assume that
"down" meant "crouch" and "up" would mean "jump" \- which I assumed is pretty
much a momentary thing that has to be hit at the right moment to make it
through a gate. It took me like five plays to work out that, no, I'm actually
just kinda flying through this corridor here. If the tube had been abstract I
think I wouldn't have made that assumption.

Also when I play on keyboard with it fullscreen, the keystrokes seem to keep
on falling through the game now and then; I hear error beeps over the music
when I hit a key sometimes. (Safari, OSX 10.8.4.)

------
hansjorg

        THREE.WebGLRenderer 58
        three.min.js (line 408)
        Error creating WebGL context.
    

In the console on FF 25 (Linux), no visible error message. WebGL usually works
great. Maybe some missing extension?

~~~
brokenparser
Same in FF nightly 26.0a1:

    
    
      "HelloRun
      ________
      "
      "THREE.WebGLRenderer" "58"
      "Error creating WebGL context."
    

In three.min.js:412. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
(Other webGL pages work just fine.)

~~~
nekgrim
Hello Joshua.

------
qrybam
Addictive. Contrary to munificent, I think it's great that the game punishes
you for mistakes so completely. The feel of the game makes me think of a mix
between Super Hexagon (www.superhexagon.com) and Temple Run (or any other
generic runner).

The only criticism I have is this: sometimes it's close to impossible to tell
(even at slow speeds) where the gap is because of the way the gates are laid
out and also the colour of the gates (like Cyan). Some people may argue that
adding a "dice roll" into the mix is great, but considering the type of game
this, it just kills the fun when you feel like you've been robbed.

(note: this is different to screwing up and starting from scratch as a result)

edit: good job.

------
infogulch
The movement isn't sensitive enough. You shouldn't have to lift the mouse at
all when playing computer games with bounded motion like this; this game
requires me to lift the mouse 3-4 times just to go from the lowest barrier to
the highest.

It's not my sensitivity since I can traverse all 1080 pixels in less than a
single vertical swipe of my mouse. Is anyone else having the same problem?

~~~
MLR
Just play with the arrow keys, way easier.

------
dirkk0
Probably the fastest WebGL game I ever experienced - wow.

~~~
tantalor
Indeed, it ran at a good 40-50fps for me.

Looking closer at the requestAnimationFrame callbacks, most frames required
under 16ms, but every 20th frame required 120ms or more. Eliminate that slow
frame and the game should have no problem reaching 60fps.

(I used [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-tracing-
framew...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-tracing-
framework/gmdhhnlkjmknaopofnadmoamhmnlicme) to get this).

------
rwinn
Really cool! But the gates are way too hard to see, I feel like I'm colliding
with thin air most of the time... The music keeps me playing though :)

------
tslocum
Reminds me of Missile Game 3D

[http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/missilegame3d](http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/missilegame3d)

------
650REDHAIR
Am I doing something wrong? I'm using Chrome 29.xx and it's telling me my
browser doesn't support WebGL.

~~~
BrandonY
Apparently WebGL doesn't work on Chrome for certain types of hardware,
including Intel Mobile 945 Express, NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200, certain very old
drivers, and a variety of other certain pieces of hardware/software, see
[http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/BlacklistsAndWhitelists#Ch...](http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/BlacklistsAndWhitelists#Chrome)

------
exit
apparently it was "built with unity"

does unity now target html5 without any depending on a webplayer plugin?

~~~
julius
It seems like the scene might have been built with Unity and was then
exported. There is a data file loaded[1] which states its generator is
"ThreeExporter.cs" in version 4.0.

[1]
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/assets/station/station.js](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/assets/station/station.js)

------
austinhallock
You had me at Hello. Actually, you had me at the loading screen - so clean and
slick.

------
taitems
Great design, great music etc etc - but it just proves that mouse pointer lock
is somewhat broken on full screen Chrome for Mac. It's constantly throwing up
tabs and other menu bars when you get near the top, breaking context, grabbing
the mouse, lagging the graphics etc.

------
peoplee
Amazing! I really enjoyed the game, and I have a tip, maybe to be possible
continue the game round even if you failed to pass through the gates, but
reseting the score and speed, this way will be possible to continue listening
this incredible music! =)

~~~
rubycowgames
You can listen to the song directly on soundclound:
[https://soundcloud.com/dutoncmusic/du-tonc-surging-
memories](https://soundcloud.com/dutoncmusic/du-tonc-surging-memories)

------
general_failure
Very impressive. Is there a write up on how such games are done? In general,
how long does it take to reach this level of expertise in writing games? 2
years? 5 years?

------
ep103
Is the source code somewhere?

~~~
slacka
It's JavaScript and the source is not obfuscated. You can view it here:
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js)

I made a beautified version to look at here:
[https://gist.github.com/slacka/6434572](https://gist.github.com/slacka/6434572)

------
shmerl
Cool, though a bit confusing at first, since the player has no clue what to
do, and the game restarts all the time which looks like a bug.

------
NoCowLevel
Amazing. Less punishing than Bit.Trip Runner, and a whole lot of fun. How long
have you been working on this? The most frustrating is to get correct
centering at high speeds, since you're moving the mouse with jerks, you
overshoot often. It would be nice to see the right click, or some key on the
keyboard, act as a "move-to-center" button.

------
tbolse
Very well performing WebGL Game! Good work. :-)

------
dreen
Hey I saw this at the Mozilla HTML5 Game Dev meetup, were you the silent guy
running the demo?

Awesome work anyway :)

~~~
exit
did they get into how unity was used in their pipeline?

~~~
dreen
No thats the thing - they said absolutely nothing about it. It was just like,
heres a game _displays some gameplay_ ok moving on ;p

------
imtu80
Looks nice. Can't for Emotiv Insight head set
([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-
insight-o...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-insight-
optimize-your-brain-fitness-and-per)) to control the direction based on my
head movement.

------
bkanber
Excellent work here. I've been waiting to see more HTML5 games, and I can't
wait for the first real AAA game to come out with HTML5 support. While this
one isn't a full-length game, it's still smooth and polished, and I'm excited
to see what happens next in HTML5 gaming.

------
frozenport
Game is too hard. Keep running into bars as I am getting instructions.

------
jpalioto
Here's the thing about HelloRun ... I suck at HelloRun.

------
sankush
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/assets/sound/music.mp3](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/assets/sound/music.mp3)

------
sasas
Change your browser tab as you hit a wall and the track speed is slowed down.
You will hear the rest of the song played with a permanent pitch shift.

------
arc_of_descent
Very nice. Took quite a while to load. Would be great if the user could slow
down the pace which also slows the pace of the music and vice-versa.

------
worldsayshi
I want to turn right once in a while!

Great stuff!

------
naboavida84
Maybe include an invert axis option? Great btw

~~~
ambrop7
Yeah, since it feels like a plane the up/down controls should be inverted.

------
CoryG89
This is very nice, really cool. Would love to learn from it, but I can't find
the source code. : /

------
whiteshadow
this is amazing. definitely challenging. the music and the its illustration is
pretty sweet

------
jacklockyeruk
Has anyone used this with Leap Motion? Would be interesting to see how well it
fares.

------
ratsimihah
At 70 it gets so fast it becomes almost impossible to spot the openings on
time.

~~~
codygman
I got to 90 ;)

------
shire
Wow this super cool. The restarting makes it challenging and a challenge is
fun.

~~~
cheapsteak
After restarting for no less than 20 times, I've managed to get through 118
gates, wasted half an hour, all the while hating both the game and myself.
Fun.

------
michaelmcmillan
It seems down unfortunately.

------
AndrewGaspar
The best thing about this game is it actually works in IE11. :')

------
yaru22
Can't believe this kind of game runs in browser!

~~~
terabytest
It uses a lot of tricks. The scene has a very low polygon count and the
lighting is a pre-calculated texture.

~~~
ep103
How do you know? Did you find the sourcecode somewhere?

~~~
mden
WebGL relies on javascript to run. Looking at
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/js/hellorun.min.js)
and searching for "png" you get images like
[http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/assets/station/lightmap1024.j...](http://hellorun.helloenjoy.com/assets/station/lightmap1024.jpg)
which looks like a pre-lightning computed texture. Looking at the vertex data
(in format x,y,z(,w)) there seem to be only 2048 defined vertices, which is a
tiny amount for a 3d game.

------
dubcanada
wow... This is beautiful and so smooth. It doesn't even lag slightly. I must
say I am very impressed.

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kanwisher
Pretty awesome on chrome on osx

------
stigi
OMG, I feel like in Tron!

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hipaulshi
Wow! that's awesome!

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j_lane
incredible

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bart42_0
Fun

