
Show HN: Bubbles - my unfinished HTML5 Particle Game - franze
http://www.fullstackoptimization.com/bubbles/
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bobsy
Something needs to be done about the end game. Currently skill doesn't make a
difference. It relies on the perfect storm of you absorbing a chain of
increasingly large bubbles. In 6 attempts this didn't happen as I was
surrounded by huge bubbles. 4 times I was reduced to like 4 pixels and had to
work my way back up again.

Perhaps a bigger playing area. Make it full screen? Then have more bubbles of
varying sizes. This would make it more difficult to get bigger and make the
game longer as a result.

It would also be cool if a specific color bounced bubbles off it and couldn't
be absorbed. The faster you go into it the faster you bounce off. This would
make it a bit more difficult to navigate.

~~~
maggit
You can shoot the bigger bubbles with the spacebar key.

Not that there's any affordance for it, so something still has to be done with
the game. But the title says "unfinished", so I think we're good :)

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username3
I won by holding down the right arrow key and shooting until my bubble became
four blinking dots.

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Wingman4l7
Like a simple, HTML5 Osmos. Not sure how Asteroids comes in. When you pass a
certain threshold, the bubbles get suddenly & aggressively larger; is it
actually possible to win?

~~~
franze
[space] spawns a small yellow killer bubble. yes, it's possible, but very very
hard.

~~~
Wingman4l7
Ah, that helps a lot. So instead of using your own mass as momentum a la
Osmos, you use it as... space-mines =)

I see why you say it's a little bit of Asteroids, now. That sure puzzled me
before.

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peteforde
I think that this game is awesome. I just played about 100 games,
compulsively. I think this could be a hit if it was properly polished.

1\. I'd love to play this on an iPad using accelerometer controls.

2\. For me, the jury is out on shooting the bubbles. I was having a blast
before I even know that I could shoot, and I'm not sure that it added to the
experience.

3\. I found the game made me think in a vaguely philosophic way, like... what
is this? Am I a cancer cell? Is it fair that I can think but everyone else is
on a predetermined path? Am I just playing against myself? Is this a metaphor
for expansion of corporate power? :)

~~~
ecubed
+1 for this being amazing on the iPad with accelerometer. Very addicting game,
well done

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donpark
To improve the endgame, I would introduce power-ups, like a pill that when
'swallowed' temporarily turns player's balloon into a triangle that could
puncture large balloons into many small ones. Multiplayer with larger field
and obstacles could be fun too.

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franze
some time ago i wanted to learn how to create a canvas games, so i started
with <http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/canvas/notearsgame/> and took it
from there. now it's a little bit osmosis and asteroids, and it's unfinished
and MIT. so please take it, fork it or just read the source. hope it's useful
(and/or fun) for someone.

~~~
entropy_
Just one comment, from what I've noticed(haven't checked the code to make
sure), the size of spawned bubbles is a random function biased by your current
size. While I think that's a good idea in general I think they should be
overall smaller.

Right now, when you get to a certain size it just spawns 4~5 giant bubbles
that fill almost all the screen and make it impossible to move without dying.

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hardik988
I know the game is unfinished, but it needs to be more "winnable" and less
frustrating.

Even when I work my way up to the size of half-the-screen, I end up colliding
with a bigger bubble outside the screen I never knew existed! So, it depends
too much on luck for my taste, and it's incredibly frustrating to be sucked in
by a bubble I can't even see.

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ollysb
Took a while to figure out you could "eat" smaller bubbles to grow larger, was
a lot more fun after that :)

~~~
maggit
Yes, it could be a lot more obvious.

In Osmos (a similar game) the coloring of the bubbles makes it much easier to
distinguish which bubbles are edible and which are dangerous. I think the this
rendition could be improved by getting new colors, and maybe saving red for
dangerous things, and not the player :)

~~~
ilija139
The ones with blue border you can eat :)

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mrspeaker
I understand why this appeals to the HN crowd: it's a metaphor - the goal of
the game is not to be the biggest around, but to survive the longest.
Sometimes that means cutting loose and starting again - and just waiting for
the biggest of the big to fall!

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Axsuul
This game is rigged... all of a sudden this huge monstrosity comes out of
nowhere from the left of the screen! It was pretty fun though.

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travisglines
This is a really great metaphor for starting companies in winner take all
markets.

It

    
    
        Takes a combination of luck and skill
    
        Speed through quick iteration to out maneuver and eventually devour the big guys
    
        Frequent failures due to bad starting conditions
    
        Partnering with the right people early on is vital
    
        Later on you need your acquisitions to be large enough to move the needle
    
        Sometimes there is really no way to oust the established player in a mature market from a small players perspective
    

I think maybe some signs of aging or negatory effects of size would be cool to
add in.

Cool concept!

~~~
in0v8r
Not to mention, letting go of some early partnerships that aren't keeping up,
of which may even be detrimental to a competitor.

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yjukaku
I added

this.x_velocity * = .98;

this.y_velocity * = .98;

in the player update function. (right after line 346 of bubbles.js)

Controls become a lot easier, but that's my personal preference. You can add
the lines in the chrome source inspector, then ctrl+s to save. No need to
refresh :)

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hanibash
Wow, does anyone else see the startup metaphor here?

You're a little guy, running around and grabbing all of the opportunity you
can, making sure you don't run head first into the big guys.

Sometimes it's advantageous to shrink yourself. You're more agile and able to
navigate between the big guys more deftly.

But in the end, the best strategy is to grow quickly, because as you grow, the
amount of surface area and the amount of opportunity you have grows, creating
a feedback loop of success.

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ctz
This sorely needs some instructions. Tapping around the page produces no
obvious results.

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fchollet
Great concept. But very difficult and frustrating in its current version.

I think a good improvement would be for the player to be controlling speed
rather than acceleration.

~~~
sopooneo
Or maybe direction and acceleration, ala asteroids?

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dmak
You cannot possibly win. It's hard to move around with so much momentum. If
you try to maneuver the sides to try to get the little circles, then you have
a higher chance of hitting a big one because they absorb everything and
anything. As you get bigger, the circles that spawn are bigger and just are
absorbed by the huge pieces and increase exponentially before I can get any
pieces.

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Aardwolf
Really cool concept, but I don't like how when you get really big, bubbles the
size of half the field appear, making the game unfinishable.

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Achshar
The game is fun but is there any way to change the "units" of the change
direction keys? Right now they seem to add up, i.e. two up strokes means speed
increases by two points, but a more conventional manner would be better IMO.
i.e. one up arrow moves ball in up direction. Like driving cars in games.

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lathamcity
I didn't know it had a point at all besides surviving for as long as possible.
I made my little 4 pixel bubble survive for almost ten minutes purely out of
curiosity, to see just how massive this one bubble would get. Then I
accidentally hit a blue one and, surprise, it makes me bigger.

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mercuryrising
Nice work, reminds me of that arcade game where you eat different types of
fish. There's always that anticipation that what you're trying to eat will
actually eat you.

I really like how you don't have to press anything to play again. It makes me
keep playing.

Bubbles of the same size should bounce off each other.

~~~
Wingman4l7
What arcade game is that? I can only think of Odell Down Under, but that was
an old PC/Mac game...

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Kroem3r
How about conservation of momentum?

Or, introduce levels of difficulty - perhaps as something slightly subtle like
ratio of the space-bar missile?

The invisible zones as you wrap around to the other side are way too big.

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nviarnes
Not gonna read all the comments to see if this has been said but you need to
set a max velocity for the player.

Hold down up and right from the start of the game and watch as you break the
game :)

~~~
nviarnes
Also if you shoot before you move you shrink yourself. Intended?

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jcampbell1
This is an amazing combination of osmos with a bit of asteroids. The game play
is excellent. I really hope this gets turned into a full game with levels.

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Casseres
Great game!

It needs a way to keep score or timer on how long you last.

It took about 10 games before I became good at it, and I had to read the
comments here to figure out the space bar.

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SeanDav
Got some good potential. I think a much bigger playing field would be a good
idea, or smaller relative bubbles. Homing bubbles etc could be fun.

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crazypyro
Fire a few bullets, hold right or left arrow, never die. Left it on while I
went to class for an hour just to test. Still alive.

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jtms
Are you using a framework?

~~~
franze
canvas (well, it is a framework, a native in-browser pretty low-level
framework, but it's a framework. other than that? no, i just followed the
instructions in this tutorial
<http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/canvas/notearsgame/> and took it form
there)

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adito
Moral of the game: When you grow big, you will have big enemy. If you keep
yourself small, you will just face small enemy.

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serverhorror
I hate you!

Just spent an hour with your game :)

(In case it's not clear, I think it's great and somewhat addictive, a few
rough edges but really great)

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bbarrows
If you get going fast enough it looks like the collision detection skips over
bubbles.. Pretty fun game tho

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kbkb
I woke up early and then proceed to kill 30 minutes on this instead of getting
to work on time :-/

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georgeecollins
This is really cool, I started playing immediately and wanted to keep going.
Good job.

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highace
Great concept, very frustrating!

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ollysb
Rather than wrapping around it might be fun to bounce off the edges of the
game area.

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saurabh
franze, this is one of the best games I've ever played. It's strangely
satisfying.

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wreckimnaked
Nice idea. Maybe a zoom-in / zoom-out control would be interesting for
gameplay.

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oal
I made something similar with the Khan Academy CS tools a while back:
<http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/subpixel-survival/996062559>

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jps359
I think the ball needs a speed limit. I couldn't tell if there was one. I just
held the up and left arrows at the same time and just kept holding. It felt
like it would've went on forever had I not x'd out.

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nicklovescode
Reminds me of a super simple game I wrote a few years ago to try out
processing.js - <http://nickcammarata.com/processing/>

~~~
notJim
Whoa, this game is awesome. I especially like how you can figure out ways to
get the flying things trapped in the center by orbiting them carefully.

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truebecomefalse
If you hold down left and right it gets very odd. It is reproducible.

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neilbowers
Nice, needs a bit more complexity and slightly less frustration :-)

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aw3c2
On a height of 600px the cursor up and down keys scroll the window.

~~~
franze
this and the fact that it's very very very hard to win is where the
"unfinished" part (and the forking) comes in.

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brandoncarl
Fun! Now all you need to do is put some pigs and birds in it :)

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k2xl
this is pretty cool, i actually built a similar game in flash a while back,
the problem with the version i made (which you address here) is that it always
ended up with my dot and one big ass dot. hence allowing me to win or lose
very easily. with your version you not only spawn circles based on your size,
but you also include shooting. nice work!

i think if you modify the shooting mechanic to work with the mouse, it would
make the game a bit easier to control.

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Wingman4l7
Looks like the trick is to use the yellow killer bubbles to control the
aggressive bubbles before they eat everything & get too big to navigate
around.

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Roelven
Very nice! Do you plan to add some scores somehow? I imagine just on time
would be boring, so growing and shrinking should grant you credits somehow.

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iamkhush
Awesome game..shared with my friends ..we all loved it

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dlsym
Very... absorbent. You really get... sucked in.

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chrisu_de
It does not matter how much karate you know, someone else will allways know
more. - there are allways bigger bubbles.

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arcatek
These balls are too damn big !

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Floopsy
That's pretty cool! Good job.

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donkeylipstick
Reminds me of Osmos. Nice work but you should include instructions.

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MojoJolo
Hi, I don't know but I think the page is not loading. Is it down?

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Edmond
if you don't mind I am going to port it to phyzixlabs.com :)

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ryangallen
Can you make it work on mobile with controls on the page?

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exolab
a) Far too difficult b) Addictive c) Ouch, my fingers.

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craig552uk
Cool. Needs full screen, a timer and a leader board.

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orolo
Fun game. Good Job.

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gurpreet42
I like this game.

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geuis
Support for touch events on mobile perhaps?

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vld
This needs gravity-like behavior!

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fmugs
looks like a Flash game from 1999

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DelvarWorld
I like how you punish people for playing the game with the worst controls ever
created

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sebastianmarr
I don't see the value of this submission. An Osmos clone in HTML 5. Great.

~~~
tsahyt
It's a game. It's fun. That's the value.

~~~
gknoy
Also, as mentioned above, it has code that we can read. Thanks!

