
Show HN: A 3D-printed turret so you can shoot aliens for Halloween - alexcroox
https://sidigital.co/alien-invasion
======
tlow
Suggestions: # Landing Page 1\. Increase the visual weight of the Call-To-
Action button. One way to do this would be to move the button up on the
landing page, perhaps after the first paragraph. \- You only want enough text
to entice users into clicking the button. You can have a secondary fallback
that allows them to read more on that page by scrolling down and add a
secondary terminal call to action (at bottom of page content above footer). \-
- You can defer the story information to the waiting stage area for users to
read while they're waiting. 2\. INCREASE THE SIZE of the call-to-action text,
namely "STOP THE INVASION" # Game Page 3\. "join the queue of fighters" \- How
do we join the Queue? 4\. The use of @names looks like twitter integration.
This could be a nice way to add some virality by letting people oauth into
enlisting. 5\. Can you sell a queue jump for $.99? Either instantly putting
you in control or making you next up? It'd be an interesting experiment. 6\.
if usernames are only preserved by session you could still create lightweight
player profile pages. If you twitter oauth in perhaps you can provide links to
their twitter profile. You could include things like number of plays, number
of shots, number of hits, total points, average points, play frequency per
day, etc

General Ideas: Improve virality mechanics by integrating more tightly with
twitter. Allow posting of score, perks for referring people (front of queue
hop perhaps?). Show us some info on our weapon system even if its totally made
up.

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SamBam
Wow,that's awesome. How long did it take to create and set up? And are you all
actually managing to get work done while this is going on?

And this just may be server load-related, but why does my wait time keep going
up? When I first joined the queue it said 7 minutes. Two minutes later it
jumped up to 9. A couple minutes later it was back down to 7, and there it
stayed for about 4 minutes, until it jumped to 8.

~~~
mrbrt
I'm seeing the same issue. Queue time keeps jumping, was down to 10 minutes,
shot back up to 20. Seems that there's queue jumping or something else going
on behind the scenes. It then went from 20 minutes to 0, said it's my turn but
then 5 seconds later said "Thanks for playing, you missed every shot".

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instakill
So cool. How long are you guys planning on working in your space suits for?
Hours? Days? Weeks?! Also, how does the turret get refilled? Is there a Roomba
to clean up the balls on the floor? Wait, what happens when you leave the
office for the evening?

~~~
mrnorm
WE WILL NEVER LEAVE

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pimlottc
I'm confused, it shows me "Thanks for playing" before I've eve done anything.
Is this one-time event that's already finished?

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mijoharas
Can anyone see what this is, or is it down under HN traffic? I just get a
spinner with "Connecting".

~~~
SamBam
It's a web-cam enabled ping-pong-shooting tower, situated in an alien control
room, where various aliens are working among light-up targets, which register
when you hit them.

You can join a queue to shoot the targets (and the aliens, if you choose), and
get about 30 seconds of play time.

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tlow
Are there any pictures of the turret build and possibly a bit of details about
the implementation of the project?

~~~
alexcroox
There's one at the bottom, we'll do a write up afterwards I'm sure (like we
did for Sid [https://sidigital.co/blog/lab-sid](https://sidigital.co/blog/lab-
sid))

~~~
tlow
Cool. Thanks. I posted some ideas for slight tweaks that might have a positive
impact. Cheers and nice work.

p.s. Are those neopixel leds?

~~~
alexcroox
They certainly are!

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Rmilb
Possibly NSFW Flag? When I brought up the second page, a user with a NSFW
image popped up...

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cialowicz
Yep, please flag.

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Raphmedia
I don't think it's fair to flag as NSFW for a one time happening of a user
with a NSFW avatar.

