
Show HN: Airmash – Multiplayer Missile Warfare HTML5 Game - fivesigma
https://airma.sh/
======
pvsukale3
I opened this game in an incognito tab. And started dev tools. The entire game
is only 2.8 MB. It loads fast. Such graphics, much small. A lesson for modern
web developers about website obesity and performance.

~~~
chickenfries
I mean this is nice but it's really not a lesson for web developers. The fact
that this is 2.8mb doesn't really teach a web developer any lessons, unless
you think that large website payloads exist because developers are literally
too lazy or don't know how asset optimization works.

Instead, having worked in web development, I know that website payload size is
often driven by having to include vendored javascript for business reasons
(analytics and social are big culprits) or because your boss doesn't give you
the time to focus on performance because for the business, it is good enough
and they want to use their limited web development resources to do something
other than shrinking javascript payloads.

Another thing, you're impressed by the graphics and how the developer was able
to include them while keeping the payload small. It seems to be made using
vectors and particle effects. Both of these techniques are not heavy in terms
of payload. Shaders and particle effects are generally very small amounts of
code. Think about how this is different for a website that heavily relies on
all sorts of user-generated content: jpgs, mp4, gif, png, etc. Much larger
assets than a few shaders and svg.

~~~
rev_bird
>unless you think that large website payloads exist because developers are
literally too lazy or don't know how asset optimization works.

For what it's worth, I do think this. It's easy to just drag another JS
library into your code without thinking of how long it's going to take to
load.

~~~
chickenfries
I don't know what to tell you if you're convinced that's the problem. I know
and work with many web developers who do care about performance. I follow the
blogs of many web developers who write about performance.

I don't doubt that there are junior web developers who don't know much better.
But I don't really meet anyone who says that they just don't care about
performance.

~~~
BurningFrog
Let me just point out that you can care deeply about performance and still
lack the skills to achieve it.

~~~
chickenfries
Yes, I agreed with you in my post.

> I don't doubt that there are junior web developers who don't know much
> better.

I just think it's very... puritanical the way that people bemoan the state of
websites as a personal failing of web developers as a profession rather than
the a result of what kind of deliverables their employers care about and are
willing to pay for.

~~~
CaptSpify
Whenever I see the term "web developers" in this context, I'm assuming it
means all of the decisions they make given the requirements and inputs from
others in the business.

I think the web is currently _terrible_ and I think modern web-development
_is_ to blame, but that includes the people behind the web-devs making the
decisions that are being pushed onto the web-devs.

There are a lot of things to blame for the current state of the web, but
ultimately the current practice of web-development (and whatever behind-the-
scenes processes that involves) is clearly the biggest reason why.

~~~
chickenfries
See in my mind that’s like blaming construction workers for condos built
quickly with shoddy materials. I don’t choose the materials I work with most
of the time. I have worked on maybe one greenfield application in my entire
life. It was really small and performed well. Everything else has been making
the best out of bad decisions made by other people.

~~~
CaptSpify
I agree that it isn't fair, but that's also just how it goes. I get blamed all
the time for poor decisions made by my group, even if I agree that they are
poor decisions.

------
b0rsuk
Gameplay feedback:

    
    
      Mohawk (helicopter) and Prowler (stealthy) don't seem worth it.
    

The helicopter dies from a single stray rocket, random spam and attacks from
behind. Alt+arrow for strafe worked in DooM because field of view always
pointed away from the player. Here, strafing is hard to get used to. Since
there are already 2 keys for ability, why not make one of them "strafe left"
and the other "strafe right" ? Also, because helicopter lacks a clear point,
it's harder to aim.

Stealthy Prowler is very slow and not especially fun to play. To the point
that only effective way to play is to cloak after every rocket fired. You
crawl towards a victim, then shoot at close range, then recloak. Visual
notification is quite subtle, there's no sound and you end up mashing the
ability key never quite sure if it already worked. So it kinda works against
newbies... but sneak attacks are also effective with Goliath (the fat one) and
Tornado (multifire). So I don't see the point. And here's the kicker: advanced
players see it because they play (and aim!) by radar. This is an issue when
fighting away from the crowd.

Thoughts on upgrades: \- I would appreciate a kind of "laser sight" upgrade.
Each level would render a laser line in front of your plane, and the line
would get longer with levels.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
I agree on Mohawk. Mohawk would be more worth it if score degraded a little
more slowly. As it exists, Mohawk is a one-way ticket to the bottom of the
scoreboard because it's so difficult to stay alive. (By the way, if you're
reading and didn't realize, you can select any other ship any time. The
buttons look disabled but they aren't.)

Prowler is awesome against the Goliath. So, so good. In fact, I'd say the
Prowler is the Goliath's main counter, and when I lasted ~15min at #1 in a
Goliath, it was a skilled Prowler that finally started annoying me, made me
start missing my deflects, and knocked me off my balance. I was thinking the
Goliath is unnecessarily OP, but the Prowler handles it. (Smart Prowler
pilots: go stalk Goliaths.) Might OP the Prowler, but making it shoot a spread
like the Tornado might turn the Prowler into basically an instant-backstab
Rogue. Now that I've typed that, yeah, that'd be OP, don't do that.

This game is heavily influenced by Subspace/Continuum, and it's fairly
obvious. I could even tell which ship mapped to which fighter in this, and I
appreciated how well my skill transferred. My main annoyance was that score
drop. I maintained about a 5:1 KD across 500 kills and regularly flopped from
#1 to #25 to #2 to #30, because the score you lose on death is a little
imbalanced. A few deaths in a row and you can lose 10-15 places, which seems a
little rapid. Maybe knock a little off that multiplier on death, but leave the
killer's score gain alone? The only way to stay near the top is not die, which
makes sense since it's called a bounty, I suppose. Still rough.

Other random feedback to the author: Inferno needs a buff. That speed penalty
hurts and is a pretty rapid way to die -- I noticed I was avoiding it as I
played. Most of the power-ups and abilities could stand to last quite a bit
longer, too. And spawners could really use a lockout on shooting for the same
duration as their protective shield; you can spawn in, immediately press
spacebar, and probably get a kill on a surprised person who happened to float
through where you pop up with no chance to avoid.

Great game, though, I didn't expect to get sucked into a browser game for
three hours. I'll be playing it again.

Tip I didn't realize until a long way in: 1, 2, 3, 4 map to upgrades. I was
the idiot using the mouse.

~~~
cjslep
Were you BeatDaddy on the Euro server? I was zkdbnz.

Reason I bring this up is to back up this point with a caveat: a skilled
Prowler pilot is able to solo take down a Goliath only if the Prowler is
faster (with upgrades).

On the EU server, the meta was missile spam fest over Europe. So I took the
stealth ship to the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. There, the playstyle of
the Prowler is one of patience.

Your first goal is to never die. Period. This is how I was able to be
consistently top 4, and off-and-on #1 on the server depending on the other
players's fluctuations.

The second objective is one of cowardice. You are paper thin. One hit will
decloak you and worse, you are so low health that a single helicopter missile
will finish you off. This means the playstyle is to find a handful of jet
pilots that are dogfighting. Be close enough to them you can zip in, but far
enough away you are still on the outskirts. This means you have to learn to be
incredibly agile dodging missiles and learn how to read dogfights, which takes
practice. It also means no one else gets to see your skills doing this, and
therefore will assume you are a shitty pilot.

The third rule is one of ruthlessness. As soon as one of the dogfighters is
damaged, swoop in on top of them and fire right before you pass over them.
This takes timing so you don't run into other missiles (rule #1). The reason
for this is because you do have 1 shot before you have to flee and re-stealth.
But the other reason is for the surprise factor and hiding amongst the
explosion (if you hit your target). It buys you precious milliseconds to re-
stealth.

With this playstyle I rarely died, and went after the top dogfighters over
Africa: k, jj, test, qjp (?). After a couple of pickoffs and being told to fly
a real plane, I sat near the top of the score board regardless of
fluctuations.

That is, until BeatDaddy came along. A Goliath pilot of great skill, he took
out most challengers. However, as a Prowler I was able to almost solo him
until jj out of the blue took my kill. So I killed JJ. :)

The strategy is simple. Only shoot the Goliath from the sides or back
(avoiding the big missile) and only when in range of the AoE effect. Why? You
want to force the Goliath pilot to waste their energy spamming the AoE. You
have time on your side, you can hit them once every 10 seconds or so and still
whittle them down because of the slow Regen.

But beware, big missile is 1 hit kill!

I never was able to fully solo BeatDaddy, as once I lost my upgrades from an
unrelated death the Prowler cannot tackle a more upgraded Goliath.

~~~
stjoris
JJ here, that was a nice skirmish, well done on the stealth kills.

~~~
cjslep
Thanks, had a lot of fun! Hope you did too.

------
pj_mukh
Request: a campaign mode where you download my cities' map and let me flyover
and protect it from inbound hordes. Maybe let me network with other players in
my city to coordinate defence or watch our neighbourhoods burn!

------
gadgetoid
This is incredible! Were you a Subspace Continuum player? The similarities are
many and my (albeit not great) skills translate right over. Although discrete
life/weapon energy removes some of the 1v1 strategy, it doesn't feel lacking
at all. Dogfighting is a lot of fun, lots of generally pleasant players in
from HN. Love it! Wasted hours grinding level 4 but the rainbow flag was worth
it so I can dominate with flair :D

This. Is. Ace! Thank you!

Callsign: tseug

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
If (s)he isn't a Continuum player, I would be astounded. The default ship is
pretty much the Warbird without a bullet. It handles like... identically.

To the developer, if you want another, I develop another popular online game
(TagPro) and I desperately want to help you make this a bigger game. This has
incredible potential, and it mirrors a game I've been developing for like a
year. I haven't had this much fun with a webgame in a long time.

Feel free to email me, my email is in my profile

~~~
elsherbini
TagPro is amazing, thanks for developing it! I love games with such simple
controls and goals that lead to emergent strategies.

[0] [http://tagpro.koalabeast.com/](http://tagpro.koalabeast.com/)

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
I'm glad you like it! I've taken a leave of absence because my IRL situation
has become intense, but I'll definitely be going back. If you like the
particle effects, that's my doing. If you don't, well, blame LuckySpammer.

------
Aaronmacaron
I'm amazed by how well this works on mobile. I literally played this game for
about half an hour on my phone in the HN app web view because it's just so
much fun. I'm used to normal web pages that don't even really work on mobile
and this game just worked seamlessly without any problems whatsoever. Great
Job!

~~~
sillysaurus3
Meanwhile, I tried 3 different browsers and can't get past the "enter your
name" screen on mobile. Apparently native inputs are too dated to use.

~~~
fivesigma
Admittedly mobile was a bit of an afterthought and I only tested it on 4
devices. What device are you using?

~~~
sillysaurus3
iOS 8.1.2 model A1532. I don't upgrade because it will slow down my phone.

Probably not worth supporting. :) Adding new features and figuring out ways to
keep people playing might be much more worth your time.

~~~
flashman
> Probably not worth supporting.

I was going to disagree because the same countries that really like web games
are often the ones using older handsets, but Apple themselves say only 8% of
handsets are on iOS < v10: [https://developer.apple.com/support/app-
store/](https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/)

~~~
sleepychu
1 in 10 handsets isn't a market you want?

~~~
imtringued
Even at it's peak apple only had 23% market share. 1 in 10 out of 23% is 2.3%
and not everyone plays this game on a phone so the percentage is even lower in
reality.

~~~
sleepychu
Not this game but in general.

Good point about market share though, hadn't considered that.

------
ajp
Kind of reminds me of SubSpace. I think, it has been a very long time since
I've played it.

~~~
dannyrosen
Thought the same exact thing. Whatever happened to SubSpace?

~~~
meritt
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum/)

Subspace Continuum is an anti-hacking fork released in 2001 (Subspace was
released in '95) and is now the only official version of the game.

------
MrAwesomeSauce
This really is an addictive game and the attention to detail is amazing. As a
web developer myself, I'm quite familiar with building a typical web
application but nothing close to this. If you ever decide to write a piece
explaining how you built this at the high level, peeps like myself will find
it extremely valuable.

------
manigandham
Reminds me of `Raptor: Call of the Shadows`:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j19rc8YB3sY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j19rc8YB3sY)

Plenty of nostalgia there as that was the first computer game I ever played
and a classic from the 90s.

~~~
mistakenot238
Swear I used to play that on my dads amiga - good times.

------
throwanem
That was a lot of fun! One quick request - can the level-up popup not appear
square in the middle of the screen? That can be a real problem if you happen
to level while you're in the middle of a fight.

One other quick request, now I think of it - can the key event handler pass
F11 through? Being able to un-fullscreen would be handy.

Awesome game! I look forward to the writeup on the tech stack and how it's
done.

~~~
pqh
I had this problem and the solution was to use the game's `f` keybinding for
fullscreen instead. Or open the game in a separate window, because ALT-F4 is
the only way to close it.

------
Decabytes
Is it just me or is this becoming a more popular Internet game format. The
reason I ask is because Slither.io uses this same idea.

~~~
djsumdog
The new era of Flash-type games?

~~~
DiThi
"io games": Massively multi-player, real time, no login, no rounds (continuous
game), just type your name and play.

There probably were a few flash games like this, but didn't caught on like it
has now.

~~~
milofeynman
How do they pay for server cost? Someone told me slither.io had made it's
owner millions. I'm assuming there are ads?

~~~
ag_47
Yea they show ads in between game sessions.

------
iamd3vil
Really fun game. Very smooth and addictive. Curious to know about tech stack

~~~
irascible
I think pixi.js and websocket + node backend.

------
orb_yt
How long has this been released? Seems very polished. How long did it take you
to build?

~~~
Aaronmacaron
In the changelog ([https://airma.sh/changelog](https://airma.sh/changelog)) it
says today (10th Dec 17) was the first release.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'd implied the same from the general player skill level. It's nice to play
against people who are just as bad as me for a change!

------
jws
A lot of friendly fire among the HN crowd. "Make go boom" appears to be our
goal.

~~~
tricolon
There are teams?

------
sicco
This game reminds me of XPilot released back in 1992:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPilot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPilot)

Some gameplay footage:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiO6XYt8M14&list=PL192CF249E...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiO6XYt8M14&list=PL192CF249EA2E99AA&index=1)

------
bojo
Apparently these are called "io games". I was visiting family last month and
watched my nephew play these for hours.

Large list here: [http://iogames.space](http://iogames.space)

------
smnscu
Staying #1 is incredibly exhilarating. My strategy was upgrading defense and
staying out of big clusters while still shooting towards them.

~~~
airfoil
Yes, that strategy works well. I've also found that "hitting the brakes and
they'll fly right by" works really well in a knife fight.

------
borplk
What does it use for networking?

~~~
fivesigma
Just plain ol' Websockets. But with a twist.

I use 2 WS connections mirroring some packets on both, to deal with head-of-
line blocking.

~~~
johnhenry
Interesting. Could you talk more about this?

~~~
fivesigma
Will do when this is over. Right now I'm trying to prevent servers from
melting. HN traffic...

~~~
Fifer82
Also want to show appreciation for your work.

I tried to create a game similar to this (I spent 6 months on it). Very basic
Geometry. Circles. I got the concept working well locally, but I ran into
problems on how to deal with the networking. I got things running in Node with
SocketIO and so on but there could be 400 players, each made of upto 8 moving
pieces, and each can fire several times a second.

I spent a lot of time on a book, "Real time collision detection" and generally
I have fond memories of the whole project and trying different partition and
slicing up space.

However, how to package and deal with this snapshot of world "over the
network" or for example "how to smooth any lag relative to the client"... this
middle region was largely undocumented or ill accessible to me.

I will look forward to when/if you write any thoughts.

~~~
fivesigma
I will definitely do a write-up but you're right. It's really hard to find
info on any of that online.

A lot of trial and error.

~~~
pmchung
Do you have a blog? Been visiting this daily to see if there's a new update
about the write up on networking trial errors. :)

------
LyalinDotCom
I played it for two minutes and immmedialy had great memories of Subspace
multiplayer.

And it even still exists!
store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum/

------
feikname
Very nice game, but I couldn't enjoy much because of my high ping. I'd like to
see an South America and Africa servers. AFAIK AWS provides South America
servers for Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Are there any plans on letting anyone host their own servers?

------
jmtame
Does this remind anyone else of the old Subspace/Continuum game?

~~~
module0000
YES!!!! It’s the first thing I thought of... are we getting old?

------
GistNoesis
+1 for flat earther physics with teleportation from north-pole to south-pole
:) Just kidding, well done.

------
NKCSS
Played on the pc for about 20 minutes; great fun but controls mess up
sometimes (shooting). Tried on my iPhone6s but screen isn’t correctly; bottom
20px or so are missing in safari.

Great fun though!

------
drewmol
Kudos! I appreciate anything that works out of the box with uMatrix blocking
enabled.

Gameplay wise: looks like you may want to slow down the reverse speed... or
not it's pretty fun as is

------
sidcool
What did u use too make the game?

~~~
fivesigma
PIXI.js for the graphics. Serverside is mostly Node.js.

~~~
sidcool
No websockets for persistent connections? How are you handling RTC?

~~~
Kiro
Open up the Network tab and you'll see that it's using WebSockets.

~~~
sidcool
Ah. Sounds cool. Would WebRTC serve better here?

------
neya
This reminds me of two very popular age old games (from around 1990's) called
Inner Space and Critical Mass.

[1] [http://www.sdispace.com/index.html](http://www.sdispace.com/index.html)

[2]
[http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/critical.html](http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/critical.html)

Love this game :)

------
thesquib
Would love a write up on how you achieved such smooth responsive game play!

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exodust
Needs error handling for unsupported browsers, which seems to be anything
other than bleeding edge latest browser version. Can't get past "enter name",
it just sits there doing nothing. I prefer to hold off on bleeding edge
browser versions because backwards compatibility is a good thing to test for.

------
major505
Well great... i'm addicted. There goes my project deadline.

------
mistakenot238
I'm not proud that most of my kills were AFK, but meh, I mostly sustain myself
on low hanging fruit.

~~~
JorgeGT
All's fair in love and war.

------
umen
Great game!! can i ask you which hosting are you using ? how many servers what
are there configuration ?

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jnet
What a very well executed fun game. And it performs extremely well on my lap
top. Great job!

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orless
I don't know if this is HN effect or what but I just dont't get to the game.
All I see after log in is some terrain and, a few moments later "Destroyed by
" someone. No units movement, nothing.

~~~
fivesigma
Everything is running smoothly so it's not the HN effect.

Might I ask what OS/Browser/ISP are you using?

~~~
the_jeremy
I also have this problem. Windows 10, Chrome (hardware accel disabled),
Comcast.

~~~
elsherbini
I had to enable hardware acceleration to get more than 1 frame/second. It was
smooth with hardware acceleration turned on.

I'm running chrome on ubuntu on a dell xps 13

------
anilshanbhag
The game space is a little crowded i felt. Otherwise pretty cool game ! Do you
plan to open source or do you know of a HTML5 game of similar complexity that
is ? Would love to read the code.

~~~
Jarwain
On the map I played, everyone spawns in over Europe. However, there's a whole
entire world and NA and Eastern China was typically pretty barren

------
kharms
The gameplay reminds me a bit of an old favorite of mine - Starport: Galactic
Empires. I wonder of games of that nature could undergo a revival as browser
games.

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nwrk
Arrrgh, clicked too! So much fun and beware - addictive!

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indescions_2017
Works great in Firefox 57. But Chrome 63 on Linux 17.10. With GPU accel. The
bitmap sprites are just rendering as weird grey bounding rects :(

~~~
fivesigma
I have tested all browsers on Linux. Got a screenshot?

------
marxdeveloper
I have now accidentally closed the game twice ctrl + w and bookmarked once
ctrl + d but the game itself is so much fun :) +1 from me

~~~
Kairin
Use mouse mode :)

~~~
marxdeveloper
Actually arrow keys are good enough to avoid that trap

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madcow2011
You know, I really had stuff I needed to do today...Thanks a lot... /s :)
Awesome game, can't seem to stop playing

------
devwastaken
This was definitely thought out. Can't even put Zalgo text as a username and
have it fill the screen to cheat :^).

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ruc0la
Please add regular sign-up form as well! I do not want to use one of my social
network profiles to save my progress.

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somid3
WOW -- where did my last hour go!

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AngeloAnolin
Really enjoyed this even after playing a few minutes. Good graphics and nice
controls.

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Abishek_Muthian
Congratulations, great game.

1\. Was cross-hair/radar lock, omitted on purpose to improve screen on time or
would any upgrade give that ability ?

2\. Analytics - In the free for all, do see players avoiding other players if
they see their country flag on them?

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qmarchi
I can't seem to get my aircraft to move forward using a keyboard. Flying
backwards is fine, but using the ^ key is a nogo. Controller works fin
theough!

OS: Windows 10 (Build 16251) Browser: Firefox Developer Edition (58.0b10
64-bit)

~~~
samstave
Off topic, but did they really have 16,251 builds of windows.

Is that low, high or normal(expected)?

~~~
GroSacASacs
normal, modern dev with automated builds and git creates a build every time
you commit (or every push), and you can commit for a missing comma so ... with
10 or more people working on it on a daily basis it can go up very fast

~~~
samstave
ah, yeah that makes sense - I was thinking of “releases” not so much “builds”
and thats why it looked weird to me...

~~~
mschuster91
Also I believe that this is the kernel build counter, and it's the same
counter that's used since Win95. Someone has published a list:
[https://www.gaijin.at/en/lstwinver.php](https://www.gaijin.at/en/lstwinver.php)

edit: it's not the kernel build counter and MS has cheated with it in the
past, but it has stayed sequential across the whole NT tree (as this is where
any post-2K Windows originates). [https://www.howtogeek.com/140411/learn-the-
secrets-of-the-wi...](https://www.howtogeek.com/140411/learn-the-secrets-of-
the-windows-build-number/)

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fabiospampinato
Damn, this game is so addictive, and so well done. Congratulations!

I wish there were more stuff to upgrade/unlock, I've reached level 6 and
even't unlocked anything in the past 3 levels.

Hi from "Moz://a" in the game!

~~~
fabiospampinato
This game should be monetized, a couple of ideas:

1\. You could sell "upgrades packets" in the login screen, so that one can
start playing with an upgraded aircraft from the very beginning. 2\. There
could be other aircrafts that could be either unlocked with enough points or
bought.

~~~
Fnoord
> This game should be monetized, a couple of ideas:

Sure, but please no P2W (Pay 2 Win).

> 1\. You could sell "upgrades packets" in the login screen, so that one can
> start playing with an upgraded aircraft from the very beginning. 2. There
> could be other aircrafts that could be either unlocked with enough points or
> bought.

That's P2W. That has nothing to do with gaming, but with insecure people who
wanna pay money to feel good cause else they can't win. And those who don't
pay end up as being NS (narcissistic supply). Fuck that.

I don't know how to monetise the game other than serving some adds in the
screen during the warming up. But please not via P2W mechanics. It ruins the
equal playing field, and it lowers the quality of the game cause the good
players who know about the mechanism won't fall for this.

------
brian-armstrong
This game is great. I opened it and lost an hour then and there. Well done,
OP!

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threeeyed-raven
This thing is addicting as crap. Hahah just spent the last few hours. 3.15 KD!

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akeck
Completely playable on a 2009 MacBook. Thanks for keeping it tiny and clean!

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yabbadoo
super addictive game! IMO, when you're at the top, it's a bit much to lose so
many upgrades since they take a lot of time to farm! Also, perhaps shared
killing-scores and team mode!! Good job!

------
spookyuser
Really fun! I was super excited to see that it also supports controllers but
for some reason there is at least a one second delay between button presses on
my xbox controller and the game :(

~~~
fivesigma
Are you using Chrome? Gamepad API is a bit buggy on 62.x

~~~
spookyuser
Yeah I was. I'll try it on Firefox, thanks!

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aarondf
Holy crap that game is fun

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7ewis
Man, that game is addicting.

I have so much work to do but can't keep off it!

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Etheryte
This is super addictive, well done. Runs incredibly fast too. As a strategy
tip, you can fly in reverse, it's great for dodging missles and maneuvering in
general.

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batrat
So much productivity for today. :) Very nice game. Congrats.

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shaded-enmity
Great game, would be nice to be able to switch off controllers though - when I
bumped into my G29 it immediately registered and I had to start steering :)

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erikig
Works buttery smooth on Chrome 53 on Android over a cell connection (90ms
latency). Can't wait to review on desktop to view the WebSocket traffic!

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MulliMulli
Awesome game, played for almost ah hour already!

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blumomo
Now somebody say web apps are not the future.

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kbumsik
BTW, it does not recognize 4 simultanous key inputs on Firefox 57. Other than
that, it is really cool game! Great job!

~~~
fivesigma
That is up to your keyboard hardware. Unfortunately, most consumer level
keyboards can't handle that.

~~~
explainplease
Please forgive the random reply, but it's the closest to a direct message I
can get. :)

Suggestion: place powerups in areas of the map that have not seen combat
recently.

It seems like almost all the combat is over Europe, and the other areas of the
map are almost always completely unpopulated. The most fun fight I had was
when one other aircraft and I got into a dogfight near SA/Antarctica. It
lasted several minutes, just the two of us. Even so, it only happened because
I followed him there, and apparently he was just exploring the map.

So if you were to track combat activity on something like a heat map, you
could spawn upgrades and powerups in cold areas of the map. This would
encourage players to go hunting for them. As a result, different areas of the
map would see combat regularly, and the hotspots would move around.

Also, if you spawned players in away from other players, it would encourage
encounters around the map instead of concentrated in one area.

Finally, I use WASD in home-row position, and I'd like to rebind the the shoot
and action keys. If you could make this possible, it'd be great.

Thanks for sharing your work. It's a fun game.

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edpichler
It's well coded, very fast, small size, runs even in mobile, and the most
important it's funny to play!

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hsson
Very good on mobile, got in first place a couple of times. Should stop
disclaiming about the mobile experience

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Improvotter
And I quit... This is too addicting...

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ateesdalejr
Really slow in the seattle area. Not sure if this is because of servers being
overloaded right now.

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whage
Such a simple and good looking game. Fantastic! Gives you a sense of just how
big our oceans are.

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rsashwin
what is the backend tech being used?

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ranyefet
I just played the game for 30 mins on my iPad Pro and its really fun and
addictive, great work!

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lanius
Very fun! I think the Mohawk helicopter has the most potential due to its
strafe ability.

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stefantheard
Really demonstrates how far clean responsive physics and simple mechanics will
get you!

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deforciant
Amazing game! fun fact - works a lot smoother on mobile nexus 6P than MB Pro
2015 :)

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nsxwolf
Really fun and I played for a long time with no connection issues or bugs.

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puddlypanda123
This game is so awesome! Can you make a tutorial on how you designed it?

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dbg31415
Well there went an hour and a half of my time. Very nicely done.

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max23_
The gameplay is smooth and everything is nicely done. Good job!

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wesamco
dammit this is addictive, even to me! please add a "auto lock" feature, that
you can find in military aircrafts since the 80s, like a "god mode".

~~~
wesamco
damn you too for making me waste more than half an hour! ;) I actually don't
play video games.

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iamjeff
What a bloody delight!

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jonplackett
this is fun! how did you make it? give us some details.

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JepZ
CTF is actually fun too, it just needs more players :D

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denvercoder904
How does one turn into a helicopter or a large drone?

~~~
spydum
i suspect you register and begin to level up?

~~~
Kinrany
You don't have to register, they're all in the upper left corner.

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lubesGordi
Very cool! Can you tell us about the back end arch?

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rdl
This worked surprisingly well on iPad. Great game!

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XCSme
Very cool! What server company are you using?

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misotaur
Nifty and addictive little game! Good job.

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y0ss
ADDICTIVE! Very nice game, well done!

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sidcool
Super smooth.

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shortoncash
This is incredibly fun. Nice job.

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CraneWorm
Good game, I really enjoy it.

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rlv-dan
Does not load in Palemoon :-(

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elheffe80
Damn you. This is amazing.

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ngrilly
This is fucking amazing!!!

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tonetheman
Fun fun fun. Good stuff.

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thejosh
This is great, it's going to be the next big hit, calling it now. Awesome work
:).

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nkkollaw
Wow.

It's fun, and implemented beautifully.

Great job!

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pacomerh
great execution, love this game. Whats next for this project?

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DC-3
This is fantastic fun.

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Keyframe
Addictive! Great job!

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swanify
You're traffic is about to go up, I just put it on ProductHunt also :)

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skraelingjar
Great job! Would love to read a write up on how you made it.

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SubiculumCode
Hey pretty fun.

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robmaceachern
A+ nice work!

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kelvin0
A W E S O M E! So simple, so much fun!

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OutsmartDan
So amazing

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mdrzn
Real fun

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orliesaurus
This is SO MUCH FUN! (and so smooth!)

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ryanmarsh
OMG this game is so fun. Great job!

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dufia
works great, impressive!

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skellertor
What a fun little game! Well done

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cschep
this is very well done!

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stealthcat
no strafing?

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simook
This is awesome!

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mring33621
totally fun!

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myf01d
you just wasted my entire day :D

btw it performs better on Firefox 57 than chrome, I had some lags on chrome
then switched to Firefox and it worked without a single lag

~~~
Kairin
It's the new Firefox that makes it better. Previous versions got outperformed
by Chrome!

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briholt
Awesome game. My only request would be make the planes less maneuverable and
move more like real planes. This would make it less chaotic and allow more
dog-fight and strategic play.

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sagivo
the best game i had in a long time

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alexasmyths
Bravo! Cute game. So many things done well.

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samstave
blue tooth physical keyboard on ipad: caps lock kills controls.

please update to ignore case in controls.

also bug, BT KB kills any touch control on an ipad... plus it hangs on a
certain direction and contrl dies very fast...

way too buggy to even play on an ipad with a BT KB

~~~
fivesigma
Safari on iOS is generally buggy. WebGL and WebAudio are very glitchy.

I don't have a BT KB so I didn't test that case. Will do!

~~~
samstave
I am using chrome on the ipad

