Author here, not sure why this is posted today as this project is from 2015, but feel free check out our latest WebGL project if you liked Keep Out: https://equinox.space
I think it is because Equinox Space was posted last week and made a good splash, lot of people liked it, so someone must have explored your past stuff and found this from 2015.
Started playing equinox but constantly find myself face first against a wall and struggling to turn around and get a good view. Nav is dizzying. But I love the rendering and audio.
Sorry to hear that! There are multiple control modes so I assume you're either using the mobile version or the desktop in casual mode. We've tried our best making the experience as easy to use as possible for a variety of user profiles, but it's not perfect. FWIW, the touch and mouse-only controls are similar to Google Street View.
Yes, we relied on UA-based mobile detection which worked back then but a few years ago Apple stopped treating iPadOS as mobile, and we never patched this.
Unfortunately no! We did want to add secret stuff like hidden doors or fake walls back then, but we had to keep scope under control since that was only a promotional demo for our studio.
Edit: not sure if you're talking about Equinox or Keep out. But my answer is true for both projects. ;)
Why it weighs only 45mb: the 3D environment isn’t that detailed, and we use Draco compression on the model files which has huge benefits in terms of file size. In addition, the art style requires few textures, and we use KTX2 compression.
The audio files are indeed the largest assets.
Why are so many users gushing over this games 3D environment? It's empty and cel shaded, it's about as normal as normal gets but people are eating it up left right and centre.
It reminds me of standard indie games with cel shading.
Strong disagree, art direction is about how the game looks. For example this is their choices for how to render the scene and how they achieved that technically: https://x.com/glecollinet/status/1783805898428715070
I honestly don't understand how you could look at something with that strong a visual style and think there was no intention.
Just because you use the standard graphics development blocks of a game does not mean it has significant art direction.
Why is there a couch with no real TV, why is there an opening at the top with no couch or seat looking out, why are all the development techniques just base level shader passes? Why is there no new take on what space ship interiors look like? Why is there no detail?
Ahh, okay you just don’t know enough to know enough. None of those complaints show that the game lacks art direction, some even have extremely little to do with it and some of them are really obvious artistic choices.
We sure hope that game publishers/studios will find Equinox inspiring.
We're working on some behind-the-scenes content that will most likely be published on X and LinkedIn. You can follow us if you're interested: https://twitter.com/glecollinet
While creating Equinox, it frequently felt like we were working on tiny details that hardly anyone would notice. But ultimately I believe that immersion largely relies on the accumulation of all these small additions.
I'm probably showing my age, but I'm just at awe what is possible in a browser in this day and age. Well done, OP. I'd love a hashed out, full length version of this, but with the same vector graphics.
I mean, WebGL was released in 2011, so this kind of thing was possible for like 13 years. If you go back once again as much, to 1998, the web has barely existed back then.
There were things, like Epic Citadel, a full port of Unreal Engine to the browser (using asm.js, a technique of compiling assembly to Javascript) a decade ago:
Played on Chrome on my Android phone in portrait mode, and the whole game I felt it was too zoomed in.
I was suspicious of that AI the whole time. Like, did it get sent into this asteroid field on purpose to destroy it because it was a threat? Were there other unconscious passengers locked in those rooms and if I died following some risky instruction would it simply wake the next one up? How could it practically see through my eyes and would I turn out to be an automated drone?
Would have liked a bit more subplot to explore. Eg. Fix the spinning satellite to utilize the Comms station. Gain access to the third floor in the lift. Poke around the AI control room to uncover sabotage.
Maybe I just missed some discoveries on my playthrough.
All valid points, and I completely agree that the narrative could have a bit more depth to it. I really wish there were more puzzles to solve. However, at the end of the day, we had to keep the scope under control, which was already quite large for a two-person team.
Congrats on shipping! I enjoyed my playthrough. I suspect it's the perfect length for blowing up on HN, since there's an emotional payoff for completing the game and if it were any longer, less people would complete it.
I also found the AI suspicious for a different reason. That is that it has its own agenda and is using me to do what it is not allowed to do. For some reason, the AI is not able to initiate a hyperspace jump, cannot bypass access, but can maneuver the ship through an asteroid field. As if it was not completely trusted.
And now, everyone else is gone, and I am getting ordered around by an AI, maybe because the AI considered me the easiest one to manipulate, maybe the AI deliberately entered the asteroid field to that goal.
Edit:
And I don't think the game really needs more content. It is not a big budget AAA production after all. What it could benefit from however is maybe some hints to something bigger. Things like personal items, messages on screen, maps, ads, writings on the wall, etc... It doesn't have to connect to a big story, but just hint that there is something, even if it is all bluff.
The AI gave me the vibes of Umbrella Corporation, they are randomly kidnapping humans and replacing their recent memories with memories of this journey and testing the human behavior and competence through these subjects
I've found that `localStorage.mouseSensivity = 4` (the default max is 1) seems to set it to about the right amount. However mouse movement is now very jumpy. It seems that individual mouse events are visible and mouse acceleration curves cause very unpleasant behaviour.
Maybe it is something to a high resolution screen, so one CSS pixel is actually quite large?
3840x2160 with 150% Scaling, Firefox on Wayland (KDE) on Arch Linux.
Somehow, the mouse is not just slow but has a hard downtrend. After swiping 5 times left to right and back again. I look at my feet. The downtrend increases with higher mouse sensitivity.
Thank you! Yes, making it available on mobile devices was one of our priorities from the start (even though the desktop experience remains the best one).
Phones do tend to heat up when rendering complex WebGL applications.
I played through on my phone (Android) too and it was very smooth, suprisingly it didn't seem to cause significant battery drain or overheating - it performed really well.
Some people are more comfortable with mouse inversion, that is also my case; I read years ago somewhere that it is subjective and depends on how we "see" the scene in our brain, like 1st person or projected 3rd person (or something similar, don't take my words to the letter) anyway the number of people that would find games without mouse inversion next to unplayable is very high, therefore adding the option makes sense, and many games in fact have it.
I got used to normal look controls with practice but lots of 2005ish console games have inverted controls as defaults. I started a playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on Gamecube to find that is has inverted left/right camera controls as the default. Also, GoldenEye 007 for the N64 has inverted up/down camera controls (if I remember correctly). If you're a certain age, you lived through a time when there was not an accepted default control scheme so console games just picked defaults and moved on. We got used to those defaults. There was a period of time where choice of selection of up/down inversion was seen as a must-have to even play a game (multiplayer split screen) and zero discussion or complaints would arise over 2-3 minutes of everyone (all 4 of us) setting their controls after every console reset. Eventually non-inverted controls became the accepted default. This likely happened during a time that many of us gamed less so we might not have the muscle memory of relearning the new defaults. That's my experience on the whole thing anyway.
i always thought it was people of a certain age who required inversion (i include myself here) because the first 3d games were flight sims, so pulling back on stick/down goes up etc.
At least for me, I've always associated preferring mouse inversion with growing up handling BB guns. When you're lifting a rifle up, you are pulling back/contracting on the right arm. When aiming, to go up you nudge the right hand down, or nudge up to point down.
I could see this. Like obviously I live first person, and when I want to look up I pull my head back, to look down I push my head forward. Similarly I expect pushing my mouse forward (up) to look down and pulling my mouse back (down) to look up.
If I grab your head and pull back you would be looking at the ceiling. If I pushed your head forwards you would be looking at the floor. This is how mice should work. Touch devices screwed that up and are heresy.
Here's the `invert mouse` setting from Quake2[1], though, I know for certain that Duke3D and Doom had the same option. I feel like every FPS I've ever played has had it as an option.
Now, to be judgemental, anyone who enables the invert option is an obvious psychopath. Although, to be fair, everyone thinks I'm a psychopath for using Mouse2 for Forward.
"Shearing" was added for up-down look in Heretic, for the non-Doom engine descendants Duke Nukem 3D and Rise of The Triad supported it as well. I don't remember if it could be bound to mouse movement in any of these games.
They were bound to keys for the DOS versions from memory. Forget when the mouse look was supported but the view was highly distorted so mostly useless until later ports enabled proper 3d rendering.
For me babylonjs was a bit of a leap forward. Great engine + tooling. Nice documentation with tons of examples for how to do things. Besides that, experiment lots and lots! Be very curious. And don't be afraid of 3D math.
Thanks! Congrats on making it to the end.
This is too broad a topic to cover here, but I'd say the most valuable skill is the ability to constantly learn new tools and techniques.
Thanks, making it available and actually playable on mobile was definitely a challenge. One of our inspiration for the mobile controls was the iOS version of the game The Witness.
Love the project. How long did it take for you to conceive and launch? What tools or platforms would you recommend to use for anyone interested in a similar project? Thanks
It roughly took 5-6 months in total over a span of 1-2 years (we paused development several times to work on client projects).
I recommend diving into Three.js (or other WebGL libraries), and learning Blender or similar to create your own 3D scenes.
Super cool escape-room-esque game! I wish though, that the click-to-walk was a bit more pre-defined paths. For example, If I click on a spot thinking I could interact with it, I walk to the wall and am now so close to the wall that it becomes disorientating, and I have to click back to view the room.
Looks awesome, nice work. I have an unrelated question, on little workshop's website I can see a pétanque game that I couldn't find online. Is there a way to play this game or was it available only during an event?
Running firefox + linux. Mouse works fine in mouse only mode, in gamer/keyboard+mouse, the mouse is out of control. Often, moving the mouse in any direction, moves the mouse continuously left (for example). Other times, the tiniest twitch moves the screen in crazy flying loops.
Tried the speed setting down to 10, barely made a difference.
Not sure if other FF users are experiencing the same thing?
edit:
Just finished it... Good game! I hope you expand it, because you've definitely got something fun here.
I enjoyed it, but in Safari on iOS there was no sound at any point. I checked my device volume. I toggled the game option for sound on and off.
It just occurred to me that it may be because I have my phone ringer set to silent. That is indeed what caused it, which is not great as I don't want notifications to be making noise.
It also felt slightly too zoomed in (I even attempted to zoom out using my fingers).
> It just occurred to me that it may be because I have my phone ringer set to silent. That is indeed what caused it, which is not great as I don't want notifications to be making noise.
I'm pretty sure that's the way it should be, isn't it? Whenever I want something/anything/everything to not make noise on my phone, I set it to silent. It's been that way since the very first iphone I ever owned (I think it was the 4).
Can you do that on webpages (which is what equinox.space is) without first pushing play or unmuting them? I know on youtube you have to unmute it first. I don't really go to any other music or video websites on my phone, so I'm not sure if they're all like that or not, but in my experience, webpages respect the ringer side button unless something is clicked to override it.
Sure, within the website I have to unmute it and up my volume to hear anything, but it's still playing without me having to switch off the physical DND mode button on the side of the iphone. My phone remains in DND mode and I still have no audible notifications.
I’m really impressed by the visual and audio design, and the graphics and audio implementation too. It’s great that it loads quickly - far too many online 3D games are stuck behind lengthy loading screens.
How big was the team and how long did it take to make it?
Thanks, this was done by a team of only 2 people over a span of 1.5 years, working on it intermittently between client projects, totaling approximately 5-6 months of work.
No, they used Three.js among other things. Startup time was fast here, it’s probably just how long it takes you to download the game assets that determines speed in the end.
A bunch of other posts on the front page are getting bombarded with these spam messages too... I figure dang is probably aware by now (although idk what specific measures HN has against this sort of thing).
Amazing demo! This reminded me of the spaceship my friend and I made in the level editor of Duke Nukem 3D. Unfortunately, my legendary map got lost along with my old disk.
Yeah, it's not due to poor rendering performance. I can see it running at full frame rate between stutters. It may be some kind of timing issue? Here's a video of the problem: https://x.com/modeless/status/1782432663649087917
Hey! Just wanted to say I loved browserquest when it came out, and it was a material influence for me to get into web development. I had a lot of fun tinkering with the code and understanding it
Congratulations! From the few minutes that I've played, this looks really polished, especially for a web game.
I'm curious to know what kind of promotion efforts you had to do to reach 130k units? Was it just word-of-mouth and good reviews that took you there, or did you spend money on advertising, PR, etc.?
By the way, I completely agree with using WebGL instead of canvas. We created our first HTML5 game back in 2012 (called BrowserQuest), and achieving good performance with canvas was a big challenge at the time. We would definitely choose WebGL over canvas today even for a 2D game.
Thanks! I think it helps that the game mechanics are somewhat unusual and quirky, which makes it easier to stand out. Instead of out-producing other games, we opted to make a game that feels like it is living in its own small niche.
I linked to it from another comment already, but we're also big believers in twitter and did a talk about it:
webgl comes with it's own set of drawbacks depending on what your targets are. I was targeting mobile with my game and phaser/canvas had much more consistent performances than phaser/webgl across devices.
Interesting! So far we're only targeting the desktop since putting the game on mobile would require a lot of UI rework. Might happen at a later point though.
long story short, webgl had memory issue on low end androids and was unplayable on chrome/iphone because it lacked acceleration. this was last year, thing might have changed now.
I'm evaluating some WebVR options right now and wondering what you think is state of the art. Are things like a-frame and react-vr a step forward or a crutch? Is Unity viable for web-first apps?
EDIT: thanks for all the great feedback!
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