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Here's a really lightweight game I made, written in vanilla javascript, no frameworks, no graphics (just Emoji). For 10 years I've been meaning to make this. (
by LeonB 7y ago
Here's a really lightweight game I made, written in vanilla javascript, no frameworks, no graphics (just Emoji).
For 10 years I've been meaning to make this. (It was even mentioned on Hacker News back when I first wrote about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=967641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=967641)
A week or two ago, prompted by an email from a friend, I made this version, very quickly. A few days ago I switched to using TypeScript (but still no frameworks) and found that TypeScript is amazing.
To play the game, you "find a new project" (for $100 of in-game currency), then assign it to your only employee ("the Founder"). Once you've worked on a few projects you can hire staff. A store becomes available where you can buy further skills and items.
It shows you some basic aspects of software development in a bespoke devshop. Interplay between different roles, how self-managing teams operate etc. I've had a blast writing it!
- mettamage 7y agoSounds like a fun serious/educational game. I'll check it out. There was a list of serious/educational games that I once submitted to HN [1]. Maybe you should contact the author to see if it can be added. Edit: that was more fun than I expected. At later levels it feels a bit like a grind, but for just for a couple of days of work I find it a fantastic achievement. You kept me hooked for about 25 minutes ;-) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14661813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14661813
- LeonB 7y agoWill do, thanks
- LeonB 7y agoTo avoid the grind: If you give your people multiple of the self-start skill they will do more work with less clicking on your part. Also observation skill is similar, means they can do multiple in a row without any intervention.
- reificator 7y agoI've seen these skills fire several times, but I'm not sure what the rules are. Do they self-start any time they could complete an open task? Do they self-start only when there is new work available as soon as they finish?
- workingpatrick 7y agoFor the Observation Training, your worker seems to work X tasks in a row when you manually click them to assign a task, where X is their "Observation Training" level. So that automates their work if you assign it to them manually. The self-starter training seems to take effect when you've not manually assigned a task to them. They will search for a single task to complete X times in a row, with a slight delay between each task, where X is equal to their "Self-Starter Training" level. When their tasks are started automatically via this skill, the "Observation training" seems to be ignored.
- kuu 7y agoGreat job! How is it take you 10 years to take the step to do it? Any idea about how to overcome that? I question this because I have some ideas but later on I never find the time / motivation to deal with it.
- LeonB 7y agoI’ve done a lot of other things in the meantime :), such as putting out profitable projects and books etc. The original vision for this game was a fully animated iOS game. It only became worth doing when I suddenly had a way to make it ultra-lightweight, no graphics at all. So my advice is to find the minimum. Less than an Mvp. Halve your idea. Then halve it again.
- kuu 7y agoThanks for the advice!
- codesternews 7y agoHave you made money from your products? How it go? Also are you working full time? Just curious. Thanks
- LeonB 7y agoI am working full time, and my products make modest profits. I’m also a parent so that’s another full time job right there. ;)
- tomgp 7y agoKudos! I love the simple style and mechanics, I haven't played much but will give it a proper go when I get home.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoTook me a few tries to get the flow, maybe hiding irrelevant workers (and highlighting the appropriate workers) when you click on a task might help make it slightly more obvious. It's also easy to forget who works on what tasks, maybe organizing those later on might also be worthwhile. This is a great game, could eventually turn into an "idle clicker" if you so desire. Good job! I'm a fan of vanilla JS solutions. Also: if you want to preserve some state: localStorage might be the api you want, cookies are a mess. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/localStorage https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/loca...
- ef9 7y agoThis was a great time. I had a story come back with bugs multiple times until I forced the Founder to triage, dev AND test themselves! :D