7 ms·

Show HN: Virtual Corn Maze

29 points by jtolmar 6y ago

jtolmar 6y ago
My friends and I have a tradition of visiting a corn maze every Halloween season, but can't this year due to quarantine, so I made this. Now that we've all had our corn maze gathering, I'm sharing it with the rest of the world. I recommend picking a specific time and going with a bunch of friends while also on voice/video chat. Also happy to answer questions about the implementation here.
jtolmar 6y ago
Shoutouts to whoever named themselves "<b>corn</b>", that's a much kinder way than usual to probe at whether I have HTML injection vulnerabilities. edit: Un-shoutouts to whoever named themselves a racial slur. If you experienced a network outage and the maze re-randomizing, that's because I had to reboot the server to add an admin panel.
jjnoakes 6y ago
Have you considered making a maze that can not be solved by the follow-the-left-wall or follow-the-right-wall strategies? I think it'd be fun to send anyone following one of those into an inescapable large loop of some kind.
- jtolmar 6y ago
  Have you tried it? Because you're very likely to get stuck ;). If you strictly follow a wall from the start (or any of the checkpoints), you'll find your way to the end. However, most walls are on loops. The style of maze I used is called a braid maze, and replaces all dead-ends with loops. (The maze algorithm considers a 2x2 square a loop though, while the renderer doesn't fill anything in the center, so those still look like dead ends.)
  - jjnoakes 6y ago
    I did, I followed the right wall all the way (I think, unless I made a mistake).
    - jtolmar 6y ago
      It's possible, just uncommon! Congrats, you're uncommonly good at wall-following.
      - jjnoakes 6y ago
        I think a cool upgrade would be to make what I did impossible.
kroltan 6y ago
Is the perspective artistically intentional? It feels like there's a lot of distortion at the edges of the screen. Sort of nostalgic, but also a bit dizzying.
- jtolmar 6y ago
  I'm going to pretend it was artistic. In truth, I did it from memory and my first guess was close enough that I didn't feel like sitting down and working out the math correctly. I'm sorry if it's making you nauseous.
  - kroltan 6y ago
    It's okay! It's not severe, and it gives character to the game.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    Perhaps you can split the blocks in two or four before rendering them to reduce the distortion.
gus_massa 6y ago
[Hi from Argentina!] I found a signal say 1/4, what does it mean?
- jtolmar 6y ago
  Hi from the US! It means you're one quarter of the way through the maze.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    I found "Halfway" now. :) I'll try to continue later. Can you add some crows so I can scare them? (Put them in a random position, and when someone finds them they fly away and everybody see them. They respawn later...) What about some random rocks in the floor to make the path more different? (Or the idea is to make the floor as equal as possible?) Footsteps that disappear after a few seconds?
    - jtolmar 6y ago
      I really like the crows idea! Footprints are more or less impossible with this kind of rendering. I'd like more variety and decoration in the maze, but ran out of time. Perhaps an update next year. I was considering upgrading for Wolfenstein-era rendering to Doom-era rendering next year, so that'd also let me do stuff on the floor like footprints.
      - gus_massa 6y ago
        Finished! :)
minikomi 6y ago
I like that you can just go back out the entrance and walk around to the finish line
quickthrower2 6y ago
Nice. Do the scare crows do anything?
- jtolmar 6y ago
  Those are the other players! You were the scarecrows all along!
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    Now I wonder if that true IRL!
tolbish 6y ago
This is very fun and creative, although I did start getting a bit disoriented and had to exit after a few minutes. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!
gandalfian 6y ago
Missed opportunity for the Maize Maze joke.
coding123 6y ago
True story - I proposed to my (now) wife in a "haunted" corn maze right after the chainsaw guy started chasing us. I knelt on one knee but she didn't know what I was doing and she started dragging me with her as she ran because she was so scared of the chainsaw guy. Random people kinda re-aimed her and she realized what I was doing.
- ralfd 6y ago
  Was this planned by you or did you just randomly get the idea "Jesus, if I would be really murdered right now by a psychopath with a chainsaw I couldn't imagine a better woman to painfully die beside me"?
- jtolmar 6y ago
  That's touching. Weirdly enough, I've gotten multiple requests to put a chainsaw murderer in my corn maze. Apparently the current surprises aren't enough.
onion2k 6y ago
Awesome. Spoiler: Press 'm' for a clue.
zck 6y ago
Cool! It might be fun to show, at the end, the path you took through the maze on a map.
milkrocks 6y ago
Left hand path seems to be the fastest way to solve this.

29 points by jtolmar 6y ago

My friends and I have a tradition of visiting a corn maze every Halloween season, but can't this year due to quarantine, so I made this. Now that we've all had our corn maze gathering, I'm sharing it with the rest of the world. I recommend picking a specific time and going with a bunch of friends while also on voice/video chat. Also happy to answer questions about the implementation here.

jtolmar 6y ago

Shoutouts to whoever named themselves "<b>corn</b>", that's a much kinder way than usual to probe at whether I have HTML injection vulnerabilities. edit: Un-shoutouts to whoever named themselves a racial slur. If you experienced a network outage and the maze re-randomizing, that's because I had to reboot the server to add an admin panel.

jjnoakes 6y ago

Have you considered making a maze that can not be solved by the follow-the-left-wall or follow-the-right-wall strategies? I think it'd be fun to send anyone following one of those into an inescapable large loop of some kind.

jtolmar 6y ago
Have you tried it? Because you're very likely to get stuck ;). If you strictly follow a wall from the start (or any of the checkpoints), you'll find your way to the end. However, most walls are on loops. The style of maze I used is called a braid maze, and replaces all dead-ends with loops. (The maze algorithm considers a 2x2 square a loop though, while the renderer doesn't fill anything in the center, so those still look like dead ends.)
- jjnoakes 6y ago
  I did, I followed the right wall all the way (I think, unless I made a mistake).
  - jtolmar 6y ago
    It's possible, just uncommon! Congrats, you're uncommonly good at wall-following.
    - jjnoakes 6y ago
      I think a cool upgrade would be to make what I did impossible.

kroltan 6y ago

Is the perspective artistically intentional? It feels like there's a lot of distortion at the edges of the screen. Sort of nostalgic, but also a bit dizzying.

jtolmar 6y ago
I'm going to pretend it was artistic. In truth, I did it from memory and my first guess was close enough that I didn't feel like sitting down and working out the math correctly. I'm sorry if it's making you nauseous.
- kroltan 6y ago
  It's okay! It's not severe, and it gives character to the game.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  Perhaps you can split the blocks in two or four before rendering them to reduce the distortion.

gus_massa 6y ago

[Hi from Argentina!] I found a signal say 1/4, what does it mean?

jtolmar 6y ago
Hi from the US! It means you're one quarter of the way through the maze.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  I found "Halfway" now. :) I'll try to continue later. Can you add some crows so I can scare them? (Put them in a random position, and when someone finds them they fly away and everybody see them. They respawn later...) What about some random rocks in the floor to make the path more different? (Or the idea is to make the floor as equal as possible?) Footsteps that disappear after a few seconds?
  - jtolmar 6y ago
    I really like the crows idea! Footprints are more or less impossible with this kind of rendering. I'd like more variety and decoration in the maze, but ran out of time. Perhaps an update next year. I was considering upgrading for Wolfenstein-era rendering to Doom-era rendering next year, so that'd also let me do stuff on the floor like footprints.
    - gus_massa 6y ago
      Finished! :)

minikomi 6y ago

I like that you can just go back out the entrance and walk around to the finish line

quickthrower2 6y ago

Nice. Do the scare crows do anything?

jtolmar 6y ago
Those are the other players! You were the scarecrows all along!
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Now I wonder if that true IRL!

tolbish 6y ago

This is very fun and creative, although I did start getting a bit disoriented and had to exit after a few minutes. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!

gandalfian 6y ago

Missed opportunity for the Maize Maze joke.

coding123 6y ago

True story - I proposed to my (now) wife in a "haunted" corn maze right after the chainsaw guy started chasing us. I knelt on one knee but she didn't know what I was doing and she started dragging me with her as she ran because she was so scared of the chainsaw guy. Random people kinda re-aimed her and she realized what I was doing.

ralfd 6y ago
Was this planned by you or did you just randomly get the idea "Jesus, if I would be really murdered right now by a psychopath with a chainsaw I couldn't imagine a better woman to painfully die beside me"?
jtolmar 6y ago
That's touching. Weirdly enough, I've gotten multiple requests to put a chainsaw murderer in my corn maze. Apparently the current surprises aren't enough.

onion2k 6y ago

Awesome. Spoiler: Press 'm' for a clue.

zck 6y ago

Cool! It might be fun to show, at the end, the path you took through the maze on a map.

milkrocks 6y ago

Left hand path seems to be the fastest way to solve this.