22 ms·
Slide to Unlock
- xg15 3y agoI think that's the first nontrivial use of multitouch that I have seen in the wild (i.e. that is not basic "pinch to zoom" stuff). Really cool!
- omnibrain 3y agoHow about touch instruments like GeoShred? https://apps.apple.com/de/app/geoshred/id1064769019 https://apps.apple.com/de/app/geoshred/id1064769019
- archagon 3y agoOr Seaboard 5D: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/seaboard-5d/id1173937855 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/seaboard-5d/id1173937855 (This was extra cool when iPhones supported 3D Touch.)
- CharlesHorsey 3y agoIf you like this, there’s a great early iPhone game called Eliss with similar finger twisting multitouch. There’s an Android version now too.
- zuprau 3y agoEarly iPhone/iPad games were really creative with this before everyone just settled on making candy crush games.
- noman-land 3y agoThis is extremely fun! But reloading the page loses your progress :(.
- TrianguloY 3y agoIt doesn't, but the first white horizontal swipe is always needed. Unfortunately there is a "reset" button that, when pressed, resets your progress without confirmation. I was at 4 fingers :(
- noman-land 3y agoYou're right! I didn't notice that. Sucks about the reset button :(
- parasti 3y agoI love a simple idea pushed far beyond expectation. It's a little choppy on my phone, though (Firefox Android).
- the_third_wave 3y agoWorks fine on my "underpowered, terribly slow" [1] device, also using Firefox. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36103176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36103176
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y agoDoesn't seem to work at all on mine (also Firefox Android).
- eru 3y agoWorks on my Pixel 6a with Firefox.
- pintxo 3y ago"Twister on a touchscreen"
- mrspuratic 3y agoComing to a captcha near you RSN :/
- kderbyma 3y agoit gets really hard when you need to figure out how to rotate and keep multiple fingers on the screen while sliding
- pluijzer 3y agoCheating tip; use two hands, place your finger on both of the sliders, then almost complete the first one, then finish the second one.
- sulam 3y agoWorks fine until you get to the crossing patterns. :)
- zokier 3y agoIs there way to solve the puzzles without doing that?!
- operator-name 3y agoI don't think so. Some of the 3 or 4 puzzles require rotation and cris crossing
- misterprime 3y agoIs that cheating? Seems difficult enough for me, still.
- michaelmior 3y agoI found that for some levels it worked for me to set my phone on a table and use my thumb to rotate the screen instead of trying to twist my hands.
- jefftk 3y agoNeat! Once it got to three fingers I got stuck pretty quickly, though.
- justin_oaks 3y agoHow far does it go? I hit some really hard ones with 3 fingers. I think my phone gets confused if my fingers are too close to each other, which makes it especially difficult. This also feels like playing a game of Operation [1]. The author just needs to add an annoying buzzer sound whenever you fail. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_(game)
- zokier 3y agoI got to four finger ones, but they are bit much to me. I wonder if there is optimum phone size for this, mine might be smidgen too small
- jeffhuys 3y agoI used an iPhone 12 Pro, and it was pretty hard - couldn't get to 3 fingers because the site froze whenever I accidentally slightly triggered another gesture. Had to do a lot of phone-spinning though, lol. Pretty cool!
- hbn 3y agoI imagine I'm not at much advantage on my 13 mini
- high_priest 3y agoMy 14 micro is not much of a help aswell.
- jakear 3y agoBlast you for getting me all excited for a phone I’d immediately drop my 7 and run to buy.
- TrianguloY 3y agoAt least 4 fingers!
- Tmpod 3y agoCouldn't get it to work on my Pixel 4a, kept asking to use a tablet or a phone... .-.
- tomger 3y agoReally great!
- cjdell 3y agoMulti-touch digitiser acid test. Phone manufacturers take note!
- max0563 3y agoThis would be a fun game with some UX improvements. It's extremely frustrating when the reason I can't finish a puzzle is because my finger slipped off the line and not because I just don't know the solution. I stopped playing because of how frustrating that was.
- Eater_of_food 3y agoIt's a dexterity game. Think of it like Jenga, even if you know which block to pull out, the tower can still fall if you don't do it cleanly. At least with this you don't need to rebuild the whole tower!
- mikepurvis 3y agoTwister is the metaphor for me. I had to lock my orientation so that I could rotate the phone around to untie some of two and three finger ones.
- max0563 3y agoNo, they're not the same. In Jenga you usually lose in a way that you know could have been avoided. "If I had just held my hand still" or whatever. That is not what this is. This game is frustrating because it was poorly designed not because it is "hard".
- exclipy 3y agoIf only you didn't let your finger slip off the line
- lennxa 3y agoTotally agree, the dexterity is what makes it fun. I was thinking about how a larger screen would help, or if I had longer fingers, or if I cut my nails it'd be better. The annoying fails build me toward a sweet victory. good rush. Also, the cost of failing is not much, quick iterations. You just have to remember what you did.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- snickerbockers 3y agoReminds me of elite beat agents on DS
- propter_hoc 3y agoMade it to 3 fingers and then couldn't advance as my phone interpreted a 3 finger swipe as a screenshot. I'm counting it as a win since I learned a new feature of my phone!
- Tistron 3y agoHad the same problem at first, but moving one finger before the others made it work. At four fingers my phone can't do it anymore. It seems that it can only detect 3 pressure points at a time.
- jmtucu 3y agoThe same, my S23 doesn't recognise 4 touches.
- MaxikCZ 3y agoDoes it really not? I remember a lot of years back everyone was boasting how they can recognize 10 touches at the same time. Perhaps try an app, to see if the limitation comes from hardware or software? My Note9 is able to register at least 10 separate touches in Chwazi app (just tested). Seems weird a newer phone in the basically same line would downgrade to three.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago> Seems weird a newer phone in the basically same line would downgrade to three. You have data scientists busy analyzing telemetry all the time. It's conceivable someone figured "the data shows" most people don't even use 3 fingers at a time, much less 5+, so why not simplify the screen driver / hardware to save costs (or trade it for some improvement elsewhere)... Newer phones are more optimized than older ones. On the market, optimized doesn't mean better.
- Tistron 3y agoFound out that if you activate 3-finger touch for screenshot, that disables the phone's ability to register more than 3 touch points. With that disabled I can now play the game again (and after several 4-fingered ones I'm now stuck at a 3-finger one)
- genericuser256 3y agoSeems like this was made by Craig Kaplan (https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/ https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/). Had him for graphics while at school there, and he was a fantastic professor
- tobr 3y agoHis work on aperiodic monotiles has been in the news very recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36119920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36119920
- thefringthing 3y agoJust the other day he posted about how they were able to modify the one member of the family identified in their paper which is not an aperiodic monotile into one that tiles without reflections.
- ahmedalsudani 3y ago+1 csk is as good as it gets. Had him for my first CS class there and to the end of my time there, that class stood out both in terms of quality and enjoyment/engagement. If you're at Waterloo and have the chance to be in Craig's class, jump at it.
- tobr 3y agoThat’s fun! This would be a fun speedrun game. (To watch. Not to try to actually speedrun yourself. That sounds painful, emotionally as well as physically.)
- tobr 3y agoI would have liked a visual indication for exactly where you went off track. With multiple fingers it’s not always obvious.
- grishka 3y agoDoesn't work well on phones though, you really need a tablet. When you get to 4 fingers, it starts randomly losing track of a finger or two when fingers get close to each other. I tried two different Android phones and an iPhone.
- nabakin 3y agoYeah phones are hard mode but still possible. I did it on a 5 inch screen
- _nalply 3y agoor a laptop with touchscreen
- beAbU 3y agoI was unable to get past the second 3 finger one. It kept glitching out when I put down my third finger. Samsung Galaxy S20
- bsimpson 3y agoWon't even let you start on a computer with DevTools and touch emulation.
- munro 3y agoamazing, the game eventually froze on me tho ;( ios ff
- fsto 3y agoGreat job! Fun and innovative!
- rkagerer 3y agoWhat's annoying and counter to popular convention / user expectations is that you have to keep your finger in the established path to keep grip of the "ball". (S'pecially given your finger often blocks the view of it).
- gffrd 3y agoWhy is it annoying? The feedback is immediate and highly discoverable. The Lock Screen on your phone has totally different criteria (ease, muscle memory) than a toy that uses the same metaphor (fun/challenging) Also: isn’t it more fun this way??
- rapind 3y agoI actually liked it, but my daughters immediate reaction was “This is so annoying” (but in all caps). Meanwhile, I find typing anything on my phone very annoying.
- version_five 3y agoThat's the whole point of the game, no? It was what I expected. Are some slide to unlock bars "ratchets" that stay where you left them?
- londons_explore 3y agoI think it is less intuitive to non-iOS users... Android has "swipe up to unlock" and there isn't really a UI element.
- _popcornLurker 3y agoUhm haha. On behalf of our community I would like to say that I was perfectly capable of understanding this mechanism thank you. Pretty sure the reason for the unintuitiveness for some people must rely on something else entirely.
- vilunov 3y ago
- AlphaWeaver 3y agoIf you find this fun, you might like The Witness, a game with a similar gameplay mechanic as part of its core loop: https://store.steampowered.com/app/210970/The_Witness/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/210970/The_Witness/
- cglong 3y agoOr The Looker, if you like to laugh at the same time :) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985690/The_Looker/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985690/The_Looker/
- dang 3y agoRelated: Slide to unlock ... a new puzzle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36112310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36112310 - May 2023 (4 comments)
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoThat’s just silly. Bravo.
- operator-name 3y agoThis is pretty fun! It seems the starting position of your fingers is important, as is the ability to rotate the device. Interesting to see how many mobile HN users there are too.
- wizofaus 3y agoTechnically you don't need to rotate the device (I did it with my touchscreen-enabled laptop), but you will have to get out of your chair!
- operator-name 3y agoHaha, I guess that works too. Does the screen rotate, or you you?
- null_shift 3y agoNot sure why, but I found this gave me a lot of anxiety. I think maybe the focus and fine motor control needed to keep the ball within the lines…
- hereonout2 3y agoNope, I don't get it sorry, this is so infuriating. A gamified version of all the frustrations I have with mobile UX and my fat fingers.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoWhoosh!
- phh 3y agoI get it. A gamified version of all the frustrations I have with mobile UX and my fat fingers exaggerated to absurdity. Personally I take it as art, not as a game. I won't play it for more than 3 minutes.
- tambourine_man 3y agoThis is amazing, so glad there are people doing this kind of thing just for the fun of it. Great idea and execution.
- yarone 3y agoIt's like traversing a bad "mega menu." Did you know that "double-click" on early Windows literally meant "click the same pixel twice in rapid succession"?
- malfist 3y agoNo, that's not what it meant. You had to click on the same icon twice, which was typically 32x32.
- James_K 3y agoJust finished this game. Great fun and a genuinely unique game amid a sea of mobile shlock.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoUnconventional, but I played this both solo and with my kiddos. As a multiplayer co-op game it really shines. Granted it's easier than solo, but maneuvering multiple people around a tiny phone was absurdly funny.
- quantisan 3y agothis was fun. Any suggestions for other casual co-op games on the phone that I can play with my almost-4 year old?
- m0skit0 3y agoSearch for 2 player games in your app store, there are many bundles with fun games to play with children.
- pluc 3y agoTwister but for fingers
- Alifatisk 3y agoOh, I thought this was meant to be played solo. No wonder why my fingers got so twisted. Rotating phone solved it but that’s against the point.
- themeiguoren 3y agoI wouldn't say that rotating the phone is against the point! I found it an interesting subversion of the idea that a phone is only ever used in landscape / portrait mode.
- beefman 3y agoReminds me of Cross Fingers, an early iOS game I really enjoyed https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cross-fingers/id337490369 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cross-fingers/id337490369
- JimtheCoder 3y agoI've been trying to do this for the last 20 minutes on my desktop screen...it's not working. Now there are finger prints all over my screen... Any tips?
- redreceipt 3y agoThis is awesome. Gimme cookies please so I can pick up where I left off!
- wizofaus 3y agoIt does actually seem to remember where you were up to after you do the first simple one.
- majikandy 3y agoThoroughly enjoyable. Initially I thought the slide to unlock was going to jailbreak my iPhone :)
- ugh123 3y agoVery cool. Wish there was a bit more wiggle room ("easy" mode) to give to younger kids to play with
- explaininjs 3y agoGreat game. My only wish is that each level had an associated URL (with a nonguessable ID, perhaps). Would make saving and sharing much easier.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Phelinofist 3y agoThis helped me to find out that my Huawei phone had "AI Touch" enabled. That apparently is a feature to touch any image with two fingers and the super smart AI finds out what is shown in the picture and where to buy it. Goes without saying that I immediately disabled this. /shrug
- hombre_fatal 3y agoAmazing. That’s a feature you’d expect at the top of an HN brainstorm for comically bad, far fetched phone ideas.
- uo21tp5hoyg 3y agosure, but only because HN is mostly men working in tech. these types of features are far more popular among women. (not all women of course)
- iamacyborg 3y agoCitation needed
- uo21tp5hoyg 3y agoI can't provide a direct citation but I worked on image detection shopping for Kakao[1] and can say from personal observation that at least in Korea these features are far more popular (and ridiculously profitable) among women. According to Forbes women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing decisions in the US[2] so I can't imagine it's that rare there either, but I could be wrong and this could be an entirely eastern thing but given Huawei is a Chinese company I would bet it's a very popular feature for the phone. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao 2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescontentmarketing/2019/05/13/20-facts-and-figures-to-know-when-marketing-to-women/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescontentmarketing/2019/05/...
- 3y ago
- quickthrower2 3y agoI couldn’t get past the super hard captcha. Oh thats the game!
- afinlayson 3y agoWhy can't I use 2 fingers ....
- flexagoon 3y agoGreat game! Though I'm not sure if I solved the last level in the way it was intended to be solved - I wouldn't have been able to do it the way I did it if my fingers were like half a cm shorter
- nabakin 3y agoI solved it with some creative initial positioning. Thumb and index of one hand on the curved and middle straight line and my other hand index going between the two to reach the start of the other curved line
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aflag 3y agoI wish there was a save button
- borgchick 3y agoi think it does, i accidentally locked my phone, when i went back, did a refresh, and it loaded the last game after an initial "slide to unlock" screen
- culanuchachamim 3y agoJust amazing! Thank you!
- LeoNatan25 3y agoI changed the user agent of the Mac Safari to be that of iOS, and changed the window size to be in portrait, yet it still does knows it’s not a mobile device. How does it know?
- mostlysimilar 3y agoAvailable browser APIs?
- j6ng4n 3y agoI checked the slide.js and it uses `navigator["maxTouchPoints"]`. Also in the code: if you want to see all the levels without touch, add ?debug=1 to the URL and use the spacebar to advance.
- mock-possum 3y agojust doesn't work? on my touchscreen laptop in chrome?
- Waterluvian 3y agoMy six year old and I had a wonderful time doing a bunch of these.
- raydiatian 3y agoI hate it.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y agoI made it to a level where you need to use 4 fingers and can't figure it out. This is level [0] could someone give me a hint or tell me how you solved it on mobile? [0] https://imgur.com/dxC5J0e https://imgur.com/dxC5J0e
- kristopolous 3y agoDo the two outside then the two inside
- forgotmypw17 3y agoLooks like I finally figured out the reason to have a touchscreen laptop!
- mirthflat83 3y agoThis made me laugh out loud
- ben-schaaf 3y agoSome frustrating with this game comes from the slider resetting when moving too fast. With debug touch points enabled I can see that I never leave the path, but it still resets. This is exasperated on Firefox where rendering seems to be slow resulting in constant resets.
- tgtweak 3y agoYou should be used to high difficulty if you're using Firefox on mobile.
- wpwpwpw 3y agoFor years I've been using it (fennec), happy with it in a slow phone (redmi note 7) with dozens of tabs open.
- nine_k 3y agoNo, I'm used to low difficulty, high speed, because I can run uBlock Origin on mobile Firefox. It makes the web so much easier and snappier, compared to Chrome, even on a fast 5G connection.
- jojobas 3y agoApple patent infringement lawsuit in 3...2...
- spacebacon 3y agoIt would be cool if the path animated in reverse slowly when out of bounds and allowed user to regain control.
- c0rrupted 3y agoDamn it's actually pretty difficult but it was fun nonetheless
- fowl2 3y agoErrors in Firefox 114.0b9 (Windows), both using mouse and touchscreen: Uncaught TypeError: can't access property Symbol.iterator, _0x2129b3.changedTouches is undefined touchEnded https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/slide/slide.js:1 https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/slide/slide.js:1 _onmouseup https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/p5.js/1.6.0/p5.min.js:2 https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/p5.js/1.6.0/p5.min.js...
- Fatnino 3y agoDoesn't work on Firefox for android either.
- roelschroeven 3y agoOn my Android phone it does work in Firefox.
- Alifatisk 3y agoWorks on Firebox iOS
- codethief 3y agoIt does for me.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agoWorks fine on Firefox 113.1.0 on Android 13 (GrapheneOS 2023052900).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nayuki 3y agoBeat the entire thing in an hour. This game was creative, challenging, and frustrating. Have my angry upvote.
- jasonjayr 3y agoTry "osu!" to do this same thing but with music!
- c0rrupted 3y agoI couldn't even imagine how hard osu! would be if you had to do multiple sliders at the same time.... that'd be practically impossible, on PC anyway.
- boerseth 3y agoThis month was a really bad time for me to have just started regrowing my guitar nails.
- perryizgr8 3y agoWhy is it disabled on laptop??
- robgibbons 3y agoBecause it requires multi touch input, eg. a capacative touchscreen, which most laptops don't have.
- perryizgr8 3y agoMany do though. Could have checked for that.
- andai 3y agoIt's not often I get the urge to throw my phone at a wall, but this did the trick.
- MattyRad 3y agoThis oozes creativity! Having to maneuver your device to complete the puzzle makes it a physical game as much as a digital one!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- m12k 3y agoFor a horror/slasher movie inspired version of this, check out the smartphone game Slice HD - it's "multi-touch-fiddly" the same way as this, but any time you mess up, you get an unnerving impression of having your fingertips sliced off.
- borgchick 3y agoMe: "ah ha! I got it, rotation!" Game: "level 2: moar fingers required" Me: "damn you fingers! y u get in each other's way all the time??" Frustrating, but intriguing.
- keyle 3y agoLovey. The witness meets Twister, turns into a hack and slash horror game.
- attilaberczik 3y agoI was thinking, could this be used as a CAPTCHA system? I mean the easier versions, up to 2 fingers
- benatkin 3y agoI like the game but I don't like how it says Slide To Unlock on every page, so a ragequit after a few of them.
- wodenokoto 3y agoSpeaking of slide to unlock, does anyone know why accepting app installs require double clicking the lock-button instead of sliding?
- appel 3y agoI presume having to interact physically via hardware adds an additional layer of security.
- 3v1n0 3y agoBasically yoga for your fingers! Very cool... Unless it doesn't remeber your stage, and so... I cried when I swiped out the Firefox tab by mistake. Edit: it does remeber, just need to slide once
- leni536 3y agoI can't play with a convertible laptop with multitouch screen, although it works fine in https://naqtn.github.io/WBBMTT/touch-tester.html https://naqtn.github.io/WBBMTT/touch-tester.html . I'm using Firefox on KDE Plasma wayland.
- ho_schi 3y agoFeels like normal sized phones like iPhone Mini or SE 1st Gen are in advantage?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- OOPMan 3y agoThis is comically annoying with my fat thumbs
- canbus 3y agowell this took a few years off my life
- syngrog66 3y agosomewhat on topic nd off: gesture interfaces on mobile need to die by fire * 80% of the time they get triggered by accident, causing some loss of modal state or user data * other 80% of time they DONT trigger when you DO want, because your gesture wasnt EXACTLY perfect or timed right
- mcint 3y agoI wish cookies or unique URLs for level saving was implemented. I restarted multiple times because Firefox and Safari had phantom sticky activations I couldn't override. That final 3 finger twitter was a nice challenge. (I suppose a "reset detected inputs" button would do too).