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Author here. Happy to answer any questions! Some background info on the project: https://littleworkshop.fr/projects/equinox/ https://littleworkshop.fr/projects
by guigui 2y ago
Author here. Happy to answer any questions!
Some background info on the project: https://littleworkshop.fr/projects/equinox/ https://littleworkshop.fr/projects/equinox/
- fragmede 2y agoI'm blown away by being able to drop in on it on my smartphone seamlessly! My phone got noticibly warm during play.
- guigui 2y agoThank 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.
- OccamsMirror 2y agoLooks amazing but unfortunately I couldn’t get sound to work on my iPhone. Tried toggling sound off and on and still no go :(
- hackton 2y agoRemoving the Silent mode with the left button was the trick for me (like with most mobile game btw)
- taberiand 2y agoI 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.
- petepete 2y agoIt's amazing, thank you. I really struggled without mouse inversion but got there in the end.
- Broussebar 2y agoLooks 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?
- franck 2y agoThank you. The petanque game was only available for an event and not publicly anyway, only for the client company's employees.
- felixarba 2y agoThis is beautiful and very fun
- izolate 2y agoExcellent! I had originally planned to give it a quick glance, but I was so captivated, I had to see it through the end. For those aspiring to become creative developers, could you share any tips on which areas they should focus on?
- guigui 2y agoThanks! 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.
- davedx 2y agoFor 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.
- supermunny 2y agoThis experience was created with Three.js, if you'd be interested in learning that then this is a great resource https://threejs-journey.com/ https://threejs-journey.com/
- larschdk 2y agoCould you put in an invert mouse Y-axis for us old farts?
- ta1243 2y agoWhat do you mean? I move the mouse (well trackpoint) up, and I see the ceiling, same with the trackpad
- masfuerte 2y agoIn a plane you pull back on the joystick to go up.
- ta1243 2y agoI played 3D games back in the days of Quake and Duke Nukem 3D and have never had a "move mouse down and view goes up" Joystick sure, but the last joystick I had was a 15 pin DIN
- mmh0000 2y agoHere'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. [1] http://www.quake2.com/kko/menu/options.jpg http://www.quake2.com/kko/menu/options.jpg
- tambourine_man 2y agoExcellent work, works great on mobile, which is rare for a web game
- guigui 2y agoThanks, 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.
- cloudking 2y agoAmazing work! How did you get the 3D engine to work so smoothly? Is this three.js?
- guigui 2y agoYes, it's running on Three.js. This comment from co-author Franck roughly sums it up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114297
- iainmerrick 2y agoI’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?
- guigui 2y agoThanks, 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.
- iainmerrick 2y agoWow, my guess was more like 4-6 people for a year. You guys are impressively multi-talented!
- Jugurtha 2y agoI booked first class but your system is buggy and put me in economy; now I'm stuck because I wasn't in the escape pod! Someone should start a space ride hailing service. I bet the pod was yellow.
- leetrout 2y agoLots of great projects. How can I experience TRACK in VR? I opened the site in my Quest 3 browser but it says webvr not supported.
- donbrae 2y agoAh, you also did the Transmit 3D truck for the Panic website. Nice work!
- franck 2y agoThank you!
- modeless 2y agoUnfortunately it is very stuttery on my Pixel 7 Pro, looks awesome though
- guigui 2y agoSorry to hear that. That's weird, because we tested on a Pixel 3 and had decent performance.
- modeless 2y agoYeah, 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 https://x.com/modeless/status/1782432663649087917
- MartinoPalmitos 2y agoI have the same phone (Pixel 7 Pro) and I have the same issue tried Brave + Chrome with same results
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoOh weird. My pixel 4a on Firefox felt like it was not hitting 60. The audio was fine and it was playable but I couldn't find the cockpit so I gave up
- BHSPitMonkey 2y agoSeems great on my 6 (Firefox).
- paulrouget 2y agoHey :) I see you guys everywhere nowadays. Congrats, and happy to see you keep on doing amazing things!
- Gr4phTh3ory 2y agoCould you increase the range for the mouse sensitivity option? I'm finding that even maxing it out results in painfully slow look speed.
- kevincox 2y agoI'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?
- arendtio 2y agoThanks for the hint. I like 8 even better. 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.
- RDaneel0livaw 2y agoSame here! My mouse arm is getting a workout lifting and recentering 5 times per turn lol.
- aledalgrande 2y agoI guess it depends on your system settings. I have my Logitech set up to almost max speed/acceleration so it felt very natural to me.
- jlund-molfese 2y agoOn a Mac/Safari, I noticed that looking around while holding the left mouse button down made it normal
- russdill 2y agoOn Linux/Chrome mouse look keeps snapping back. It's really frustrating and makes it unplayable for me
- tkunk 2y agoI'm on ubuntu 20/firefox using WASD controls, and the mouse always wants to look down unless I'm already staring straight down. Great game!
- loeg 2y agoI'm also on Linux Chrome but not experiencing that.
- guigui 2y agoSorry about that. Does it happen also on this three.js example? https://threejs.org/examples/?q=pointerlock#misc_controls_pointerlock https://threejs.org/examples/?q=pointerlock#misc_controls_po... You can try to change the controls mode in the in-game menu (ESC key).
- russdill 2y agoThe threejs pointer demo works great. Here's what I'm seeing in game: https://i.imgur.com/YX2OqXz.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/YX2OqXz.mp4 Not sure if it matters, but I have multiple monitors
- smarri 2y agoLove 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
- iamcreasy 2y agoThank you for building it. Did you guys use Unity? The startup time is very low.
- drittich 2y agoSomeone else mentioned babylon.js in this thread. Did you evaluate that and choose three.js over it?
- guigui 2y agoBabylon would have been a perfectly good choice to build this experience, but we have a preference for the three.js API.
- rkagerer 2y agoPlayed 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.
- guigui 2y agoAll 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.
- yayitswei 2y agoCongrats 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- GuB-42 2y agoI 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.
- dcormier 2y agoI 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).
- guigui 2y agoThanks, we'll keep this in mind for a possible future version.
- joemi 2y ago> 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).
- weikju 2y agoI can still listen to music and videos, with sound, while the ringer side button is set to off.
- joemi 2y agoCan 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.
- weikju 2y agoSure, 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.
- gr8r 2y agofantastic work! also game is tough? waiting for the walkthroughs lol
- armanr7 2y agoSuper impressive. I wish I could play any video game on the web like this. How long did this take to build?
- guigui 2y agoThank you. Answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114774
- sgt 2y agoI can't wait 2500 years, are there hibernation pods anywhere on the ship?
- grdeken 2y agoReally impressive, congratulations. How many hours of TLC went into building this?
- b112 2y agoRunning 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.
- yetihehe 2y agoTried it on firefox on linux and windows, both work good in gamer mode.
- GiorgioG 2y agoThat was fun - thanks!
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoReally nice, smooth. If this is hobby project, it is amazing. It is pretty good for an indie game. Real half-life/portal feel.
- adamredwoods 2y agoSuper 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.
- quicon 2y agoCongratulations, I really enjoyed it. I never play videogames and I'm on mobile, but I engaged instantly.
- windowshopping 2y agoMaybe you should play videogames....seems you would enjoy them.
- bdastous 2y agoPlease add a "reverse y-axis" option for mouselook!
- qwertox 2y agoThis was awesome. I was concerned that it would continue after the warp, because I knew I would not have been able to stop playing. 100% pure fun while it lasted.
- guigui 2y agoThank you, glad you got to enjoy our little warp visual effect!
- _HMCB_ 2y agoThis is the most amazing experience I’ve ever had on the web. Bar none. I’m blown away.
- franck 2y agoThank you for your kind words, we really appreciate it.
- wkat4242 2y agoThanks for sharing this here! I'll try it tomorrow as it's late night here. Sorry to see this post is getting spam bombed for some reason :( Because it's one of the most interesting things I saw in the last days
- BalinKing 2y agoA 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).
- appel 2y agoI'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.
- torginus 2y agoI 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9KRBuVBjVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9KRBuVBjVo And yeah even that somehow feels futuristic today.
- nickjj 2y agoI especially liked the "Connecting..." sound. It's inescapable even in the future!
- aledalgrande 2y agoIt was such a big let down. How could the AI make a mistake in the route calculation?! Seriously though, amazing implementation and vibe! (and a lesson to not let GPT drive your spaceship)
- ellis0n 2y agoAmazing 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.
- elorant 2y agoI'd like it to save my progress with some cookie instead of having to play it all from scratch every time.
- remram 2y agoIt's 10min long...