Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game

#21

Post by 3willows » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

3willows wrote: post #14

Good stuff! Is there any chance you could write some instructions on how to make "darklaga.bin" locally. I ran "npm install" and then the build script, but then got a bit lost. When I open dist/darklaga.html, my browser dev tools (correctly) tells me that I can't get at "darklaga.bin". I worked around this by going on the live demo, grabbing the "darklaga.bin" from the dev tools "Networks" tab, and plugging it to the…

My own answer is here: https://github.com/3willows/Darklaga/blob/main/README.md

Re: Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game

#22

Post by ASalazarMX » Sat, Jan 04, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

ajnin wrote: post #17

Good old shmup, that's a genre that is sadly fallen into disfavour these days. I played a bit however after 2 minutes or so some enemy ships get stuck going in a square pattern across the edge of the screen where they are impossible to hit and the game stops progressing. I refreshed once and got the same issue after a few minutes (Firefox).

It's still alive today, but it's not called "Shoot 'em up" anymore.

These days it's been taken to extremes (signs of the times?) and called "Bullet Heaven" (you exterminate hordes of wimpy enemies) or "Bullet Hell" (you evade myriads of bullets).

Re: Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game

#23

Post by victorNicollet » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

theogravity wrote: post #4

This is pretty fun! There's an annoying issue when playing from mobile safari on iOS where the canvas scrolls along with your finger. I think there's an HTML directive that can probably fix that but the name escapes me at this time.

On other browser/platform combinations I use fullscreen mode, which gets rid of the issue entirely. But it isn't supported on iOS Safari as far as I can tell.

Re: Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game

#24

Post by victorNicollet » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 2:30 PM UTC

ajnin wrote: post #17

Good old shmup, that's a genre that is sadly fallen into disfavour these days. I played a bit however after 2 minutes or so some enemy ships get stuck going in a square pattern across the edge of the screen where they are impossible to hit and the game stops progressing. I refreshed once and got the same issue after a few minutes (Firefox).

The square pattern enemies are a bug (well, level design mistake) back from 2004, where they would move outside the range of the laser but would still be within reach of other weapons.

I must admit, since I no longer have access to the level editor, I edit the level files with HxD :-)

Re: Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game

#25

Post by victorNicollet » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

butz wrote: post #12

Congratulations, looks great, and feels addicting. I wonder if keeping ship offset from touch point was intentional game design choice? And regarding testing on Safari, if you have access to any Linux distribution, you can try testing on GNOME Web, it uses WebKit, same rendering engine as Safari (with probably some minor differences). Finally, you should put this game up on itch.io, as I am sure some players might li…

Yes, ship offset from touch point was an intentional 2024 change. In the 2004 version, touch screens used a stylus, which were thin enough that you could see whatever you were touching, so the player's ship was centered on the stylus point of contact. With a finger, it's much harder to see...

For Safari, I ended up having to investigate a crash on iOS Safari specifically, because it did not happen on Mac Safari.

I considered itch.io but I am still undecided on the whole affair.

Re: Show HN: A remake of my 2004 PDA video game

#26

Post by victorNicollet » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

3willows wrote: post #14

Good stuff! Is there any chance you could write some instructions on how to make "darklaga.bin" locally. I ran "npm install" and then the build script, but then got a bit lost. When I open dist/darklaga.html, my browser dev tools (correctly) tells me that I can't get at "darklaga.bin". I worked around this by going on the live demo, grabbing the "darklaga.bin" from the dev tools "Networks" tab, and plugging it to the…

The trouble is, darklaga.bin will not work locally because it must be fetched over an HTTP(S) connection. So, there's a darklaga.local.html provided when running locally. The build sequence is "npm run pack" then "npm run build", after which darklaga.local.html should work.