Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
hn.town.siempre.io
Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
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Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#2Hi HN!
One of the creators here.
It's a cross between Zoom x Pokemon. You only get audio and video from people you're standing next to, and as you walk away from them, the video fades away and the audio drops off.
With current video chat apps, you lose many of the dynamics of real life meetups. In particular, you lose the ability to have multiple people in the same shared space having multiple conversations.
In real life events, you can talk to a few people at a time while still being able to quickly go from one conversation to the next. With video chat, you have to talk to everyone at the same time.
Online Town is meant to fix this.
The way it works is, when you're near someone you get their audio and video, when you walk away from them their video drops off, and their audio fades out.
So you can have multiple conversations within a single virtual space.
Join me in the public room! Would love to get your all thoughts on it :)
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#3Hi HN! One of the creators here. It's a cross between Zoom x Pokemon. You only get audio and video from people you're standing next to, and as you walk away from them, the video fades away and the audio drops off. With current video chat apps, you lose many of the dynamics of real life meetups. In particular, you lose the ability to have multiple people in the same shared space having multiple conversations. In real…
Surprised no one has replied here. I've been thinking about the same problem for the past few weeks regarding real life group dynamics in digital mediums. Interesting stuff, wish you all the best
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#4Really cool idea. I've been thinking a lot about how to have a party online (zoom parties are inevitably terrible), and this seems like a great step towards recreating real-world social experiences
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#5Sounds like a new concept. Has anyone ever tried this approach of a virtual real-life emulating community with video calls?
A lot of community building questions still apply though and I'd love to see them answered. How do you plan to deal with nefarious characters or just general sexually motivated trolls (if any)? Is there moderation of some kind? Community rules in general? Sign up integration in the future? I couldn't find it on the home page (though I may be thinking too much about it - the whole purpose of this might be a 'real' virtual world with sign-ups being a redundancy)
Either way, do not, in any way take my comment to be nit picky or leaning towards the critic side - I'm a genuinely interested user. Just an inquisitive one :) All the best.
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#6Tried this with a group of friends today and it was a lot of fun. The fading is a great touch. Main thing we wanted was a minimap, or some way for new arrivals to find us. Nice work!
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#7Sounds like a new concept. Has anyone ever tried this approach of a virtual real-life emulating community with video calls? A lot of community building questions still apply though and I'd love to see them answered. How do you plan to deal with nefarious characters or just general sexually motivated trolls (if any)? Is there moderation of some kind? Community rules in general? Sign up integration in the future? I cou…
> Has anyone ever tried this approach of a virtual real-life emulating community with video calls?
Yes, in stealth mode around 5yrs ago but couldn't get funding for launch. It was too early and too general. High battery drain didn't help either.
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#8Please keep the graphic in this quality.
It gives an easy-going/fun vibe to the game.
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#9Tried this with a group of friends today and it was a lot of fun. The fading is a great touch. Main thing we wanted was a minimap, or some way for new arrivals to find us. Nice work!
> Main thing we wanted was a minimap, or some way for new arrivals to find us.
I was thinking a minimap would be nice, or maybe a dash option so I could get around a little faster.
For helping people find each other faster, it seems like just having maps with more landmarks might help too!
It would be cool if I could upload my own PNG or something to use as a town backdrop.
It would also be neat if I could click people and find where they are on the map, or maybe just jump to them.
Re: Show HN: Online Town – A better way to gather online
#10We used this for a remote company “happy hour” today. This was the most fun I’ve had with online video in a long time. We had a few “pods” that gradually merged and split throughout the event.