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Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
81–90 of 204 posts
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#82How did you afford taking off years of work to develop this? Did you have a lot of capital / runway? Low cost of living? Kudos for this extremely well polished project. This is the dream many of us have but can't or won't embark upon. This is very inspirational.
Good question. I started working right after what we call "middle school" in the Netherlands which translates to high school I think. During the daytime I would work my job and in the evening self-study for the "Open University" we have here.
I lived with my parents during this time and could save up money as a buffer. Thanks to that support I could financially bridge these past years of development without worrying too much. Also: keeping expenses as low as possible. My product is old school and so are my computers.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, open sourcing at least the client part of the game is something that I'm very interested in. I'm not entirely sure when or how this will happen just yet, it will depend greatly on the commercial success of the game. But it's definitely my preferred course of action for the future. EDIT: I'm not really interested in separating or spinning off the engine, but you will have few problems turning the game into someth…
While I would advise against open sourcing the core of the game, opening the client api may be a good idea - perhaps others can write clients for it, but there may be issuing around people making bots to cheat the game.
I wrote a "bot" myself in the form of a network simulator for general and load testing of the server. If players were to automate the game I'd be more than happy to make a special server where we could show off their work. Making an agent navigate an open 3D space and performing planned tasks would make for an impressive demo for all parties involved.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#84For the senior citizens viewing this they might relate the term "AngelDust" with the dissociative PCP, let me assure them though, it hasn't been called AngelDust since the 70s. You'd be much more likely to hear it referred to as "wet" or "sherm". IF you went to the ghetto and tried t buy Angel Dust they'd think you were a cop. It's like calling weed "dope". Just a little disambiguation from a drug name etymologist :)
Your time scale and etymology are wildly off, or else your experience is confined to a very limited geographic region.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#85What are your server costs?
It of course depends on the demand, but very low in general. During periods where I don't have a lot of player activity even a single vCPU is enough to host about 2.000 simultaneous players.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#86Awesome were you inspired by Ace of Spades at all or have heard of it? I remember that original voxel-based engine and web server list that launched the client using their custom URI. It was awesome how small the game was and how fun it was the simple concept (Minecraft with guns and no floating blocks).
I once saw a trailer for AoS, but to be honest I don't really play many games myself these days. I find that working on Angeldust is in itself a reward that alleviates the need to play games as escapism or entertainment.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#87How long did it take you to reach 250k players, and has there been marketing involved?
This HN post is kind of the first attempt at getting the game out to "the public" aside from passively being present on app stores like Steam, Itch and Google Play.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#88Does fast & efficient = fun?
No, of course not. But I myself honestly appreciate a well-crafted product way more than a badly crafted one. So I think we can at least say that:
Fast+efficient+"some fun" > Slow+inefficient+"some fun"
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#89Tried registering, but the password input in the Android app doesn't support pasting text...
Same. I actually went through and typed my Lastpass-generated password. That was a painful exercise. Anther oddity is that the Android version is free while the Steam version costs money. Is there some other kind of monetisation strategies for that version?
Nope. On Google Play I'm limited to a 50 MiB APK size so I can only ship assets for the "Cartoon" visual style. As you don't get the full experience of having both the "Cartoon" and "3D" visual styles available I find that not charging for the product is good option.
Also: my preconception was that Android users are more likely to pirate a product. So to prevent them from downloading a malware-laden pirate APK and getting a poor experience, I'd rather have them play the game for free without hassle and tarnishing my reputation.
Re: Show HN: Angeldust – a fast and efficient video game
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I'm sorry that the UI support on Android is a bit limited. Input support is a bit lowest-common-denominator there to work around keyboard bugs.
I would also add that I get a little ticked off when I have to adjust my password manager's defaults - in this case reducing from 64 to 32 characters. In the past I have very-often stopped exploring a new thing at this point but this time I am continuing! Looks great and I also eagerly await more details of it's implementation.
Honestly, thanks for the feedback. I never realized / got feedback that players would indeed use a password manager for a game like mine. "It's just a game!" is not the best defense here and the workflow of getting an external password into the game afterwards is also pretty subpar. I'll need to think on this for a good solution.