A Trail Tale • Hacker News Board

He's currently at Palmerton, PA/Lehigh Gap. The hike up out of town is steep and completely unshaded. You absolutely bake on a sunny day. Once you hit the top of the ridge, the trail looks out over the old zinc smelting plant for the next five or so miles. It's absolutely one of the most striking parts of the trail.

The ridge is basically bare of trees, AIUI because of the plume of pollution from the zinc plant. A Walk In The Woods (the book, not the execrable movie) goes into some detail.

12 years ago when I hiked through, the ridge was covered in low berry bushes, possibly as some sort of bioremediation effort. I did not partake of the berries.

Re: A Trail Tale

#15

Post by tarr11 » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

bricemo wrote: post #12

dgb23 wrote: post #10

This is fantastic. What a dream team as well.

Who is the dream team?

His brothers are doing the programming and music.

Re: A Trail Tale

#16

Post by lobochrome » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #13

pawelduda wrote: post #11

Really digging the pixel art :)

I am digging the music! It's on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/52vY4u0XlQlJCo25CfWaEK Edit: fixed link

It’s on Apple Music too:

https://music.apple.com/de/album/2200-miles-ep/1578283523?l=...

Re: A Trail Tale

#17

Post by saevarom » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

pawelduda wrote: post #11

Really digging the pixel art :)

Me too. Made the mistake of checking out his instagram which had all those pesky normal full res photos and that kind of took the charm out of it :)

Re: A Trail Tale

#18

Post by lelandfe » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

harrisonjackson wrote: post #7

This is very cool. If you are as confused as I was at first... it is not a game. It is a blog displayed in a pixelated art/game style. Click into the Notebook and then the About tab.

Yeah, it's a live record + blog of his hike. Weather and time autoupdate, and scenery changes across states. He updates physical/mental state, stats ("advil taken"), and blog posts. Looks like the status was last updated ~20h ago.

In the bottom right, hit "Live" (which is the current status; UI is hard) to switch to "Demo" mode, where you can alter all the settings.

Also, one brother wrote the music and another brother of his coded the whole thing. Super cool. Apparently the inspiration was The Oregon Trail but powered by live data

Re: A Trail Tale

#19

Post by nickvec » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

What an awesome project, reminds me of Stardew Valley.

Re: A Trail Tale

#20

Post by makach » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #2

Maybe the coolest thing I've seen this year.

the amount of effort and dedication is staggering. I am deeply impressed.