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A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

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Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#301

ive read some criticisms of fiddly movement and lack of tutorials. i thought it added to the experience. tbf i am on my laptop the stakes are so low, the music is so relaxing, and the environment is so detailed and pretty that it pushes the player slow down and try clicking around and pressing some keys. each little discovery feels great and theres no downside to sitting around and trying things out for 30 seconds my…

Huh, I played on mobile and move and jump were exclusive afaict in the touch controls. I climbed up a fire escape and almost got on top of a building but couldn't make the last step to get up there. Maybe I'll have to try on desktop.

Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#302
The guy in the cave having the midlife crisis and his wife sending him clothes had me in tears. The lost kid in the woods who can hear his dad. The lack of any meaningful gratitude... he just seemed so checked out. I felt so jealous of his wife who still cared. Who kept saying tulips take time.

Not even a complicated storyline but very poignant.

Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#303

One of the artists behind this, Vicente Lucendo, has a case study here explaining how they made a previous project (Summer Afternoon): https://www.awwwards.com/summer-afternoon.html And a talk here on the same project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0 It's full of tips that likely informed this new project. In short, seems like: - No game engine - Three.js plus https://github.com/gkjohnson/three-mesh-bvh -…

what was the approach for the cell shading look do you know?

Custom tooling, mentioned briefly here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0&t=1177s

But this new game seems to make use more textures and cell shading.

Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#304
If only there was an equivalent of the Arts funding for legit beautiful art via new media…

It may be hard to find an audience (revenue) but these kind of gems should be encouraged similar to traditional art form.

It is somewhat obscene that there is art in galleries out there with far less effort and talent that go for millions in both funding and revenue.

Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#306
post #8

The font? The art style? The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic. I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos. Edit: I did figure it out and completed all the deliveries. So many potential. It reminds me a bit of Sky by thatgamecompany Edit 2: for the author, I noticed several players approached me and tried to communicate. Please explore games like J…

> ....The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic...I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.

exactly, realy well made!

Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#308

One of the artists behind this, Vicente Lucendo, has a case study here explaining how they made a previous project (Summer Afternoon): https://www.awwwards.com/summer-afternoon.html And a talk here on the same project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0 It's full of tips that likely informed this new project. In short, seems like: - No game engine - Three.js plus https://github.com/gkjohnson/three-mesh-bvh -…

On that subject, and since the Summer Afternoon direct link was not provided, can anybody actually get the project to work? Apparently made it on to HN 2.5 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34461808 Not sure if its just my system, yet I always start stuck in the ground unable to move.

https://summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com/

Re: A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

#310

One of the most impressive things about this is that it transfers only 5.7 MB of data on initial load and then caps out at 17.5 MB for the final load. It seems to be making smart choices about compression techniques. This is a good showcase of how well games can work on the web if done well.

Am I wrong in feeling that 5-15MB is... more than enough data for the world we see? There's not that much information here. I'm not trying to be a demoscene smart-ass here, either (I expect demoscene masters would've packed the equivalent in under 1MB). Just that, models are low-poly, the world is small and made up from pieces that feel simple to describe; as long as you're not trying to bake everything into a static…

It's pretty good! I peaked a little bit under the hood and most of the size is going into the 3D models and secondly the sound effects. The largest single asset is the looping music track which is 2.3 MB.

The 3D models are compressed with 'Draco' compression. So for example the largest asset is a model of the entire world which is 333 kB. It consists of 81k vertices. Unoptimized that would mean at least 3 32 bit floats per vertex, which would be at least 972 kB uncompressed. So Draco compression is doing a pretty good job getting the model sizes down.

I'd have to dig into it more but I suspect if they wanted to they could have trimmed the size down quite a bit, but it may not be worth the effort. They could have used more repeat 3D models, but instead it looks like they went for a more artist driven look where most of the world is uniquely modeled.

It also looks like they're sending a bunch of lower res levels of detail per model over the network. That also is a tradeoff. Still with network speeds as they are nowadays it may be faster / simpler to send those over the wire each time instead of regenerating the level of detail.

The textures are a similar story. Well compressed but they're sending procedural noise over the network. Those could be generated but it's also trivial to send them over the network.

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