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Hole Punch: Sling your spaceship around gravitational fields

356 points · 87 comments · trwhite

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YeahThisIsMe · 1791053605 · focus · HN ↗
This is the year of old browser (and/or flash) games making a comeback in some form.
1. walrus01 · 1791083049 · focus · HN ↗
  And/or weird things implemented in one shot vibe coding as a test with three.js:
  <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1ww5o7y/animated_horse_space_bunny/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1ww5o7y/animated_...
  <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1ww5o7y/animated_horse_space_bunny/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1ww5o7y/animated_...
2. ashdnazg · 1791099371 · focus · HN ↗
  This is an old favourite of mine, the opposite of TFA, where you launch the ship and try to survive as long as possible without crashing into the gravity wells. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20031129163538/http://homokaasu.org/gasgames/game.gas?21" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20031129163538/http://homokaasu....
jonplackett · 1791053698 · focus · HN ↗
It’s nice but clearly designed for desktop
It’s a mobile world. This would be so nice as a proper touch enabled game
1. trwhite · 1791053854 · focus · HN ↗
  It sorta works. Hoping to do more testing
  1. leetrout · 1791054109 · focus · HN ↗
    Just a few tokens away from a flutter port
  2. toobulkeh · 1791057216 · focus · HN ↗
    Clicking too fast zooms the browser which breaks the click placement. Native Mobile would be much better.
    Great concept!
2. leptons · 1791059659 · focus · HN ↗
  >It’s a mobile world.
  Desktop and Mobile are at about a 50/50 split, no it's not exactly a "mobile world".
mkatx · 1791054083 · focus · HN ↗
Nice, a lot of fun!
iamwil · 1791054382 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
1. wmanley · 1791063713 · focus · HN ↗
  > It's like Space Golfing
  Or pool...
  I am prince of the planet potters!
2. x______________ · 1791064495 · focus · HN ↗
  >Another alternative is to make it like a turn-based Scorched Earth (Mother of all games)
  Scorched Earth <3
  Another version of this idea has been out for some time now, check out Interplanetary[0] (85% off today it seems!)
  0 <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/650220/Interplanetary_Enhanced_Edition/" rel="nofollow">https://store.steampowered.com/app/650220/Interplanetary_Enh...
  1. SeriousM · 1791100776 · focus · HN ↗
    And that was the inspiration for the attack in The Expanse, or was it the other way around?
adamesque · 1791054793 · focus · HN ↗
Fun idea, but kind of maddening that I can click and hold to add mass to a hole but if i overshoot, i can't do anything subtract mass or delete a hole.
1. 40four · 1791055531 · focus · HN ↗
  The ability to subtract mass is definitely needed. All you can do is click “undo” and try again. You can drag the holes around too. Still pretty fun, I played 5 or 6 levels
  1. msephton · 1791056873 · focus · HN ↗
    Tap the black hole and it gives you ability to add and remove.
  2. trwhite · 1791056898 · focus · HN ↗
    I just pushed an update. Click on the hole and controls will appear. I think you'll enjoy the later levels (10+)
    hnuser123456 · 1791058238 · focus · HN ↗
    Nice domain name
    trwhite · 1791059102 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks. The important context is that I am 6ft 7 (and once knew all the words to Hypnotize)
2. rapidfl · 1791058141 · focus · HN ↗
  also need a way to increase the sim speed. 1.5x 2x etc
3. gschizas · 1791058990 · focus · HN ↗
  Click on the hole. There will appear 3 buttons, one to add mass, one to subtract and one to delete the hole completely.
mihaaly · 1791056453 · focus · HN ↗
I love it! : )
manlymuppet · 1791056606 · focus · HN ↗
Never ignored a tutorial faster.
(This is a compliment.)
1. chirau · 1791057506 · focus · HN ↗
  I know right? As soon as I saw the page, I had a rough idea of how to control things already. lol
2. trwhite · 1791057956 · focus · HN ↗
  Thanks! I like the keyboard experience (space for start/stop), arrows to add/subtract mass. Maybe I will add tabbing
Razengan · 1791056609 · focus · HN ↗
Feedback: It would be nice to be able to manually key in the matter; on Safari desktop clicking uses up matter too quickly to set precisely.
fullstackwife · 1791057207 · focus · HN ↗
Very nice, being busy with sth, and I could not go through all levels and reached the one with star(sun?), but the topic of gravity assist manouver was always inspiring for me, so I enjoy this game, congrats on making it!
kkhire · 1791057454 · focus · HN ↗
Fantastic! Should add an (optional) instruction level, but would have loved this game as a kid.
mosfets · 1791058067 · focus · HN ↗
This is somehow surprisingly fun, a good game to play with kids.
shantanujoshi · 1791058143 · focus · HN ↗
wow wonderful game this is super fun! Would love it on iOS
1. xixixao · 1791058635 · focus · HN ↗
  It launches on mobile safari but doesn’t seem playable, landscape on mobile safari sucks.
  1. trwhite · 1791058749 · focus · HN ↗
    Sorry, it very much began as a desktop game. Hoping to work on it if I have time tomorrow
davelacy · 1791058314 · focus · HN ↗
bravo - excellent game
rkagerer · 1791060188 · focus · HN ↗
Great game, though the controls on mobile are a bit too imprecise.
As you drag a hole, the size widgets should disappear so you can better see what's around it. They could pop back up again once you're done dragging.
Personally I'd rather if you had to press a button or something (or long press?) to add a new hole. I keep accidentally adding new ones when all I want to do is adjust an existing one.
Also spamming the user with the help screen right off the bat is a bit much. As long as they know it's there and can pull it up / dismiss it, I think it would be more fun to sort of discover the game mechanics yourself.
Note several of the first 8 or so levels can be accomplished with a single minimum (8) sized black hole. Eg. I liked the simplicity of doing that on level 6.
1. EA-3167 · 1791067255 · focus · HN ↗
  I resisted playing on mobile until I got home, and you're absolutely right that it's a whole other experience on desktop. In terms of addictive potential this reminds me favorably of that Seedship game, it's very simple, but powerfully "just one more round."
2. trwhite · 1791128378 · focus · HN ↗
  I agree - the mobile sucks. I've made a couple of usability tweaks for now, but hope to have more time to spend on it in the week
3. joshspankit · 1791130441 · focus · HN ↗
  Also a small bug: when rotating in response to the prompt to play in landscape, the button does not show and a refresh is needed while still in landscape
4. temp0826 · 1791133370 · focus · HN ↗
  Being able to actually drag a hole makes it a little easier as well..! (Didn't even realize that was a thing as it was broken on mine...playing on desktop now)
derin-picment · 1791060434 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
Loughla · 1791060652 · focus · HN ↗
Fun, but terrible on mobile.
NooneAtAll3 · 1791060944 · focus · HN ↗
Loved it! Played all 20 levels
Some missions have mass budget so large it seems to imply a "go fast, crash fast" solutions, but there's no time-of-flight score :(
ha, now I want to see a leaderboard, with players' score distribution (mass/holes/time mb?), like the zachtronics games
I had a blast. Thank you!
amelius · 1791060959 · focus · HN ↗
This one was cute also:
<a href="https://www.falstad.com/rendezvous/" rel="nofollow">https://www.falstad.com/rendezvous/
(check the autopilot option)
peesem · 1791061000 · focus · HN ↗
reminds me of Gravitee, except in that game the planets are pre-positioned and you're hitting a golf ball
matheusmoreira · 1791061077 · focus · HN ↗
Love it.
baw-bag · 1791061739 · focus · HN ↗
I love these kind of things and all of their quirks. Just interacting with a webpage in a fun way. More of this!
simonjgreen · 1791061841 · focus · HN ↗
Well, this is going to be a fun problem
wat10000 · 1791062027 · focus · HN ↗
It might be a cheat, but I'd really like a mode where the projected path of the ship had unlimited length. The trial and error cycle is a bit too long for some of the more advanced setups.
sebastianconcpt · 1791063163 · focus · HN ↗
Love it. And thanks for the refreshing skeumorphism
1. GalaxyNova · 1791063399 · focus · HN ↗
  I don't know if it's that refreshing. Looks like standard Claude generated style.
jakzurr · 1791063422 · focus · HN ↗
Way, way more fun than expected. Played on desktop, though.
eezing · 1791064424 · focus · HN ↗
Very neat.
joshu · 1791064810 · focus · HN ↗
i've been making a bunch of fun physics games like this. i need to push out the latest one. try this one, torture a parking optimizer: <a href="https://truckslop.joshu.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://truckslop.joshu.dev/
1. SeriousM · 1791101097 · focus · HN ↗
  Please, where are the others?
goolz · 1791064883 · focus · HN ↗
I just spent a ton of time on this. Reminds me of the joy from those old flash sites like addictinggames.com. Bravo.
jdw64 · 1791067345 · focus · HN ↗
There are a lot of browser games worth playing these days. It'd be nice if there were a site that could gather them all in one place.
grobibi · 1791068175 · focus · HN ↗
I refuse to hold my phone landscape even for videos so I'll never know how neat it is.
This is not an attempt to be a jerk. Just letting you know there's people like me out there.
1. stackghost · 1791068719 · focus · HN ↗
  There are dozens of us!
  1. monadoid · 1791070430 · focus · HN ↗
    DOZENS!
fogleman · 1791070175 · focus · HN ↗
Well, this is strangely familiar to a game I just vibe-coded recently!
<a href="https://www.michaelfogleman.com/gravity-assist/" rel="nofollow">https://www.michaelfogleman.com/gravity-assist/
1. emkoemko · 1791070563 · focus · HN ↗
  i guess thats what you get for not caring about the art work? it ends up looking the same right?
  1. derpyzza · 1791111472 · focus · HN ↗
    "how odd, my plagiarism machine spit out the exact same thing as your plagiarism machine!"
2. slopinthebag · 1791076477 · focus · HN ↗
  looks like you both stumbled upon the same rlhf checkpoint
  1. djaro · 1791116652 · focus · HN ↗
    If you go on Amazon and search "100,000 whys", you will find page after page of essentially the exact same book. Presumably because asking some AI model "give me an idea for an educational book aimed at children" gave that answer.
    I just asked ChatGPT to generate me an educational book title for children, searched the first result it gave me on Amazon, and found a book titled exactly that published a couple of months ago.
    LLMs converge towards expected text which makes them really bad at creating novel interesting ideas when given essentially no information. You have to create the unique part yourself.
    rcxdude · 1791126251 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, for any given decision an LLM will tend towards the same answer across a pretty broad range of contexts unless you specifically steer it otherwise. It becomes pretty obvious when you run a lot of similar prompts through them. I remember one story of a teacher getting their class to use chatGPT for a creative writing exercise, and then getting them to read them out and compare them. What seemed like creative and novel choices from the LLM to each of them individually were actually replicated across most of the class.
3. SeriousM · 1791100303 · focus · HN ↗
  The steering is 1:1 the same as from <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/366910/The_Long_Journey_Home/" rel="nofollow">https://store.steampowered.com/app/366910/The_Long_Journey_H... . did you knew it before?
drob518 · 1791072043 · focus · HN ↗
Very cool. Had some trouble figuring it out on iPad.
willguest · 1791072198 · focus · HN ↗
Nicely done, and interesting to see how the computer "solved" some of them. It is even sneakier that I am.
1. CarVac · 1791120799 · focus · HN ↗
  It used pairs of holes in a very different way than I did.
yogthos · 1791073106 · focus · HN ↗
I ended up making a very similar game for a hackathon with a friend years ago <a href="https://github.com/yogthos/graviton/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/yogthos/graviton/
frellus · 1791074353 · focus · HN ↗
Wellll.... this is *(&#@ addictive. I need my Saturday night back now, man
frellus · 1791074370 · focus · HN ↗
Well, this was (*)@&#$@# addictive. I need my Saturday night back now, man
jheriko · 1791077346 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
smorgasborg · 1791078070 · focus · HN ↗
thank you. just played all 20 levels. I want to see a dynamic mapping of the phase space as i drag a mass around. maybe i'll vibe code that.
1. smorgasborg · 1791141601 · focus · HN ↗
  I went ahead & plotted this game's solution space. @trwhite, presuming your permission, i live linked to your physics.js. will gladly remove on request. you're welcome to incorporate my vibecode in the game.
  <a href="https://smorgasb.org/holepunch-map.html" rel="nofollow">https://smorgasb.org/holepunch-map.html
  1. trwhite · 1791143314 · focus · HN ↗
    You have my permission. It looks awesome
nilslindemann · 1791078662 · focus · HN ↗
I love it. The dragging of black holes could be improved:
* The black hole is not moved until the cursor has moved more than five pixels.
* The first time the black hole moves in the dragging process, it moves more than one pixel, afterwards one. So it is a small jump and then it moves smooth.
* The cursor icon changes to the drag symbol only after the mouse has already moved five pixels, not as soon as the mouse button is hold down.
* When the mouse is outside the draggable zone, but still in the game window, the black hole is not dragged along the border.
1. gblargg · 1791079467 · focus · HN ↗
  Also you can't move it too close to ship, but there's no feedback you're too close, so it looks it's just not responding.
lawwantsin17 · 1791082091 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
Vivek-KY · 1791108677 · focus · HN ↗
event horizon ,relay,and last hole punch was crazy it took lots of time. completed all 20. appreciate it dude
swiftcoder · 1791115280 · focus · HN ↗
This is a lot of fun (only tried on desktop)
kang · 1791116592 · focus · HN ↗
frustrating game, feels half done. obviously least matter is consumed by bending it as close to the object, but game has crazy growth speed and no way to control it
sajithdilshan · 1791120481 · focus · HN ↗
Doesn’t work on mobile safari. Tapping on a blackhole does nothing
1. petepete · 1791121305 · focus · HN ↗
  Same on the latest Chrome on Android.
2. trwhite · 1791123388 · focus · HN ↗
  I do apologise. I'm trying to replicate the mobile issues, though I don't have one to hand right now. I've just pushed up some changes that attempt to make touch interactivity a little better and I added full screen support
endlessvoid94 · 1791122666 · focus · HN ↗
Very fun. Got far enough to need the black holes to provide the starting motion and gave up.
1. trwhite · 1791123588 · focus · HN ↗
  The "no fuel" mechanic is very challenging. If you click on the "sector" button at top left and then click "I give up" the computer will show you the solution. It's all about making gates with two holes and then steering by adding mass to one
mnw21cam · 1791125933 · focus · HN ↗
I get that it's only a game, but all of these gravity games (with a couple of rare exceptions) ignore the fact that the black holes (or planets/suns) should be moving as well.
1. codesnik · 1791132104 · focus · HN ↗
  Kerbal Space Program didn't! I wonder if it'd be much harder to simulate real gravity "spheres", with Lagrange points and all. But even without it, in simplified mechanics, planning slingshots and using Oberth effect had been fun.
  1. pavel_lishin · 1791145512 · focus · HN ↗
    There are plugins that make the orbital paths of the planets and moons - and the ships - more realistic.
[deleted] · 1791126107 · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
m-nez · 1791137444 · focus · HN ↗
This reminds me a lot of the first game I made more than 10 years ago (<a href="https://github.com/m-nez/gravity_slingshot" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/m-nez/gravity_slingshot). In my case you change the trajectory of your ship by adjusting the strength of stationary attractors in real-time.

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