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on Gopher (inofficial)
HTML Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Pirates, a naval warfare game inspired by Sid Meier's Pirates
fsckboy wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
fun yesterday, but today there's 3 screens of answering the same
questions with ever replay?
at least put all the questions on the same screen, this "modern" way is
ridiculous
dmzxnico wrote 6 hours 17 min ago:
It's cute! Push it deeper
NKosmatos wrote 7 hours 0 min ago:
Not playable on iPad, will try it on PC.
zhoBEENG wrote 8 hours 37 min ago:
Really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing!
simonebrunozzi wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
Lovely! Thankfully no one (AFAIK) has done a similar work with Sid
Meier's Railroad Tycoon Deluxe... Otherwise I would be easily spending
tens of hours playing it. One of the games I have loved the most in my
life!
cen0b wrote 13 hours 13 min ago:
Super fun!
I'd add the ability to restart the same battle once its finished, kinda
tedious to go back through and select the settings I want.
A product of my laziness heh
sgt wrote 14 hours 0 min ago:
I'm actually building a boat game for my 5yo son. We're building it
together. I decided on using Love2d as the framework and I'm basically
distributing a DMG to family and friends to run it and test it.
flohofwoe wrote 14 hours 6 min ago:
Unfortunaly only a demo of the ship combat system of Pirates :)
The actually interesting part for me was the historical setting,
exploring the Carribean geography, watching the world evolve, all the
while trying to keep the ship crew under control :)
Also we still need a proper 2D remake (the 3D-ified game console
version from 2004 didn't really age all that well and has too many QTE
gimmicks).
wizardforhire wrote 17 hours 5 min ago:
Is there an unskipable minigame thats crucial to winning that majorly
objectifies women and is beyond obnoxious with terrible animations and
sound effects?
Because if not, Iâd love to check this out⦠but never again in my
life will I subject myself to that mini-game!
pgt wrote 22 hours 50 min ago:
How to shoot? I can't figure it out. Perhaps made harder by typing on
Colemak.
Edit: OK, spacebar shoots, but it's hard to see the cannons flying due
to low contrast. And it shoots in the direction of the enemy.
taubek wrote 23 hours 15 min ago:
I first played Pirates on C64. There was a paper version of the map
that was a lot of help when you played and tried to find some
locations.
aidanbeck wrote 23 hours 37 min ago:
One fun unintended mechanic: Because sailing off screen loops you
around Pacman style, and because a browser window is dynamically
resizable, you can use this to your advantage teleporting behind the
enemy and taking them by surprise.
Love this!
atleastoptimal wrote 23 hours 42 min ago:
I feel like difficulty progression would help.
AnotherGoodName wrote 23 hours 44 min ago:
This is exactly like a much older Apple 2 game called Old Ironsides
fwiw.
On the Apple 2 it was 2 player only but a lot of fun back in the day.
With an added ability to ram ships (pointy front into flat side one if
you landed it before they sunk you).
theropost wrote 1 day ago:
I remember playing Pirates on my 8086 in the 1980, mono-chrome screen,
and I was amazed a a kid. Sid Meier's games were always a step above,
and so immersive feeling for their day. I started a project from that
too (one of many I suppose). I also was inspired by the KOEI games on
SNES - Uncharted Waters.
It needs polish, content and more work but the kids like it.
HTML [1]: https://ship-voyage-4zn.pages.dev/
itintheory wrote 1 day ago:
For some reason this made me think of Pirates Constructible Strategy
Game [0]
[0]:
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_Constructible_Strategy_G...
ceuk wrote 1 day ago:
What's the key to fire? I've tried everything
diabllicseagull wrote 1 day ago:
Space key
franze wrote 1 day ago:
I started a thread if others want to show their AI coded games. -> [1]
maybe it becomes a monthly thing, maybe not.
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48509243
CrimsonCape wrote 1 day ago:
It would seem relatively easy to tie speed to the direction the boat is
facing. The more perpendicular you are to the 'wind direction' the
faster you move. Or make the fastest velocity 45 degrees from wind
direction, for a bit more realism. Basic sailing physics can add to the
fun.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for the feedback, adding wind dynamics is on top of my list :)
cbarrick wrote 1 day ago:
Please adjust the color contrast. I can hardly see the cannon balls.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
thanks, will do!
Daviey wrote 1 day ago:
Really enjoyed this and it brought back many memories of the Amiga,
great job.
Two suggestions,
- The sailing is a bit too nimble, it's possible to turn naturally.
- It's currently possible to sail over/under the other ship.
When will it be possible to intercept and have a sword fight? :)
lencastre wrote 1 day ago:
I am not sure if my memory is mixing with 4D Boxing (!?) but I think if
you took too long your pirate would be quite old and weak, or?
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
omg, thanks for reminding me about 4d boxing! that was so much fun
RobRivera wrote 1 day ago:
I am the greatest
Pirate hunter in the world.
pinchydev wrote 1 day ago:
Love it! I remember fondly playing pirates as a kid this is great!
I recently built [1] to scratch my naval warfare itch. Happy to share
how I did lightweight p2p multiplayer with a super lightweight server
handshake if you want :)
HTML [1]: https://navalstrike.app
supertroop wrote 1 day ago:
âthe emperor wishes to see you posthaste!â This immediately
reminded me of the 1980s Apple game Taipan and of course it is playable
online:
HTML [1]: https://www.taipangame.com/
itintheory wrote 1 day ago:
Huh. I remember playing a very similar game on Apple II, but I
believe it had a Dutch / European theme, and was called something
like "Ooperhoofd". I can't find any reference to it online. Maybe
it was a 'modded' version of this? That one, and Odell Lake[0] were
the best disks in the library computer lab in middle school.
[0]
HTML [1]: https://classicreload.com/apple2-odell-lake.html
contingencies wrote 1 day ago:
Love the original. Some key tactics you need to pick up are: use a
small ship, because if you are fast with the right technique nobody can
hit you, and you can cross vast distances quickly without starving.
Keep food stocked and limit large ship acquisition to a phase of the
game in which you need large numbers of pirates for town invasions /
large ship fights. Always sell extra cannons. Always buy the goodies
from the bar. Upgrade ships religiously: you want all upgrades. In
swordfighting, prefer rapier (speed with good reach) over larger
weapons in most cases. Obtain new letters of marque. Obtain land after
performing state-aligned duties by talking to the governors: this
builds your long-term wealth. The easiest victim (given all other
letters of marque) is the dominant state in the era (different eras
have different mixes, but it's usually the Spanish). To catch the
military payrolls, sink the escorts then damage to near 'strike their
colors' before closing in for swordplay. Change to buck shot to reduce
opponent count before swordplay without risking loss of vessel hull.
Remake on Steam:
HTML [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3920/Sid_Meiers_Pirates/
esafak wrote 1 day ago:
For me the watercolor imagery and music were half the game (Pirates
Gold).
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOPdsiOp5R0
alexpotato wrote 1 day ago:
This 100% has the "vibe" of the original game but should include that
if you sail "into the wind" it slows you down.
Also, I've been trying to make a remix of SMP but with a princess theme
for my daughters. Been experimenting with making other games to
practice building out game mechanics and stumbled into making a game
where you manage a Soviet Tractor Factory [0].
I'm interested to see if developing parts of Game A lead to Game B
which in turn lead you back to interesting ideas for Game A (or maybe
better Game C).
0 -
HTML [1]: https://alexpotato.com/games/tractor47/?l=hn
nkmnz wrote 23 hours 3 min ago:
Is it even possible to win the game? I've played it 100 million times
in a monte carlo simulation and even applied two heuristics to hit a
winning strategy: 1. heavily over- or under-weighted choosing tractor
production when paid tasks are available; 2. when a paid task was
available in the previous round but not chosen, the weight for this
round is reduced
The best result I've gotten is 998 tractors after round 120.
rmast wrote 6 hours 44 min ago:
Maybe the only way to win is to cheat.
neonstatic wrote 10 hours 18 min ago:
> Is it even possible to win the game?
If it's a faithful simulator of soviet economy, then you should not
be able to win :)
verelo wrote 23 hours 40 min ago:
So, I love this little game. I've been wanting to remake Scorched
Earth for years, just for fun.
Decided to experiment with this repo today, adding multi player,
islands that can sink the ships (that the ships cant shoot through),
and a few other things to the game. Anyone who wants to join, ill be
in here in a multi player room that supports up to 10 people at a
time: [1] I also added controls for mobile users, because that was
the first issue I ran into. Probably buggy, maybe not secure...but i
had some fun with a friend a few moments ago and it wasn't awful.
Thanks for sharing this OP!
HTML [1]: https://ndroo.github.io/pirates/?join=BP4Q
alexpotato wrote 1 day ago:
If people have feedback on the game, would love to hear it on the
below link:
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503530
IgorPartola wrote 17 hours 53 min ago:
I donât see a way to succeed at this game. The issue is that
there doesnât seem to be a way to meet the first 5 year plan and
itâs all downhill from there.
But this really points to a deeper problem: in a game like this you
have to pick one of two philosophies. Either the idea is to find
the one algorithm that makes it work because the game is doing the
same thing every time, or the game has an RNG that makes some games
winnable and some not. The in between path is difficult to balance.
You could for example dynamically adjust the difficulty such that
if the player gets hit with a bad string of choices generated by
the RNG then the difficulty is temporarily dialed down and when the
player is having good luck the difficulty is raised. But I think
for this kind of turn based idle game it is more about discovering
the player algorithm that works and I see no algorithm that could
work here.
I do however absolutely love the vibe of the game. I think with a
little more attention it could be absolutely amazing.
LearnYouALisp wrote 1 day ago:
Well, have you dogfooded it and how many times?
I have hundreds of turns on it now, at least.
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote 1 day ago:
That link doesn't work, so I'll respond here: My impression is that
my ship always has a better turn rate than the other ship, so if I
ever manage to get into the enemy ship's e.g. 4'oclock position, I
can keep turning towards it, it will (slowly) turn towards me while
consistently shooting behind me, and I can consistently hit it.
mgc8 wrote 1 day ago:
This is pretty cool as a prototype, nice job! I'd say it needs some
progression (one-on one to one-on-multiple, think 1xL against 2xS,
etc.), as well as some more map variation (channels, islands, hazards
like a giant whirlpool, kraken, the works). As a final shape,
multiplayer would be pretty cool, but of course that's quite a bit more
difficult... But I for one would be there for it :)
JMiao wrote 1 day ago:
my kid has 50+ hours in sid meier's pirates and told me they stare at
the world map in their classroom and try to locate towns and ports in
the caribbean when they're bored. i will show your game to them, though
i am certain the first thing they will ask for is chain shot.
not to discourage your good work, but here's another project worth
checking out if sid meier's pirates is your thing.
HTML [1]: https://tinywind.io/
madduci wrote 15 hours 29 min ago:
This is really cool
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Nice, I still remember that map even though I haven't played the game
in decades :) tinywind looks very cool, thanks for sharing.
tinywind wrote 22 hours 3 min ago:
Thanks for the shoutout! Always love to see people building cool
things
tinywind.io just added a new game mode and has a PvP and Steam
release in the works :)
fabiensanglard wrote 1 day ago:
Nothing is moving on the screen for me :/ ! I can't pick the ship.
Console shows no error.
toxicunderGroov wrote 1 day ago:
Same here, using Firefox 151.0.4
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
on a mac, windows, or linux? I have tested it in both browsers only
on the mac but I don't see any reason why it would not work on a
different OS since it is only HTML5 canvas
williadc wrote 21 hours 13 min ago:
I also experience this on Firefox 151.0.3 on Linux
san_dimitri wrote 1 day ago:
did you try arrow keys and space bar?
wolttam wrote 1 day ago:
Cute but I won first time on all 3 sizes
alt227 wrote 1 day ago:
Great game!
Reminds me very much of Overboard for the PS1 back in 1997.
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71accvNZ0aA
sfRattan wrote 22 hours 51 min ago:
I remembered seeing this game as a kid, but the name sounded off...
And Wikipedia reveals it was released in North America (NTSC format)
as "Shipwreckers!"[1]. It also featured 5-player local multiplayer if
you had multitap, according to the article, and I remember most other
games of the era supporting at most 4 players locally. I'll have to
find this one and give it a try!
[1]
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overboard!_(1997_video_game)
inasio wrote 1 day ago:
Nice job! Sid Meier's Pirates is one of my favorite games, wish they
brought it back (I still play it occasionally, can't believe it never
got a remake)
kevinmchugh wrote 1 day ago:
It was remade in 2006
Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote 11 hours 14 min ago:
Maybe like me that is the only one they've played. I didn't know
there was an earlier one for several years.
ez8 wrote 1 day ago:
Good but too easy
hermitcrab wrote 1 day ago:
Fun. Maybe you could add some random features for a bit more variety.
Shallows, islands, fog banks etc.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for playing! That's an interesting idea, thanks.
Jeema101 wrote 1 day ago:
Illustrates the importance of 'crossing the T' in naval warfare before
there were turreted guns. :)
k2xl wrote 1 day ago:
Fun but should have difficulty levels!
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Love the feedback, just wondering how to implement that. More
difficult means your ship moves slower? you reload slower? your hits
cause less damage? Need to think about that...
ms_menardi wrote 1 day ago:
make it multiplayer, I dare ya >:)
(if you need this kind of motivation)
sudo-rsingh wrote 1 day ago:
Yup totally support that.
dbingham wrote 1 day ago:
That was fun, but the AI and the balance need some work.
It's too easy to win as the small boat. You just stay ahead of your
opponent and then turn back and strafe periodically.
It would be much more challenging if you added wind and realistic
sailing dynamics. If wind direction vs sail orientation mattered to
your speed and boat characteristics weren't as simple as smaller =
faster then I think it would be much better balanced and way more
fun/challenging!
carpo wrote 1 day ago:
If I remember correctly, the original was like this too. I always
used the sloop and would often beat much larger ships.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
yes, i also always chose the Sloop and would usually win.
chongli wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah so the other factor missing is gun calibre and ship hull
reinforcement/design. The reason sloops didnât dominate against
ships of the line came down to these factors, as well as sheer
number of guns.
A sloopâs guns were generally so light the balls would bounce off
the hull of a ship of the line. The sheer weight of firepower in
return would shred a sloop to pieces. Add on to that the fact that
heavier guns can achieve longer range when trained at the right
angle, and a sloop canât really get anywhere near a ship of the
line and live to tell the tale.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
I plan on adding wind dynamics. The largest ship has 1 more
cannon, do you think I should add more? or perhaps longer range
on the larger ship cannons?
chongli wrote 1 day ago:
Longer range would help! I should also note that ships had
forward- and aft-firing guns in addition to the main batteries
on the gun decks firing to the sides. A smaller ship merely
trying to run away could be fired upon until it got out of
range.
idontwantthis wrote 1 day ago:
The cannonballs should have randomized elevation as well so that
"raking" the bow and stern is more likely to get hits than hitting
the side. Hits on the bow and stern should also do more damage. Cross
the T!
Mtnh2o wrote 1 day ago:
Highlighting that game mechanics are hard - I struggled with your
strategy but found it too easy to be the tank. Turn in a circle and
shoot and rely on the higher HP + cannon loading.
dbingham wrote 1 day ago:
Fair!
stackghost wrote 1 day ago:
That's interesting, because I found it trivial to win with the
largest boat. Tank one hit, lead your target, blast away. I remain
undefeated with the largest boat.
By contrast I found winning with the medium boat required the most
skill, and lost the first few times I tried.
dbingham wrote 1 day ago:
On further play, really the only match up where I had any trouble was
large vs large. (As a side request, it would be nice to be able to
choose your opponent!)
With both small and medium, you can just strafe back and forth in
front of your opponent if you're faster than them. With medium and
large, you can just circle them and absorb more punishment than them
when you're larger than them.
Multi-player would solve the AI problem -- especially if it was more
than 1v1 -- and then it would be more challenging.
But I would still request realistic wind and sailing dynamics. That
strafing maneuver isn't really possible with real wind dynamics,
because you slow down as you swing around and that allows the
opponent to catch up to you and return fire. You could have a little
arrow in a corner of the screen that shows the wind direction. You
don't even have to make the sails movable, you could just have your
speed be proportional to how orthongal your sails are to the wind
direction in the simplest implementation.
It would add a whole new element to it that would make it much more
challenging! :)
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for playing and the feedback. I plan on adding wind dynamics
very soon. Letting you choose opponent instead of random should be
easy. Multiplayer with more than 1 would be interesting, I like
that idea!
matthewfcarlson wrote 1 day ago:
I just went into a circle and shot, won every time for every boat
zuzululu wrote 1 day ago:
this game is crazy fun
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks!
monkeywork wrote 1 day ago:
Well done - that was a fun little distraction :)
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks!
Apreche wrote 1 day ago:
At first I was frustrated because I didnât know what the controls
were. The arrows were moving, but nothing seemed to shoot.
Then I realized the space bar was shooting. You just canât see the
bullets because they are tiny black dots on a dark blue background.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you for the feedback! I'm going to address both points tonight
when I get back home.
HiroProtagonist wrote 1 day ago:
Sid Meier's Pirates on the iPad was a great experience. Bummer it isn't
supported in modern iOS.
iweczek wrote 1 day ago:
I did not know that, I have an old iPad, going to look for it
JMiao wrote 1 day ago:
removed from app store, sadly
DIR <- back to front page