Netflix Infinite Runner | Hacker News Reader

Netflix Infinite Runner

flixarcade.netflix.io

159 pointsamjd85 comments

Good lord, y'all are crotchety. This just seems like a fun little time waster that was probably developed internally by a very small group of people. I don't see it as a large marketing push or some kind of fancy technical demo. Just something... fun.

It has that fun Hackathon / side-project feel, that someone probably noticed and said "Hey, if you polish it up, we can host it for public use, because why not?".

For real, anyone remember flappy bird? This is pretty similar and flapper bird made a LOT of people happy.

> flapp[y] bird made a LOT of people happy.

Dong Nguyen, the creater of Flappy Bird thinks different about this topic - this is also the reason why he took the game down for the app stores:

'"Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed," the developer said "But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever."'

> http://compethics.samething.net/2014/02/20/flappy-bird-and-u...

> http://bgr.com/2014/02/11/why-flappy-bird-was-removed/

He later put it back up though, didn't he?

> He later put it back up though, didn't he?

At least it is not on Google Play anymore:

> https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Flappy+bird&c=apps

and by

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flappy_Bird&oldid...

it is also not on Apple's app store anymore. What happened is "As Nguyen had promised, August 2014 saw a revised version of Flappy Bird, called Flappy Birds Family, released exclusively through the Amazon Appstore for the Amazon Fire TV platform."

You are right, it was not put back up by the original developer. I guess I just conflated it with the subsequent clones because by the time I heard of the game it had already been removed but then later I was able to play "the game" still.

I gotta say though, Flappy Bird is a higher quality game than this. Even though it was graphics copied from Nintendo and an even simpler mechanic, the physics and hit detection make a huge difference.

Could be sign of times to come; netflix launching a gameflix.

What about this game possibly leads you to think that they're launching a gameflix? It's all know characters from known netflix properties. After you die it links you to the show. I think you're seeing something that isn't there.

I mentioned "could be" and agreed it might not exist. But keeping the viewer engaged during the lull of what to view next , games seem to be an obvious choice. This is something which Netflix should and can do .

Some people are so strange with things like this[1]. It's as if anything that a major company would dare put their name near must be super polished and very serious. It's fun to ship. I clicked the same link as you. I saw the same domain name as you. I walked in assuming it'd be something pretty neat. I saw faux-8-bit and said, "golly I bet someone had fun for a day or so". I got over it and played the game a half dozen times noting the annoying GC pauses and slightly-off collision detection. Had fun, moved on.

Sometimes companies are chill about non-core stuff having their name on it and will let an individual who created a cute game during a hackathon show it off. "Is this video streaming related? No? Okay, just make sure it's not offensive and there's no way anyone could take it too seriously."

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12849828

Not sure if it's the browser or the game but sometimes clicks and taps don't register. Love the themes though!

One other issue is since you can't seem to jump during a power up if an obstacle comes right as the powerup ends you'll lose with no way to avoid.

Seems like they made the jump on mouseup instead of mousedown, and mouseup needs to be within ~1s of mousedown.

Yeah seems like 'tap' rather than mouseup/mousedown.

Try using space bar

That ended up working pretty well. Somehow I missed the instructions :)

Are you using the VimFx or Vimium extension? Disabling it and using spacebar made it work for me.

Okay, perhaps I'm out of the loop. Is this created for marketing purposes, technical purposes, or something else? What makes this different from a random Ludum Dare-style submission, other than the Netflix logo?

Marketing but targeting/engaging existing customers to increase brand loyalty rather than targeting non-customers in an effort to bring them on board.

I don't get it. Who are these characters? What is the background patterned after? I feel like I'm missing an inside joke.

pablo escobar is from their original Narcos. Music is adapted from show's theme. he is delivering cocaine and running from cops. Same with rest of them .

I can only confirm the first two, but they're the stars of their respective Netflix Original Series. The background and enemies are thematic to their shows.

They are all Netflix shows.

As others have said. Pablo & Marco Polo. Piper Chapman from Orange is the New Black and Mike Wheeler from Stranger Things. (Won't make sense if you haven't seen the shows)

Perhaps it isn't any different to a random Ludum Dare-style submission. Is there anything wrong with Random Ludum Dare-style submissions?

I think besides the logo the characters that run are related to Netflix show. It struck me only after I read your comment.

Marco Polo - from Marco Polo series The female - from Organge is new Apple Pablo - from some drug related tv series. (is he the math teacher who makes crack ?)

Pablo is from Narcos

You are thinking about Breaking Bad, where a chemistry teacher starts to cook meth.

Pablo is from the show Narcos, which is based on the real-life story of the drug lord Pablo Escobar.

Netflix IPs would make some great worlds for larger games, actually. I can imagine a Telltale-style narrative adventure set in the Womens Prison of 'Orange is the New Black' or an action horror game where you play as Eleven, trapped in the Upside Down. Even their animated properties - Knights of Sidonia, Ajin, and Voltron - would be awesome worlds for players to experience. Netflix, if you're reading, hit up the game studio I design for -- contact@phosphorgames.com

Maybe they should branch out into game streaming. Movies and TV anywhere on-demand, how about games?

Seriously? wtf? I thought, this is going to be something cool as it's from them, like an experimental UI or something. Am I missing something or is this just a bit lame and pointless? Maybe I'm dead inside.

Upvoted because you're dead inside

They've solved all the technical problems, so now it's time to write some games.

(though seriously, I'm guessing this was not built by their core eng group -- ??)

Each pixel is its own microservice. This is a huge leap forward for the industry.

Characters from Netflix-produced series:

Pablo Escobar - "Narcos"

Marco Polo - "Marco Polo"

Piper Chapman - "Orange is the New Black"

Mike Wheeler - "Stranger Things"

Fun but kind of odd.. I can't really imagine these games converting people to subscribing to Netflix or suddenly becoming interested in these shows.

Probably not, but Netflix has so many shows now that it's kind of nice to get reminders about certain content. I had totally forgotten about Macro Polo.

Perhaps allowing someone who works at Netflix to create and publish this kind of thing makes existing employees happy.

Fun. I wonder why they went with a modern-day chinatown backdrop for Marco Polo. I haven't seen season 2 yet; did this somehow become a time travel show? :P

For me it shows only the Netflix logo and a spinner (on Safari). From other comments I assume that the spinner is not the "infinite runner"

Works fine for me on Version 10.0.2 (12602.3.12.0.1) of Safari. Mobile Safari does not work.

Incredible chiptunes

Might be the best part.

This is a fun idea, but feels weirdly amateur. Like, the way the sprites disappear the moment they touch the side of the screen, or the way the powerups keep scrolling past even when you're dead.

It's like someone at Netflix did an "intro to games programming" tutorial and decided to put the result live.

oh, apparently you can double-jump. figured that one out after too long.

Dying and pausing the game doesn't stop the pickups. Is this intended?

The click to jump is unresponsive, doesn't do anything half the time it feels like.

Hit boxes are shit

rip

Yeah, I was on phone so I did not explain. The characters are made to be leaning forward, so the hitboxes are very wide. When they jump, they remain as is. Hence, when you can clearly make the jump, you still "hit".

Beware of the monster that shows up when you think things are going swimmingly easy.

Super well done!

This apparently doesn't use delta time. Is it frame-timed? When the FPS lowers, the game slows down. That's rather sloppy, and it doesn't help the game's playability.

We go to the moon not because it is easy but because we are bored!

They didn't have to bit-ify the music for Stranger Things :)

I thought that's what the music was from. Another of their original TV series, Travelers, has an amazing (if subtle) electronic music score.

Jump needs to happen on touch down, not on touch up :)

Strange

Now instead of doing this, if they could add more content for Netflix Canada (and other Non-US countries) ... :-)

I wish we Netflix Canada here in the US. You have more than we do :/

^ This, not to mention there are several good proxies to get US Netflix working in other countries, but getting Canadian Netflix in the US is a much more arduous process.

What proxies? Last I heard, they are giving a hard time to VPN players.

What's super weird about this to me is how unlike the actual shows these are; OITNB doesn't take place in a cell block prison, and Matthew Modine isn't bald in Stranger Things.

I wish I could have heard the internal discussions about whether or not to include Queen Elizabeth II.

it would be nice UX if the game can be restarted using the spacebar.

This is why I rage quit that game after I died. Like, I gotta use my mouse? Pfft, I'm out.

It takes way to long to load, I measured about 1 minute and 43 seconds before it loaded.

It's a game, why is it your expectation it should be instantaneous?

Because users don't wait 90 seconds for something stupid like this?

Purely anecdotal, but it took less than two seconds for me on both FF and Chrome (Win 10).

It would be kind of funny if it turned out my ISP is slowing down Netflix. Thought it's Orthodox Christmas and people are all home and watching OTT or IPTV so probably Internet congestion...

You can test that hypothesis using http://www.fast.com

If the music was algorithmically generated, what methods were used?

wtf

It's an ad.

[removed]

I thought .io TLD's were for the javascript framework/library of the week?

Recent html5 multi-player games have used .io e.g. slither.io

Multiplayer games do not have a monopoly on the dot IO tld. I have several for various purposes, none of which are game-related.

Why do you feel that people are primed to expect a ".io" in a gaming context to link to a multiplayer game?

I certainly do not have this expectation. What makes you think "people worldwide" do?

Is my computer hacked now? Does netflix.io actually belong to Netflix?

...and there goes my productivity for the rest of the day.

Trying to read the JavaScript that powers the game made my eyes bleed. Great concept, but the developer should really look into writing cleaner code.

Is this a bad joke about minification? Or is this a good joke about how the future will be run on true black boxes?

I really hate games that try for an "8-bit" aesthetic but can't be bothered to even approximate a consistent pixel density for their art. It's not that hard.

This is like the lensless glasses of pixel art.

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