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Ask HN: please review my html5 web game

planetfunk.posterous.com

11 pointsPlanetFunk15 comments

A couple of weeks ago I showed you guys a web game I wrote for the 10k contest.

I wrote that in about 7 hours and hadn't intended to submit anything until the last minute which is why it was so rough.

It's been 18 days since then, and this is where I'm at so far.

It uses the html5 canvas and browser database (SQLite not indexedDB) so will only run in Safari, and Chrome, and I've been specifcally targeting the iPhone.

The url goes to my posterous for an overview of the game and links to it and the source.

Being my first game, I would greatly appreciate any comments you have on it.

To go directly to the game:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/165110/lastmanstanding/index.html

Or see the original 10k Apart entry:

http://10k.aneventapart.com/Uploads/358/

Edited for spelling and 18 "days"

I thought the game was really neat. Very impressive.

Feedback:

1) Control scheme was not as intuitive as it could be. Maybe it would be more obvious on an iPhone using my finger? I lost 95% of my health trying to figure out how to move my character.

Not a big deal since I could restart, but I was frustrated and might have left if I wasn't trying to figure it out : )

Also problematic is that this leads me to keep accidentally using up grenades because I keep thinking the intuitive behavior is to click-to-move, not drag-to-move.

2) Something of help could be to show gun ranges, so you know better how to move / draw a path.

3) Bigger issue: it would be very helpful to have a notice or info on what the kinds of Zombies are and what their special abilities are. Tutorials can suck, but even a few lines of text might help here, or something to help out the novice player. Likewise how to use health packs.

1) My initial game was arrows keys and mouse to shoot which didn't translate into touch. That's the best I've got at the moment that allows movement and throwing grenades. Ideas would be appreciated.

2) I place a light grey outer circle around the player for weapon ranges initially but my wife hated it :) i'll see what else I can come up with.

3) Help screen. You're absolutely right. I'll make it my first priority.

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

Man, that game is so much fun!! It gets really hectic at points! What are the guys the spit junk at you called? Are they like bosses?

Yeah, they're based on L4D specials, so you have boomers, smokers, and tanks.

The next time that somebody tells me that Flash is dead and that HTML5 is its replacement I will show them this game.

Cute, and it seems to work well, but it's not something that I'd play for more than 30 seconds.

The graphics game me pleasant flashbacks of long and gory Cannon Fodder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_fodder) sessions. Good work! -"War Has Never Been So Much Fun".

Uh, I hate to inform you, but it doesn't seem to function properly on Firefox trunk.

Correct. You'll need Safari or Chrome to play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_SQL_Database

Web SQL Database is supported by Google Chrome, Opera and Safari but will not be implemented by Mozilla(Firefox) which instead advocates Indexed Database API access.

Maybe you should try to use the simpler storage API like localStorage as it is more widely supported?

That's awesome. Thanks for the lead. I'll try and implement that tonight :)

Ok, I've replaced the database with localStorage and it's all good to go - at least in FF 3.6.8, although it seems to be washing out the font colors.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Very nice. Maybe I'm missing something but controlling two survivors is hard though, I lost him in a day.

I like it, it also works well on the iPad. Perhaps make it bigger for ipads screen.

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