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Comment by s-macke | Hacker News Reader

Author here. It started as a technical demonstration for fluid dynamics in the web browser. Then I saw the js13kgames competition and the decision was made to make a game out of it. A game in which the fluid mechanic counts. The decision for the Lunar Lander genre then was quiet easy.

Does someone know more games then the two I mentioned in the README (Plasma Pong and Pixeljunk Shooter) with more or less realistic fluid dynamics?

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Vessel (https://store.steampowered.com/app/108500/Vessel/) and more recently Claybook (https://www.claybookgame.com) come to mind. They both use SPH fluids afaik. The upcoming Noita (https://store.steampowered.com/app/881100/Noita/) has some particle based fluids. Tommy Referenes (Super Meatboy programmer) was working on an unreleased game called Goo (https://vimeo.com/1793371). Also Riders on a Storm (http://www.the2bears.com/?page_id=652) a fluid dynamics shmup inspired by Plasma Pong.

This is great list. Thank you very much. I added most of the games. It is precisely through this post that I have a strong desire to follow your postings,blogs,.... Unfortunately there is no button for that.

How did you find these games?

Maybe one of the more interesting technical aspects is the usage of WebAssembly here. I used Emscripten, so the main part is written in plain C. But I threw away all the JavaScript overhead and used just the plain size optimized wasm file. This was easier than expected.

In college I was part of a team that made an FPS where cfd played a role, in the form of poison gas that could flow through the world

https://www.clear.rice.edu/comp460/PRSite/tech/cfd.htm

> Does someone know more games […] with more or less realistic fluid dynamics?

There’s always the classic Liquid War:

https://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/

I watched the video. It doesn't look like liquid but something else. Some strange particle effects. But maybe I am wrong.

more like magnetic, acid sand

You might be surprised that a lot of phones can run this at a decent frame rate. Adding mobile touch support could be good. It runs the start screen well on my Nexus 6P.

Spirits can basically be described as Lemmings with fluid mechanics. https://store.steampowered.com/app/210170/Spirits/

Watched a video. That looks close. However I think they used just some cheap particle effect.

Really cool stuff! Both technically and on the game design side

> Does someone know more games then the two I mentioned in the README (Plasma Pong and Pixeljunk Shooter) with more or less realistic fluid dynamics?

A friend of mine, Thomas ten Cate, tried but eventually shelved a project to make a fluid-dynamics based game tha he called Archimedes[0]. Before he moved on to other projects he blogged about it[1]. Does that count?

[0] https://frozenfractal.com/games/archimedes/

[1] https://frozenfractal.com/blog/tags/archimedes

Well, only the games/projects count which I would add to the readme. And sorry, I have to say no here.

No worries, I just wasn't clear on whether you wanted to know of more projects and devlogs on the same topic in general, or about finished games.

Falling sand/powder games use particle physics for simulating the behavior of liquids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling-sand_game

Yeah PowderToy springs to mind.

I remember a DOS (or early Windows) game like this. A top-down, 2D game for two players or 1 + CPU. There were no obstacles, but every time you moved through the background fluid, more fluid was created in your colour (purple / pink), and you could envelop the enemy player by 'swooshing' it around over them.

Can't remember the name...

Was it Ichor[1][2]? A bit later than the "early Windows" days I think (I remember hearing about it around 2007), but it also matches your description and it was the first thing I thought of after playing the game in the post

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MGoyAiPQog

[2] https://www.fun-motion.com/physics-games/ichor/

I love Ichor!

Back in 2013 I e-mailed the original developers with some WebGL fluid dynamics demos, and asked if they'd be interested in porting Ichor to WebGL, and they were, but it died down soon after.

The Ichor source is on GitHub as well, although it doesn't have a license.

https://github.com/luqui/ichor

It would be so awesome to have this game ported to WebGL, or even just to GPU in general.

Thanks for posting. I added it to my list. Will try it later if still runs.

Yes! Thank you.

Lavalanche: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=59596

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4DlTFDI_M4

I added it. Thanks

This is cool! However, you know space is ... empty, right? ;-)

It also seems like the physics is off. Like you're flying through molasses. There's just a lot of damping.

Finally, I think it would be more fun if the <--> rotated the ship for thrust vector control, instead of triggering lateral thrusters with no torque.

Yes I know. The simulation of the ship is not accurate. I had code written for more advanced physics but I skipped it for the js13kentry. Time was running short and I was afraid the game gets too hard. Actually you land on planets with an atmosphere. So you have some "dampening" from the atmosphere.

Jupiter's atmosphere would get molasses-y.

It's really fun. Well done!

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