Moai in Video Games | Hacker News Reader

Moai in Video Games

moai.games

103 pointssurprisetalk22 comments

Nostalgic!

This triggers some strong haptic feedback in my heart about one of the best games I've played in my childhood (in addition to Super Mario, Double Dragon, and Metal Slug). It was a NES game called Moai Kun, and it is being featured on the site under: https://moai.games/moai-kun/

I never made it to the end, so when I grew up, I looked in YT to check if anybody does, and of course, if the Tetris was beaten by a teenager (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38841080), why not Moai Kun?! A full gameplay can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJiIfSniWIU

Anyone here had the chance to play this game?

That's a pretty neat project. It is a fairly common addition to video games. Halfway tempted to add one to one of my upcoming games just to get added to this list :P

I wish there was something like this for 4th wall breaking lore in games.

I know I've encountered it many, many times, but it's hard to remember where exactly.

I just recently stumbled across screenshots of the ranting street preacher talking about how people were in a video game being controlled by button presses in Secret of Evermore, but a resource like this site for the sheer number of instances of things like that would have been awesome.

I don't think I even knew what those "Easter Island" statues were called until I started playing Gradius games.

Thank you: this is exactly the game I was looking for in the list, but forgot the name. It, too, was my first introduction to Moai as a kid.

Those Moai were the worst.. luckily there was up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A

Love that they include GeoGuessr on their list :)

I love the dedication. Where else can you find obscure things like this but HN

Not sure if that counts, there is also the lua game engine Moai [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moai_(software)

Doo-aw! Doo-aw! Doo-aw! Dwa! Dwa!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YImQl5jyUW4

I can hear this comment :)

For a discussion of the Moai and what happened to them and their creators, I recommend the book "Humankind" by Rutger Bregman

In shorter form, I recommend the 6th episode of the Fall of Civilizations podcast[0]. I've found the topic super interesting.

Both the podcast and the book shared by parent argue against the previous Mulloy/Jared Diamond theory of ecological suicide by building more and more statues.

[0] Easter Island - Where Giants Walked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc

Oh, interesting.

In a nutshell, what's the argument, compared to the "old" one by Diamond?

The argument is that there is no evidence of collapse before the arrival of Europeans. There is also no/very little evidence of violence and warfare and no evidence of cannibalism.

Something happened in the decades following the first contact in 1722. Arguably the local population might have faced high mortality rates due to European diseases. They seem to have toppled the statues in anger toward their gods for failing to protect the people.

What is Konami's obsession with Moai anyway?

The FAQ states:

> Why so many from Konami?

> That’s because of Yoshinori “Moai” Sasaki. (ref)

https://moai.games/faq/

The Moai are cool.

The history of Easter Island ... really depressing.

Had to search for Space Harrier and was glad to find it in there. Well done!

They left out Civ.

Pretty interesting to have a list, but I was kind of hoping there'd be more information. The FAQ is a good start, and there's the link to wikipedia, but I was hoping for more insight than "Moai are cool. And video games are cool." More information that moves the site from a plain dataset to a more complex discussion. Just as an example, I was wondering what present day Rapa Nui people think of depictions of moai. Are there kinds of depictions that they feel represent/misrepresent their culture?

> but I was hoping for more insight than "Moai are cool. And video games are cool."

The project is likely "just" a meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/moai-emoji

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