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Comment by necubi | Hacker News Reader

It's unfortunate that they decided to save 2 bytes by using onkeyup instead of onkeydown. That choice makes the game nearly unplayable for me. Compare the version in the demo to the one here: http://micahw.com/tron.html (221 bytes).

In any case, this is really impressive. It's always fun to see the tricks people employ to get these tiny sizes (smaller than this comment!).

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Your version plays so much better, that was really not a good way to save 2 bytes.

No wonder the "lag" feels so bad. Also, the area is way too tiny and it needs a way to restart without having to reload the page.

Also it needs multiplayer, achievements and a story mode. No, but seriously, this was not a competition in making a playable game, they clearly specify the rules that they have set for themselves.

Perhaps there should be a competitive genre where the goal is not brevity or obfuscation, but being good.

I agree wholeheartedly. I would give it up to them for perfect purity if it weren't the fact that they weren't actually being perfectly pure. They gave up 9 bytes to show the score at the end because it was, in their words, "totally worth it". But then they decide it's a good idea t save 2 bytes at the cost of making the game completely frustratingly unresponsive to the point of unplayability? That's just silly. If you're going to be pure, be pure. If you're going to make concessions, make the ones that matter most first! I'd much rather have a playable game without score than an unplayable game with score.

Rant aside, I actually do applaud them. Impressive bit of engineering here.

While acknowledging that the original post was an engineering exercise, the fact that your improvement required breaking the "rules" beautifully demonstrates how, too often, software designed for humans simply ignores how they really work.

I initially thought it was a cool way to "bend the rules" and save a few bytes, but lots of people told me the same thing! In hindsight I would have instead changed our rules to disallow this :)

Yes "who cares" means that they didn't care if the game was playable.

Check out my version, only 10 bytes.

GAME OVER.

It's not very playable, but "who cares"?

I note your clever trick of not using any markup at all -- bravo!

That's why i can reach 1000 point. Its difficult to keydown and keyup immediately.

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