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Comment by phtrivier | Hacker News Reader

Sorry if it's a meta post, or a faq, or if I'm just missing some HN lore here, but I finally have to ask : why is it that, everytime there's a new release for OpenTTD (and 0ad, for that matters), it makes it to the front page ?

I can kinda get why there are often news about Factorio, for example (it's not subtly related to programming), and there is nothing wrong with open source projects getting visibily even when they're not "yet another web framework" or "the last open weight LLM wrapper".

But why those games in particular ? Are the authors regulars of HN ? Is there an interesting forking history / backstory ?

Any way, kudos for the release, of course :)

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I speak only for myself, but: I can't think of any other computer game that I've spent time on, and that I look forward to playing again, over such a long span of time.

While I don't play it often, I have been playing it for over 20 years.

It's impressive (again, at least to me) for its longevity if nothing else. Just seeing that it continues to progress makes me happy in dumb ways.

Yeah same here.

It has the competitiveness of games like Civ, The Settlers and so on. But with the world building aspects of games like Sim City.

There aren’t many other games that strike this balance as well.

I first started playing the original DOS game in the 90s and I honestly think OpenTTD looks and plays just as well now a the original did 30+ years ago. The level of detail in the pixel art is ideal for the type of game it is.

Because Transport Tycoon was back then a HUGE success, and it was developed by Chris Sawer, a some-how game-dev-celebrity because of his former successes

For some people it's the game. Like I played the original (not even TTD, just TT) and this is still a very fun game. In a nutshell it's an optimization sandbox since the beginning, with more and more ways to invent and customize solutions for the troubles you make yourself.

About the history of the project you better hear from the horse's mouth: https://www.openttd.org/news/2024/03/06/happy-birthday

Hell, just read the article on a new feature added in this release: https://www.openttd.org/news/2026/06/25/backwards-driving

Totally a self-inflicted pain with a ton of ways to solve it!

I think it's just that it's a cool game that's popular with HNers. Same with 0ad and other software like GnuCash. Always interesting to see what new features they have introduced and even just read how others play the game.

OpenTTD and 0ad are open-source games that have been under development for many years, which tickles the hacker sensibility. I think these two games fit into the HN mindset much more than Factorio, which is a newer, proprietary game.

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