CERN Particle Clicker | Hacker News Reader

CERN Particle Clicker

particle-clicker.web.cern.ch

177 pointscjrd48 comments

Hi all, this is Kevin from the Particle Clicker dev team. We made this game last weekend at the [CERN Webfest](http://webfest.web.cern.ch). We didn't get much actual work done since then...

Thanks a lot, this is really amazing but the game is far from perfect. We will release a mobile version soon. The code for everything is on [GitHub](https://github.com/particle-clicker/particle-clicker) and we really need your help to make it better.

I've been doing nothing but this for the past half an hour.

One thing I'd like is to be able to assign my research fellows and post docs to the more exotic areas of research so that the data collected can directly go into those areas. Right now, it doesn't feel right that all data is interchangeable -- I can use the same data to research both the W & Z bosons and the bottom quark.

That is indeed one of the points where we sacrifice correctness for simplicity. We had discussed this idea but decided to go with only one kind of data. But I completely agree with your point that in the real world data as such is not interchangeable. (Or if you think about it, a data sample could in fact be used for different analyses. Hmn...)

So I've reached the point where I'm waiting for data to further research anti-hydrogen! But the waits now seem rather long. I need about 25 million data points, but my team's going rather slowly (they need in the order of hours to produce enough data). I don't want to increase my reputation by doing small-time research because then I'll be wasting data I need for the more frontier-level stuff. So I'm starting to get mildly impatient :-) Just some feedback, in case you want to tweak it a bit.

Also, this may not be a majority opinion, but as someone with an amateurish interest in particle physics, I'd like to be able to put in a little more brainpower and domain knowledge into the game (though I haven't yet thought about how to do it).

HN doesn't allow Markdown, sadly.

Oh that's right, I always write markdown almost like a reflex... But the links are there so I guess it's okay this way.

Well, except CERN Webfest - http://webfest.web.cern.ch/

Now, that was just because I'm stupid. Fixed, thanks!

Mighty fun. It'd be more realistic if you were in perpetual danger of running out of money and losing your hard-won work force.

I imagine this to be the idealist world every researcher would love. Although, clicking and science comes out might seem strange to the public.

Remember that this game was made on a weekend... really really impressive work for one weekend!

Since we are linking are favorite "idle" games, I have to recommend A Dark Room: http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/

'A Dark Room' is an excellent game, minimal interface and a widening world. Have you found anything else similar and of remark?

All you need to do now is add in some kind of sneaky hidden lite-coin mining and release mobile versions.

EDIT: Obviously, don't do that. But I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Awesome adaptation of cookie clicker: http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/

At first I thought this was the stupidest thing ever... then I played it for 15 minutes.

It's Bejeweled for nerds, essentially.

So A Dark Room is Bejeweled for Rogue-lovers?

  auto-clicker hack: 
  var de = $('#detector-events');
  requestAnimationFrame(function next() {
    de.click();
    requestAnimationFrame(next);
  });

I know I know.. where is the fun, right?

My version was

    var target = document.getElementByID("detector-events");

    setInterval(function(){target.click();}, 100);

I think I like yours better though.

one liner: var interval = setInterval(function(){document.querySelector('#detector-events').click()}, 100)

I never actually run JS code on Chrome console :-p that's really awesome ... Need to find some friends to poke now! :-)

i thought adding an exponential increase on research was a little better, get some summer students and knock out that higgs boson 25. just clicking won't really buy you much when you need exabytes of data.

That last "click" should be "next", clearly :)

ups.. fixed ;)

I love how summer students produce twice as much data as Nobel prize winners :)

The main thing I learnt from playing this game is that we should have given up on High Energy Physics after discovering the Tau-lepton, and gone on to do something more productive with our time, money & human resources...

Some easter egg, like opening a portal to another dimension and (perhaps) destroying Earth after 'too much' research on Higgs boson would be nice, I think.

This is really great! For spoilers, check out: https://github.com/particle-clicker/particle-clicker/blob/ma.... I enjoyed where the "Summer Students" ranked.

For hacks, check out the "GameObjects.lab" object in the console.

Isn't this 'McDonnalds' ref a little bit insulting? :-/

https://github.com/particle-clicker/particle-clicker/blob/ma...

That is indeed very bad and offensive. We didn't notice somebody put it there without notifying the rest of the team. It will be removed immediately.

I think the data/click tops out too early. I maxed out at 369/click and it's not even worth clicking after a while.

Agreed. We're working on the balancing.

Cool game, but it's weird that you can Science is cool!!! lvl 7 before lvl 6 if you gather enough money.

Yes, we're completely rewriting the upgrade mechanics.

This is a derivation of a derivation of Cow Clicker, which was made as a satire of Zynga games.

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

GameObjects.lab.detector.rate = 1000000

GameObjects.lab.reputation = 1000000

dc = document.getElementById("detector-events")

setInterval("dc.click()", 100)

Even more cheaty:

GameObjects.lab.data = 100000000000000

GameObjects.lab.money = 100000000000000

You can even just set them equal to Infinity. Win!

but don't hacked particles taste terrible?

Sure, but I'm just offering you a service so that you can get back to your normal life and be productive =)

So, all Cookie Clicker needed was a nerdy upgrade, right?

I think Cookie Clicker is actually perfect the way it is. We just abused the concept to try and sneak in some Physics ;)

Being in academic research currently, this is hilarious.

This reminds me a lot of candy box: http://candies.aniwey.net/

worse than heroin

Angularjs

Sorry, I was just excited to see Angularjs as one of the components to make this game.

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