- This is awesome! To offer some constructive feedback: the wind direction could be clearer. More particles flowing across the waters! Especially when the direction is changing. Looking up at the wind teller is unintuitive, even for this old sailor who understands where it comes from. I also didn't always feel like it mattered which direction I angled my sails, only how much I angled them. Like I could angle them for a port wind when in reality I had a starboard wind, and I'd sail just fine.
In the other hand that made it easier, and it was already hard enough lol! I bet it's easier on desktop though...
Edit: you should add a race/regatta mode!
- There's a vague correlation between wind direction and sailing speed, but there's nothing real here. The mechanics of sailing upwind, downwind, or the cost of tacking are interesting mechanics that aren't explored here whatsoever. The dead angle on a ship with a square rig should be massive. This ship goes upwind like it has a motor.
- Great! I feel well positioned to say this is great :) I’ve been hoping for something like this.
My ideal: slower, more real time, full maps based on actual locations, replay specific naval battles. Multiplayer (maybe it is?), realistic fog of war. I could go on
Edit: a few more. Sail trim is clunky and seems unresponsive or unclear how it maps to physics. Would be better to have trim on one side and steering on the other. Also to turn off tacking with tap. Steering too sensitive. The battles are great. (All on mobile)
by ryandrake
2 subcomments
- Very cute and fun looking game, but I found it very difficult. Enemies have perfect aim, and I can't hit anything. I don't think you can even heal the ship unless you happen to stumble upon just the right treasure. Do you have a difficulty slider/setting? Maybe I missed it. It feels like I'm playing on the hardest mode.
EDIT: After playing around some more, yea it feels less like an action game and more like a "sailing around with nearly zero health" simulator.
- The 2 game modes are free to play in browser. Come join our 245 active captains, I’d love any and all playtest feedback at this stage!
- I played it for half an hour on a 6.1" phone. Firefox Android, it worked flawlessly. The game is fun. Some ideas to improve the UI.
The wind teller is OK but instead of a line ending with a circle it could be an arrow. Furthermore there is need to have it turn around the center of the teller. It can turn around the center of the arrow and be twice as large or take half the space.
The wheel is confusing and should be removed. I spent minutes attempting to turn it before realizing that I was turning the ship by touching the water where I wanted the ship to go. I know where the ship is headed to (I look at the ship) so the wheel is taking space on screen and cpu for no reason at all.
Every few minutes, maybe 10, a page of instructions opened in front of the game. They were always different. I don't know if I pressed a button or if it's a training mode. The problem is that it happens out of the blue and it's not welcome.
I didn't notice any indicator of how many cannonballs I have left.
The black cannonballs on blue water are not very visible. I also noted 4 circles in the water in front of the ship when I fire. What are they?
by sanghoonio
1 subcomments
- If you have real wind physics, might as well apply realism to turning as well, so that ships can't turn in place. Rudder should only work with applied speed.
by burtstanton
0 subcomment
- ooh I have something for this:
only fore-and-aft sails jibe (or gybe)
square-riggers wear ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jibe
- Awesome, great execution! This could become a really cool RL environment with a headless sim and procedural voyages. Factorio has something similar with the Factorio Learning Environment SDK.
by russ-curry
1 subcomments
- This is a really fun game, congratulations on releasing it. If I could make one suggestion - it would be awesome if you could use the mouse wheel to change the orientation of your sails rather than having to move all the way over to the right of the screen to use the slider.
by SubiculumCode
1 subcomments
- Is it multiplayer or am I playing against bots?
I submitted this a few days ago, so glad to see it posted again. Fun game. Funner to think I am sinking people, not bots :)
by calimoro78
0 subcomment
- Love this -- and plays great on desktop and mobile. I am making a different sea-faring game focused on merchant trading in the age of Marco Polo, would you mind if I asked you a few questions to compare notes on sailing and 2.5D graphics? is there a way to DM you.
by FacelessJim
0 subcomment
- This reminds me of Patrician III so much. The sailing battles had the same wind mechanics. It’s amazing, so many memories unlocked.
by EstanislaoStan
1 subcomments
- Did you get this idea from the barebones Sid Meiers Pirates battle clone that hit the frontpage a few days ago? :)
- I just started learning how to sail, and while trying to memorize all the new terminology I was wishing for an interactive way to play out the basic processes short of being on an actual boat. All of the games I found online were far too realistic, this was exactly what I was looking for. It's already close enough, you could certainly have an "educational" mode with a little bit more jargon. Some easier ramp-up to the game would be nice (thinking a tutorial to get used to the sail controls, or maybe a mode where the sails get automatically pivoted). Overall this is great!
- the control layout is a bit awkward on mobile. i find myself wanting to adjust both heading and trim continuously, but both controls are on the right so i cant use both thumbs. then the buttons to fire/ board are fiddly. tbh almost gave up then tried with keyboard and saw how it was supposed to go.
by Dansvidania
1 subcomments
- sails perpendicular to the wind for full power? my sailing experience is dated, but that does not seem to be right to me. Don't they want a lower angle of attack? is this a specific of square sails? maybe I am not getting it in the docs
Still, very fun!
- This is really cool and well done. Congrats!
One gotcha/ask: Can you somewhere show the keyboard controls? Maybe in the overview, once I hit the space bar? Took me a while to figure things out,
I also really like the option to immediately jump into the game without first having to log in or so!
How long did it take you to get this up and running, if I may ask?
by VTimofeenko
1 subcomments
- This is probably PEBCAK, but I can't figure out how to capture an island
- I loved your game. I'm wondering about the decision of making the game with a registration on your website instead of a more traditional approach of having a standalone game. The friction point for me was having to register to save progress. I would gladly pay in Steam or itch.io for a game that i can download and play locally.
I'm guessing the decision is about making a online leaderboard?
- Should there be sound? I think sounds would be essential for this.
Running on Linux Firefox.
by macrocosmos
1 subcomments
- I don’t seem to be able to stop the boat by sailing straight into the wind.
- Very cool and congrats! Super huge undertaking to ship a game.
Any dev(b)logs for it? Always curious how these games handle multiplayer and what engines/stack they use.
- This brings back some memories! I used to play the Ancient Art of War at Sea on my dad's Mac Plus as a kid. Having never sailed, it was fun to learn about tacking while trying to broadside spanish galleons. Years later, I lied about my experience to convince a resort to let me check out a tiny catamaran. I made it back to shore!
One recommendation: make the boats not turn quite so fast. It allows you to outmaneuver other vessels by planning ahead or gaining speed ahead of time.
I still don't know much about sailing, but I have a lot of kitesurfing experience. Do boats really travel that slowly downwind? I assume that crosswind is faster, but downwind should still move at the speed of the wind.
- This is so awesome.
If you need help building a backend for it to be multiplayer, please email me and I'd love to team up (sssilver@gmail.com), I already have something that would help.
by paulbjensen
0 subcomment
- Great game, loved taking a peak behind the scenes and seeing it was using HTML5 canvas.
Will buy the game later on, especially as it's only $5 - I guess that's a latte in the US these days?
by Skidaddle
1 subcomments
- Very cute aesthetic and reminiscent of Pirates!
I am lazy and would request a settings toggle to automatically adjust the sail angles for me for optimal speed given my bearing.
- Played on mobile. Very cool game and would love to have a go at future versions. Seen a lot of comments about realistic wind and sailing mechanics. To add to the latter building speed after you tack/jibe would be cool & realistic depending on conditions!
Gusts is another way and you could have storms! Maybe you do already but I didn’t encounter them.
- I try on iPhone 8 it's feels smooth, even better than most website today.
This is impressive!
by delbronski
0 subcomment
- If you set a breakpoint inside any engine method in the Sources tab and then do something like:
this.state.treasureEffects.cannonCooldownS = 0
Then you can easily cheat.
Is there any way around this?
- Be interesting to see enemies take friendly fire, and possibly suppress fire if the shot on the player isn't clear?
by peterdemin
0 subcomment
- Good vibes, free things stand out. The direction of wind seems inverted. North wind is wind blowing from north to south. Also, when going into irons, the speed should drop to zero, or become negative given the sail configuration. And turns are impossible without speed.
- Great one, love the astetics and gameplay.
Only confusing part is healing, I don't know my health or how much healing I need to be back to 80% or something close so I can get back into battle.
Also healing takes forever.
by kordlessagain
0 subcomment
- I used Hyperia (my terminal project) to let Antigravity take control. I think it's cheating now because it has infinite ammo.
Oh my, it wired up its own autopilot and is wrecking havoc now.
by queeshonda
0 subcomment
- Does it go all the way to the Chagossian Islands?
by shockwaverider
0 subcomment
- Awesome game!! It would be nice if your mouse wheel could turn the sails instead of having to go click on the slider.
by JumpCrisscross
0 subcomment
- Really cool! What did you use for the physics engine?
by hnthrow10282910
1 subcomments
- This is a lot of fun! I’ve been wanting to learn how to make pixel games like this myself. Any tips, resources you’d recommend ?
- The boat seems to go faster with the sails on the wrong side (back winded), that doesn't make a ton of physical sense to me
by xboxnolifes
0 subcomment
- If you put sail adjust ments of the opposite side of the screen from the helm on mobile, its be easier to both at once.
- This is inspiring to create a full on real world autonomous little sailing dude to cross the straits.
by HardwareLust
0 subcomment
- Shocking how well this works on my beat up old Moto phone, and it's fun! Well done!
by mickael-kerjean
0 subcomment
- Would love to know the technical details of how you made such an awesome game
- Great game! I’m bookmarking it and coming back. Reminded me of assassins creed black flag.
by delbronski
0 subcomment
- Really cool! I love well created web games.
- Thanks. I had a blast for like 10 minutes. Sinked everyone around haha
- Beautiful retro art style <3
by SpyCoder77
0 subcomment
- The art, physics and interaction design in this is genuinely beautiful
by poppingtonic
0 subcomment
- Some zig zag motions are required to maintain velocity and the combat is fun. I like it!
- Should be multiplayer like worms io of old
Seriously it would be something seaworthy. Huge success viral probably
- As an Aubrey-Maturin lifelong re-reader, I cannot wait to play this.
- That was so fun to play! Reminds me of sid Meier's pirates
- This is lovely. Well done.
by hyperionultra
0 subcomment
- Noice. What’s the stack?
by fallinditch
2 subcomments
- Looks great! it's nice that you can immediately try it out
- This is fun! Thanks for sharing it
- Even on mobile is very pleasing good job!
by thekevintang
0 subcomment
- This is awesome!
- This is fantasticly fun. Nice work!
- Pretty amazing, congratulations!
- This game is super fun. Thanks.
- Nice!
Feedback..
1. show keyboard mapping on the touch controls (for desktop / laptop users ideally)
2. Make wind indicator much bigger and centrally located
3. Make cannon cooldown much bigger and centrally located
by throwaway980-1
1 subcomments
- so we're not using "Show HN" any more?
- This is great!
- this is really cute (speaking as an actual sailor), but does it use actual wind physics? because it doesn’t look like it
also, I need a fucking windvane, dude, please
basically, what this guy said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546879
The illusion (and thus the game) is ruined if you actually know how sailing works. I’d prefer something more realistic, which would make it more strategic- this is just a motorboat simulation with visual-only sails
by imperialdrive
0 subcomment
- Very cool, love it!
- The sidekick ramming into you all the time and killing all speed is pretty annoying.
- Really fun! Enjoyed playing.
by CommanderData
0 subcomment
- Very cool!!! Feels very much miniclip-esq
by precompute
0 subcomment
- Impressive. It loads so quickly! What was this made with?
by fishfasell
0 subcomment
- Very cool
by taffydavid
0 subcomment
- I love it!
by alexaholic
0 subcomment
- Excellent!
- controls could be easier :D
- great game! well done.
- Meh, I prefer sail(6). JK, but that Unix game it's surprissingly accurate.
by gaolei8888
0 subcomment
- nice one
- Would be nice if cannons didn’t fire in directions that had no clear enemies.
by oldmanChen
0 subcomment
- [flagged]
by Raj_Sidwadkar
0 subcomment
- [flagged]
by theoe93orrj
1 subcomments
- [flagged]
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