5 Million Devs

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browser marble game

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5 Million Devs

A Marble Madness-inspired WebGL game we built for Netlify

5-million-devs.netlify.com

#webgl game#three.js#rapier physics#marble madness

616points
230comments
#38of 3,515 in 2024
Top 2%of 2024 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

60 positive, 54 neutral or asking, 10 mixed, 36 critical, out of 160 comments about the project. Thread score +0.21.

Execution: 3 for, 22 againstDesign: 17 for, 3 againstIdea: 9 for, 6 againstPerformance: 4 for, 4 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Smooth performance and polished controls

    From 3 comments
    • I think this is the first time I've ever seen an online game correctly tell me to use WARS keys for movement. Big props for handling non-qwerty layouts. Great job optimizing too.…
      bhaney on HN
    • That was enjoyable. I wasn't at all interested in any of the "Netlify facts" but it was fun to push the marble around and I'm impressed by how smooth the experience was. Well done!
      pissflaps on HN
    • Really smooth, clean work. Didn't get a chance to monitor memory and network, but seemed pretty light, kudos!
      NaolGBasaye on HN
  • Fun game that works well for kids and casual play

    From 2 comments
    • Thank you so much. This is a great game for my 6yo, it made his day! He loved it. We spent months looking for web games for 6yo without ads, dark patterns and distracting…
      Helmut10001 on HN
    • personally couldnt care less about netlify but still played all 5 levels cause they were just fun, kudos
      yapyap on HN
  • Nostalgia for Marble Madness and similar games

    From 3 comments
    • Kind of off topic, but Marble Madness was a large part of what inspired me to start programming. My dad played it when he was a kid and it made an impression on him, so he had me…
      Conscat on HN
    • Beautiful work, well done. It also made me remember a game I played a long time ago called Ballance[1]. Weird how memory works like that. [1]…
      cyberlimerence on HN
    • This was actually very fun, great work here! There was a PC game called hamsterball that I really enjoyed a long time ago; this brought back memories.
      adzm on HN

Objections

  • Collision bugs cause ball to fall through or respawn in loops

    From 4 comments
    • Got stuck in a re-spawn loop : some collision detection failed in level 4 at the start of a standard 30° incline, the ball fell through, and was re-spawned at the same place…
      GistNoesis on HN
    • There's a glitch in the velocity level. My marble keeps respawing and the game is stuck in a refresh loop
      muragekibicho on HN
    • I got stuck in the second chapter. Went into a tube leading to a spiraling green slide and my ball reset... to the interior of the block. Oh well, cool project.
      pbronez on HN
    • Very nice way to show off some of the history of Netlify while making it fun. Congrats on 5m.
      Jeremy1026 on HN
  • Touch and keyboard controls are unreliable

    From 4 comments
    • The controls don't seem to work for me. AWSD, only up and down work, unless I try to go diagonally, then it just gets "stuck" moving forever. Arrow keys no directions work unless…
      johtso on HN
    • The ASDF controls are absolutely backwards while the cursor controls work.
      burnt-resistor on HN
    • Hopefully constructive: Touch controls. If finger is lifted off, even for a second, new "center" is registered, which makes it quite hard to control without looking where…
      pounderstanding on HN
    • Great game! On mobile, feels like the joystick is a bit too sensitive. Ie: I move my finger a tiny amount and the ball goes flying. What's your company called?
      nightowl_games on HN
  • Unclear what Netlify is or does from the marketing

    From 4 comments
    • I can't find anyone else mentioning this here, so interesting fact, marble madness was designed by mark cerny https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Madness…
      pipes on HN
    • Is there a page somewhere that tells me what netlify is on a technical level? All I see it marketing speak and I can't make sense of it.
      deskr on HN
    • That is very cute. But even after hitting all the white dots, it's not clear what their product is? A web framework? Hosting? Cloud services? 15 mins 31 secs, including reading…
      Animats on HN
    • Well, I'd love to know what Netlify does, but... #1. I could not find pricing anywhere. #2. The "ROI calculator" steered me to enter in my name, e-mail, and phone number. I don't…
      trollbridge on HN

Requests

  • Open-source the code

    From 4 comments
    • Any chance this could get open-sourced? This seems like a great example of a lot of stuff for which there are few tutorials currently.
      solatic on HN
    • Great work. Are there any plans to convert some of the code to OSS?
      noctane on HN
    • Wow, this is nice. I don't know, but is it possible for us to study code for this? I would love to see how all of this is built. I can understand you might have commercial…
      naveensky on HN
    • Brilliant game! I know it probably won't happen, but I would loove to see the source for this.
      astrofinn on HN
  • Build a full game version

    From 3 comments
    • Great implementation, very enjoyable. Any chance that you will use this foundation to make an actual game (I mean, challenging, with scores/time/etc., and without the marketing…
      Al-Khwarizmi on HN
    • I've been enjoying the quality and aesthetics of your studio's work. I would love for you to build a complete game or a longer experience, rather than only for marketing. I love…
      flanbiscuit on HN
    • This game is way better than it needs to be for a quick burst of advertising. Not only is the implementation fantastic, with perfect controls, but the level design is also great.…
      AndrewStephens on HN
  • Gyroscope or accelerometer controls

    From 3 comments
    • Great fun and very polished! I'd love to try this with accelerometer based controls.
      kolleraa on HN
    • I was hoping to control the marble with the IMU of my phone... is that a planned feature?
      Tepix on HN
    • Nice game, although I would expect to be able to use the gyroscope on mobile devices.
      pjmlp on HN

Questions

  • How the physics and collision were built

    From 2 comments
    • I am very curious how the physics feel realy-wordly for the most part at the mathematical level. Are there existing algos that define the gravitational pull of the "Facts" spots…
      pizzafeelsright on HN
    • i got a few questions: - you say it's built with three.js but you also use rapier. How does that work / integrate? I see one is JS frontend thing, the other rust engine - how did…
      Keyframe on HN
  • Why Unity was used for levels but not in the browser

    From 2 comments
    • Why did you choose to do things this way instead of using Unity WebGL? It's okay if the reason is, "because we make websites and the programming we know is Javascript" or…
      doctorpangloss on HN
    • Unity WebGL is not supported on mobile and we needed the experience to be playable on both desktop and mobile browsers. However, mobile browsers will be supported with Unity 6…
      franck on HN

Alternatives named

  • Ballance

    From 2 comments
    • Beautiful work, well done. It also made me remember a game I played a long time ago called Ballance[1]. Weird how memory works like that. [1]…
      cyberlimerence on HN
    • Anyone who wants a full game of this, try Ballance: https://www.gog.com/en/game/ballance
      wackget on HN
  • Hamsterball

    From 1 comment
    • This was actually very fun, great work here! There was a PC game called hamsterball that I really enjoyed a long time ago; this brought back memories.
      adzm on HN
  • Oxyd and Enigma

    From 1 comment
    • That's really great! The one game that I used to love, but never got translated into the modern world, is Oxyd[0], which was later re-released (in a fashion) as Enigma[1]. [0]…
      ChrisMarshallNY on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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