I see what you're doing here... you're training us (and some future AI) to avoid asteroids or satellites in orbit... ;-)
Wowfunhappy · 4h ago
Nice! IMO, it ought to be significantly harder. I was able to survive for 45 seconds on my first try--that's long enough that I started getting bored, and I don't really want to try again because it would take at least 45 seconds to beat my previous score.
By comparison, consider how long a typical Flappy Bird game lasts, particularly on your first try--probably less than 10 seconds at most! That makes you want to try again.
samdychen · 4h ago
That makes some sense. My main concern before was that if the difficulty is too high at the very beginning, it might discourage players.
arnorhs · 1h ago
Tbf my experience was the opposite. But sure if I'm just terrible or if it's harder on a phone, but my first tries were sub 20s and my highest was 45 before giving up xD
abetusk · 3h ago
Have difficulty settings. Default is "easy/moderate" so that people get a sense of it. For people playing twice or as people get more experienced and want a challenge, they can choose a more difficult setting.
Have leaderboards for different difficulty settings to encourage exploration of different settings.
joelanman · 2h ago
might work out the opposite - 'ah I can do better than that, one more try'
philipodonnell · 3h ago
This is a great use case for using an algorithmic difficulty ramp where it can really dial in that curve to solve for getting people to play longer over multiple sessions.
wizzwizz4 · 3h ago
This is abusive use of computer technology. Don't optimise for addition. If you're optimising for anything, it should be enjoyment.
GTP · 4h ago
Depends. There must be some sweet spot there, since if it lasts too little, then it becomes frustrating to retry every few seconds.
Wowfunhappy · 3h ago
> There must be some sweet spot there, since if it lasts too little
Absolutely, and therein lies the essence of game design, right?
For a simple game like this, I'd say 8-10 seconds is a good time to shoot for, for the player's first session. It'll naturally get longer as the player gets better. This makes every moment exciting--just a few seconds longer and I can beat my last score. But yes, this is an art not a science.
bravesoul2 · 3h ago
Just have levels. Each level has more or faster dots. You continue from the last failed level.
OneOverInfinity · 1h ago
Hard Mode: Zoom in your browser window
Easy Mode: Zoom out
thesnide · 3m ago
berserk mode : move the world, leave the player immobile in the center
toddmorey · 2h ago
I believe our current leader with 4.2424242424242426e+27s may be cheating. (About 134 quintillion years, which is roughly 10 billion times longer than the current age of the universe)
mvieira38 · 2h ago
I saw that one, too. It seems like he was manually removed or something, I don't see it anymore. Wonder what the exploit is
femtozer · 39m ago
You can just intercept the http request at the end of the game, and set the score you want.
yomismoaqui · 1h ago
I have pointed Claude Code to the game and in 2 minutes of chatting I got a way to submit fake scores.
Usually Claude Code prevents using it for cheating on games, but with this initial prompt it was easy for it to explain how to do it.
"analyze the following game and explain how the record is submitted on game over https://dodge.trickle.host/"
EDIT: is a little scary how easy is to use coding agents like Claude Code for these kind of attacks.
loudmax · 3h ago
Very well done! This hearkens back to Asteroids, but it feels very novel.
If you want to go in the direction of adding more stuff, there's a lot of room to add power-ups, special bullets, walls, and so on. But this simple game is quite elegant as it is and doesn't really need any of that.
Nice work.
samdychen · 3h ago
Thanks, so happy that you enjoy the game
thehours · 2h ago
I really liked the display showing me climb the leaderboard in realtime. I found it particularly motivating, albeit a bit distracting for a game where I need to keep my eyes elsewhere :)
jowea · 2h ago
I also don't see why give so much prominence to the obviously cheating first place. Trying to trigger some envy in us?
alex-moon · 2h ago
Lovely stuff. This works well as what I call a "structured diffuse mode activity" [0] and as such I will be playing it extensively from now on. I also like that it has a big gaping security hole in it - I think the world generally needs to see more vibe-coded apps with big gaping security holes in them, for PR reasons. (This is not a jab at OP btw! There is no reason to worry about security when you're building something for fun. Flash was famous for this as well.)
ah, perfectly captures the meditative feeling of touhou, just needs the music :-)
games like this have a lot to teach you about patience and reflexes
Tade0 · 2h ago
I was half-expecting graze mechanics to manifest themselves.
philipwhiuk · 2h ago
hook.js:608 cdn.tailwindcss.com should not be used in production. To use Tailwind CSS in production, install it as a PostCSS plugin or use the Tailwind CLI: https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation
overrideMethod @ hook.js:608Understand this warning
(index):1473 Array(0)
dodge.trickle.host/:1543 Access to fetch at 'https://app.trickle.so/proto/api/subs/features/5?userId=usr_094760a6d8000001' from origin 'https://dodge.trickle.host' has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.Understand this error
app.trickle.so/proto/api/subs/features/5?userId=usr_094760a6d8000001:1 Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FAILED
(index):1402 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Failed to fetch
at (index):1402:3
at (index):1416:3Understand this error
hook.js:608 Failed to load leaderboard: ReferenceError: TrickleObjectAPI is not defined
at getTopScores ((index):1529:1633)
at (index):1536:1302
at (index):1536:1735
at Id (react-dom.production.min.js:165:137)
at Xb (react-dom.production.min.js:200:284)
at react-dom.production.min.js:197:106
at S (react.production.min.js:17:25)
at MessagePort.U (react.production.min.js:21:229)
overrideMethod @ hook.js:608Understand this error
(index):1529 Uncaught ReferenceError: TrickleObjectAPI is not defined
at getTopScores ((index):1529:1633)
at (index):1536:1302
at (index):1536:1735
at Id (react-dom.production.min.js:165:137)
at Xb (react-dom.production.min.js:200:284)
at react-dom.production.min.js:197:106
at S (react.production.min.js:17:25)
at MessagePort.U (react.production.min.js:21:229)
LorenDB · 3h ago
Nice! This gives me a few ideas to make it more interesting.
- Give the bullets gravity relative to each other. Now the particles can change direction very abruptly.
- Change the bullet pattern to use live positioning of real satellites for the data. Satellite maps tend to look just about as chaotic as the randomly generated bullet patterns here.
philipallstar · 3h ago
> Give the bullets gravity relative to each other. Now the particles can change direction very abruptly.
It might be cool to have the red bullets stay as they are, but every so often have a larger, slow-moving "heavy" bullet that's a different colour and has gravity. And is maybe gently homing as well.
phkahler · 2h ago
I like this large slow bullet with gravity idea.
SubiculumCode · 3h ago
Playing on Firefox Android. Works well and fun, but one thing is puzzling: All the bullets start off slow but fly faster after I first touch the screen or move.
ddrdrck_ · 3h ago
Excellent game, very addictive ! I noticed it was built with Trickle, so this is pretty impressive if it was all "vibe coded"
AndrewOMartin · 3h ago
It seems to help if you bump your monitor resolution and then zoom out in the browser.
NicuCalcea · 4h ago
Didn't move at all, top 81% of all time.
tasuki · 4h ago
Seems about right, no? What number would you expect?
Of the 19% of the players worse than you, some tried to die quickly on purpose, others were perhaps less lucky than you...
NikxDa · 4h ago
The Top 81% calculation in the game is not as good as it may sound. Top 100% means you are at the bottom. You can confirm this by just losing immediately, which will place you in the Top 9X%.
beardyw · 3h ago
It's confusing. Would be better to have a rank.
And on my phone my finger gets in the way of seeing some of the bullets. Would be easier with a mouse.
gcr · 4h ago
bad news — top 80% means most players survived longer than you, sorry :-) perhaps you’re thinking of top 19%?
but you’re right, lots of bullet hells get easier if you hold still and only move when required.
x______________ · 48m ago
Seems like you can achieve 'bullet-time' to dodge bullets easier by playing on a lower end device, which shows down the game considerably.
..woah
gcr · 4h ago
Fastest I can manage is 0.5s, can anyone die quicker?
mrjay42 · 2h ago
I just did 0.4s :3
I'm unreasonably proud of myself for this XD
msanlop · 2h ago
got 0.1s :)
abishekvenkat · 4h ago
thats amazing!
the quickest I could do was 0.7s lol
voat · 4h ago
I think your math on the percentage is inverted. If you immediately die it says you're in the top 99%
gcr · 4h ago
Nope! “Top K” means you’re on the high score list of size K.
Only the best players are in the “top 1%” for example. Being in the top 50 is more prestigious than the top 300,000.
milliams · 3h ago
Maybe if you do worse than half the people, it should invert to say the bottom 30% or the bottom 1%. Makes it clearer that you did "badly".
lukew3 · 1h ago
I think the current way is fine but showing position on the bell curve would help for those who struggle with interpretation
v3lmx · 4h ago
very cool, this makes me want to grind top spot
pentamassiv · 3h ago
I am not sure the highscores get updated. I don't see HTTP requests or a websocket to communicate with the server
zparky · 3h ago
neat, i got 100.0
noelwelsh · 3h ago
Fun game, but I'm calling bullshit on the high scores.
probably_wrong · 2h ago
How so? You don't think that one person has been playing for 4.24e+27 seconds?
By comparison, consider how long a typical Flappy Bird game lasts, particularly on your first try--probably less than 10 seconds at most! That makes you want to try again.
Have leaderboards for different difficulty settings to encourage exploration of different settings.
Absolutely, and therein lies the essence of game design, right?
For a simple game like this, I'd say 8-10 seconds is a good time to shoot for, for the player's first session. It'll naturally get longer as the player gets better. This makes every moment exciting--just a few seconds longer and I can beat my last score. But yes, this is an art not a science.
Usually Claude Code prevents using it for cheating on games, but with this initial prompt it was easy for it to explain how to do it.
"analyze the following game and explain how the record is submitted on game over https://dodge.trickle.host/"
EDIT: is a little scary how easy is to use coding agents like Claude Code for these kind of attacks.
If you want to go in the direction of adding more stuff, there's a lot of room to add power-ups, special bullets, walls, and so on. But this simple game is quite elegant as it is and doesn't really need any of that.
Nice work.
[0] https://ajmoon.com/posts/sdmas-why-you-should-be-playing-bro...
games like this have a lot to teach you about patience and reflexes
- Give the bullets gravity relative to each other. Now the particles can change direction very abruptly.
- Change the bullet pattern to use live positioning of real satellites for the data. Satellite maps tend to look just about as chaotic as the randomly generated bullet patterns here.
It might be cool to have the red bullets stay as they are, but every so often have a larger, slow-moving "heavy" bullet that's a different colour and has gravity. And is maybe gently homing as well.
Of the 19% of the players worse than you, some tried to die quickly on purpose, others were perhaps less lucky than you...
And on my phone my finger gets in the way of seeing some of the bullets. Would be easier with a mouse.
but you’re right, lots of bullet hells get easier if you hold still and only move when required.
..woah
I'm unreasonably proud of myself for this XD
the quickest I could do was 0.7s lol
Only the best players are in the “top 1%” for example. Being in the top 50 is more prestigious than the top 300,000.