Show HN: Shehzadi in Peril – My first ever game

So fun, thanks for sharing! I'm feeling some nostalgia. The first game I ever made was also an ant defense game. You use a magnifying glass to protect your tomato at a picnic. As you get to later levels, the ants get bigger and the sun starts to set, so you have to buy upgrades.

I wrote it in Java in high school back in 2006. The site I hosted it on in high school is no longer live. I put it on Replit a few years back, but I no longer have access to the account, so I had to fork the repl to play it again. Things change. Hold on to your code. It's fun to revisit old programs!

If you want to give it a try: https://replit.com/@PatrickAtReplit/Ant-Killer-Game.

sh4jid · a year ago

Thank you so much for trying it out!

I tried to fork and play your game but having very little experience with Java, I couldn't run it! Do I need to download it and run locally?

patrickscoleman · a year ago

Here's how to play: https://www.loom.com/share/14f8d6d097ef41319285cb6dd404a109?...

Java is a bit of a pain. It's a compiled language, so if you make any edits to the .java files you'll need to run a command in the shell to generate a new .jar file and then run that.

Enjoy!

patafemma · a year ago

Congratulations on the launch! Please, consider putting up a screenshot at the top of the README. When I see visual products such as games or GUIs showcased in HN, having a good screenshot or two is often the deciding factor in whether I try it or not. And probably I am not the only one. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Oh, it's the same with me! I'll add a screenshot whenever I'm free.

glitchc · a year ago

This a great start. A level progression system would make it a full fledged game. You could introduces walls to control the direction/flow of ants. The walls would change per level. Also, some kind of penalty for spamming might help. Right now I can use multiple fingers to press all over the map without much thought.

rchoudhury · a year ago

Nice game! Also, shocked and delighted to see a Bangla title!

risenshinetech · a year ago

I think adding a note that there's an end would go a long way. I personally tried it once, killed something like 100 ants, thought "That's cute, but not interested in clicking on ants endlessly", and closed the game well before I lost.

I will do that, thank you for playing!

upon_drumhead · a year ago

Fun game! Resizing the browser window after it starts breaks the game though. If you you resize it so the princess is off the screen, you can't lose :)

Yeah I've noticed when I was writing codes! But I intended the game to be primarily played on a mobile device, so didn't bother to fix it.

bestouff · a year ago

Happens also on mobile. Just rotate e.g. from portrait to landscape during gameplay.

lofaszvanitt · a year ago

Wonderful game, and the hit/death sounds of Scheherazade is priceless ;DD

Hack: if you zoom out the window (ctrl plus -), the ants will home in on a nonexistent princess and you can massacre them :D.

Yeah a lot of people noticed this hack! Resizing the window does the same thing. I will need to find a way to stop that!

And thank you for playing! Shehzadi's voice cracks me up as well

seafoamteal · a year ago

That was much more fun than I expected and the game is really well-drawn and snappy. I was doing so well until the really fast black ants started showing up.