The font? The art style? The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic.
I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.
Edit: I did figure it out and completed all the deliveries. So many potential. It reminds me a bit of Sky by thatgamecompany
Edit 2: for the author, I noticed several players approached me and tried to communicate. Please explore games like Journey (thatgamecompany) to see different ways people communicate without chatting. People can help each other, veterans can guide newbies all without using words. Every time I met a player in the game back in the days, they sent me a heartfelt message.
> The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic.
Said more about it here[0] already, but the game works perfectly on a foldable and takes the folding/unfolding in stride, without breaking a sweat. You can also see it on desktop by resizing your browser window to change size and aspect ratio (it's probably the same code paths handling it anyway).
Given how almost all mobile and web games I played manage to get this scenario wrong in some way, I applaud the authors for making all the right choices.
It really is lovely. I had the same thought about refining interactions a bit -- I would also suggest Meadow by Might & Delight as an example of nonverbal communication done well.
The game is wonderful and I'm so glad it doesn't have chat! My 9yo niece and I played it through side by side and if it had chat or consistent remote player presence that wouldn't have been appropriate.
If you have a keyboard, then upper keys 1-2...9-0 do all the emojis as hotkeys. Ex, 9 does the takeout food, which is probably meant to be "busy, eating" or something similar.
I also didn't really understand how to do it, but I liked the game, it's so beautiful and peaceful, it's a shame there's no chat and you have to speak through emojis.
Some people have an arrow on top of their head, and when you approach them there is a dialog balloon with "...". If you click on them they give you a task.
> ....The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic...I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.
The game doesn't really explain that too well. You have to go find the packages first before you can deliver it. For example the old lady asks you to deliver an offering at a temple.
The font is really awful. Misunderstanding aesthetics from difference cultural sources to feed to people who will take them at a surface level, there's nothing of substance. It's giving [0] and it's bad vibes, nothing should aspire to this. It leads me to question every other emotional connection I might otherwise have with the experience.
Plus a lot of experience, creativity, and artistry to solve other challenges (e.g. shaders, shadows) and wire everything together into this pretty performant piece of art.
The studio also has a case study here of another project they made, with other hints about their tooling and process:
Just for anyone like me who played this and spent the whole time thinking, "this is beautiful, who are you and how did you make this?" The author names are only revealed in the credits at the end:
On that subject, and since the Summer Afternoon direct link was not provided, can anybody actually get the project to work? Apparently made it on to HN 2.5 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34461808 Not sure if its just my system, yet I always start stuck in the ground unable to move.
This is impressive but I don't get it. All that work and you have a game written in JS of all things. Why not write it in a desktop language und port it to JS. Now this will always need a browser to run, feels like a waste of time to me.
- This will _only_ need a browser to run. No console. No PC rig. No Steam account. No account at all. You just need a link to play it.
- Why use a heavy game engine and all the baggage that can bring when you can make a lightweight prototype in JS, prove value in the browser, then port to desktop if you choose to.
This is like a masterclass in game design, mobile UI, wasm, character design, game dialogue and interactive paychogeography. I'm gonna show this to my kid's computer club next week. Really fantastic, bravo. Is this seriously a solo developer project??
If anyone knows of similar games / apps / software tools that I could show as examples of solo developer small scope simple UI games I'm always trying to find more..
Haven't played Obra Dinn yet (it's on my list of games to play together with my wife), but anything by its developer Lucas Pope is a masterpiece. Papers Please, while it infuriated me at times (apparently I suck at following rules and spotting differences) was just amazing. Available on mobile and PC.
The iOS game Tiny Wings was made by a solo developer (Andreas Illiger). I highly recommend it. It’s over a decade old now, but it just got update this year, and it still stands out in my mind as one of the best mobile games ever made.
So many techniques that made web games good, in terms of smart loading, have been lost or abandoned since the mid-2000s when bandwidth limitations were common, and at the same time "engines" like Away3D and Starling were starting to leverage AS3's ability to handle async calls and async uploads to the GPU. JS engines now try to bundle that behavior into asynchronous asset loading calls, but it's not ever really dialed in to make sure you don't experience freezes or hiccups in gameplay, so usually it's loaded by game level and not fluidly as you move around a world. It's not as if the authors of this game couldn't have put it all in a 17.5 MB package, and most people wouldn't have noticed anymore because the world has gotten used to long initialization screens. What's awesome is to see someone do the art of lazy loading so elegantly.
Am I wrong in feeling that 5-15MB is... more than enough data for the world we see? There's not that much information here.
I'm not trying to be a demoscene smart-ass here, either (I expect demoscene masters would've packed the equivalent in under 1MB). Just that, models are low-poly, the world is small and made up from pieces that feel simple to describe; as long as you're not trying to bake everything into a static set of meshes, but willing to encode them at a higher level, 5MB seems like plenty.
For a dimensionally reduced analogy, the 2D equivalent would be a perfect example of an image that's very large in raster form, but quite small in vector form.
Are my intuitions widely off here?
Note that this does not make it any less impressive - on the contrary, I'm amazed by how much detail and soul is there to this world, despite apparent simplicity. I'm also amazed at how navigable this world is. I've made many stupid moves that I was dead sure will wedge me between walls, or get me stuck in a nook with no way of going back; but none of that happened. They must've put a lot of thought into the design, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manually mapped out the world to ensure there's no one-way paths.
It's pretty good! I peaked a little bit under the hood and most of the size is going into the 3D models and secondly the sound effects. The largest single asset is the looping music track which is 2.3 MB.
The 3D models are compressed with 'Draco' compression. So for example the largest asset is a model of the entire world which is 333 kB. It consists of 81k vertices. Unoptimized that would mean at least 3 32 bit floats per vertex, which would be at least 972 kB uncompressed. So Draco compression is doing a pretty good job getting the model sizes down.
I'd have to dig into it more but I suspect if they wanted to they could have trimmed the size down quite a bit, but it may not be worth the effort. They could have used more repeat 3D models, but instead it looks like they went for a more artist driven look where most of the world is uniquely modeled.
It also looks like they're sending a bunch of lower res levels of detail per model over the network. That also is a tradeoff. Still with network speeds as they are nowadays it may be faster / simpler to send those over the wire each time instead of regenerating the level of detail.
The textures are a similar story. Well compressed but they're sending procedural noise over the network. Those could be generated but it's also trivial to send them over the network.
I was shocked that the game loaded fairly quickly on a 128kbps connection. I only wish it would say that it is loading additional data, because I was stuck on white screen for a bit, with no info on the state.
I can echo everyone here in saying the graphics of the game and the execution is fantastic. The keyboard controls on desktop and the thumb control on mobile works great. This got me very excited about the future! Can’t imagine the amount of effort that would have gone in this.
One additional input, although I could play it well on the desktop - the mobile gameplay made me a tad nauseous. I am someone prone to nausea in VR too, but I’ve never felt this in any other mobile game before. I think it’s probably the amount of motion (hilly topography) and the very narrow field of view, along with the way the mobile controls behave. This was on iOS Safari btw (iPhone 16 Pro Max).
It's perfect on the almost square-ish main screen of a foldable.
In fact, it's the best looking game experience on a foldable I've seen so far (most games are designed for either mobile or tablet form factor, and can't quite handle the in-between). And it's cool how you can just fold or unfold the device on the fly, and the game just adapts without anything more noticeable than the camera pivoting a bit if needed to keep the character on-screen. No stutter, no half-second pause for UI to realign, not even perspective change.
EDIT: I just realized it's probably not a mobile-specific thing, and sure enough, on a desktop you can just resize your browser window to see this.
As a web developer who doesn't make games...I'm a bit overwhelmed by the vast knowledge gap that clearly exists between what I know and what would be required to make this.
Wow. It's so beautiful and enjoyable to wander about in.
I was very surprised that it worked perfectly in my 10-year old notebook. Normally, nothing this fancy is playable in a web browser for me. The CPU was about 20% (I only have two cores, 4 threads).
The “messages” stuff is a bit confusing, but really they’re just simple quests. You don’t start with the mail on you, but all you have to do is wander around and find quest givers who will tell you what to do.
@thecupisblue. Amazing work. Logged in just to tell you this. This has just given me goose bumps and made me excited about the web again. I’ve been struggling to find my groove in the dev world post AI and have been digging back into AR and WebXR just for the fun of it. Thank you for the game and more importantly the renewed inspiration to make something cool!
Readit News
I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.
Edit: I did figure it out and completed all the deliveries. So many potential. It reminds me a bit of Sky by thatgamecompany
Edit 2: for the author, I noticed several players approached me and tried to communicate. Please explore games like Journey (thatgamecompany) to see different ways people communicate without chatting. People can help each other, veterans can guide newbies all without using words. Every time I met a player in the game back in the days, they sent me a heartfelt message.
Said more about it here[0] already, but the game works perfectly on a foldable and takes the folding/unfolding in stride, without breaking a sweat. You can also see it on desktop by resizing your browser window to change size and aspect ratio (it's probably the same code paths handling it anyway).
Given how almost all mobile and web games I played manage to get this scenario wrong in some way, I applaud the authors for making all the right choices.
--
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45403407
I do not play video games, but I played this one through till the end and wish there was more to explore.
exactly, realy well made!
[0] https://i.redd.it/jv2yw7uqmu3e1.png
https://www.awwwards.com/summer-afternoon.html
And a talk here on the same project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0
It's full of tips that likely informed this new project. In short, seems like:
- No game engine
- Three.js plus https://github.com/gkjohnson/three-mesh-bvh
- Houdini and Blender for modelling
- Substance for texturing
- Figma and Affinity Photo for UI
- GSAP and vanilla JS for animation
- Davinci Resolve for sound
- WebSocket/Node.js for multiplayer
Plus a lot of experience, creativity, and artistry to solve other challenges (e.g. shaders, shadows) and wire everything together into this pretty performant piece of art.
The studio also has a case study here of another project they made, with other hints about their tooling and process:
https://www.awwwards.com/igloo-inc-case-study.html
Just for anyone like me who played this and spent the whole time thinking, "this is beautiful, who are you and how did you make this?" The author names are only revealed in the credits at the end:
https://vlucendo.com/
https://x.com/michaelsungaila (nice work on the beach shader!)
https://www.kevincolombin.com/ (music)
https://summer-afternoon.vlucendo.com/
What's the 5th thing you have to find?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIxyyEaPr0&t=1177s
But this new game seems to make use more textures and cell shading.
- This will _only_ need a browser to run. No console. No PC rig. No Steam account. No account at all. You just need a link to play it.
- Why use a heavy game engine and all the baggage that can bring when you can make a lightweight prototype in JS, prove value in the browser, then port to desktop if you choose to.
Browser games are an underexplored art form.
As opposed to creating binaries for every platform and be subject to every possible store scrutiny on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac?
That not a waste of time for sure.
What am I ever reading?
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If anyone knows of similar games / apps / software tools that I could show as examples of solo developer small scope simple UI games I'm always trying to find more..
> https://xcancel.com/abeto_co
> https://xcancel.com/vlucendo
> https://xcancel.com/michaelsungaila
> https://kevincolombin.bandcamp.com/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/653530/Return_of_the_Obra...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papers,_Please
https://www.awwwards.com/summer-afternoon.html
It seems to be making smart choices about compression techniques.
This is a good showcase of how well games can work on the web if done well.
There's no market for flash style web games so you don't see it.
I'm not trying to be a demoscene smart-ass here, either (I expect demoscene masters would've packed the equivalent in under 1MB). Just that, models are low-poly, the world is small and made up from pieces that feel simple to describe; as long as you're not trying to bake everything into a static set of meshes, but willing to encode them at a higher level, 5MB seems like plenty.
For a dimensionally reduced analogy, the 2D equivalent would be a perfect example of an image that's very large in raster form, but quite small in vector form.
Are my intuitions widely off here?
Note that this does not make it any less impressive - on the contrary, I'm amazed by how much detail and soul is there to this world, despite apparent simplicity. I'm also amazed at how navigable this world is. I've made many stupid moves that I was dead sure will wedge me between walls, or get me stuck in a nook with no way of going back; but none of that happened. They must've put a lot of thought into the design, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manually mapped out the world to ensure there's no one-way paths.
The 3D models are compressed with 'Draco' compression. So for example the largest asset is a model of the entire world which is 333 kB. It consists of 81k vertices. Unoptimized that would mean at least 3 32 bit floats per vertex, which would be at least 972 kB uncompressed. So Draco compression is doing a pretty good job getting the model sizes down.
I'd have to dig into it more but I suspect if they wanted to they could have trimmed the size down quite a bit, but it may not be worth the effort. They could have used more repeat 3D models, but instead it looks like they went for a more artist driven look where most of the world is uniquely modeled.
It also looks like they're sending a bunch of lower res levels of detail per model over the network. That also is a tradeoff. Still with network speeds as they are nowadays it may be faster / simpler to send those over the wire each time instead of regenerating the level of detail.
The textures are a similar story. Well compressed but they're sending procedural noise over the network. Those could be generated but it's also trivial to send them over the network.
https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2024/page-weight#fig-37
So, 5-15 for a video game (vs a static document) is pretty good!
I love it.
One additional input, although I could play it well on the desktop - the mobile gameplay made me a tad nauseous. I am someone prone to nausea in VR too, but I’ve never felt this in any other mobile game before. I think it’s probably the amount of motion (hilly topography) and the very narrow field of view, along with the way the mobile controls behave. This was on iOS Safari btw (iPhone 16 Pro Max).
In fact, it's the best looking game experience on a foldable I've seen so far (most games are designed for either mobile or tablet form factor, and can't quite handle the in-between). And it's cool how you can just fold or unfold the device on the fly, and the game just adapts without anything more noticeable than the camera pivoting a bit if needed to keep the character on-screen. No stutter, no half-second pause for UI to realign, not even perspective change.
EDIT: I just realized it's probably not a mobile-specific thing, and sure enough, on a desktop you can just resize your browser window to see this.
As a web developer who doesn't make games...I'm a bit overwhelmed by the vast knowledge gap that clearly exists between what I know and what would be required to make this.
Wow. It's so beautiful and enjoyable to wander about in.
as for the game itself, I couldn't understand how to deliver the messages.