alt.hn

7/31/2026 at 5:11:53 PM

Show HN: Slope remade in HTML5 to load instantly on any browser, any device

https://hurtle.site/

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 7:01:13 PM

Had some fun! One suggestion:

Track generation needs a slightly longer bit at the start that is straight, wide and has no obstacles.

The reason for this is the way the touchscreen controls work (exclusively played on phone with touchscreen). They are surprising to at least me, but possibly to a lot of people who have played mobile games. I was expecting it to be like a virtual joystick - wherever you put your finger down is the reference and then you are steering relative to that. The problem I'm having is that it's really hard to put my finger down at the start of the run and not have an immediate swerve of the ball. When you're on narrow track (or effectively narrow track due to an obstacle) like today a large proportion of the time I immediately died before I was in control of my ball.

AFTER that the controls work well and I really like them. They give more precision than a "virtual joystick" would. But I think they need explaining ("ball goes towards finger") and allowance to get in control at the start.

by rkangel

8/1/2026 at 1:49:42 AM

It’s funny—I also wrongly assumed that the controls required me to tilt my phone and died instantly. It does say right there on the main screen “drag your thumb anywhere on the screen” but I didn’t know what “Arrows and A/D” meant. I don’t really play games on my phone very often…

by raddan

7/31/2026 at 8:28:48 PM

That's such a great, fair point. I'm going to incorporate that one right away! Thank you!

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 6:55:53 PM

That's impressive... how long did it take you? How much did you have to check the model's work? What frameworks did you use?

by dash2

7/31/2026 at 8:30:59 PM

Just one week of constant iterations (I lost count). Just Claude Opus conversations, it built the whole thing.

So it was HTML5 from the very beginning, but started out very crude and rudimentary. Got the gameplay right first, then polished, polished, polished.

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 7:06:41 PM

Fun! Top 100 daily leaderboard?

by mef51

7/31/2026 at 7:11:31 PM

Ok I'll start one here, I got 23763 on track #665 :)

by mef51

7/31/2026 at 8:31:50 PM

42,992 on track #665

by novlrdotcom

8/1/2026 at 1:31:37 AM

Damn. I keep falling into this weird visual trance after about 4000 where I can't focus on the ball anymore and it ends up in the periphery of where I'm looking.

by kylecazar

7/31/2026 at 9:31:51 PM

Playing that game reminded me of the level of concentration I needed to beat the levels in Battletoads in Battlemaniacs on the SNES. (I never played the NES version.)

by Foobar8568

7/31/2026 at 10:29:34 PM

Yeah it's old school difficult. But I'm going to take the suggestion above and make the beginning easier for longer.

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 6:40:58 PM

Thanks, really enjoying it!

by chuchurocka

7/31/2026 at 8:32:53 PM

Thank you :)

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 6:39:41 PM

Cool, minimalist. I lke it

by grigio

7/31/2026 at 8:32:44 PM

Amazing, thanks :)

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 6:48:24 PM

This is addictive.

by timnetworks

7/31/2026 at 8:33:04 PM

Then share please! :)

by novlrdotcom

7/31/2026 at 6:22:30 PM

I like it!

by tipiirai

7/31/2026 at 6:28:01 PM

:)

by novlrdotcom