alt Hacker NewsFirewood Splitting Simulator
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People here seem a little confused. This is a simulator in the same way Goat Simulator is a simulator. It’s from a collection called “screen toys” and it’s meant to be mindless fun.
There was this old Piers Anthony short story about a little kid who likes playing with his dad's wood-splitting kit. He's a little kid so he doesn't handle an axe, but he does use adzes, hatchets, I dunno stuff I don't remember now[1]. Anyway he gets kidnapped by aliens and gets to join a great intergalactic wood-splitting competition. I won't ruin it but maybe if you get really good at this simulation you could be next.
This is HN I'd like to see more of.
Mocking too nerdy gripes on "simulator" accuracy, sharing some real world experience with physical things beyond the screen frames, and on in the same vein.
A breath of fresh air, really, in the prevailing AI smog.
Looks like its coded by someone who has never split firewood. The challenge is not deciding where to split, its executing the split. Like hitting the same gap if it doesn't split, deciding orientation to aoid knots, figuring out how to put it on end if it wasn't cut straight.
And some of the cuts it allowed me would hit the ax handle on another part, the shock from that damages the ax handle and is painful on the hands.
And then there's the lifting the stuck block by the axe and hitting it axe side down to finish the split instead of pulling the stuck axe out.
So the simulation handles none of the challenges of splitting wood.
If this triggers your interest in IRL firewood splitting it’s a very meditative and satisfying yard job. Also great mild to moderate workout between the splitting and stacking, especially on a crisp Fall afternoon.
The pieces look like they retain the shapes I cut them in when stacked. I started cutting them as pie slices, but then tried a few as parallel chops, and they get stacked in those shapes.
Also interesting is the shadows of leaves that stay consistent on the scene as the pile grows, but they don't appear on the splitting area itself.
Lots of engine noise too, I guess that's the ambience in this person's back yard! Probably true for lots of us.
Half the battle is having the right stance so that you don't accidentally embed the axe in your shin.
This simulates a person far more skilled than me.
I never had to adjust the chunk to get it to sit right, the maul hit exactly where I told it to, and it even stacked itself!
It's all very satisfying: the animations, the chopping, the graphics, and the sounds. I spent more time than I should have chopping splitting firewood.
Nothing beats coming home from work, chopping something into pieces, and setting it on fire.
It bothers me that I can split a log in 3 parallel pieces, rotate 90 degrees and then magically can split the middle piece. That's physically difficult! Besides that it was fun.
Delightful little experience. Very nice. What would be even cooler would be if the axe only went partway down sometimes and then you have to lift the log up with the axe inside a couple of times to finish it off with that satisfying full split.
I like how it stacks the firewood.
Looks like a Fiskars axe https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/collections/axes-and-wood-prep...
That was a satisfying part of my day. Thank you.
Bug: No error displayed if WebGL is disabled.
Can I have a "Carry Water Simulator" to go with it?
What about when you’re splitting a log with a branch and the maul bounces straight back up? Lol
This is fun and looks amazing, however there seems to be quite a bit of texture in the out of focus blur. There's also a lot of aliasing on the grass. Also, I think the camera shake could do with a very slight delay after the axe hits, and maybe a slightly slower decay curve.
That was a fun work out. I was wondering what happened when you "filled" the circle of firewood.
Fun experience, but the forced rotation after a certain number of cuts diminishes it.
Thankfully there are no knots and it is softwood. Oddly satisfying.
I need a fireplace or bonfire simulator that I can throw these into.
Fun but hugely unrealistic simulation, so many "bugs":
- Able to split log into unrealistically thin slices and they remain perfectly upright
- Split a log into two, rotate 90 degrees, and by some miracle you can split the half further away from you whilst the piece nearest to you doesn't get hit or move an inch
Missing the splitting axe getting a little jammed at a knot.
Otherwise excellent.
great game and very satisfying.
Nice sim, there's one thing missing though: splitting two sections at the same time. It do this all the time as it can almost double splitting speed when dealing with mid-size logs. Split the log in two halves, making sure to keep the halves close together. Rotate around the splitting block by about 60°, split again hitting both halves at the same time. Do this once more and you've split the log into 6 60° sections, a good size for stacking in the fireplace and also a good section size to be able to light a fire. I split between 5 m³ and 7 m³ of firewood per year which is enough to heat our house and cook our food, have been doing this for about 20 years now so I have some experience. The double-split is a good time saver.
This works amazingly well on my iPhone with obvious touch controls.
Very impressive.
The momentum on the camera spin is very annoying. Really cool though
Feels very satisfying
I spent too much time on this.
Very infuriating, why does it rotate when i want to split it thinner
Quite realistic. Could be more realistic still if you could chop two blocks at once.
good exercise!
Very cool sim!
Honestly I'm more fascinated by the grass around, but I haven't played games in a long time.
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Chop wood, carry water.
This is kinda fun, but doesn't match most of my experience splitting firewood.
The wood barely moves after it's split. If you split it perfectly, the two halves will almost certainly both fall to each side (they're pushed outwards by the axe).
You can't just randomly split it across the grain into slices like you're slicing bread.
I guess mostly: it's not tiring, which sort of sucks when you're doing it for real, but it is satisfying. This doesn't scratch that itch for me, but I guess it's fun in a way, similar to that cleaning simulator thing.