alt Hacker NewsShow HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)
I've found the most engaging way to practice techniques for AI-assisted development and test models is to build fun side projects in vanilla JS.
I spent many hours playing (and studying and editing) QBasic Gorillas, and this is a vanilla JS implementation using Fable and Opus.
Play 1-on-1 hotseat or against the computer. A bit of extra camera snazz as well.
Comments
I like it. I know it's silly, but I could clearly waste time on this. BTW great idea to build fun stuff to practice new tools.
As somebody who grew up in the era of MS-DOS and QBASIC - it's pretty amusing to see two AI-assisted GORILLA.BAS web games in the past week.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48856350
Can also play the original as well online
https://classicreload.com/play/qbasic-gorillas.html
Feedback
- the wind/round text should NOT be placed over buildings because.... one of the buildings is gray thus making it almost impossible to read.
- I'd honestly get rid of the pseudo-CRT scanline filter - it looks grainy more than anything. For a better reference see https://github.com/gingerbeardman/webgl-crt-shader
- When implementing camera follow one thing you need is a sort of "grace window". Right now it's so tightly coupled to the movement of the banana it practically gives you whiplash.
The arrow length does not represent power accurately, There's a minimum arrow length even when power is nearly 0, which means when the arrow is twice as long, the power is actually almost 50 times higher! It should be directly proportional. Perhaps there should be different indicators for "power" and "direction" -- maybe a fixed-length dotted line arrow for direction? And/or a power bar that is not anchored to the player position?
The arrow for wind strength also seems to be a different scale, making it hard to judge how much to compensate.
Trying to aim with the mouse immediately shows me "made by a fucking clanker"...
holy gorilla! i think QBasic Gorillas is the first graphics game i have memory of playing as a child. i remember attempting to read the code as a kid and being wildly confused by it. thanks for the brief trip down memory lane.