YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Multiplayer tanks that demolish real buildings from OpenStreetMap

70 points n4ze3m 4 hours ago 51 comments

vfosnar 3 hours ago | parent

as an active osm contributor and community member and io games enjoyer i love this.

if the author is readin this by any chance pretty please improve the attribution placement, projects like this are whats bringin interested people in to help us build a better open map for everyone <3

n4ze3m 3 hours ago | parent

Thank you! You're right, it was buried behind a tiny ⓘ. Fixed now, so the OpenStreetMap credit is always visible in-game and on the home screen.

indrex 3 hours ago | parent

Saw no buildings. Fired at the next tank.

n4ze3m 3 hours ago | parent

tanks can fight each other too! Press M and drive somewhere new for buildings nobody has flattened yet

jaapz 3 hours ago | parent

5 minute respawn timer after being shot is a bit excessive

notcrazylol 3 hours ago | parent

yeah i just started and someone shot me. Now i gotta wait 5mins?

n4ze3m 2 hours ago | parent

Fair point, Just cut it to 30 seconds.

glibg10b 2 hours ago | parent

It keeps saying "Your connection dropped. Let’s get you back out there." after a few seconds, then returns me to my spawn point. I don't see any bad HTTP status codes in the network tab

Can you make it a little more resilient on Wifi + 4G? I would really like to try this, it seems fun

Also, incorporating elevation data would also be really cool

n4ze3m 2 hours ago | parent

thanks, found it! The server was kicking laggy connections. Fixed, and it auto-reconnects now.

glibg10b 2 hours ago | parent

Hah, I thought it just randomly started working. But no, you fixed it :)

igleria 2 hours ago | parent

I don't get it, how is it possible people are in my local town? or is this more populr than this thread? fun stuff nevertheless.

n4ze3m 2 hours ago | parent

Real people, no bots :) If you join with the default option, you're dropped near where other players are already fighting, so you'll usually find company

igleria 1 hour ago | parent

but I chose Drogheda! (random ass town in Ireland)

nothingnix 1 hour ago | parent

The others probably chose to spawn "near players", so that's how they ended up in your random ass town in Ireland

Den_VR 1 hour ago | parent

I can see the potential already for an acquisition by Match Group.

discoinverno 2 hours ago | parent

Nice! Are tanks spawned at the last picked location? I picked my hometown as I wanted to demolish a friend's house, and I was surprised to find 2 tanks there (it's a random small city in Europe).

I also have the bug where it keeps respawning me to the starting point after ~30 seconds

n4ze3m 2 hours ago | parent

They're real players, no bots! The 30-second reset was a connection bug, fixed now.

m00dy 2 hours ago | parent

it's missing interpolation on position estimation.

n4ze3m 2 hours ago | parent

It was timed by server ticks, which fell behind under today's load. It's fixed now, so refresh and it should be smoother.

m00dy 36 minutes ago | parent

add some bots.

n4ze3m 11 minutes ago | parent

I actually built bots today for load testing. Maybe they'll get to play for real some day.

RicoElectrico 2 hours ago | parent

Similar in spirit: https://kaijumietz.de/

netsharc 2 hours ago | parent

I guess I wasn't the first to have the idea to flatten the White House...

Bye bye, ballroom!

pythonRon 2 hours ago | parent

It would be more fun if I could pick a city. Knocking down Trump's white house would be a kick.

pythonRon 2 hours ago | parent

Or Trump Towers!

hobofan 2 hours ago | parent

You can pick a city and exact location on the map.

snvzz 1 hour ago | parent

That's how you get the law enforcement knock on your door.

brontosaurusrex 2 hours ago | parent

Is there a way to change viewing angle?

n4ze3m 1 hour ago | parent

Yes! Press C to switch between the chase and overhead camera, and scroll (or pinch on mobile) to zoom.

brontosaurusrex 1 hour ago | parent

I understand. I meant, can i get rid of this top-down view? I like the lowpoly model btw, is that something you modeled or ai creation?

ByThyGrace 1 hour ago | parent

This thing just crashed my whole DE. My GPU reset. Haven't had one like that in years.

n4ze3m 1 hour ago | parent

Sorry! It's WebGL, so it shouldn't be able to do that. Which browser, OS and GPU? I'd like to track it down.

anonymous908213 1 hour ago | parent

This happens on every shitty vibe coded 3D webapp that makes it onto HN. I don't know what the fuck they're feeding these bots.

heggy 1 hour ago | parent

Fun idea but horribly laggy. Just driving down a street and I would get bounced back constantly and make very little progress. Ping was showing up as much as 5000ms

n4ze3m 1 hour ago | parent

sorry, that's on me! Way more people showed up than I expected and the server couldn't keep up. When it falls behind it drops your inputs and yanks your tank back, so that's the bouncing. I found the culprit (collision checks looking at way too many buildings)

croniev 1 hour ago | parent

Just me or is this a bit cynical? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the gameplay is fun and everything. Just the concept makes me really uneasy, especially as I have a friend who's house was destroyed recently in war...

n4ze3m 1 hour ago | parent

I'm really sorry about your friend's home. I never meant it that way. It started as just a 3D map that you could drive around. Then I added collisions, then a tank, and it grew into a game from there. None of it came from anything in real life. But I understand why it feels uneasy when war is real for people you know.

AspireOne 57 minutes ago | parent

I think it's fun, not cynical at all. I'm sure if my close one was shot, I'd be uneasy playing call of duty, and so on.

I'm sorry for your friend.

tokai 52 minutes ago | parent

You are overreacting. Its not cynical.

sd9 47 minutes ago | parent

I'm surprised by the comments defending this, I also think it's in poor taste. I wouldn't say cynical, in my opinion it's worse than that, it's too real.

tokai 11 minutes ago | parent

This kind of outrage takes away from things that are actually distasteful and cynical. Conflating unproblematic things with actual harmful things is a you problem. Policing tone, while people are actually dying out there, is more cynical that this game. The only outcome here is there you guys feel better about yourself.

latexr 46 minutes ago | parent

I had a similar thought.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997

If your friend would be willing to share their thoughts, I’m interested in learning. Of course, if they don’t want to share or you think it would be disrespectful to even ask, don’t. I’m just thinking the perspective of such people should not be ignored.

DonHopkins 28 minutes ago | parent

Can you play as Benjamin Netanyahu?

bemtevi 4 minutes ago | parent

I think it's rather poor taste to code something like this. Usually when buildings or other things are destroyed in movies or even a game, it's to tell some kind of story. In a way telling the story brings the justification because the destruction in the story is usually counterbalanced by someone trying to stop it, which brings the story to the level of good being done.

This is just wanton destruction and has nothing good in it.

fixitplz 55 minutes ago | parent

I want to try this but every time I try to join either from my mobile or desktop (both on WiFi), I get this error: "That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one." that comes from the Railway-hosted wss://worldstrike.fun/ws

Here's a full response with headers:

HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols Connection: Upgrade Sec-Websocket-Accept: GeKaJfsfiYd9s2vROz7kMU3RDWA= Sec-Websocket-Extensions: permessage-deflate; server_no_context_takeover; client_no_context_takeover server: railway-hikari Upgrade: websocket X-Railway-Request-Id: UA8DKXk_TKiusD2aYqVb7A x-hikari-trace: lhr1.7mfs x-railway-edge: lhr1

{"type":"error","message":"That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one."} Connection Closed: 1005

n4ze3m 51 minutes ago | parent

sorry thats confusing names are locked to the first browser that users them, so someone else probably took it

latexr 52 minutes ago | parent

I am genuinely interested in the opinions of people who live in or fled war-torn countries. Would they find this in poor taste? That it trivialises ongoing struggles? Have they tried looking into their own cities? Do they not care? Do they think this is somehow useful? Does it surface memories? Are they more bothered by the execution?

Of course, we’d need more than one or two data points. If you know someone (or are you yourself) in that situation, I’d welcome learning your thoughts. No judgement or ulterior motive, just looking to understand another perspective.

Edit: And, of course, the downvotes are already coming. Don’t know why I bother with this community anymore. Call for exploiting and exterminating other people (I’m not talking about this submission) and you are celebrated; but try to be empathetic and learn about others, no sirree, can’t have that, that’s a grave offence to the great hacker blowhards who frequent the big AI News network. This community has become putrid.

jagged-chisel 34 minutes ago | parent

Would love to see some stats on what people decide to destroy …

n4ze3m 12 minutes ago | parent

about 7500 buildings have been destroyed since this was posted. most are houses, shops, restaurants and offices. I'll add a stats page soon so anyone can see it.