Show HN: Neil the Seal Game
99 points
8 days ago
| 35 comments
| neiltheseal.app
| HN
Neil the seal now has a game to destroy Battery Point.
Jordan-117
5 days ago
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Cute! But the car challenges in Tier 8 feel undoable -- they're a bear to "steer" and can't seem to go more than a short distance before bursting into flames.
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rladd
5 days ago
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I nudged a car exactly into the pool and got no credit for it. It had exploded already though, so perhaps that was the problem?
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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fixed, must be pre-exploded, made it harder to explode a car.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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I am thinking of changing that cars only explode on slams, so it is easier to nudge on mobile. Desktop is much easier.
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Jordan-117
5 days ago
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I played on desktop and it seemed pretty impossible tbh. They veer around unpredictably when bumped, and explode long before you can plausibly bump them into a pool. Limiting that to slams would definitely help though!
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Done
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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fixed
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ninju
4 days ago
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For those who don't know Neil....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_the_Seal

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robbiejs
4 days ago
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Cool game! Reminds me of the untitled Goose Game, bullying citizens, is that a genre? It should definitely be a genre.
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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Untitled Goose Game is an inspiration, UGG is such a beautiful game with such amazing attention to detail.
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efilife
4 days ago
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Goat simulator as well
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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Goat Simulator is such good game and a lot more intense, I want Neil The Seal to be more chilled.
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byhemechi
5 days ago
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i regret to inform you that we drive on the left in australia
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Fixed.

Even worse is I am Australian, I spent a lot of time and concentrating on the left, discussed it with my wife and kids, yet somehow I still got it wrong.

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pelagic_sky
5 days ago
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I regret to inform you but this inst Australia it’s Tasmania. /s
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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I should add mushrooms!
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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added
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jumploops
5 days ago
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My preschooler loves the Untitled Goose Game, please vibe-port this to the Switch (:
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Yes - my kids love that game too, and I should.
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latexr
5 days ago
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I wanted to like it but found it immediately frustrating on mobile:

* The joystick is too sensitive, so it’s hard to keep a straight line, wobbling everywhere instead. The camera makes it worse. I felt that if I kept going I might get motion sickness.

* Despite moving both cars out of the way and getting through, it always marked just one. Took me three resets and had to move Neil back to properly push them and get that done.

* I have played other browser 3D games on mobile but this was the fastest my phone has ever heat up. I didn’t even know it could become this hot this fast, to the point it’s uncomfortable to hold.

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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Joystick has been improved, I just dampened it down a little. I will look at the cars, I deliberately added the back and front sensitivity in an early version, it is okay on desktop horrible on mobile. Battery improvements implemented dropping the load by 90% with a minor change :)
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retentionissue
4 days ago
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Loving the Cleveland Brown reference (if that's the intention) of people falling out of knocked down houses in their bath tubs.
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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I didn't know the reference, I wanted to add funny elements to destroying the houses.
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retentionissue
4 days ago
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Well it's funny nonetheless and a nice little homage to Family Guy. Also, how does the car dunking function? I've dropped two cars into pools now whilst on fire and still no achievement :(
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SCPlayz7000
3 days ago
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In the game's beginning, the water doesnt render very well for me. Perhaps it's because I have a lower-end device.
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MarcScott
5 days ago
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You inspired me to make one for kids to create in Scratch

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/neil-the-seal/0

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chao-
5 days ago
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Sound isn't working in Firefox on Linux, but otherwise very fun. The only thing it's missing are Neil's favorite traffic cones ;)

Also glad that Neil is getting the protection he needs (and the public as well) despite the media attention.

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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Cones have been added. Sound improvements implemented.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Yes I need to add the cones.
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davewasthere
5 days ago
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I can't blow up the servo, even though I've totally wrecked it.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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yeah, quite a few people have made the same comment. I should normalise the damage across the different elements so a single element does stop it from being destroyed.
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davewasthere
5 days ago
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nvm. One little pole did the trick
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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fixed it to be a much better experience.
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UrMomsRobotLovr
4 days ago
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This is great. I don't know how to get chain reaction but I have already spent a decent amount of my work say knocking off achievements....
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UrMomsRobotLovr
4 days ago
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Got it. Need more achievements please haha.

Thanks for this!

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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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Absolutely, I honestly thought it would be my kids and a few people into indie would like it, Cloudflare says there has been over 50k unique visitors which is pretty amazing, and a good sign that it could be more.
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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push a burning car next to another car.
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rickydroll
5 days ago
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On my desktop, On Firefox, I just got a uniform blue screen. On Chrome, I could turn left or right, but that was all. The W, S, and C keys didn't work.
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mrspacejam
5 days ago
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Brilliant, I love Neil, great idea to immortalize him.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Thank you,
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HanClinto
5 days ago
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This is pretty hilarious. :D Feels like a combination of Untitled Goose Game and Goat Simulator. Vibe-coded? It's pretty impressive.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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I have been occasionally building indie games since the 90's, so a bit of experience mixed with AI coding Assistant. Some things AI really struggled on, others it blitz.
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SCPlayz7000
3 days ago
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Lovely little game! I also appreciate the meme references.
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dalemhurley
2 days ago
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I wanted to have lots of laughs and Tasmanian references
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YPCrumble
4 days ago
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This is great! Whats the tech stack?

I started thumping cars but then got into an infinite spiral I couldn’t get out of.

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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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three.js and Vite, very basic, I set out originally to make a game where Neil knocks over cones and grew it from there. If I was to start again I would use a game engine as it has scaled further than I intended.

What do you mean by "infinite spiral"?

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benj111
5 days ago
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Well I was deemed to have pushed 1 car. Pushing them slamming 5 more didn't get me past the first level.
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E-Machine
5 days ago
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Great work! I had some rendering issues with some part of the houses' roofs not showing
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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thank you, that has been fixed.
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jackvalentine
5 days ago
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Cars are driving on the wrong side of the road - presumably in terror of His Neilness!
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Completely correct! It was late, I even checked with my wife, she told me the left. Darn, I went the wrong way. Will fix it.
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jackvalentine
5 days ago
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Now driving on the correct side of the road, but wrong side of the roundabout!

Neil’s reign of terror knows no limits.

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protocolture
5 days ago
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Combines my 2 favourite things, cutely annoying animals, and destroying tasmania.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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LOL too true!
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SCPlayz7000
3 days ago
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Is there a way to disable shadows?
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Retr0id
5 days ago
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I love the voice lines
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Retr0id
5 days ago
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I got stuck on the "push a car into a pool" quest, even with the car directly on top of a pool it didn't go in. The car-pushing physics seem buggy, the rotation direction seems opposite to what it should be.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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yes agree. pools need to be bigger and cars need to be easier to push.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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fixed now
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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yeah, me too, lots of laughs.
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purple-leafy
5 days ago
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Cute but your volume and camera buttons don’t work at all
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ymolodtsov
5 days ago
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Neil broke them already damnit
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Good on ya Neil.
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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was that on desktop or mobile?
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purple-leafy
5 days ago
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Mobile iPhone 15, also the action button is really slow to react
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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thank you, hopefully it is fixed now.
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sheldon7337
4 days ago
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Not what i expected, but kind of cute.
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dalemhurley
2 days ago
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what did you expect?
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BSTRhino
5 days ago
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haha this is cool :) What made you choose to code this as a webgame? In either case, good idea much easier to share
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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I wanted to create a proof of concept and used three.js a few years ago, Codex made the POC much easier and faster to build.
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FantasyLabai
4 days ago
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Cool game! Love free web games.
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dalemhurley
2 days ago
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Me too
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jezzamon
5 days ago
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I can tell this is at least partially vibe coded... Out of curiosity, how much did you use AI for this?
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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I have been building games since the late 90's, this is the first one I used AI Assisted coding, I wouldn't call it vibe coded as I am in control of the code, the implementation, the decisions, and approval.

I am using Codex GPT-5.5 $20p/m.

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worthless-trash
5 days ago
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Missing bollards.
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doodpants
5 days ago
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I think I saw Jesus, because a guy ran right across the surface of a swimming pool.
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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yeah the NPCs need a bit more attention.
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alvaro_l_torres
3 days ago
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love it
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infinitebit
5 days ago
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i love this. i don’t understand why web games like this aren’t more prevalent
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Benjamin_Dobell
5 days ago
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They are. There's a LOT of web games on itch.io. It's just the typical challenge with over saturated markets: publicity.
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purple-leafy
5 days ago
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They are incredibly hard to market, I built a web game and it’s so hard to get traction lol

And it’s quite a bit more polished than most web games. Too complex though so I’m fixing that.

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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Competition. Marketing. Expectations.

In the 1990's and early 2000's I loved building web and flash games, people had lower expectations, getting notice was easy (StumbleUpon etc) and there wasn't a lot other choices.

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adecoster
4 days ago
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funny one!
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dalemhurley
4 days ago
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Thank you
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crowd51
5 days ago
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Lol definitely a cute game. Good job
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Thank you, I hope it made you smile.
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finecode
7 days ago
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Fun game! One quick piece of UX feedback: when adjusting the direction, the entire screen rotates along with it, which makes me feel a bit dizzy. It might be helpful to have an option to lock the screen orientation or smooth out the rotation. Great work overall!
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dalemhurley
5 days ago
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Thank you, hopefully the new changes make it better.
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