Balanc3d

Games

tilt ball maze game

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Balanc3d

Balancing game for the mobile browser with increasing difficulty

balanc3dgame.com

#balancing game#browser game#tilt controls#marble maze#mobile browser game

338points
102comments
#162of 3,515 in 2024
Top 5%of 2024 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

20 positive, 30 neutral or asking, 7 mixed, 21 critical, out of 78 comments about the project. Thread score +0.02.

Execution: 3 for, 12 againstDesign: 5 for, 7 againstIdea: 5 for, 0 againstPerformance: 2 for, 1 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Responsive, precise controls and keyboard controls feel good

    From 3 comments
  • Nostalgic Marble Madness and Monkey Ball feel

    From 3 comments
    • Marble Madness vibes. One of my favorite nostalgia games. I think having 3 lives per level with it resetting just that level might be better for starters, then the 3 lives for…
      sen on HN
    • One of the first big games on the original iPhone after the App Store was shipped was “super Monkey Ball”, a port of a popular console franchise. It was basically this but with…
      M4v3R on HN
    • This is awesome! Makes me wanna play Monkey Ball!
      yzzyx on HN
  • Polished graphics and motion

    From 2 comments
    • very nicely done with all the graphics and motion. One thing i would add is autofocus attribute on the next button so that i just have to hit enter.
      developer1000 on HN
    • Extremely well done! I didn't know you could access gyroscope from the browser.
      alabhyajindal on HN

Objections

  • Camera angle and neutral flat-phone orientation are awkward

    From 3 comments
    • Nice work! Some thoughts: The camera is tilted instead of looking straight down, and my phone needs to be flat to be in the no movement neutral position. This is unpleasant in to…
      Laremere on HN
    • Very cool! An issue I immediately had is that it seems to be coded for a horizontal plane being zero. This means I must hold my phone looking down at it, which isn’t how I want…
      Waterluvian on HN
    • Needs to have some visual feedback of the orientation. Also the ball is too heavy & slow. And as someone else said the perspective is wrong.
      IshKebab on HN
  • Doesn't work on some browsers or devices such as Firefox Android and iPad

    From 4 comments
    • Doesn't work in Firefox for Android.
      dmos62 on HN
    • Doesn’t work on ipad? I can click Start, but in the next screen nothing reacts to input.
      stpedgwdgfhgdd on HN
    • Doesn't work on Chrome for android. Mid range android phone though
      sufficer on HN
    • I'm on chrome on android and it's not working for me. I see 3 dots on the left, a 1 on the right, but nothing seems to happen when clicking/swiping
      hanniabu on HN
  • Ball can fall off the map and fall forever without losing a life

    From 3 comments
    • The ball just falls off and then endlessly falls through space…
      speg on HN
    • The ball can pop over the sides near the start. When this happens it falls forever without triggering the next life
      pbronez on HN
    • I was laying on my back. Started up the game without resetting my phone to a flat state. Then the ball fell off the map. No automatic reset like the other levels. Maybe this is a…
      xyst on HN
  • Speedrun exploit lets players skip levels by flipping the phone

    From 3 comments
    • you can speedrun by playing with the phone screen facing down. tilt it slightly and the ball will go super fast. you can sort of "fly", too, and climb up walls. i got to level 9…
      nasso_dev on HN
    • Can confirm. "Finished" all 10 levels in a minute on my first try of this strategy. Maybe the end detection area is too high...
      Liftyee on HN
    • You can get the ball off the ground if you turn your phone upside down. Then you can just sort of fly over the places where you'd normally fall. Takes maybe a minute or two to…
      pyryt on HN

Requests

  • Let players set a custom neutral orientation or add a zero button

    From 3 comments
    • Very cool! An issue I immediately had is that it seems to be coded for a horizontal plane being zero. This means I must hold my phone looking down at it, which isn’t how I want…
      Waterluvian on HN
    • Suggesttion: Have a button where people can "zero" their phone orientation. Looks good!
      meowster on HN
    • +1, tilt should be dampened towards the natural orientation the phone was in during initialization
      lwansbrough on HN
  • Remove or soften lives, or allow infinite retries per level

    From 3 comments
    • Awesome! Make it a daily Wordle-style game! I need something new in my morning routine. I think having a universal 3-life max is very harsh. I died on level 9 and was sent back…
      SamBam on HN
    • Nice! I would like it more without the "lives" though.
      ghnws on HN
    • Marble Madness vibes. One of my favorite nostalgia games. I think having 3 lives per level with it resetting just that level might be better for starters, then the 3 lives for…
      sen on HN
  • Add a leaderboard or comparison of completion times

    From 2 comments
    • I like it! Unsolicited improvement suggestion: When I finish a level, let me see how well I did compared to others.
      logrot on HN
    • A leaderboard for speed runners would be interesting :)
      georges_gomes on HN
  • Add a visual orientation indicator

    From 2 comments
    • You can always have a “bubble level” showing you the orientation. Anything is better than requiring a player to orient themselves very specifically to play at all.
      Waterluvian on HN
    • Needs to have some visual feedback of the orientation. Also the ball is too heavy & slow. And as someone else said the perspective is wrong.
      IshKebab on HN
  • Make it installable as a web app

    From 1 comment
    • Create a webapp from it. The typical usecase for an installable version. Add service worker and a manifest.json. that way on android phones you have an icon.
      holoduke on HN

Questions

  • Is there a way to avoid redoing completed levels?

    From 1 comment
    • I lost a bunch of times on level 7 and then was sent back to level 1. Is there a way to avoid redoing completed levels?
      tromp on HN
  • What engine or library was used?

    From 2 comments

Alternatives named

  • Marble Blast Gold

    From 1 comment
    • For me, this took me back to Marble Blast Gold. An early 2000s game with essentially the same concept. Great fun :-)
      sunday_serif on HN
  • Super Monkey Ball

    From 1 comment
    • One of the first big games on the original iPhone after the App Store was shipped was “super Monkey Ball”, a port of a popular console franchise. It was basically this but with…
      M4v3R on HN
  • Marble Madness

    From 1 comment
    • Marble Madness vibes. One of my favorite nostalgia games. I think having 3 lives per level with it resetting just that level might be better for starters, then the 3 lives for…
      sen on HN
  • Oxyd and Enigma

    From 2 comments
    • My neutral position is tilting away from me, even. Not ideal but fun game either way. Reminds me of Oxyd: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyd (I've only played the nineties mac…
      andrelaszlo on HN
    • Oxyd was core to my childhood gaming as a Mac-only household. Theres a free version called Enigma that has the Oxyd levels by the way!
      Waterluvian on HN
  • Ballance

    From 1 comment
    • this has the feel of an old game called Ballance ... it was amazing and begging for level editor. Amazing job.
      ReptileMan on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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