Airmash – a game that refused to die

https://www.janwillemboer.nl/blog/posts/2019-11-airmash-history/

by janwillemb • 7 years ago

179 35 7 years ago

janwillemboer.nl

dang• 7 years ago

The original Show HN was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892066

sweettea• 7 years ago

I love airmash. I am so glad it didnt die. A great community and a good game.

numlock86• 7 years ago

Link is literally exhausted.

airmashonline2• 7 years ago

For anyone who wants to play, Airmash lives on at https://airmash.online and https://starma.sh

It's been a great community effort in keeping it alive, thank you to everyone who has contributed!

RisenTide3• 7 years ago

There are currently 2 replacement server implementations, the first was done in Rust ( https://github.com/steamroller-airmash/airmash-server ) powers (I think) all the US servers. It is missing some features like upgrades.

For that reason most of the 'life' is on EU servers, despite the increased latency for US players, which are using a newer and slightly more complete Node.js implementation ( https://github.com/wight-airmash/ab-server ). If you're trying it out, be sure to check out EU.

molmalo4• 7 years ago

Nice seeing this here!

Also: https://starma.sh for the Starmash version :)

airmashonline2• 7 years ago

Hey Bombita, thanks for the reminder, edited my comment :)

greesil• 7 years ago

Ghettobird here. Hello!

therein• 7 years ago

Hey bombita, /dev/null over here. :)

armaxt• 7 years ago

Detect, xplay, Moz, xyz, praise kek, yutru, those were the days

your-nanny2• 7 years ago

Detect and xplay and yutru are there now. Still devastating the restof us paeons.

janwillemb2• 7 years ago

Site down, there is a mirror here: https://github.com/spatiebot/airmash-history/blob/master/REA...

codetrotter• 7 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20191130205446/https://www.janwi... works as well.

RisenTide3• 7 years ago

Since Airmash was released on HN, this is as good as any place to put out a message for the original developer -- we love your work! Is there any chance we could continue it more officially in your stead?

There have been a ton of ideas floating around in-game since almost forever. I think by now most of them appear at https://github.com/airmash-refugees/game-ideas/issues .

The biggest issue is that no free frontend exists, and even if it did, some aspects of reimplementing both backend and frontend have interesting problems, such as in the functions to calculate trajectories and the data they use. There is no way to replicate the original Airmash without preserving almost exactly this code. It would be amazing to receive your blessing at least to borrow these aspects.

-- (every Airmash addict ever, especially those racking up hours almost every day even after the official server died)

SubiculumCode• 7 years ago

I second this call!

ralfd• 7 years ago

If the Airmash name is trademarked, can't one reach the original developer (or their lawyer/estate) by this?

tqkxzugoaupvwqr• 7 years ago

I assumed the game’s author got a contract and was busy working on a new game. That he was never heard from again makes me sad. I truly hope he lives a happy life. If you read this: Thank you for this great game!

chewzerita• 7 years ago

HN hug of death!

Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20191130223010/https://www.janwi...

janwillemb2• 7 years ago

I totally admit I wasn't prepared for this. Mirror here: https://github.com/spatiebot/airmash-history/blob/master/REA...

your-nanny2• 7 years ago

thank you for writing this history up. I am a regular but never really got involved in the effort to revive (except to announce it's return 10 months ago on HN)--I didn't really know the story.

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

Oh, Airmash, fun as ever. It was our go-to office game for months after initial HN release. When it disappeared, I ended up switching to surviv.io (another thing I think was announced on HN). Now with Airmash back, I don't know what to play anymore :(.

gadgetoid2• 7 years ago

Oh boy, this was an addiction. Just the right mix of classic - Subspace/Continuum - gameplay with the ease of access of a browser game. It felt good to play a game I was half decent at, too. Wrote a Python API, started a Discord server and then life got in the way. Good times, though!

Edit: It’s a little dead these days, but- https://discord.gg/cPVDwRa

xwdv• 7 years ago

Can someone explain the appeal of the game? Seems like a pretty basic air shooter, not sure why it became a cult classic.

gadgetoid2• 7 years ago

Easy to learn, hard to master, as simple as opening a browser tab to get it up and running. It was a perfect storm of tight gameplay and low barrier to entry. I also suspect many people hadn’t come across a game like this before- I can’t even name a multiplayer top down shooter like this save for Continuum.

molmalo4• 7 years ago

I guess for many of the players of old, it was because of the community, that was comprised mainly of HN folks. So, the chat was very nice and interesting.

Supermancho• 7 years ago

Also, a game that's basically 2.5 years old "refusing to die" is not particularly interesting. Games wax and wane for years before becoming mainstream or dying off.

EamonnMR• 7 years ago

I remember when Airmash was posted as a Show HN. It was fun and far more performant then it had any right to be.

mkoryak• 7 years ago

this reminds me of subspace. another game that refused to die and was maintained by players. except this happened before waaaaay before git was a thing, around 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_(video_game)

I played this game for 8+ hours per day in middle school and high school and it was a major reason for me not getting into any good schools. It was worth it.

sv123• 7 years ago

Subspace was so awesome, and playing airmash had a very familiar feel to it.

airfoil• 7 years ago

Love Airmash. I started playing it again on Thanksgiving day after being away from it for over a year and it's been a blast!

umen• 7 years ago

Great story ..

Is there any more web games communities like this game?

vijay_nair• 7 years ago

yutru here; I ran into Raste earlier on EU CTF and was wondering how that happened... now I know : )

Thanks for making this post Jan, I hope it brings some of the old timers out of hiatus and back into the game for a second inning. Had some great memories with them, like watching aimbot and bug, two players who knew one another from their Subspace days back in their teens, come together once again after all these years apart to carry the red flag to victory; detect and xyz aggressively spamming south entrance of blue base in preds giving me hell on defense; the whole bot-based shenanigans with blankspace dude; Dr.Pepper posting absolutely ginormous guides on how to play on our reddit then getting angry in the comments; sniper and his kid doing a father-son combo sweep of the map; that one epic 5-hour game last February when spy had to infitrate blue team to act as a decoy to finally end the ordeal and many, many more... the whole thing was a riot and a half. The past couple of years was roller-coaster ride personally but Airmash and the often lovely, sometimes crazy, players were the one constant in my life the entire time. You guys are fantastic.

Thanks to yourself, Bombita, Steamroller, gadgetoid and Nuppet for not only keeping the game alive in (nine|five)sigma's absence but even chaperoning it to a better place.

Shout out to Rockzone for being the first one to mentor me in the ways of Airmash. Miss you buddy. Also miss (North|South|Undead) Korea who taught me base defense... notice me sempai! Shout out to xplay and secvtor, my good friends who are still playing; please don't quit guys, the game will truly be dead for me then : ) Shout out to Moz (I see you working on Notable now, all the best mate :)), Apathy, Praise kek, Maximus, Azimuth, Banmeplz, Fallen, Memer, Benderovec and Marshan, you guys were good players and great company, hope you can swing by sometime. Last but not least, shout out to aimbot who spent an hour of his valuable time teaching me two things: 1. don't oversteer and 2. be orthogonal to missile path to evade. After two years of play I'm still nowhere as good as you'd expect me to be but my k/d has more than doubled from 0.8 to 2 and I'm doing better than ever.

Here's to many more years... pew pew!

RisenTide3• 7 years ago

Happy birthday Vijay!

Airmash – a game that refused to die

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