Hexagon 16384

http://rudradevbasak.github.io/16384_hex/

by xtacy • 12 years ago

242 109 12 years ago

rudradevbasak.github.io

As in other derivatives three side strategy works pretty well. In this game that translates to awed key combination with top being accumulation direction.

nkoren• 12 years ago

Programmers of the world: please stop with the 2048 clones. We have jobs to do. Partners to attend to. Friends to acknowledge. Pets to feed. Plants to water. Have some mercy already!

robot_• 12 years ago

Plus, its not really that much fun.

jgh• 12 years ago

Yeah but it's so much easier than making flappy birds clones!

fooqux• 12 years ago

It's a good thing that what is 'fun' is purely objective! Otherwise you wouldn't be able to make such claims and still be taken seriously.

adamb_• 12 years ago

I see these as a perfect code/creativity challenge. Easy to create. Easy to digest. Keep them coming.

judk• 12 years ago

Parent wasn't against the creators creativity, parent is against the stream of games feeding our addiction and taking over our lives.

fnl• 12 years ago

or in the want of more interesting news...

freehunter• 12 years ago

Is 2048 a clone of Threes, or vice versa?

ijk2• 12 years ago

Threes! came first.

The chain roughly goes: Threes! was released in February. A near-clone called 1024! came out on iOS at the start of March. 2048 acknowledges the debt to 1024!, and the first commits to the git repository were in the first week of March.

Once the source code was available, tiny variations became much easier to fork, and we got a cambrian explosion mostly descending from 2048. (There was another 2048 as a parallel development, with significantly different visual style. Not sure where it falls in the timeline.)

crb• 12 years ago

2048 (web) is based on 1024 (iOS), which is an (unashamed?) "free" clone of Threes! (iOS)

http://thoughtfulplay.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/a-short-game-...

Threes! has such great personality. It's so much more than 2048, and it's well worth the buck or so it costs. I hope it's had an uptick since the 2048 craze.

mayanksinghal• 12 years ago

+1. I can't take it anymore! (http://imgur.com/FQEHB7b)

OscarCunningham• 12 years ago

This spawns 1's and expects me to get to 16384. So that'll take about 16383 moves then?

TrainedMonkey3• 12 years ago

Moreover you have a game field of 19 positions and require 14 of them to be filled in order allowing simple combination to 16384. In a game with 6 degrees of freedom this might be challenging.

(1 + 2 + 4 + 8) + (16 + 32 + 64 + 128) + (256 + 512 + 1024 + 2048) + (4096 + 8192)

w-m• 12 years ago

What, it's only a little over two hours if you keep a steady pace of two moves per second.

I just played til I got a 2048 in a corner. It wasn't fun.

rbonvall• 12 years ago

If you thing it'll take you too long, just realize that you'd be playing all the new 2048 clones that will keep appearing during that time anyway.

nathancahill• 12 years ago

Feels like I'm playing 2048 drunk. Every move requires a little thought to make sure I'm moving in the right direction. And having two extra sides on the shape is messing with my eyes.

nollidge• 12 years ago

IDEA: put the letters on the sides of the hexagon so that I don't have to think so hard.

jitl• 12 years ago

This is a great idea!

panic• 12 years ago

I think having buttons to click on the screen (or little arrows next to each side) would help a lot here.

tod222• 12 years ago

Absolutely. There's no reason a keyboard should be necessary to play. I'd much rather use a mouse.

TrainedMonkey3• 12 years ago

Drunk 2048 clone idea - as time goes on probability your move will be replaced with a random move grows.

For example:

after 2 seconds: [0, 1, 0, 0]* => [0.1, 0.8, 0.1, 0]

after 4 seconds: [0, 1, 0, 0] => [0.15, 0.6, 0.15, 0.05]

after 8 seconds: [0, 1, 0, 0] => [0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25]

* Probability of [left, up, right, down] move.

WednesdayBass• 12 years ago

After playing this for what feels like an hour (and what may have actually been an hour) I'm suddenly noticing square edges a lot more in my surroundings.

gengkev• 12 years ago

Suddenly the tabs in Chrome look extremely rectangular...

Kronopath2• 12 years ago

I had that too! Switching back to my IDE I was surprised at how "boxy" my code suddenly looked. It's a really weird psychological phenomenon. I wish I knew why it was happening.

simias• 12 years ago

Can people who use non-qwerty keyboard tell me if they have any convenient tricks for playing those html games that almost never let you rebind keys? Having to switch mapping is so inconvenient...

If web gaming becomes a thing I think people should start thinking about a standard way to let people rebind their keys, through the browser or some common library.

johnsho• 12 years ago

just change you keyboard mapping to qwerty on your computer. you can do this natively on mavericks with the cmd + space shortcut

revscat• 12 years ago

cmd + space defaults to Spotlight.

Yen2• 12 years ago

It's still annoying to need to change the entire input method, and then remember that it's different for that window (or globally, depending on particulars of your system).

In any case, QWERTY is not the default worldwide. The letters 'a', 'w', 'e', 'd', 'z', and 'x' have no special semantic significance for this game, they're chosen for their relative positions in a particular keyboard layout.

The actual game actions of 'shift upper left', 'shift upper right', and so on, should be able to be associated with any particular input - including other keys, or relevant swipe gestures on mobile.

I agree with OP - there should be a standardized way of doing this, so that game authors don't have to re-invent keybindings for every new game. (or, as they're wont to do, fail to re-invent keybindings)

doorhammer• 12 years ago

If you're playing on a windows machine, Autohotkey is probably the easiest solution. You can do key remapping based on the window that's open with #IfWinActive / #IfWinExist.

Writing the scripts is ugly, but effective and not too tough

Zancarius2• 12 years ago

I have to second AHK. Cube World was unplayable for me until I discovered it.

I've yet to find a reasonably good Linux clone of AHK, but then, most Linux games I've encountered tend to be quite configurable. Starbound comes to mind as problematic, but I haven't touched it in a few months.

aragot• 12 years ago

I'm French. I can tell programming is downright painful in Azerty, so I end up buying Qwerty computers and use the "switch to International US" shortcut whenever I need to write French. On that one, quotes and double quotes become accents and tails on letters. You can even put an accent on "l".

sdfjkl• 12 years ago

I'm German. Same thing, I buy US layout keyboards (often paying a premium for import, boo). I long ago retrained myself to the US layout because for programming and system administration localized layouts are hell (the / is on Shift-7 and the parens are offset by one, useful stuff like semicolons has been pushed outwards by useless Umlauts).

On the rare occasion I still write in German, I use OS X' fantastic compose key feature: ⌥u makes two dots and any following key is then converted to an Umlaut, so ⌥u + u = ü, ⌥u + A = Ä.

cammil• 12 years ago

It upsets me that the circles are not hexagons.

Why oh why?

stu_k• 12 years ago

Probably because circles are easier to make in CSS than hexagons :)

dsego• 12 years ago

No, just no.

missing_cipher• 12 years ago

Now we need a 3D one.

batmansbelt• 12 years ago

There has already been a 3d one and a 4d one.

ApertureHour• 12 years ago

I already had the experience of text appearing tiny after staring at the old grid version for another long playthrough. Now I have that, plus everything seeming overly blocky and stout, even things in the room around me. It's almost like a visual equivalent of getting tingling or pins and needles after not using a limb. I guess it's just another fun reminder that what we see is not the raw data from our retinal cells, but the adaptive interpretation that our visual cortex cobbles together.

muaddirac• 12 years ago

This happened to me too! I thought chrome had somehow silently updated while I was playing.

gpvos• 12 years ago

It appears that the only thing more addictive than playing 2048 is writing a 2048 clone.

protomyth2• 12 years ago

If there is a version that needs swipe compatibility, this is it because playing with the keyboard is painful.

Gracana• 12 years ago

Swiping would work great. For desktop users, how about control centered around the center hexagon, such that clicking one of its adjacent hexagons results in a shift in that direction?

roryokane• 12 years ago

This does have swipe capability, as far as I can tell. I can swipe in all six directions on my phone. However, it still sucks to play, because the layout is totally messed up in portrait mode, and the page is too zoomed in to see the whole board in landscape.

protomyth2• 12 years ago

Weird, I totally missed it when I tried on the iPad.

rttlesnke• 12 years ago

The author is quite famous in the competitive programming world:

http://icpc.baylor.edu/community/icpc-challenge-champions

https://www.quora.com/Who-Is-Was-X/Who-is-Rudradev-Basak

http://blog.codechef.com/2011/02/01/programmer-of-the-month-...

romanovcode• 12 years ago

This[0] is what Hacker News is becoming lately.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/F0t5T21.png

tpsc• 12 years ago

2048 is the new NSA.

j2kun• 12 years ago

I feel like this one is easier.

tnash• 12 years ago

I played for about 10 minutes and owww does my brain hurt.

peg_leg• 12 years ago

This isn't any fun any more...I CAN'T STOP PLAYING!

zoba• 12 years ago

Is my math correct? If we simplify and say we make 1 move per second, the game only drops 1 tokens, and we always make a perfect move...this will take 4.5 hours (16384/60/60) to complete?

In reality my moves take more than a second, and I know I don't make perfect moves. So, over 4.5 hours.

pacaro• 12 years ago

The extra 2 degrees of freedom make this amenable to keyboard mashing, so I'm estimating 10-20 moves per second...

PeterisP• 12 years ago

1) if you win the game, the game end time doesn't really depend on how 'good' your moves are - it comes a bit after you've gathered 16348+ total value on the board.

2) The fact that the game doesn't drop only 1-tokens means that the time is shorter - again, since the 'total' accumulates faster.

That being said, the game is much, much longer than the previous ones - 2048->16384 alone increases the time by 8, and starting with ones instead of twos doubles it again.

nacs• 12 years ago

Wish I had read this before starting. Played for a good hour and got 2048-1024 in bottom row before reading this comment.

Author should add this 4.5 hour estimate as a nice big warning message.

joeframbach• 12 years ago

45 minutes later: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ljo1ie3ly6g2pqf/Screenshot%202014-...

I'm done. I have banished myself from these kinds of games.

jacob019• 12 years ago

same here, got to 4096 after wasting an hour of my life. Am I really only 1/4 done. This is a 4 hour game!

balakk• 12 years ago

Once the strategy is set, this feels like work. That's why I still like games like tetris. A game should have an element of surprise..

legulere• 12 years ago

Every rectangle (GUI elements, keys on the keyboard) looks really hard after playing this for a while.

mcintyre1994• 12 years ago

Have you ever played Dots? I got the same effect from that really strongly, very jarring.

fuzzythinker• 12 years ago

I recommend using the normal arrow keys, plus press&hold shift or spacebar & arrow keys for the other 2 directions.

lerg• 12 years ago

Hey! It's like my game! Have you played my version before creating yours? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spiralcode...

sadris• 12 years ago

What's up with your weird country restrictions on the Play store? I can't install it over here in the US...

notacoward• 12 years ago

Seems much easier. I've never gotten past 2048 on the square versions, but I'm already up to 4096 on my first game which isn't even done yet. I think having two forward angles and five rows to work with makes a huge difference in keeping things organized.

ttty• 12 years ago

Just crazy! :D

Lerc• 12 years ago

There's a bug that causes an inconsistency with the displayed dumber on a disc and the internal value. (interestingly the colour of the disc is appropriate to the internal value).

I think it is happening when a merge happens when it shouldn't. like 1.141 --> causes ..24X where X has the displayed number 1 but the colour and behaviour of a 2. I'm not positive on that but it feels like something along those lines.

[edit] I just got a disc which had the number was 4 in the top half and 2 in the lower. Moving the mouse off the screen and back again fixed it. I'm now figuring it's the browser rendering that's glitching rather than game logic.

claudius2• 12 years ago

Hm, this doesn’t seem to load for me on Firefox 28.0 – I just see the brown-ish circles, but nothing is filled in. Curiously, in another profile, everything is fine.

I’m new to Firefox, any ideas on how to debug this? Disabling add-ons didn’t help and I’d rather not scratch my entire profile.

claudius2• 12 years ago

Found the issue: Apparently, Firefox disables web storage if cookies are set to ‘ask me every time’, which then causes a ‘SecurityError: The operation is insecure.‘ error in the console. Curiously, there was no pop-up or somesuch asking me to accept a cookie from the domain.

emp_• 12 years ago

This had the craziest effect on my vision, anyone else seeing everything else extremely square after playing it? I mean the borders of windows, the headers of sites etc. Everything was sooo round before.

MertsA• 12 years ago

Yeah going into these comments really gave me an intense feeling of looking at perfect rectangles. Not really that describable but a very weird effect of this game.

userbinator• 12 years ago

Games based on powers of 2 are now the latest fad?

Certainly exposing the general public to powers of 2 is not a bad thing... especially with computers becoming more ubiquitous in our lives.

jrobbins• 12 years ago

The thing that I found interesting is that this is much much easier than 2048. This algorithm does very well:

  while not game over:
    while these moves do anything:
      mash a, z, and x as fast as you can
    tap d

mepcotterell• 12 years ago

This is my favorite version of the game, with the doge version coming in a very close second.

elwell• 12 years ago

Ah, a more creative fork. I like the keyboard mapping.

alxndr• 12 years ago

Dvorak version please!

codezero• 12 years ago

I was really surprised that this control system is very intuitive, with the keys forming a hexagon, I didn't have to look down at the keyboard or do any sort of translation of what I wanted into the keys to press.

nighthawk24• 12 years ago

FFF

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

Surprisingly, I'm finding this far easier and more absorbing than the square version. That means something, but I'm not sure what apart from my preference for all things hexagonal...

jcrites• 12 years ago

There are more possible moves, and so I think more "outs" for a long time in the beginning of the game. I think the game has a more gradual difficulty curve.

When the board is empty, you'll start and gain 1, 2, 4, 8, etc. pieces. You can often make pieces to combine with those easily, since you can move in any direction and the board is relatively empty.

Eventually, over time, larger pieces build up. 64, 128, 256, etc. You can't make such large numbers easily, and they'll start to be cluttered around and in between other numbers. When the board becomes congested, and when there are many different numbers in play, the challenge ramps up.

amjaeger• 12 years ago

A lot easier just using a touch screen but its starting to feel tedious. Also reading the comments about the game taking 4 hrs... maybe I'll just quit before I waste too much time.

DavidSJ• 12 years ago

Typing A, Z, X, D repetitively seems to be an effective strategy.

reidrac• 12 years ago

Use preventDefault() so the arrow keys won't move the page if there are scrollbars.

rwallace4• 12 years ago

Jokes aside, I will suggest that:

1. Making harmful products is a bad idea.

2. If you chose to make a harmful product as a programming exercise, publishing it is a bad idea.

3. If you find someone else has published a harmful product, posting a link to a forum is a bad idea.

4. If you find someone else has posted a link to a harmful product, upvoting it is a bad idea.

Life is complicated. There is no simple formula that will tell you the right thing to do in the general case. And sometimes even when we know which is which, we end up doing the wrong thing because the right thing would be harder.

But when we know which is which, and the right thing is easy? Then, at least, we should be able to stop doing the wrong thing.

protek• 12 years ago

Say what?

rwallace4• 12 years ago

Granted that my comment was short, and may assume some background knowledge not obvious to everyone, here's a longer discussion of the issues in a broader context: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an...

daliusd2• 12 years ago

You just placed 2048 next to alcohol, cannabis and other drugs. Congratulations.

rwallace4• 12 years ago

Precisely. If X exploits security vulnerabilities in your motivation system so that consuming X causes you to desire more X at a cost to everything else in your life, what difference does it make whether the medium is chemistry or graphics? It's the result that counts.

Tepix• 12 years ago

It's unplayable on a german keyboard, they have "z" and "y" swapped. Perhaps you can make "y" behave the same as "z"?

einhverfr• 12 years ago

I think this one should be called "The Endurance Test."

It should take at least 8 times as long to win as 2048.

visakanv• 12 years ago

I've been making great progress just spamming "AWEAWEAWEAWEAWEAWEAWEAWEAWE"... and then realized that it's going to take hours. I'm done. Fun, though.

navpatel• 12 years ago

People seem to be thinking hard about this game.. but if you're spending 1+ second/move it'll definitely take forever.

Think about it like shaking a jar of pebbles, where the heavier ones fall to the bottom. Now simulate this by press Z->A & X->D back and forth You can get a high score pretty quick. And if you see a situation where a low number is stuck at the bottom, make specific moves to get at that one, then go back to shaking the jar!

Hexagon 16384

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