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Show HN: Neil the Seal Game

https://neiltheseal.app/

dalemhurley · 3 days ago

Neil the seal now has a game to destroy Battery Point.

26 comments

  • finecode · 2 days ago

    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!

    • dalemhurley · 6 hours ago

      Thank you, hopefully the new changes make it better.

    • HanClinto · 14 hours ago

      This is pretty hilarious. :D Feels like a combination of Untitled Goose Game and Goat Simulator. Vibe-coded? It's pretty impressive.

      • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

        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.

      • davewasthere · 13 hours ago

        I can't blow up the servo, even though I've totally wrecked it.

        • davewasthere · 13 hours ago

          nvm. One little pole did the trick

          • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

            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.

            • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

              fixed it to be a much better experience.

            • Retr0id · 13 hours ago

              I love the voice lines

              • Retr0id · 13 hours ago

                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.

                • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                  yes agree. pools need to be bigger and cars need to be easier to push.

                  • dalemhurley · 7 hours ago

                    fixed now

                  • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                    yeah, me too, lots of laughs.

                  • chao- · 13 hours ago

                    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.

                    • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                      Yes I need to add the cones.

                      • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                        Cones have been added. Sound improvements implemented.

                      • BSTRhino · 13 hours ago

                        haha this is cool :) What made you choose to code this as a webgame? In either case, good idea much easier to share

                        • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                          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.

                        • jumploops · 13 hours ago

                          My preschooler loves the Untitled Goose Game, please vibe-port this to the Switch (:

                          • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                            Yes - my kids love that game too, and I should.

                          • mrspacejam · 13 hours ago

                            Brilliant, I love Neil, great idea to immortalize him.

                            • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                              Thank you,

                            • Jordan-117 · 13 hours ago

                              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.

                              • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                                I am thinking of changing that cars only explode on slams, so it is easier to nudge on mobile. Desktop is much easier.

                                • Jordan-117 · 10 hours ago

                                  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!

                                  • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                    Done

                                • rladd · 10 hours ago

                                  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?

                                  • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                    fixed, must be pre-exploded, made it harder to explode a car.

                                  • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                    fixed

                                  • infinitebit · 13 hours ago

                                    i love this. i don’t understand why web games like this aren’t more prevalent

                                    • Benjamin_Dobell · 12 hours ago

                                      They are. There's a LOT of web games on itch.io. It's just the typical challenge with over saturated markets: publicity.

                                      • purple-leafy · 12 hours ago

                                        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.

                                      • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                                        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.

                                      • purple-leafy · 12 hours ago

                                        Cute but your volume and camera buttons don’t work at all

                                        • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                                          was that on desktop or mobile?

                                          • purple-leafy · 12 hours ago

                                            Mobile iPhone 15, also the action button is really slow to react

                                          • ymolodtsov · 10 hours ago

                                            Neil broke them already damnit

                                            • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                              Good on ya Neil.

                                          • protocolture · 12 hours ago

                                            Combines my 2 favourite things, cutely annoying animals, and destroying tasmania.

                                            • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                                              LOL too true!

                                            • jackvalentine · 12 hours ago

                                              Cars are driving on the wrong side of the road - presumably in terror of His Neilness!

                                              • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                                                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.

                                                • jackvalentine · 6 hours ago

                                                  Now driving on the correct side of the road, but wrong side of the roundabout!

                                                  Neil’s reign of terror knows no limits.

                                              • crowd51 · 12 hours ago

                                                Lol definitely a cute game. Good job

                                                • dalemhurley · 12 hours ago

                                                  Thank you, I hope it made you smile.

                                                • byhemechi · 11 hours ago

                                                  i regret to inform you that we drive on the left in australia

                                                  • pelagic_sky · 9 hours ago

                                                    I regret to inform you but this inst Australia it’s Tasmania. /s

                                                    • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                                      I should add mushrooms!

                                                      • dalemhurley · 6 hours ago

                                                        added

                                                    • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                                      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.

                                                    • worthless-trash · 11 hours ago

                                                      Missing bollards.

                                                      • E-Machine · 10 hours ago

                                                        Great work! I had some rendering issues with some part of the houses' roofs not showing

                                                        • dalemhurley · 4 hours ago

                                                          thank you, that has been fixed.

                                                        • jezzamon · 10 hours ago

                                                          I can tell this is at least partially vibe coded... Out of curiosity, how much did you use AI for this?

                                                          • dalemhurley · 8 hours ago

                                                            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.

                                                          • latexr · 10 hours ago

                                                            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.

                                                            • dalemhurley · 6 hours ago

                                                              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 :)

                                                            • benj111 · 9 hours ago

                                                              Well I was deemed to have pushed 1 car. Pushing them slamming 5 more didn't get me past the first level.

                                                                • rickydroll · 5 hours ago

                                                                  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.

                                                                  • doodpants · 2 hours ago

                                                                    I think I saw Jesus, because a guy ran right across the surface of a swimming pool.

                                                                    • YPCrumble · 2 hours ago

                                                                      This is great! Whats the tech stack?

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

                                                                      • robbiejs · 2 hours ago

                                                                        Cool game! Reminds me of the untitled Goose Game, bullying citizens, is that a genre? It should definitely be a genre.

                                                                        • adecoster · 1 hours ago

                                                                          funny one!