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ycosynotyesterday at 8:19 AM1 replyview on HN

Nobody will read this and the game is not ready, BUT maybe one of you can check it out and tell me what you think. It is called ZAEL. It is a mage arena web app (smartphone/Desktop), played from 1 to 4 players, no login, easy to share a link to invite people into your game, whatever the platform. It is no install, no bullshit. Just click and play

https://www.zael.app

I have found out that it is very efficient to use phaser.js/three.js for fast, vibe coding, because it handles everything without having to setup a unity scene manually or unreal blueprint. I really recommend to make web apps instead for vibe coding. I love how easy it goes.


Replies

voodooEntityyesterday at 3:56 PM

Saw your post and thought: maybe i can make someones day so well here i am reading it :D

Big props on the no install / no register etc philosophy. If i would had to make any account i probably would have closed it instantly again xD

So the first thing i STRONGLY recommend, add somewhere a help text (before starting game or small on the side of ingame and ability to disable via options) for the controles.

Im on a Desktop, i started the game and i expected some sort of short info about controles. Yes theres a tutorial - no i didnt play it. I mean lets be honest... tryNSucceed :D

So ye i spend the first 2-3 Stages only spamming spacebar because it didnt came to my mind that maybe its with mouse support (visually it really hard compares to vs-likes that dont support mouse).

So i can tell - ice mage with just massive rapid space spamming works perfectly fine through the whole earth stage. ^^

I find the base look finem the overview texts for the different arch types is well done (even tho it confused me that fire and ice dont have weaknesses?).

The point that at least for me was the most well, unpleasent? , is the size of the play area. I guess you made this to fit easy with smartphone screens, but on a desktop its like not even 1/4 of my screen (and im not on 4k or something) so dunno it feels just alot to small. May fit for a smartphone but for a desktop its just very very limiting while the game takes alot of space for basically nothing.

Also, you definatly should have a "Settings" button in the game pause menu which allows for changing sound levels. Not just a "total sound" bar but at least have Music and Sounds (attack etc) seperated. Because, frankly speaking, the music while for the first like 30 seconds is cool, very fast is dunno it just would fit more to the entry video scene of something than as a constant thing (my pov) - so i wish i would be able to just disable the music and still have the attack/battle sounds. Adjusting both tho would be great anyway and i think with phaser should be quite doable.

A smaller point (visual) is the size of the health/mana bars. Even tho i know they are in the top left, i kinda have to squeece my eyes sometimes to see them. So i would probably just make them bigger.

That all said, i mean i just played solo till the fire stage :) and i clearly had a bit of fun.

I would say its a great start and if you go on and refine it i see a chance that people might pick it up as a nobrainer lets just game something solution :)

Best of luck !