Just me or is this a bit cynical? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the gameplay is fun and everything. Just the concept makes me really uneasy, especially as I have a friend who's house was destroyed recently in war...
As someone who was personally a victim of a violate car accident when very young, causing permanent facial scarring; I give everyone permission to play GTA, Wreckfest and Burnout 3.
I would hope my friends would never use me to say otherwise.
I wouldn't say so, since shooting at mini tanks and buildings that look like cardboard on a gray street map doesn't seem connected to real events.
That said, I did not find the game fun. It was laggy, UI elements seemed a bit sloppy and cut off, and the purpose of buttons wasn't very clear. Also, I saw mostly brown tiles rather than buildings, maybe it was already all destroyed.
Thanks for the honest feedback. The lag was the server struggling with today's crowd, and I've shipped fixes for it over the last hour. The brown tiles are rubble from earlier players. Pick a city further away and you'll find it untouched.
I'm surprised by the comments defending this, I also think it's in poor taste. I wouldn't say cynical, in my opinion it's worse than that, it's too real.
If it makes you feel any better tanks are almost useless now in modern war.
They can't at all compete with some off the shelf kids toy costing $30 with a HEAT round attached. The cost differential here with a 35 million euro tank is beyond pale.
It's art, it's supposed to make you feel uneasy. If this wakes you up by making a faraway concept suddenly seem real to you - I'd say the artist did a very good job.
This kind of outrage takes away from things that are actually distasteful and cynical. Conflating unproblematic things with actual harmful things is a you problem. Policing tone, while people are actually dying out there, is more cynical that this game. The only outcome here is there you guys feel better about yourself.
Having a negative opinion is not policing. If you want to spend your free time simulating destruction, that is really your thing. It's common entertainment. It doesn't mean others can't share a different perspective on it.
I don't think that quite makes sense. Sometimes it's useful to point out/shame unsettling things that happen in society, even if it doesn't directly cause harm.
You're on HN, where people celebrate YC companies that in "defense". The majority of people in our networks would bomb a house if it completed their next round. Let's not pretend that we're surprised people defend this.
It's been jarring to see just how thin morality in engineering was all along. Turns out it's mostly downstream of whatever level of morality doesn't get VCs uninvited from cocktail parties.
Fun is very much allowed. But people are also allowed to question if one person’s fun is another person’s pain.
Like, if a bunch of kids caught a stray cat, tied him up, and started shouting in his ears and laughing, would you stop them? And if they complained “no fun allowed”, would you think that was fair? What about if there was a video game in which you beat to a pulp deepfake representations of your friends and family? Do you not agree it would be reasonable for some people to find that in bad taste, including those who have suffered from domestic violence in real life?
You may say that this is just a game, but media affects people too. There are thousands of games where you can shoot at fictional infrastructure, is there really that much to gain from destroying representations of real buildings?
The previous incarnations of that, like "videogames cause violence", "superhero comic books cause juvenile delinquency", "D&D causes satanism", "rock and roll caused a decline in youth morals", are nonsense that was discredited long ago.
You completely misunderstood. I meant that media affects people emotionally. Have you ever seen a person cry watching a movie? Have you ever seen someone say “this story speaks to me on a personal level”? Have you ever seen someone say “I couldn’t finish the show, it reminded me too much of my own father and his struggle with the same disease”? That’s what I meant, not “booga booga, fear mongering”.
God damn, why must HN always assume the worst? Engage in good faith for once, stop assuming every argument is made by an imbecile and that you understand everything and are the lord of reason.
Your premise makes no sense. We’re talking about a top down tank game where the buildings don’t even resemble their real life counterparts here.
If you’re offended by this, maybe you should just not engage with it. Why does the onus fall on the creator?
Take a look at Battlefield. Should we take that down because it simulates war? Maybe we should remove guns from ever appearing in media because people have died from guns. Should we remove color from media because it may be insensitive to the colorblind? Why don’t we just remove all words everywhere because someone has had their feelings hurt by words. Where do we draw the line?
I’m not offended by it. I am in fact very politely and cordially inviting the commenter above to consider a different perspective, and my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable. I recommend doing that before launching on tirades of bad faith argumentation.
It’s been my observation that people who accuse others of being offended are themselves the most easily offended. Very much like the people who call others “snowflakes” have the thinnest skins themselves.
> maybe you should just not engage with it.
Despite it not being my case, those who are offended can and should very much still engage. Suggesting otherwise is nonsensical and a tool of those who promote hate. There is no societal progress if those who see something wrong do not speak up.
> (…) Should we take that down because it simulates war? (…)
I said in my comment that we already have thousands of games like that. I didn’t say that was bad. You are arguing in profound bad faith and are not even doing a good job of hiding your repeated straw men. I recommend you learn to engage with the arguments, instead of making up new ones in your head and fighting those.
> "my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable."
You were lambasting the HN community with various pejoratives like "blowhards" and "putrid" in a comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997 ) in this thread 5 hours ago? There is no good faith interpretation for that I'm afraid.
I think it’s the particular design choice of leaving emoji on the rubble you destroyed, with options like a skull, fire and so on.
The Call of Duty series gives a much more detailed view of the battlefield, with a lot more blood, and it doesn’t get a reputation for being cynical because it doesn’t force your hand with a choice that feels like mockery of the situation. This game’s emoji defaults slightly do, whether it was intentional or not.
I think it's rather poor taste to code something like this. Usually when buildings or other things are destroyed in movies or even a game, it's to tell some kind of story. In a way telling the story brings the justification because the destruction in the story is usually counterbalanced by someone trying to stop it, which brings the story to the level of good being done.
This is just wanton destruction and has nothing good in it.
I mean, technically, Blast Corps had a story (you needed to pave the way for a runaway nuclear missle to not crash and explode or something), but then you'd get medals for thoroughly destroying everything anyway, because really it was about knocking down buildings and the "story" was a silly pretense. And it was great.
Rampage and its sequels were pretty much also just "destroy buildings, the game," and also great.
My kids enjoy building with tiles and then knocking it down.
If you've ever shot a gun or detonated some explosives in real life, you'll know that's fun too despite these things being used to hurt people also.
If your friend would be willing to share their thoughts, I’m interested in learning. Of course, if they don’t want to share or you think it would be disrespectful to even ask, don’t. I’m just thinking the perspective of such people should not be ignored.
I'm really sorry about your friend's home. I never meant it that way. It started as just a 3D map that you could drive around. Then I added collisions, then a tank, and it grew into a game from there. None of it came from anything in real life. But I understand why it feels uneasy when war is real for people you know.
it's kind of entertaining as a game for sure, but I guess last few years changed me in a way that I felt sad when I played.. I guess because I thought that it can easily be a reality and it is a reality in a few places right now :(
of course there're still many games with violence which I played and I don't want to be a moralist, but here something clicked differently, is it the "real buildings" maybe?
Fun idea but horribly laggy. Just driving down a street and I would get bounced back constantly and make very little progress. Ping was showing up as much as 5000ms
sorry, that's on me! Way more people showed up than I expected and the server couldn't keep up. When it falls behind it drops your inputs and yanks your tank back, so that's the bouncing. I found the culprit (collision checks looking at way too many buildings)
as an active osm contributor and community member and io games enjoyer i love this.
if the author is readin this by any chance pretty please improve the attribution placement, projects like this are whats bringin interested people in to help us build a better open map for everyone <3
I can't load the thing, but the idea reminds me of the trope of adolescents playing early FPSes and making maps based on their homes and schools, for good or for bad…
For US addresses, can you include the state in the search? It's common for the same city name to be reused. For example: Dallas North Carolina (small town) vs Dallas Texas (metropolis)
I want to try this but every time I try to join either from my mobile or desktop (both on WiFi), I get this error: "That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one." that comes from the Railway-hosted wss://worldstrike.fun/ws
It keeps saying "Your connection dropped. Let’s get you back out there." after a few seconds, then returns me to my spawn point. I don't see any bad HTTP status codes in the network tab
Can you make it a little more resilient on Wifi + 4G? I would really like to try this, it seems fun
Also, incorporating elevation data would also be really cool
Nice! Are tanks spawned at the last picked location? I picked my hometown as I wanted to demolish a friend's house, and I was surprised to find 2 tanks there (it's a random small city in Europe).
I also have the bug where it keeps respawning me to the starting point after ~30 seconds
Real people, no bots :) If you join with the default option, you're dropped near where other players are already fighting, so you'll usually find company
FUN. Tanks are not my "thing" but it was fun to cruise around LA shooting at stuff. I have always wanted to make a racing game with real roads around you. Make segments like from the house to the store and see who can drive em the fastest in game. Good inspo from worldstrike! TY
about 7500 buildings have been destroyed since this was posted. most are houses, shops, restaurants and offices. I'll add a stats page soon so anyone can see it.
I am genuinely interested in the opinions of people who live in or fled war-torn countries. Would they find this in poor taste? That it trivialises ongoing struggles? Have they tried looking into their own cities? Do they not care? Do they think this is somehow useful? Does it surface memories? Are they more bothered by the execution?
Of course, we’d need more than one or two data points. If you know someone (or are you yourself) in that situation, I’d welcome learning your thoughts. No judgement or ulterior motive, just looking to understand another perspective.
Edit: And, of course, the downvotes are already coming. Don’t know why I bother with this community anymore. Call for exploiting and exterminating other people (I’m not talking about this submission) and you are celebrated; but try to be empathetic and learn about others, no sirree, can’t have that, that’s a grave offence to the great hacker blowhards who frequent the big AI News network. This community has become putrid.
Top comment is kind of skeptical of this kind of game idea, so let me go in a different direction (I'm not necessarily bothered by the game concept):
what other kinds of games could we create using OpenStreetMap?
Could the game have a "rebuilder" role for people to rebuild destroyed areas?
Could you do like a "Pokemon Go" and search for hidden treasure in different areas?
Could you just "mark" areas without destroying them, like capturing different areas with colors or something?
Just me or is this a bit cynical? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the gameplay is fun and everything. Just the concept makes me really uneasy, especially as I have a friend who's house was destroyed recently in war...
I think it's fun, not cynical at all. I'm sure if my close one was shot, I'd be uneasy playing call of duty, and so on.
I'm sorry for your friend.
As someone who was personally a victim of a violate car accident when very young, causing permanent facial scarring; I give everyone permission to play GTA, Wreckfest and Burnout 3.
I would hope my friends would never use me to say otherwise.
I wouldn't say so, since shooting at mini tanks and buildings that look like cardboard on a gray street map doesn't seem connected to real events.
That said, I did not find the game fun. It was laggy, UI elements seemed a bit sloppy and cut off, and the purpose of buttons wasn't very clear. Also, I saw mostly brown tiles rather than buildings, maybe it was already all destroyed.
Thanks for the honest feedback. The lag was the server struggling with today's crowd, and I've shipped fixes for it over the last hour. The brown tiles are rubble from earlier players. Pick a city further away and you'll find it untouched.
Not just you. With a fourth of the world in an actual war, it doesn’t sit well with many of us.
That said, whoever made it might not be thinking about that. A kid could vibecode a game these days. I wouldn’t hold it against them.
Moreover, many AAA games glamorize war (Call of Duty, Far Cry, Battlefield…) or crime (GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Payday, Hitman…).
I'm surprised by the comments defending this, I also think it's in poor taste. I wouldn't say cynical, in my opinion it's worse than that, it's too real.
If it makes you feel any better tanks are almost useless now in modern war.
They can't at all compete with some off the shelf kids toy costing $30 with a HEAT round attached. The cost differential here with a 35 million euro tank is beyond pale.
It's art, it's supposed to make you feel uneasy. If this wakes you up by making a faraway concept suddenly seem real to you - I'd say the artist did a very good job.
This kind of outrage takes away from things that are actually distasteful and cynical. Conflating unproblematic things with actual harmful things is a you problem. Policing tone, while people are actually dying out there, is more cynical that this game. The only outcome here is there you guys feel better about yourself.
It's not really outrage, I just think it's in poor taste. Unproblematic is a matter of opinion, which we're each entitled to.
Having a negative opinion is not policing. If you want to spend your free time simulating destruction, that is really your thing. It's common entertainment. It doesn't mean others can't share a different perspective on it.
I don't think that quite makes sense. Sometimes it's useful to point out/shame unsettling things that happen in society, even if it doesn't directly cause harm.
I both think this is allowed to exist in addition to finding this tasteless.
It sounds like you yourself are outraged and policing how people feel about this game?
This game is only too real if after playing it, you suddenly have an urge to purchase a Komatsu D355A bulldozer
You're on HN, where people celebrate YC companies that in "defense". The majority of people in our networks would bomb a house if it completed their next round. Let's not pretend that we're surprised people defend this.
It's been jarring to see just how thin morality in engineering was all along. Turns out it's mostly downstream of whatever level of morality doesn't get VCs uninvited from cocktail parties.
Edit: typo
NO FUN ALLOWED
Fun is very much allowed. But people are also allowed to question if one person’s fun is another person’s pain.
Like, if a bunch of kids caught a stray cat, tied him up, and started shouting in his ears and laughing, would you stop them? And if they complained “no fun allowed”, would you think that was fair? What about if there was a video game in which you beat to a pulp deepfake representations of your friends and family? Do you not agree it would be reasonable for some people to find that in bad taste, including those who have suffered from domestic violence in real life?
You may say that this is just a game, but media affects people too. There are thousands of games where you can shoot at fictional infrastructure, is there really that much to gain from destroying representations of real buildings?
> "media affects people too"
The previous incarnations of that, like "videogames cause violence", "superhero comic books cause juvenile delinquency", "D&D causes satanism", "rock and roll caused a decline in youth morals", are nonsense that was discredited long ago.
You completely misunderstood. I meant that media affects people emotionally. Have you ever seen a person cry watching a movie? Have you ever seen someone say “this story speaks to me on a personal level”? Have you ever seen someone say “I couldn’t finish the show, it reminded me too much of my own father and his struggle with the same disease”? That’s what I meant, not “booga booga, fear mongering”.
God damn, why must HN always assume the worst? Engage in good faith for once, stop assuming every argument is made by an imbecile and that you understand everything and are the lord of reason.
Your premise makes no sense. We’re talking about a top down tank game where the buildings don’t even resemble their real life counterparts here.
If you’re offended by this, maybe you should just not engage with it. Why does the onus fall on the creator?
Take a look at Battlefield. Should we take that down because it simulates war? Maybe we should remove guns from ever appearing in media because people have died from guns. Should we remove color from media because it may be insensitive to the colorblind? Why don’t we just remove all words everywhere because someone has had their feelings hurt by words. Where do we draw the line?
> If you’re offended by this
I’m not offended by it. I am in fact very politely and cordially inviting the commenter above to consider a different perspective, and my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable. I recommend doing that before launching on tirades of bad faith argumentation.
It’s been my observation that people who accuse others of being offended are themselves the most easily offended. Very much like the people who call others “snowflakes” have the thinnest skins themselves.
> maybe you should just not engage with it.
Despite it not being my case, those who are offended can and should very much still engage. Suggesting otherwise is nonsensical and a tool of those who promote hate. There is no societal progress if those who see something wrong do not speak up.
> (…) Should we take that down because it simulates war? (…)
I said in my comment that we already have thousands of games like that. I didn’t say that was bad. You are arguing in profound bad faith and are not even doing a good job of hiding your repeated straw men. I recommend you learn to engage with the arguments, instead of making up new ones in your head and fighting those.
> "my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable."
You were lambasting the HN community with various pejoratives like "blowhards" and "putrid" in a comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997 ) in this thread 5 hours ago? There is no good faith interpretation for that I'm afraid.
Almost everything fun doing is going to have a naughty element that's bound to upset somebody.
You mean I cant read certain books without upsetting someone. oh wait... think I know the answer. ;)
This used to be so ridiculous it was satire.
I think it’s the particular design choice of leaving emoji on the rubble you destroyed, with options like a skull, fire and so on.
The Call of Duty series gives a much more detailed view of the battlefield, with a lot more blood, and it doesn’t get a reputation for being cynical because it doesn’t force your hand with a choice that feels like mockery of the situation. This game’s emoji defaults slightly do, whether it was intentional or not.
ya. If those are the emojis used. I have to agree with you.
Would give better perspective if your own virutal geographical building was equally destroyed as destroying others.
Would also be better if RL names where replaced with fictional random names.
I think it's rather poor taste to code something like this. Usually when buildings or other things are destroyed in movies or even a game, it's to tell some kind of story. In a way telling the story brings the justification because the destruction in the story is usually counterbalanced by someone trying to stop it, which brings the story to the level of good being done.
This is just wanton destruction and has nothing good in it.
I mean, technically, Blast Corps had a story (you needed to pave the way for a runaway nuclear missle to not crash and explode or something), but then you'd get medals for thoroughly destroying everything anyway, because really it was about knocking down buildings and the "story" was a silly pretense. And it was great.
Rampage and its sequels were pretty much also just "destroy buildings, the game," and also great.
My kids enjoy building with tiles and then knocking it down.
If you've ever shot a gun or detonated some explosives in real life, you'll know that's fun too despite these things being used to hurt people also.
It's AI slop which was probably made in an afternoon with zero human input, you're giving it too much credit
Multiplayer flight sim lets you destroy real skyscrapers
Reminds me of the kid that got expelled for modelling his school as a Counter Strike map
Its just you. Get a grip. People are doing war since ancient times. Its in our dna
You are overreacting. Its not cynical.
I had a similar thought.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997
If your friend would be willing to share their thoughts, I’m interested in learning. Of course, if they don’t want to share or you think it would be disrespectful to even ask, don’t. I’m just thinking the perspective of such people should not be ignored.
I'm really sorry about your friend's home. I never meant it that way. It started as just a 3D map that you could drive around. Then I added collisions, then a tank, and it grew into a game from there. None of it came from anything in real life. But I understand why it feels uneasy when war is real for people you know.
It's just for fun guys. It's just a game ! Don't let game play yourself !
it's kind of entertaining as a game for sure, but I guess last few years changed me in a way that I felt sad when I played.. I guess because I thought that it can easily be a reality and it is a reality in a few places right now :(
of course there're still many games with violence which I played and I don't want to be a moralist, but here something clicked differently, is it the "real buildings" maybe?
Fun idea but horribly laggy. Just driving down a street and I would get bounced back constantly and make very little progress. Ping was showing up as much as 5000ms
sorry, that's on me! Way more people showed up than I expected and the server couldn't keep up. When it falls behind it drops your inputs and yanks your tank back, so that's the bouncing. I found the culprit (collision checks looking at way too many buildings)
Still same lag for me. But love the effort. :)
as an active osm contributor and community member and io games enjoyer i love this.
if the author is readin this by any chance pretty please improve the attribution placement, projects like this are whats bringin interested people in to help us build a better open map for everyone <3
Thank you! You're right, it was buried behind a tiny ⓘ. Fixed now, so the OpenStreetMap credit is always visible in-game and on the home screen.
I just demo'd my own home. Kinda felt nice. Always wanted to rebuild it.
I can't load the thing, but the idea reminds me of the trope of adolescents playing early FPSes and making maps based on their homes and schools, for good or for bad…
Neat idea, however in my home town it quickly gets stuck on the streets, maybe the collision testing isn't that great.
5 minute respawn timer after being shot is a bit excessive
Fair point, Just cut it to 30 seconds.
yeah i just started and someone shot me. Now i gotta wait 5mins?
For US addresses, can you include the state in the search? It's common for the same city name to be reused. For example: Dallas North Carolina (small town) vs Dallas Texas (metropolis)
Keep getting "lost the convoy."
I want to try this but every time I try to join either from my mobile or desktop (both on WiFi), I get this error: "That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one." that comes from the Railway-hosted wss://worldstrike.fun/ws
Here's a full response with headers:
HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols Connection: Upgrade Sec-Websocket-Accept: GeKaJfsfiYd9s2vROz7kMU3RDWA= Sec-Websocket-Extensions: permessage-deflate; server_no_context_takeover; client_no_context_takeover server: railway-hikari Upgrade: websocket X-Railway-Request-Id: UA8DKXk_TKiusD2aYqVb7A x-hikari-trace: lhr1.7mfs x-railway-edge: lhr1
{"type":"error","message":"That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one."} Connection Closed: 1005
sorry thats confusing names are locked to the first browser that users them, so someone else probably took it
It keeps saying "Your connection dropped. Let’s get you back out there." after a few seconds, then returns me to my spawn point. I don't see any bad HTTP status codes in the network tab
Can you make it a little more resilient on Wifi + 4G? I would really like to try this, it seems fun
Also, incorporating elevation data would also be really cool
thanks, found it! The server was kicking laggy connections. Fixed, and it auto-reconnects now.
Hah, I thought it just randomly started working. But no, you fixed it :)
This thing just crashed my whole DE. My GPU reset. Haven't had one like that in years.
Sorry! It's WebGL, so it shouldn't be able to do that. Which browser, OS and GPU? I'd like to track it down.
This happens on every shitty vibe coded 3D webapp that makes it onto HN. I don't know what the fuck they're feeding these bots.
Eh, the browser sandbox shouldn't allow random web pages to crash the whole desktop environment.
Nice! Are tanks spawned at the last picked location? I picked my hometown as I wanted to demolish a friend's house, and I was surprised to find 2 tanks there (it's a random small city in Europe).
I also have the bug where it keeps respawning me to the starting point after ~30 seconds
They're real players, no bots! The 30-second reset was a connection bug, fixed now.
I can't see my tank because the status box takes up most of the screen?
The Last Starfighter meets the IDF
Destroying Mar-a-logo is a blast! So cathartic.
But I'll stick to destroying places that have made my life miserable.
I guess I wasn't the first to have the idea to flatten the White House...
Bye bye, ballroom!
of all the fun things you could do based on OpenStreetMap choosing to destroy cities says a lot about the values of our times
Anyone else immediately think of San Diego?
I don't get it, how is it possible people are in my local town? or is this more populr than this thread? fun stuff nevertheless.
Real people, no bots :) If you join with the default option, you're dropped near where other players are already fighting, so you'll usually find company
but I chose Drogheda! (random ass town in Ireland)
The others probably chose to spawn "near players", so that's how they ended up in your random ass town in Ireland
I can see the potential already for an acquisition by Match Group.
Is there a way to change viewing angle?
Yes! Press C to switch between the chase and overhead camera, and scroll (or pinch on mobile) to zoom.
I understand. I meant, can i get rid of this top-down view? I like the lowpoly model btw, is that something you modeled or ai creation?
FUN. Tanks are not my "thing" but it was fun to cruise around LA shooting at stuff. I have always wanted to make a racing game with real roads around you. Make segments like from the house to the store and see who can drive em the fastest in game. Good inspo from worldstrike! TY
Saw no buildings. Fired at the next tank.
tanks can fight each other too! Press M and drive somewhere new for buildings nobody has flattened yet
Would love to see some stats on what people decide to destroy …
about 7500 buildings have been destroyed since this was posted. most are houses, shops, restaurants and offices. I'll add a stats page soon so anyone can see it.
Hi there! My name is Ender, and I'd love to play this game.
Similar in spirit: https://kaijumietz.de/
it's missing interpolation on position estimation.
It was timed by server ticks, which fell behind under today's load. It's fixed now, so refresh and it should be smoother.
add some bots.
I actually built bots today for load testing. Maybe they'll get to play for real some day.
It would be more fun if I could pick a city. Knocking down Trump's white house would be a kick.
You can pick a city and exact location on the map.
That's how you get the law enforcement knock on your door.
Or Trump Towers!
I am genuinely interested in the opinions of people who live in or fled war-torn countries. Would they find this in poor taste? That it trivialises ongoing struggles? Have they tried looking into their own cities? Do they not care? Do they think this is somehow useful? Does it surface memories? Are they more bothered by the execution?
Of course, we’d need more than one or two data points. If you know someone (or are you yourself) in that situation, I’d welcome learning your thoughts. No judgement or ulterior motive, just looking to understand another perspective.
Edit: And, of course, the downvotes are already coming. Don’t know why I bother with this community anymore. Call for exploiting and exterminating other people (I’m not talking about this submission) and you are celebrated; but try to be empathetic and learn about others, no sirree, can’t have that, that’s a grave offence to the great hacker blowhards who frequent the big AI News network. This community has become putrid.