28 comments

  • savgore0 minutes ago
    This is one of my favourite book series ever; it has so many points for learning and humanity. Thanks for making this!
  • mmastrac57 minutes ago
    I have a popup saying &quot;terraforming complete&quot; after 10 sols, but I want to keep playing and I cannot dismiss that popup.<p>The game is definitely fun but there&#x27;s some papercuts that make it tough: no dismantle I can find, placement is difficult to understand.<p>Some feedback:<p>Colonists are really tough to talk to - you have to be in just the right spot.<p>There doesn&#x27;t seem to be a downside to spamming buildings if you can afford it. There needs to be some ongoing cost to everything you place OR a downside.<p>Music shouldn&#x27;t change in menus, or at least shouldn&#x27;t restart constantly. That gets a bit annoying.
  • saltwatercowboy4 hours ago
    This is so cool. How are you going to simulate Michel&#x27;s longing for Provence? Seriously though I adore the trilogy. I started a Mars storymapping project which incorporated Underhill, Senzeni Na, the Moholes etc. a little while back too:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;saltwatercowboy.github.io&#x2F;marsinplace&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;saltwatercowboy.github.io&#x2F;marsinplace&#x2F;</a>
    • ch4s34 hours ago
      It’s BYO longing for Provence.
  • pmontra6 hours ago
    I visited the site on my Android phone with Firefox. It loads and the UI fits the screen, however it seems slow. Words appear at 3 or 4 characters at a time, then there is a pause, then another 3 or 4 characters. Some music when characters appear, then it stops, then it starts again. I muted it soon.<p>It looks nice, so I hope to give it a try from my laptop. The Mars trilogy was a great read. When I saw the title of this Show HN I said, oh wow!<p>By the way, dust storms could be a plot device but are they really that bad with so low air pressure?
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      Thanks for giving it a click! Let me know how it goes on desktop. Actively trying to improve the phone experience now...
  • sointeresting5 hours ago
    Loud music warning for those wearing headphones.
    • michaelteter5 hours ago
      You weren&#x27;t exaggerating! I didn&#x27;t even have headphones on, and it scared the sh*t out of me when I clicked on the little man.
      • Teckla4 hours ago
        The music was so loud from my monitor&#x27;s speakers that I nearly jumped out of my skin and rushed to close it, and my volume isn&#x27;t even turned up much!
        • skrumblito1 hour ago
          Yeah, it&#x27;s more horrifying than the premise - despite it being good, it&#x27;s loud as hell<p>The &#x27;mute&#x27; button is near the top-right, the leftmost option of the little rectangles ~80% from the top<p>It&#x27;s a must-click if you&#x27;re loading the site with sound - it would be great if OP would add a <i>very</i> obvious volume slider on load
  • AnotherGoodName5 hours ago
    Terraforming Mars is a board game that heavily references these novels which i highly recommend.
    • baq4 hours ago
      It’s great but really needs the expansions, don’t play without
  • magicmicah856 hours ago
    Played for a bit, liked the aesthetics so I bookmarked it to come back to it later and discovered a bug. On mac&#x2F;chrome, I hit CMD + D to bookmark. By doing so, I setup some kind of autowalk bug where I kept walking to the right. I couldn&#x27;t stop myself from walking, even pressing WAS temporarily stopped me but as soon as I let go, I kept walking right.
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      Thanks for this, I&#x27;ll address it now.
  • ahhhhnoooo4 hours ago
    Lovely series. One of the first science fiction series I read that gave a proper anarchist culture a shot. (A big thing most people don&#x27;t understand about anarchism is that it&#x27;s not a violent, crime ridden, disorderly society without rules, but rather a society built on the idea that everyone deserves care, and we should all put in some effort to achieve that in a self organizing way.)<p>Loved seeing things like gift economies, self organization and free association, and a general care for both the people and the planet in those books.
    • Tossrock1 hour ago
      Indeed, sci fi has always been a way for KSR to explore and animate his politics. But he&#x27;s so skilled a writer that the spectacle and incredible technical detail of the sci fi wrappings can obscure subtlety of the political philosophy (as it should be, imo).
    • vogtb3 hours ago
      Same. I thought his portrayal of anarcho-primitivism was really cool and interesting as well. Also, other people called it boring but one of my favorite parts was in Blue Mars as they hammer out the Martian constitution.
    • CSMastermind2 hours ago
      Not sure who is downvoting you. You&#x27;re experessing a valid opinion even if I disagree with it.<p>I read this book series as a kid and was enthralled by the sci fi aspects of it. When I reread it as an adult the political undertones completely ruined the series for me.
  • captn3m05 hours ago
    Got power water and o2 but can’t seem to scroll the list of items to build for food on Firefox&#x2F;iOS (should also be Safari&#x2F;iOS) since it selects on tap before the scroll.
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      Another person just mentioned this to me, looking into it.
  • 3eb7988a16634 hours ago
    I must have missed something because my HP keeps ticking down until I pass out and get warped back to the command center. Eating food and resting do not seem to change the situation.
  • skrumblito1 hour ago
    I&#x27;m full HP and hunger and slept - why is the character now walking so slowly?
  • xcf_seetan5 hours ago
    I am on Firefox and it does nothing, no movement, just flashing resource monitors with zero values...
  • lazyasciiart5 hours ago
    Hmm, I just get a black screen on my iPhone when I click your link.<p>Did you use any existing stuff like the mars-sim project? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars-sim.sourceforge.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars-sim.sourceforge.io&#x2F;</a>
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      Try it now! And no I didn&#x27;t but that is very cool.
      • lazyasciiart5 hours ago
        Much better, now it opens up the game. Is this open source?
  • mkl3 hours ago
    Do you have permission from the publisher for an adaptation? If not, you&#x27;re taking a legal risk basing it off the books.
    • cantalopes3 hours ago
      It&#x27;s based on it, it&#x27;s not an adaptation.<p>Also, this would very well fit within fair use
      • stevage3 hours ago
        That does not match my understanding of fair use at all.
  • personjerry3 hours ago
    Had 1000 of each resource, lots of income, landing pads and habitats, but never got more colonists?
    • emaro3 hours ago
      Same, I&#x27;m stuck at 18 inhabitants.
  • jimnotgym4 hours ago
    I&#x27;m on mobile (Android, Brave), and I can do everything but interact with the people. Am I doing something wrong?
    • jimnotgym4 hours ago
      Oh and I can&#x27;t scroll down on the hq menu. The engineer guy only spoke to me after 15 mins
  • ajkjk2 hours ago
    dear god make the music quiet by default
  • number65 hours ago
    Great, how did you build it? Also I have to read the books
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      vanilla JS and canvas plus a hefty bit of technical help from Claude.
      • lukan4 hours ago
        It seems you draw everything every frame onto the canvas? The result is quite GPU heavy, for your next game I would recommend looking into a graphic libary like pixijs, to make use of the webgl&#x2F;webgpu .. then it would run smooth even on old mobile phones.
      • evilhackerdude3 hours ago
        check out raylib, it should be amazing for this :)
  • good-idea1 hour ago
    Well, here we are!
  • TIPSIO2 hours ago
    Awesome work love it
  • oug-t5 hours ago
    Interesting game, love the design.<p>Struggled a little before understanding the instructions.
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      are you on mobile? it looks like there&#x27;s a bug where the opening scene&#x2F;dialogue is not loading, so the instructions aren&#x27;t clear. working on it now.
  • UltraSane2 hours ago
    When the mars space elevator was brought down and wrapped around mars TWICE was one of the most memorable moments of any book I&#x27;ve ever read.
    • Aeolun2 hours ago
      Spoilers! But yeah, that was a memorable scene.
  • deafpolygon6 hours ago
    It’s not really clear how it’s played.
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      Thanks for trying it out. Can you say more? Was it the controls or more about what you&#x27;re supposed to build&#x2F;do first?
  • tantalor3 hours ago
    Surviving Mars (2018) is another really good game in this category.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5djTZfKVIKQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5djTZfKVIKQ</a>
  • Vaslo4 hours ago
    Made me think of this gem:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.myabandonware.com&#x2F;game&#x2F;ultima-worlds-of-adventure-2-martian-dreams-1az" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.myabandonware.com&#x2F;game&#x2F;ultima-worlds-of-adventur...</a>
  • desireco425 hours ago
    It is hard to understand and play... maybe make it more obvious. I made a solar panel, it says I should assign staff...<p>I would love to play if it would work. And music, thank god for the mute button.
    • ariaalam5 hours ago
      are you on mobile? it looks like there&#x27;s a bug where the opening scene&#x2F;dialogue is not loading, so the instructions aren&#x27;t clear. working on it now.
      • Aeolun2 hours ago
        I think on mobile it’s natural to walk to the guy and tap on him. Not helped by the fact that the screen shows ‘tap’ over the highlighted tile, which does nothing. You need to walk and position the guy under your cursor, then press ‘act’.<p>The position yourself, then long press on ‘act’ to build when you can’t see where to put the building anymore is pretty awkward too. I’d expect to click to build, position it, then press confirm or reject or something.