I don't know of any other programming games that are literally just an API and require you to build out everything else yourself (which I agree is a really cool idea) but... When I was reading...
I don't know of any other programming games that are literally just an API and require you to build out everything else yourself (which I agree is a really cool idea) but...
When I was reading about this game, I also found recommendations for Hacknet and hackmud. Screeps has also been around for a long time, and I've read good things about it.
The Zachtronics games also have a cult following and run the gamut of casual puzzle game to assembly programming.
I’m both intrigued and wondering whether this was just the project of a lazy backend dev who didn’t want to learn frontend and just decided to let the players figure it out. I do love this sort of...
I’m both intrigued and wondering whether this was just the project of a lazy backend dev who didn’t want to learn frontend and just decided to let the players figure it out.
I do love this sort of game (space trading sim) in general so I’ll probably poke around with it. Some of the existing clients linked from the site look nice, I might just run one of those to lower the barrier to entry. Or maybe I’ll just use Postman, I dunno.
Lazy back end dev chiming in. I have had discussions with coworkers on the concept of a BYO Front End game on and off for a couple of years, so it is extremely possible. I always kind of figured...
I’m both intrigued and wondering whether this was just the project of a lazy backend dev who didn’t want to learn frontend and just decided to let the players figure it out.
Lazy back end dev chiming in.
I have had discussions with coworkers on the concept of a BYO Front End game on and off for a couple of years, so it is extremely possible. I always kind of figured that if something like that caught on, there would be a couple of front ends that people would end up defaulting to and people would build upon, kind of like what happened with RuneLite on Old School Runescape (which I assume still exists as the default).
As an Old School RuneScape player yes Runelite is still the client I see most people using. Jagex even officially added it as an option to their official launcher. They are also using it and...
As an Old School RuneScape player yes Runelite is still the client I see most people using. Jagex even officially added it as an option to their official launcher. They are also using it and common extensions as ways to improve their official and mobile clients.
One of our fellow Tilderinos posted Trust Trials a bit back. It was a fun thing to toy around with a bit (though I ended up lacking the attention to follow through as much as I was desiring to).
One of our fellow Tilderinos posted Trust Trials a bit back. It was a fun thing to toy around with a bit (though I ended up lacking the attention to follow through as much as I was desiring to).
Screeps is fun and I sunk a lot of time into it, but the debugging is not fun and since your code has to be able to run on their server in their sandbox it really limits your algorithms. This game...
Screeps is fun and I sunk a lot of time into it, but the debugging is not fun and since your code has to be able to run on their server in their sandbox it really limits your algorithms. This game sounds fun just because it would let me really take advantage of my local hardware.
Another game that might be of interest is Bitburner, it was the first thing I thought of before I clicked on the posted link. Oh and definitely more of a departure but tangentially related is Greyhat
Another game that might be of interest is Bitburner, it was the first thing I thought of before I clicked on the posted link.
Oh and definitely more of a departure but tangentially related is Greyhat
I loved hacknet, it's awesome. I really hope it gets some form of sequel, the world has changed significantly and it could definitely make for some great storytelling
I loved hacknet, it's awesome.
I really hope it gets some form of sequel, the world has changed significantly and it could definitely make for some great storytelling
So back in the BBS days there was a game called TradeWars that I played a lot. This sounds strikingly similar, but with an API wrapper instead of a console/text based interface. I poked around but...
So back in the BBS days there was a game called TradeWars that I played a lot. This sounds strikingly similar, but with an API wrapper instead of a console/text based interface. I poked around but didn't see any mention of a TradeWars inspiration in the FAQ or docs.
I ran up ungodly phone bills playing Tradewars back in the day. Loved that game so much! You can still find it in various places online but it seems that all the players nowadays are using crazily...
I ran up ungodly phone bills playing Tradewars back in the day. Loved that game so much! You can still find it in various places online but it seems that all the players nowadays are using crazily optimized macros etc, so it loses the nostalgic slow-paced feel.
That’s the first thing I thought of when I read the title. Back in the day I turned tradewars into an API controlled game like this. I had my computer set up to auto dial in every day to a local...
That’s the first thing I thought of when I read the title. Back in the day I turned tradewars into an API controlled game like this. I had my computer set up to auto dial in every day to a local BBS and play it using a Terminate script.
Coming back to this topic because I had some really positive outcomes from it. Trying SpaceTraders out for a few days really crystallised for me that an online game can be as simple as a...
Coming back to this topic because I had some really positive outcomes from it. Trying SpaceTraders out for a few days really crystallised for me that an online game can be as simple as a server-side API and a client-side script on a webpage that calls it to move the gameplay along. I've been bouncing off of MUD-creation frameworks for a year and a half trying to implement a game idea of mine, and thanks to this post, I was able to start from a minimal viable project and now I've been making really satisfying progress for a few straight weeks. So thanks for sharing, Hungariantoast.
Something like this has always been on my mind, having a simulated market purely run on a backend service and then have some front end actually render it. Never considered only writing the backend...
Something like this has always been on my mind, having a simulated market purely run on a backend service and then have some front end actually render it.
Never considered only writing the backend and letting end users implement their own font ends though! It's actually a fun idea! Given the right community you give developers something fun to do (write code and solve an interesting problem) and then they can provide clients to players who might want to play but don't know how to code.
I'm reasonably tempted to jump in and give it a go myself, I've been looking for an excuse to write some more react and this could be a great little project to play with different cool front end libs and do some dumb OTT automation scripting stuff in Typescript.
This is super cool! My first thought was “man wouldn’t it be awesome if they had a community client gallery”, and sure enough there is one! Definitely going to play around with this today
This is super cool! My first thought was “man wouldn’t it be awesome if they had a community client gallery”, and sure enough there is one! Definitely going to play around with this today
As someone that has done a lot of Python for data analysis, but very little API or frontend work, it’s been wonderful to look around at what other people have made!
As someone that has done a lot of Python for data analysis, but very little API or frontend work, it’s been wonderful to look around at what other people have made!
So I tried it for a bit (using a few of the various clients in the gallery). It was fun, but then my ships got stuck traveling and now I can't do any trading. Looking through some of the history...
So I tried it for a bit (using a few of the various clients in the gallery). It was fun, but then my ships got stuck traveling and now I can't do any trading. Looking through some of the history on their discord it seems like a common bug. I might have to check back again when it's a bit more mature.
That's a bit worrying to hear, that seems like quite a fundamental issue. I know the game is in alpha right now, but seeing how quickly and effectively the deal with issues like this paint a...
That's a bit worrying to hear, that seems like quite a fundamental issue. I know the game is in alpha right now, but seeing how quickly and effectively the deal with issues like this paint a picture I think.
I’ve been playing Star Trek Fleet Command for a while now and I can only barely tolerate it as they are using basically every dark pattern known to man. This sounds like it could become a viable...
I’ve been playing Star Trek Fleet Command for a while now and I can only barely tolerate it as they are using basically every dark pattern known to man.
This sounds like it could become a viable alternative once it gets fleshed out and there are clients for smartphone systems. I’d like to see some social features like in stfc and hopefully a client with some appealing graphics.
This is a really cool idea. I'd love to see more projects like this.
I don't know of any other programming games that are literally just an API and require you to build out everything else yourself (which I agree is a really cool idea) but...
When I was reading about this game, I also found recommendations for Hacknet and hackmud. Screeps has also been around for a long time, and I've read good things about it.
The Zachtronics games also have a cult following and run the gamut of casual puzzle game to assembly programming.
I’m both intrigued and wondering whether this was just the project of a lazy backend dev who didn’t want to learn frontend and just decided to let the players figure it out.
I do love this sort of game (space trading sim) in general so I’ll probably poke around with it. Some of the existing clients linked from the site look nice, I might just run one of those to lower the barrier to entry. Or maybe I’ll just use Postman, I dunno.
Lazy back end dev chiming in.
I have had discussions with coworkers on the concept of a BYO Front End game on and off for a couple of years, so it is extremely possible. I always kind of figured that if something like that caught on, there would be a couple of front ends that people would end up defaulting to and people would build upon, kind of like what happened with RuneLite on Old School Runescape (which I assume still exists as the default).
As an Old School RuneScape player yes Runelite is still the client I see most people using. Jagex even officially added it as an option to their official launcher. They are also using it and common extensions as ways to improve their official and mobile clients.
One of our fellow Tilderinos posted Trust Trials a bit back. It was a fun thing to toy around with a bit (though I ended up lacking the attention to follow through as much as I was desiring to).
Screeps is fun and I sunk a lot of time into it, but the debugging is not fun and since your code has to be able to run on their server in their sandbox it really limits your algorithms. This game sounds fun just because it would let me really take advantage of my local hardware.
Battlesnake is worth checking out
Another game that might be of interest is Bitburner, it was the first thing I thought of before I clicked on the posted link.
Oh and definitely more of a departure but tangentially related is Greyhat
I loved hacknet, it's awesome.
I really hope it gets some form of sequel, the world has changed significantly and it could definitely make for some great storytelling
So back in the BBS days there was a game called TradeWars that I played a lot. This sounds strikingly similar, but with an API wrapper instead of a console/text based interface. I poked around but didn't see any mention of a TradeWars inspiration in the FAQ or docs.
I ran up ungodly phone bills playing Tradewars back in the day. Loved that game so much! You can still find it in various places online but it seems that all the players nowadays are using crazily optimized macros etc, so it loses the nostalgic slow-paced feel.
That’s the first thing I thought of when I read the title. Back in the day I turned tradewars into an API controlled game like this. I had my computer set up to auto dial in every day to a local BBS and play it using a Terminate script.
I love this. I'm not a dev or even a programmer but I just dipped my toes into API work with postman this last week. This is perfect to help me learn!
I wonder, too, if this would be a great little API learning tool.
Coming back to this topic because I had some really positive outcomes from it. Trying SpaceTraders out for a few days really crystallised for me that an online game can be as simple as a server-side API and a client-side script on a webpage that calls it to move the gameplay along. I've been bouncing off of MUD-creation frameworks for a year and a half trying to implement a game idea of mine, and thanks to this post, I was able to start from a minimal viable project and now I've been making really satisfying progress for a few straight weeks. So thanks for sharing, Hungariantoast.
Oh this is so cool. I haven't really dug in yet but I could see myself pouring hours into this!
Something like this has always been on my mind, having a simulated market purely run on a backend service and then have some front end actually render it.
Never considered only writing the backend and letting end users implement their own font ends though! It's actually a fun idea! Given the right community you give developers something fun to do (write code and solve an interesting problem) and then they can provide clients to players who might want to play but don't know how to code.
I'm reasonably tempted to jump in and give it a go myself, I've been looking for an excuse to write some more react and this could be a great little project to play with different cool front end libs and do some dumb OTT automation scripting stuff in Typescript.
This is super cool! My first thought was “man wouldn’t it be awesome if they had a community client gallery”, and sure enough there is one! Definitely going to play around with this today
As someone that has done a lot of Python for data analysis, but very little API or frontend work, it’s been wonderful to look around at what other people have made!
So I tried it for a bit (using a few of the various clients in the gallery). It was fun, but then my ships got stuck traveling and now I can't do any trading. Looking through some of the history on their discord it seems like a common bug. I might have to check back again when it's a bit more mature.
That's a bit worrying to hear, that seems like quite a fundamental issue. I know the game is in alpha right now, but seeing how quickly and effectively the deal with issues like this paint a picture I think.
I’ve been playing Star Trek Fleet Command for a while now and I can only barely tolerate it as they are using basically every dark pattern known to man.
This sounds like it could become a viable alternative once it gets fleshed out and there are clients for smartphone systems. I’d like to see some social features like in stfc and hopefully a client with some appealing graphics.
Really really cool concept nonetheless!