Alternatives
Products that do what Meatshields – An in-browser turn-based strategy game does
A few months ago (82 days to be exact!) I posted a link on HN to my game, Meatshields. A bunch of you commented and played my game and gave me some wonderful feedback. Over the last few months I've been playing with many of you and implementing the best of everybody's suggestions. So, thank you, HN for all your help! I feel this is an extreme overhaul I couldn't have done without your input. Since then, I have: Dramatically improved our hosting platform (So it HOPEFULLY won't go down this time (oops.)), Added two new units, Rebalanced all existing units, Added many more maps, Improved the…
- 1MA
I made an in-browser game called Meatshields (https://meatshields.com) which allows players to play a turn-based strategy game against many different players simultaneously. The game is heavily inspired by Advance Wars and I wanted to give people the multiplayer experience I loved from my childhood. I couldn't find an online version of the gameplay that I really loved (Advance Wars By Web (AWBW) is FANTASTIC, but there are actually a few gameplay mechanics in Advance Wars that I take issue with that I wanted to try to balance myself), so I decided to make my own. It's still pretty…
2017
- 2MW
Hello, HN! I've posted a couple times here to get feedback on a strategy game I've been working on called Meatshields. All of your suggestions and feedback have been EXTREMELY helpful so I want to thank everyone here once again for generously helping me iron out kinks in the game. One big request I got the last time I showed the game was the ability to write your own AI for it. I thought about it and realized that would be totally do-able! The downside is that you have to host the AI service yourself, so it's sort of BYOAI, but it won't need to support a massive ton of requests or anything…
2017
- 3MA
hi all, I've always wanted to make my own game, but couldn't afford a thousand-dollar adobe (flash+photoshop) license. I'm not a talented programmer, have no degree in CS. But I understand some elements of design. So I got me a copy of ImpactJS, and after about 5 months of steep learning curve (at least for me), I managed to come up with a game. I also integrated it with a highscore and badge system, similar to what you get at Kongregate. You need to login with Google/OpenID to earn badges/scores. link is: http://www.hotbazooka.com/privatejoe hope to hear some feedback/questions from you guys!
2011 · hotbazooka.com
- 4M1
2019 · mnml.gg
- 5M4
Well HN, I've finally produced something I think is worthy of sharing, but I didn't do it "in a weekend". Yeah, it's an iOS puzzle game. And yeah, it's a game I built because I wanted to play it rather than based on market research, so all this sort of makes it the antithesis of a popular HN post. But whatever. Still hoping for some of that patented (har har) expert HN feedback. Critique any part of it except the music. Also, PM me for upgrade codes, or I can post some here if there's any interest. Download (it's free):…
2012
- 6AQ
Hello everyone! I've finally finished my latest side project - a RPG game made in Blazor. It started as a small project to learn some Blazor (I'm .NET dev but kept mainly to backend and ASP.NET). I had such a good time coding it that at some point I decided to make a full featured game out of it. I might've have bitten off more that I could chew as RPGs have so many systems and elements but overall I think it worked out well, especially for a single person project. I want to hop on the next project soon so any comments/questions/tips than can make me better really appreciated!
2024 · whimsicalwyrm.itch.io
- 7FW
2014 · play.freeciv.org
- 8SC
I was tired of games like Mafia Wars and wanted a phone-based MMO Strategy game where hundreds of players could actually engage each other on a 2D map, so I made one. I track the state of the game each night so we can display a visual timeline of territory controlled by each alliance. (example: http://bit.ly/q5CFhU) I use jQuery mobile for the front end so it runs on most phones (via Phonegap) as well as modern web browsers. The server side is handled by Java Servlets and MySQL. This started as a hobby - I'm not a developer by training - so I am very interested in feedback, suggestions, and…
2011
- 91M
Howdy, long time HN'er. Spent ~20 years in FAANG and startups, got the pink slip during a big layoff wave in spring 2023. That's ok, I was about to quit anyway :) Finally got back to a lifelong goal of mine, making an "indie" game. (Indie is subjective, but you get the drift.) So, here it is: Ballionaire, a "fast-paced pachinko roguelike where strategy meets physics to create outrageous wealth!" My influences were: Plinko(TM), Luck Be A Landlord, and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. I was really fortunate because localthunk, the dev behind Balatro, noticed my game during its first month of…
2024 · store.steampowered.com
- 10IM
http://codewords.io/ I've been trying to get permission to run a game of it from the publisher and designer (CGE & Vlaada Chvátil) but I haven't heard back. I've found demonstrating that there's interest in what you're doing is the best way to get ahold of people. So.. Anyone interested in trying a massive game of Codenames over Twitch? Not quite "For Science!" more "For Engineering!" Which, let's be honest here, has a much better ring to it. If you'd like to know more, I put up an FAQ up here: http://codewords.io/faq/ If you'd like to sign up to help,…
2017
- 11SE
Hey, I've shared this game while it was still a work in progress in one of the Tell HN threads. I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of people tried it, and I got some positive feedback and constructive criticism. Anyway, I found a gamedev library I really like - Kaplay [1]. What I like about it is that easy things are easy. Meaning I could have fun building the game without learning (or fighting) a new tool. I always wanted to make games, but this is the first one I actually did. And I have to tell you - game development sparks joy! It combines so many things (game design, programming,…
Jan 2026 · muffinman-io.itch.io
- 12ZA
A while ago I started this side project to test if I could build a rich User Interface that would have about the same level of responsiveness than a "SPA-like" app, but using only htmx[1]... I still have plenty of stuff in my roadmap, but today it's in a playable state and I thought it could be interesting to share it - as it may be a nice demonstration of a relatively rich user interface powered by htmx :-) --> https://zakuchess.com As for the stack: it's built mostly with Django, htmx and Tailwind CSS. It uses a SQLite database, and is hosted (for free) at Fly. The characters'…
2024 · zakuchess.com
- 13AS
Hi HN! This is my first game — something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a small browser game built with Phaser 3, React, and the phaser template (https://github.com/phaserjs/template-react-ts/). I made it in 2 days (like 8 hours in total real time) using gemini-cli. About 90% of the code was generated with AI, but I learned a lot by making fine tweaks. It only works on PC since it’s a typical WASD + R (reload) shooter. I’d love feedback on: - Gameplay (is it fun, too hard?) - Ideas for new features Thanks in advance! ps: I used cubes as a prototype, but now I kind of…
2025 · cubic-zombies.pages.dev
- 14AC
Hello, This is something I've wanted to build for awhile (first bought the domain in 2020 (then lost it for a year+)). It's a tactics solver on each new tab page. There are 5 modes of play: Easy (<1200 elo) Medium (1200-1800) Hard (1800-2400) Expert (2400+) Speedrun (solve as many puzzles as possible in 60 seconds). I'm having a ton of fun with it, and definitely noticing improvements with actual games (definitely solved the most puzzles in my life while developing this extension). If you check it out, please let me know what you think. Any feedback is good!
Apr 2026 · leetchess.com
- 15GA
I wanted to learn more about RAG implementations, so I built something to solve the constant digging through manuals whenever we play a game. It's fairly simplistic, but actually has worked pretty well for some of these conflicts. Everythings Open Source on GitHub if you're curious (or have ideas), and I'd love to hear feedback from fellow boardgamers!
2024 · gamegame.ai
- 16FA
Hey everyone, I'm Fabio, a very long time lurker here. Today I want to celebrate and share with you, again, a game that I conceived more than 8 years ago. I shared it last week with all its history (if you're curious) [1], but it just stayed in the "shownew" and never reached the main "show" page, hopefully this time it'll do better (:crossed_fingers:)! What changed since last week? Today I've also published the mobile apps for both iOS and Android (last week it was just web), which are also my first mobile apps ever. So I believe it's still a worthwhile post and something to show :) I'd…
2024 · fiftygame.com
- 17MA
I hereby present my little tiny pet project that entertained me for the past six months. In this post, I briefly present Maginet and its technical components. It is a turn-based strategy game that is built using Rust and compiles to WebAssembly with HTML5 bindings, which works on mobile and desktop alike! It comes with many game mechanics and components, including an AI opponent and online cross-platform multiplayer. There is so much to discuss even for a project of a smaller scale, but I am nevertheless excited to share a little bit about how you can actually build a game in Rust,…
2023 · evrim.zone
- 18TA
https://github.com/PlumeCat/tack Hi HN! Tack is a scripting language I've been working on sporadically for the past year or so, and intensely for the past few weeks. It originated out of a desire for something that was like Lua, but with a more familiar syntax, and without some of the other surprises in Lua such as the 1-indexed tables. It's also been a great learning project, and a very satisfying challenge! While the current version is early beta at best, I hope to continue working on it and maybe see some adoption. Despite the relative lack of optimization, I'm very…
2023 · github.com
- 19IM
Hey there HN, I took a page from Wordle's mechanisms and made this game for fun for some friends and I. Check out Wheredle and let me know what you think of it! ↙ ↗ ↘ https://wheredle.xyz
2022 · wheredle.xyz
- 20FO
This is a two man team and we're in full-on development of a new platform to assist in multiplayer games. We're looking to launch in about a month or two with an OpenID server accessible to customers (or they can use provider like Facebook/Twitter) and a couple cool multiplayer features. After we launch development will continue until we have a well-rounded API. We're primarily targeting HTML5+JS developers but the system will work with any language that can make RESTful API calls. We know there's some stiff competition out there but we're looking for feedback and what features may make…
2014 · playpi.net
- 21IB
I'm working on the Survival Crafting RPG that you would have played on your Apple II back in the '80s. You can think of it as Valheim's gameplay crammed into the tile-based UI of the old Ultima games. It has a procedurally-generated open world with towns and NPCs to talk to, all the resource gathering, mining, crafting stuff you'd expect in a modern survival game, and some good old fashioned dungeon crawling to boot. I've been working on it off and on for the last several months. It's complete up through the Bronze Age (in Valheim terms). Let me know what you think!…
May 2026
- 22WG
Hi HN! This has been a fun little side project. You simply click to shoot arrows at falling circles (and the arrows of other players!) Hopefully, I make other social & simple games over time. I had to struggle with all the usually problems of game synchronization. It was a fun way to explore phoenix & elixir. You'll notice the signature claude code purple gradient. I'll be honest, I couldn't have built it without AI! If you really like it you can vote with your wallet and toss me $1.99. Or not!!
Dec 2025 · wingspan.games
- 23IB
Hey, A bit of context.. So I think last week was my last straw, I hit 8k hours with dota and holy ** It finally hit me how much time I wasted on that game. I'm a software developer, I always wanted to develop something and put it out but was scared shitless to do so, I was kinda afraid to get bad traction, to fail or even worse to be completely ignored. so I decided to address two of these issues at once, stop playing dota and spend the weekend building a website that let you see what you could've done with your gaming hours. As an avid gamer for the last 20+ years, I know that it's only…
Apr 2026 · alternatelife.xyz
- 24MT
It's been about 3 weeks since I dusted off the Multiplayer Tetris game that me and a buddy wrote A year ago and that's been collecting dust since then. A lot of after work and weekend hours have been pooring into the project since then, and I think it's about time to show the progress What's been done: - Preloading - Completely rewrote layout for desktop / tablet browsers using css3 :target. - Usage instructions added (one of the comments I got: "Yeah, it works, but how do I play?" ) - Sending all powerups to other users now works (click on another user's playfield to send powerup) - Game…
2012
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