Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Play Solhopper – A Minimalist Game In ~500 Lines of HTML/CSS/JS
Hi HN! I'm excited to share SOLHOPPER, a minimalist game I'm building in just ~500 lines of HTML/CSS/JS. Here's a breakdown of the development process and some fun quirks of the game: Challenges and Fun Facts: - World Building & Math: Crafting the initial world and refining the game mechanics to keep it simple and compact was the toughest part. The back story is that you play as a Solhopper captain traveling away from earth at 10% the speed of light to capture solar flairs which unlock endowments (bottom left) to develop that star system. These endowments were setup by benefactors…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier. Play Solhopper – A Minimalist Game In ~500 Lines of HTML/CSS/JS launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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I had the concept in my head for some time and firstly just prototyped it using only HTML & CSS. Sent it to a few friends and they liked it so I made it into its own website and added few 'competitive' features like click counter and share button.
2022 · rotaboxes.com · its alternatives →
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I got pretty good at (and very addicted to) the lunar lander game from a few days ago... so I decided to make an autopilot for the lander based on what I felt like was the best strategy! Now I can have perfect landings every time without lifting a finger :D Writing the autopilot code was a lot more fun than I expected! It felt a bit like programming a robot. Source code: https://github.com/szhu/lunar-lander-autopilot Original lander HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35032506
2023 · szhu.github.io · its alternatives →
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Hello everyone! I created a short game in just a few days, just for fun, where you play as an ant and feed it apples This game also features random landscape generation, with clouds and trees arranged in a chaotic pattern across all coordinates. This is what took me the longest time :) I would appreciate your feedback ^ ^
2025 · aanthonymax.github.io · its alternatives →
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Hello guys, I'm glad to present to you PlayAlgoShip, a web-based game where you solve fun algorithmic puzzles. The rules are simple, you need to find the correct algorithm that makes the ship collect all stars. If you succeed, you will unlock the next level! There are also live statistics like how many players are currently playing on your current level (you are not alone struggling!), the finish rate of the level, and how many players liked/disliked it. It's 100% free, I hope you will enjoy the experience!
2024 · playalgoship.com · its alternatives →
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A bizarre, spaceship builder roguelike
2015 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 6AS
FYI, I try to release something random on the 1st and 15th of every month, this was my latest. you can see my full list of projects on my twitter: https://twitter.com/lisperati/status/1543003744161484800
2022 · dreambookgame.com · its alternatives →
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Reflections on an epic Kickstarter campaign for a tiny game
2016 · happymittengames.com · its alternatives →
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Tox gives a reviewer's take on making an exceptional game
2016 · happymittengames.com · its alternatives →
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Turn-based space exploration sweetness
2015 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
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Dear Hacker News, I'm kindly asking for your participation in the open beta for my AI-managed mini-games website. Thank you in advance! For a limited time window, I'm setting the all-free feature flag to true. I hope you have a lot of fun exploring the AI's sense for games! Here and there, I tweaked it to help with visual consistency. I would be deeply grateful if you opted into analytics. $2,300 in API tokens... Cheers!
Jun 2026 · minigames.world · its alternatives →
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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 · its alternatives →
- 18IB
A minimal coding blog
2020 · elliotbonneville.com · its alternatives →
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I built this over the holiday break with my two girls (ages 6 and 8). You pilot a UFO and beam up humans, cows, cats, dogs, and sheep for points. They drew all the art while I talked to Claude Code to scaffold the game logic. The magic moment was watching my kids use voice dictation to talk directly to Claude Code. My 8-year-old asked for a "purpler" tractor beam and watched it change in real time. She wasn’t coding, but she _was_ driving: describing what she wanted, testing the result, and iterating fast. It was really cool to watch... later on she asked me what javascript was and we dug…
Jan 2026 · studio.mfelix.org · its alternatives →
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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 · its alternatives →
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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 · its alternatives →
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My wife and I recently submitted to a mobile game jam on Newgrounds (yes, it's still around). What started as a question of whether we could do it somehow morphed into whether we could do without so many of the seemingly needless complications rampant in our respective industries. My wife thus did all the art as traditional frame-by-frame animation (no puppets or tweening) and I preceded without a game engine. I did use a pre-processor that gives JS a Lisp syntax (Parenscript), because C-syntax is gross. We hope the end result, while definitely of small scope, will serve to inspire some…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I built Bisecto (https://bisecto.com), a minimalist browser game with one simple mechanic, cutting (bisecting) a procedural 2D shape into two exact 50/50 halves with a single straight line. Confession: I got completely hooked watching those viral reels of people trying to cut fruits and vegetables into perfectly equal halves, and that was my inspiration for this game :D I've been writing code for 12+ years, but for this project I leaned heavily on LLMs to quickly spin up this game, I thought it's going to be quick, but it took me some time (around 2 weeks) to make the…
Aug 2026 · bisecto.com · its alternatives →
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I know everyone is a bit burned out on blockchain and cryptocurrency related stuff around these parts, but I've been working on as a side project for the last few months and thought you guys might be interested: https://cryptoempire.io/ It's still a bit buggy and incomplete (the mobile ux needs a lot of work, the leaderboard isn't functional yet, etc.), but I've reached a point where I'm not totally ashamed of sharing it :) Any feedback would be most welcome!
2018 · its alternatives →
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