Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Shehzadi in Peril – My first ever game
Hello HN! This is the first game I ever built. It's very simple, but I'm still kind of proud of it because all the pixel art is original. Thanks for taking a look! GitHub link: https://github.com/shajidhasan/shehzadi-in-peril
Shehzadi in Peril is a simple video game created by a first-time game developer. The game features entirely original pixel art and is available to play online. The complete source code is open-source and available on… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Shehzadi in Peril – My first ever game launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1AF
I've seen some interests in (simulation) video games here on HN so I thought I'd share a short version of our story. More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort. Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam:…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 2IM
Hi HN! I made many small web games in the past with Unity or Phaser. But this time I wanted to make something completely on my own. So I coded a basic game framework in plain JavaScript, and used it to make Almost Pong. This was a really fun project that taught me a lot about JavaScript, and I plan to make more minimalist games with this framework. Interesting fact: Almost Pong doesn't load any assets, all sprites and sounds are generated with code. Happy to answer questions, and please let me know if you have any feedback on the game. Thanks!
2022 · lessmilk.com · its alternatives →
- 3MM
Hey folks, About a year ago my wife and I, both closing in on 40, quit our jobs at Red Hat to start a games company and learn game development. Many things happened along the road, and about a week ago we released our first (small) game on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2816120/Mazelit/ The demo is free to play up to level 8 (the final game plays up to level 80) and we'd appreciate any feedback you have, whether it's for the store page or the game itself. We made the game in Godot 4.2 in roughly 3 months and I was working full time next to it. Since…
2024 · its alternatives →
- 4
I sometimes pick up random projects just because I can, this was one of those times. I made it as a week long project a while back this year but never shared here, so thought to go for it haha. I created a game inspired by Doom and the backrooms called The Backdooms under 2.4kb in minified html. (for reference, this entire post would be around 1.8kB haha) I had to use a not popular way of using GZip with Zlib headers (had to write my own script for compressing it, also in the repo) to eventually convert it a size 40 QR code that works right in your browser using Decompressionstream API. This…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5
The HN Arcade▲352I love seeing all the small games that people build and post to this site. I don't want to forget any, so I have built a directory/arcade for the games here that I maintain. Feel free to check it out, add your game if its missing and let me know what you think. Thanks!
Jan 2026 · andrewgy8.github.io · its alternatives →
- 6
I'm a Unity 3D refugee, certified expert, started in 2005 when it was a two man-band with Joachim and David. I've been lucky enough to make a good living out of Unity with my own consultancy over the years making data visualisation applications (Wind Energy) and innovation projects (Visualising accounting data for Wolters Kluwer etc.). Godot is pretty amazing in my opinion. Wrote this game over a few days and was productive in Godot basically instantly. I couldn't get up and running in Unreal despite trying a few times. It's my ambition to start a niche agency developing 80's style games of…
2023 · lfgslots.com · its alternatives →
- 7IS
Hey everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I've just reached beta in my game BoxByte Lyte. -What is it- It's a free 3d arcade game for hardcore players that uses color matching in interesting ways. Also it's a one button game, well movement and one button. Cool huh? The final release will be free too. -What I need- This is a very challenging game, so I really need to balance the difficulty so that it's still hard but not impossible. It would be great just to hear your experiences of the game and how far in it you got. -Where can I report bugs?-…
2015 · its alternatives →
- 8IM
Hi, I've been developing an HTML5 MMORPG game where people can submit code to play a game, like collect items, destroy defense towers or kill monsters, etc.. I've been working on this for over 1.5 yrs (all my spare time) and now it's ready for preview, does anyone want to try it out? It's mostly opensource (and the rest will be opensource sooner or later) Please access it with PC, it's an HTML5 game: https://bytelegend.com/ I really want it to expand to more languages, but right now I've only finished Java part. I wonder if anyone can help me with other languages. Besides, I'm…
2022 · bytelegend.com · its alternatives →
- 9MP
I have been working on this game somewhat sparsely for the past three years or so. However, it is still in a very early stage, and there is a lot of work to do. One of my friends encouraged me to post about it here, since he felt people might find interesting how I don’t use any libraries for it. The game can be played on a browser by virtue of WebAssembly. There are native ports using either MiniFB or SDL2, but you have to build those yourself. I decided to write the game in C because I feel like it is a simple language that a lot of people can understand well enough, and I didn’t think I…
2023 · zamfofex.neocities.org · its alternatives →
- 10
Hello HN! After I got a great response on my first game, I wanted to share the second game I ever made. It's an infinite jumping game, but there are bombs to watch out for! It can be played both on desktop and mobile. It can be installed as a PWA too. If you enjoyed, please leave a star on the GitHub repository: https://github.com/shajidhasan/dotventure Thanks for taking a look. Years ago, whenever I wanted to build games, I'd always stop because I felt I needed to create original game assets but could never get it done. After making this game, I've realized that you…
2024 · dotventure.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 11
2014 · windowsphone.com · its alternatives →
- 12
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 →
- 13AS
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 →
- 14
I had a dream on Nov 21, 2019 of a game. I woke up at 4:00pm that day, started programming it then, and 7 and 1/2 hours later, it was done. It's about you and a pink square going exploring. - otdav33/spelunko
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
With the current inflow of LLM aided software, I thought I would share a cool "hand-coded" project from the previous era (I wrote this in highschool so roughly ~8 years ago). Hedra is an open world 3d game written from scratch using only OpenGL and C#. It has quite a few cool features like infinite generation, skinned animated mesh rendering, post processing effects, etc. Originally the physics engine was also written from scratch but i swapped for the more reliable bulletphysics.
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
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 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 17
This is how I made my first Game using the Godot Engine
2020 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 18IJ
2011 · codebrief.com · its alternatives →
- 192P
Hi HN! On Sunday I spent a couple of hours building a short 2d platformer ("Prince of Persia" style). What's interesting is how I built it. I went for a zero-code approach, and built the whole thing using OpenAI Codex CLI and agent skills (with the progressive disclosure paradigm). You can play the game here: https://acatovic.github.io/gothicvania-codex-demo/ You can see the full code, agent skills and a complete writeup here: https://github.com/acatovic/gothicvania-codex-demo Some takeaways: * This was one of the most enjoyable experiences ever! *…
Feb 2026 · its alternatives →
- 20IB
It's like a mix between Picross (Nonograms) and Polyominoes. It's a minimalist puzzler which has no text, no tutorials (none required) and no ads set in a relaxing environment. App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/shapeuku-shape-puzzle-game/i... Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dtbgames.s... I have a bulk load of Android promo codes to give away, so if you'd like one let me know! (Sorry iOS users, I have no free codes left!)
2018 · its alternatives →
- 21
I saw The Mahjong Guide (https://themahjong.guide/) today and loved how much a good visual explanation can do for an old game. Around the same time, this HN thread about using coding assistants to revive projects you never were going to finish (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47902525) pushed me to actually do something with the idea. That combination sent me down a nostalgia rabbit hole. Thaayam / Dayaakattai is one of those games I played during childhood summers in Tamil Nadu with cousins, and this being summer again just brought those memories…
Apr 2026 · amal-david.github.io · its alternatives →
- 22
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 · its alternatives →
- 23
I created a puzzle game after some recent years of hiatus from game development. It was a puzzle game where you have to assemble a randomized tiles. You can view the preview using eye icon on the top right side. You also can undo your previous step. I created this game using Unity because I am already familiar with it. If you encounter the tiles is not randomized, please try recreate the tile again, I don't exactly know why it's happenning. Thank you
2024 · yunusefendi52.itch.io · its alternatives →
- 24SF
Hi HN! I’ve been building a 2D game using a custom engine I wrote from scratch – no Unity, no frameworks. It’s fully self-funded and will be released commercially on Steam. Engine source code (MIT): http://github.com/willtobyte/carimbo I’d love feedback on the gameplay, visuals, performance, or anything else. Thanks!
2025 · bereprobate.com · its alternatives →
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