A remake of my 2004 PDA video game
My background project for the last two years has been re-implementing my 2004 C++ shoot'em up game in TypeScript + WebGL, and it's finally done (just in time for the 20th anniversary!) Play the game online: https://nicollet.net/blog/darklaga/darklaga.html Technical article about the remake: https://nicollet.net/blog/darklaga/remake.html I have tested Firefox, Chrome and Edge on desktop and mobile (no access to a device capable of running Safari). It's amazing how much difference 20 years makes: the hardware is so much more powerful, the web…
A remake of my 2004 PDA video game launched on December 31, 2024 with 106 votes, #386 of 5,365 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
Dark Laga is a shoot-em-up game originally created in 2004 for PDA devices, now rebuilt in TypeScript and WebGL for modern browsers. The remake runs on desktop and mobile versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. Players can launch the game directly in their browser without installation. The project represents a modern reimplementation of the original C++ game, leveraging current web technologies and hardware capabilities compared to the challenges of deploying to devices two decades ago.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
This article is a technical discussion of how the 2024 remake was built. You can play the game online , or read an older article about the 2004 version . In 2022, I found an archive DVD with the C++ source code, sprites, sounds and music of my 2004 video game Darklaga Cannonball Symphony . It could no longer be built (due to missing proprietary dependencies), so I decided to re-implement it as a late evening hobby project. As an additional challenge to porting a game I wrote when I was 20 years younger, I decided on two additional constraints: The complete source code of the remake can be found in this GitHub repository , and can be played online here . The remake is a web page that runs…from nicollet.net
In the maker’s words, at launch
My background project for the last two years has been re-implementing my 2004 C++ shoot'em up game in TypeScript + WebGL, and it's finally done (just in time for the 20th anniversary!) Play the game online: https://nicollet.net/blog/darklaga/darklaga.html Technical article about the remake…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →- IMI made a web game called Almost Pong2022 · lessmilk.com · ▲1,135
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!
A Marble Madness-inspired WebGL game we built for Netlify2024 · 5-million-devs.netlify.com · ▲616Hello HN! We’re a small creative studio specializing in real-time 3D experiences. Netlify approached us to design and build an interactive experience to celebrate reaching 5 million developers. Inspired by the classic game Marble Madness, we created a gamified experience where users control a ball through playful, interactive levels. The goal was to blend marketing content with the look and feel of a game to engage users. The app is built with Three.js [1], using our custom render pipeline and shaders, and uses Rapier for physics simulation [2]. The 2D content is overlaid on the WebGL view…
I open sourced a game I just released on Steam, written in Lua2021 · github.com · ▲496A replayable arcade shooter where you control a snake of heroes. - a327ex/SNKRX
- IRI recreated 90s Mode X demoscene effects in JavaScript and Canvas2025 · jdfio.com · ▲189
After 25 years of writing software, I was feeling nostalgic for the kinds of things that got me into programming in the first place: the old DOS demoscene. I spent a weekend seeing if I could recapture some of that INT 13H VGA magic using today's web tech, but with the old-school constraints of doing it from scratch. The result is this portfolio of ten classic effects running in a single HTML file. It's all vanilla JavaScript writing to a element, with no external libraries. It was a fun challenge to implement things like: * The color palette cycling and smooth fading in the Plasma demo. *…
- IBI built an indie, browser-based MMORPG2024 · alpha.reconquer.online · ▲340
I've been working on an MMORPG that is now in alpha as a solo developer. Here are the major open source technologies that I use: Blender - 3D modeling software for creating the overall environment and every game object. I've gotten a lot of CC and Public Domain assets from https://poly.pizza GLTF - I export assets from blender to the GLTF asset format JSON - I write a JSON config for every game object that describes things like its name, its interactions, its collisions, etc. Node.js exporter - I iterate over the environment and every asset to create a scene hierarchy. I use…
- IMI made a browser-based RTS game2022 · battle-of-flags.com · ▲212
I've posted this game here before, hopefully a repost is fine as the game has changed quite a bit (improved AI, improved mapeditor, much quicker gameplay, etc). Game is based on JavaScript/Canvas and WebSockets. On the browser side the map is pre-rendered (as a background image), just the mobile units/buildings and animations are dynamically rendered. The lobby server is made in node.js, but the game server is C++ for performance reasons (mainly the pathfinding). I found the C++ WebSocket libraries out there to be too difficult to use so I made my own based on the rfc. Overall I…
Questions this answers
More work this month
the category →
Endless lofi beats composed live in your browser, over pixel-art nights in Paris, Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney, San Francisco and more. Free, no sign-up.
Work · 26d ago · loficities.com
Smooth Recorder▲257Mac screen recordings that look edited when you hit stop
Work · 20d ago · smoothrecorder.com


Work · 14d ago · readrare.com
Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part