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Show HN: I made a Doom-like game fit inside a QR code

(github.com)
531 points kuberwastaken | 2 comments | 18 Apr 25 16:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.506s | source

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 is of course a very oversimplified description of it, using a lot of the same technologies that DOOM had but combining it with infinite seed based map generation in 2.4kb (QR codes can only store 3kb, which includes changing formats) was pretty hard.

Here are some links about it if you want to nerd out and read more:

Repository Link (MIT License): https://github.com/Kuberwastaken/backdooms

A Hosted (slightly improved) version of The Backdooms: https://kuberwastaken.github.io/backdooms/

Game Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QWPr10cAuGc

My Linkedin post about it: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7295667...

(PS: You'd need something like https://qrscanner.org/ or something that can scan bigger QR codes and put the text data onto your browser to play it)

My Blogs documenting the process and development in detail:

https://kuberwastaken.github.io/blog/Projects/How-I-Managed-... https://kuberwastaken.github.io/blog/Projects/How-I-Managed-...

1. redeyedtreefrog ◴[19 Apr 25 09:03 UTC] No.43735175[source]▶
Pretty cool, though like others I had some slight technical issues. On Firefox mobile I got a black screen (that was yesterday, maybe it's been updated since then). Firefox desktop today it worked once I figured out that:

a) the keyboard doesn't work until after I click to fire, and this state resets itself every time I press f5 to restart the game (presumably a browser focus issue)

b) both up/down and w/s work for back and forward, but a and d don't work for left and right, you need to use the left/right arrows.

The combination of the two had me scratching my head for a little while!

replies(1): >>43735300 #
2. kuberwastaken ◴[19 Apr 25 09:37 UTC] No.43735300[source]▶
Heyo! Thanks for checking it out! "On Firefox mobile I got a black screen" - Yup I broke it while trying to add mobile controls earlier, but it works well now!

"the keyboard doesn't work until after I click to fire, and this state resets itself every time I press f5 to restart the game" yes- this is actually something for starting the game music and some other processes