Multiplayer tanks that demolish real buildings from OpenStreetMap

Posted by n4ze3m 9 hours ago

Comments

Comment by croniev 6 hours ago

Just me or is this a bit cynical? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the gameplay is fun and everything. Just the concept makes me really uneasy, especially as I have a friend who's house was destroyed recently in war...

Comment by user43928 4 hours ago

I wouldn't say so, since shooting at mini tanks and buildings that look like cardboard on a gray street map doesn't seem connected to real events.

That said, I did not find the game fun. It was laggy, UI elements seemed a bit sloppy and cut off, and the purpose of buttons wasn't very clear. Also, I saw mostly brown tiles rather than buildings, maybe it was already all destroyed.

Comment by n4ze3m 3 hours ago

Thanks for the honest feedback. The lag was the server struggling with today's crowd, and I've shipped fixes for it over the last hour. The brown tiles are rubble from earlier players. Pick a city further away and you'll find it untouched.

Comment by AspireOne 6 hours ago

I think it's fun, not cynical at all. I'm sure if my close one was shot, I'd be uneasy playing call of duty, and so on.

I'm sorry for your friend.

Comment by yesco 1 hour ago

As someone who was personally a victim of a violate car accident when very young, causing permanent facial scarring; I give everyone permission to play GTA, Wreckfest and Burnout 3.

I would hope my friends would never use me to say otherwise.

Comment by sheepscreek 5 hours ago

Not just you. With a fourth of the world in an actual war, it doesn’t sit well with many of us.

That said, whoever made it might not be thinking about that. A kid could vibecode a game these days. I wouldn’t hold it against them.

Moreover, many AAA games glamorize war (Call of Duty, Far Cry, Battlefield…) or crime (GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Payday, Hitman…).

Comment by whoanoway 2 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by sd9 5 hours ago

I'm surprised by the comments defending this, I also think it's in poor taste. I wouldn't say cynical, in my opinion it's worse than that, it's too real.

Comment by zeryx 32 minutes ago

It's art, it's supposed to make you feel uneasy. If this wakes you up by making a faraway concept suddenly seem real to you - I'd say the artist did a very good job.

Comment by Grimburger 3 hours ago

If it makes you feel any better tanks are almost useless now in modern war.

They can't at all compete with some off the shelf kids toy costing $30 with a HEAT round attached. The cost differential here with a 35 million euro tank is beyond pale.

Comment by tokai 5 hours ago

This kind of outrage takes away from things that are actually distasteful and cynical. Conflating unproblematic things with actual harmful things is a you problem. Policing tone, while people are actually dying out there, is more cynical that this game. The only outcome here is there you guys feel better about yourself.

Comment by sd9 1 hour ago

It's not really outrage, I just think it's in poor taste. Unproblematic is a matter of opinion, which we're each entitled to.

Comment by 1shooner 4 hours ago

Having a negative opinion is not policing. If you want to spend your free time simulating destruction, that is really your thing. It's common entertainment. It doesn't mean others can't share a different perspective on it.

Comment by bemtevi 5 hours ago

I don't think that quite makes sense. Sometimes it's useful to point out/shame unsettling things that happen in society, even if it doesn't directly cause harm.

Comment by hlynurd 4 hours ago

I both think this is allowed to exist in addition to finding this tasteless.

Comment by brenschluss 3 hours ago

It sounds like you yourself are outraged and policing how people feel about this game?

Comment by nancyminusone 19 minutes ago

This game is only too real if after playing it, you suddenly have an urge to purchase a Komatsu D355A bulldozer

Comment by OsrsNeedsf2P 1 hour ago

You're on HN, where people celebrate YC companies that in "defense". The majority of people in our networks would bomb a house if it completed their next round. Let's not pretend that we're surprised people defend this.

Comment by thedellmonitor 3 hours ago

NO FUN ALLOWED

Comment by latexr 1 hour ago

Fun is very much allowed. But people are also allowed to question if one person’s fun is another person’s pain.

Like, if a bunch of kids caught a stray cat, tied him up, and started shouting in his ears and laughing, would you stop them? And if they complained “no fun allowed”, would you think that was fair? What about if there was a video game in which you beat to a pulp deepfake representations of your friends and family? Do you not agree it would be reasonable for some people to find that in bad taste, including those who have suffered from domestic violence in real life?

You may say that this is just a game, but media affects people too. There are thousands of games where you can shoot at fictional infrastructure, is there really that much to gain from destroying representations of real buildings?

Comment by ThrowawayR2 31 minutes ago

> "media affects people too"

The previous incarnations of that, like "videogames cause violence", "superhero comic books cause juvenile delinquency", "D&D causes satanism", "rock and roll caused a decline in youth morals", are nonsense that was discredited long ago.

Comment by latexr 11 minutes ago

You completely misunderstood. I meant that media affects people emotionally. Have you ever seen a person cry watching a movie? Have you ever seen someone say “this story speaks to me on a personal level”? Have you ever seen someone say “I couldn’t finish the show, it reminded me too much of my own father and his struggle with the same disease”? That’s what I meant, not “booga booga, fear mongering”.

God damn, why must HN always assume the worst? Engage in good faith for once, stop assuming every argument is made by an imbecile and that you understand everything and are the lord of reason.

Comment by hexagonsuns 39 minutes ago

Your premise makes no sense. We’re talking about a top down tank game where the buildings don’t even resemble their real life counterparts here.

If you’re offended by this, maybe you should just not engage with it. Why does the onus fall on the creator?

Take a look at Battlefield. Should we take that down because it simulates war? Maybe we should remove guns from ever appearing in media because people have died from guns. Should we remove color from media because it may be insensitive to the colorblind? Why don’t we just remove all words everywhere because someone has had their feelings hurt by words. Where do we draw the line?

Comment by latexr 26 minutes ago

> If you’re offended by this

I’m not offended by it. I am in fact very politely and cordially inviting the commenter above to consider a different perspective, and my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable. I recommend doing that before launching on tirades of bad faith argumentation.

It’s been my observation that people who accuse others of being offended are themselves the most easily offended. Very much like the people who call others “snowflakes” have the thinnest skins themselves.

> maybe you should just not engage with it.

Despite it not being my case, those who are offended can and should very much still engage. Suggesting otherwise is nonsensical and a tool of those who promote hate. There is no societal progress if those who see something wrong do not speak up.

> (…) Should we take that down because it simulates war? (…)

I said in my comment that we already have thousands of games like that. I didn’t say that was bad. You are arguing in profound bad faith and are not even doing a good job of hiding your repeated straw men. I recommend you learn to engage with the arguments, instead of making up new ones in your head and fighting those.

Comment by ThrowawayR2 12 minutes ago

> "my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable."

You were lambasting the HN community with various pejoratives like "blowhards" and "putrid" in a comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997 ) in this thread 5 hours ago? There is no good faith interpretation for that I'm afraid.

Comment by bemtevi 5 hours ago

I think it's rather poor taste to code something like this. Usually when buildings or other things are destroyed in movies or even a game, it's to tell some kind of story. In a way telling the story brings the justification because the destruction in the story is usually counterbalanced by someone trying to stop it, which brings the story to the level of good being done.

This is just wanton destruction and has nothing good in it.

Comment by ndriscoll 4 hours ago

I mean, technically, Blast Corps had a story (you needed to pave the way for a runaway nuclear missle to not crash and explode or something), but then you'd get medals for thoroughly destroying everything anyway, because really it was about knocking down buildings and the "story" was a silly pretense. And it was great.

Rampage and its sequels were pretty much also just "destroy buildings, the game," and also great.

My kids enjoy building with tiles and then knocking it down.

If you've ever shot a gun or detonated some explosives in real life, you'll know that's fun too despite these things being used to hurt people also.

Comment by wvh 4 hours ago

Almost everything fun doing is going to have a naughty element that's bound to upset somebody.

Comment by treapassing-sil 51 minutes ago

You mean I cant read certain books without upsetting someone. oh wait... think I know the answer. ;)

This used to be so ridiculous it was satire.

Comment by dsdungeon 3 hours ago

I think it’s the particular design choice of leaving emoji on the rubble you destroyed, with options like a skull, fire and so on.

The Call of Duty series gives a much more detailed view of the battlefield, with a lot more blood, and it doesn’t get a reputation for being cynical because it doesn’t force your hand with a choice that feels like mockery of the situation. This game’s emoji defaults slightly do, whether it was intentional or not.

Comment by treapassing-sil 55 minutes ago

ya. If those are the emojis used. I have to agree with you.

Would give better perspective if your own virutal geographical building was equally destroyed as destroying others.

Would also be better if RL names where replaced with fictional random names.

Comment by 3 hours ago

Comment by pipe01 4 hours ago

Reminds me of the kid that got expelled for modelling his school as a Counter Strike map

Comment by Almondsetat 48 minutes ago

It's AI slop which was probably made in an afternoon with zero human input, you're giving it too much credit

Comment by iberator 47 minutes ago

Its just you. Get a grip. People are doing war since ancient times. Its in our dna

Comment by tokai 5 hours ago

You are overreacting. Its not cynical.

Comment by latexr 5 hours ago

I had a similar thought.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997

If your friend would be willing to share their thoughts, I’m interested in learning. Of course, if they don’t want to share or you think it would be disrespectful to even ask, don’t. I’m just thinking the perspective of such people should not be ignored.

Comment by n4ze3m 6 hours ago

I'm really sorry about your friend's home. I never meant it that way. It started as just a 3D map that you could drive around. Then I added collisions, then a tank, and it grew into a game from there. None of it came from anything in real life. But I understand why it feels uneasy when war is real for people you know.

Comment by DonHopkins 5 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by 5 hours ago

Comment by DonHopkins 5 hours ago

[flagged]

Comment by peibin 54 minutes ago

It's just for fun guys. It's just a game ! Don't let game play yourself !

Comment by heggy 6 hours ago

Fun idea but horribly laggy. Just driving down a street and I would get bounced back constantly and make very little progress. Ping was showing up as much as 5000ms

Comment by n4ze3m 6 hours ago

sorry, that's on me! Way more people showed up than I expected and the server couldn't keep up. When it falls behind it drops your inputs and yanks your tank back, so that's the bouncing. I found the culprit (collision checks looking at way too many buildings)

Comment by TheSkyHasEyes 1 hour ago

Still same lag for me. But love the effort. :)

Comment by vfosnar 8 hours ago

as an active osm contributor and community member and io games enjoyer i love this.

if the author is readin this by any chance pretty please improve the attribution placement, projects like this are whats bringin interested people in to help us build a better open map for everyone <3

Comment by n4ze3m 8 hours ago

Thank you! You're right, it was buried behind a tiny ⓘ. Fixed now, so the OpenStreetMap credit is always visible in-game and on the home screen.

Comment by jms703 48 minutes ago

I just demo'd my own home. Kinda felt nice. Always wanted to rebuild it.

Comment by dasyatidprime 3 hours ago

I can't load the thing, but the idea reminds me of the trope of adolescents playing early FPSes and making maps based on their homes and schools, for good or for bad…

Comment by pjmlp 2 hours ago

Neat idea, however in my home town it quickly gets stuck on the streets, maybe the collision testing isn't that great.

Comment by 6 hours ago

Comment by jaapz 8 hours ago

5 minute respawn timer after being shot is a bit excessive

Comment by n4ze3m 7 hours ago

Fair point, Just cut it to 30 seconds.

Comment by notcrazylol 8 hours ago

yeah i just started and someone shot me. Now i gotta wait 5mins?

Comment by Glyptodon 1 hour ago

Keep getting "lost the convoy."

Comment by chiph 4 hours ago

For US addresses, can you include the state in the search? It's common for the same city name to be reused. For example: Dallas North Carolina (small town) vs Dallas Texas (metropolis)

Comment by fixitplz 6 hours ago

I want to try this but every time I try to join either from my mobile or desktop (both on WiFi), I get this error: "That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one." that comes from the Railway-hosted wss://worldstrike.fun/ws

Here's a full response with headers:

HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols Connection: Upgrade Sec-Websocket-Accept: GeKaJfsfiYd9s2vROz7kMU3RDWA= Sec-Websocket-Extensions: permessage-deflate; server_no_context_takeover; client_no_context_takeover server: railway-hikari Upgrade: websocket X-Railway-Request-Id: UA8DKXk_TKiusD2aYqVb7A x-hikari-trace: lhr1.7mfs x-railway-edge: lhr1

{"type":"error","message":"That callsign belongs to another player. Pick a different one."} Connection Closed: 1005

Comment by n4ze3m 5 hours ago

sorry thats confusing names are locked to the first browser that users them, so someone else probably took it

Comment by glibg10b 8 hours ago

It keeps saying "Your connection dropped. Let’s get you back out there." after a few seconds, then returns me to my spawn point. I don't see any bad HTTP status codes in the network tab

Can you make it a little more resilient on Wifi + 4G? I would really like to try this, it seems fun

Also, incorporating elevation data would also be really cool

Comment by n4ze3m 7 hours ago

thanks, found it! The server was kicking laggy connections. Fixed, and it auto-reconnects now.

Comment by glibg10b 7 hours ago

Hah, I thought it just randomly started working. But no, you fixed it :)

Comment by ByThyGrace 6 hours ago

This thing just crashed my whole DE. My GPU reset. Haven't had one like that in years.

Comment by n4ze3m 6 hours ago

Sorry! It's WebGL, so it shouldn't be able to do that. Which browser, OS and GPU? I'd like to track it down.

Comment by anonymous908213 6 hours ago

This happens on every shitty vibe coded 3D webapp that makes it onto HN. I don't know what the fuck they're feeding these bots.

Comment by rescbr 2 hours ago

Eh, the browser sandbox shouldn't allow random web pages to crash the whole desktop environment.

Comment by discoinverno 8 hours ago

Nice! Are tanks spawned at the last picked location? I picked my hometown as I wanted to demolish a friend's house, and I was surprised to find 2 tanks there (it's a random small city in Europe).

I also have the bug where it keeps respawning me to the starting point after ~30 seconds

Comment by n4ze3m 7 hours ago

They're real players, no bots! The 30-second reset was a connection bug, fixed now.

Comment by jimmydddd 3 hours ago

I can't see my tank because the status box takes up most of the screen?

Comment by behole 1 hour ago

FUN. Tanks are not my "thing" but it was fun to cruise around LA shooting at stuff. I have always wanted to make a racing game with real roads around you. Make segments like from the house to the store and see who can drive em the fastest in game. Good inspo from worldstrike! TY

Comment by treapassing-sil 47 minutes ago

Destroying Mar-a-logo is a blast! So cathartic.

But I'll stick to destroying places that have made my life miserable.

Comment by netsharc 7 hours ago

I guess I wasn't the first to have the idea to flatten the White House...

Bye bye, ballroom!

Comment by u03c6 2 hours ago

of all the fun things you could do based on OpenStreetMap choosing to destroy cities says a lot about the values of our times

Comment by NDlurker 3 hours ago

Anyone else immediately think of San Diego?

Comment by igleria 8 hours ago

I don't get it, how is it possible people are in my local town? or is this more populr than this thread? fun stuff nevertheless.

Comment by n4ze3m 7 hours ago

Real people, no bots :) If you join with the default option, you're dropped near where other players are already fighting, so you'll usually find company

Comment by igleria 7 hours ago

but I chose Drogheda! (random ass town in Ireland)

Comment by nothingnix 6 hours ago

The others probably chose to spawn "near players", so that's how they ended up in your random ass town in Ireland

Comment by Den_VR 6 hours ago

I can see the potential already for an acquisition by Match Group.

Comment by brontosaurusrex 7 hours ago

Is there a way to change viewing angle?

Comment by n4ze3m 6 hours ago

Yes! Press C to switch between the chase and overhead camera, and scroll (or pinch on mobile) to zoom.

Comment by brontosaurusrex 6 hours ago

I understand. I meant, can i get rid of this top-down view? I like the lowpoly model btw, is that something you modeled or ai creation?

Comment by jagged-chisel 5 hours ago

Would love to see some stats on what people decide to destroy …

Comment by n4ze3m 5 hours ago

about 7500 buildings have been destroyed since this was posted. most are houses, shops, restaurants and offices. I'll add a stats page soon so anyone can see it.

Comment by indrex 8 hours ago

Saw no buildings. Fired at the next tank.

Comment by n4ze3m 8 hours ago

tanks can fight each other too! Press M and drive somewhere new for buildings nobody has flattened yet

Comment by cowlevel 4 hours ago

Hi there! My name is Ender, and I'd love to play this game.

Comment by RicoElectrico 7 hours ago

Similar in spirit: https://kaijumietz.de/

Comment by m00dy 7 hours ago

it's missing interpolation on position estimation.

Comment by n4ze3m 7 hours ago

It was timed by server ticks, which fell behind under today's load. It's fixed now, so refresh and it should be smoother.

Comment by m00dy 5 hours ago

add some bots.

Comment by n4ze3m 5 hours ago

I actually built bots today for load testing. Maybe they'll get to play for real some day.

Comment by pythonRon 7 hours ago

It would be more fun if I could pick a city. Knocking down Trump's white house would be a kick.

Comment by hobofan 7 hours ago

You can pick a city and exact location on the map.

Comment by snvzz 6 hours ago

That's how you get the law enforcement knock on your door.

Comment by pythonRon 7 hours ago

Or Trump Towers!

Comment by latexr 5 hours ago

I am genuinely interested in the opinions of people who live in or fled war-torn countries. Would they find this in poor taste? That it trivialises ongoing struggles? Have they tried looking into their own cities? Do they not care? Do they think this is somehow useful? Does it surface memories? Are they more bothered by the execution?

Of course, we’d need more than one or two data points. If you know someone (or are you yourself) in that situation, I’d welcome learning your thoughts. No judgement or ulterior motive, just looking to understand another perspective.

Edit: And, of course, the downvotes are already coming. Don’t know why I bother with this community anymore. Call for exploiting and exterminating other people (I’m not talking about this submission) and you are celebrated; but try to be empathetic and learn about others, no sirree, can’t have that, that’s a grave offence to the great hacker blowhards who frequent the big AI News network. This community has become putrid.