Show HN: Eonfall – A new third-person co-op action game built for the web | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Eonfall – A new third-person co-op action game built for the web

eonfall.com

222 pointsjonkuze135 comments

Hi all, I'm excited to share Eonfall with Hacker News Community!

It's been 2-years in the making built by a 2 man team. Eonfall, is a new third-person co-op action game with rogue-lite elements built exclusively for the web! We've finally reached a release candidate state and set our official public release date for Jan 15th! The game's current version 5.0.0-beta is live and available to test play today!

Unity game engine was used to develop the game along with other services to handle the backend, and Nuxt 3 + Nuxt UI to handle the front-end.

We welcome any and all questions, feedback & suggestions!

Thanks all, Jon

Open articleView on HN

Very nice work, and congrats on getting so far with this! I have a few odd questions though:

Is the networking websockets or webrtc underneath?

Did you have tech challenges with the Unity side at all?

What's your business model?

thank you! - using Mirror Networking Library w/ Websockets - No tech challenges except for the super slooow build times lol - Business mode Ads, Ad Rewards, and Virtual Currency to buy premium cosmetics

Hey you could always try Unreal for even slower builds!

haha too funny!

shame they abandoned their web targets in UE5

Curious, are the slow build times locally, your own CI or Unity Cloud Build? (If local/own builders may be some ways to dramatically lower the build times eg by managing the Library/ cache per-platform.)

Happy to help anyone with optimizing these approaches it's been a pain to figure out

Slow builds locally, but last I tried cloud build it was about the same.

In the most recent game I automated builds for the initial build took 1-3 hours, but subsequent builds with the Library/ folder cached took 5-10 minutes.

Are you switching platforms between builds locally? (like building one for web / server / pc / mac etc). Platform switching essentially blows away the cache, making it take the full build time each time. There was an asset years back that would create folders for each platform's Library/ cache and switch between them when you switched build platforms.

In CI (eg using https://game.ci) you can prefix build cache keys with the platform to manage that automatically.

Unity Cloud Build is in general slower/more flakey/sometimes has cache issues compared to DIY CI, but it should speed up after a successful first build as long as it caches the Library/ folder, and they do separate that out by build platform properly. (Worth checking each build config setting is set to cache that)

Nope not switching between platforms. I'm actually using ParrelSync that allows me to have 2 instances of Unity open working off same codebase. One instance is set to Server and other to WebGL platform. The purpose of it is mostly for faster multiplayer development & testing.

Server Builds are super quick, it's the Unity WebGL Client builds that take forever even if I have cache. Although I have not migrated to Unity 6 yet, that's actually next on my to-dos which I believe there are lots of improvements for WebGL builds there. So I'm hopeful for better dev experience there.

I never knew about game.ci seems like it could be very helpful! Going to check that out... thank you!!

I am curious, what are the best Ads, and Ads Rewards platform for the web? Last time I dig into this I could not find anything on par with the offer for the mobile platforms.

I've used Google Ads in the past but they didn't have any Ad Rewards... then I transitioned to using AdinPlay (https://adinplay.com) which does support mobile and Ad Rewards.

This page seems to indicate Google Ads supports ad rewards:

https://admob.google.com/home/resources/rewarded-ads-win-for...

Disclosure: I work at Google, but not in ads, and know very little about ads.

Ahh I forgot to mention last time I worked with Google Ads was 2012 lol!! I'm pretty sure that didn't exist then... I never saw a Flash game with ad rewards at that time and never heard of it myself then.

Looks interesting. Some feedback on the trailer: I wouldn't waste the precious first 5 seconds on guys running at the camera, and your post says something about roguelite. Are there skill trees? Items/equipment? Shops? Different zones? I assume the characters running at the start represent classes but there's no way to tell. I'd showcase clips of what all the game has to offer, not just combat the whole time.

thanks for the feedback... regarding the roguelite elements. Eonfall features dynamic missions & enemy spawns, and permadeath. You are right, would be good to incorporate more of that within a future game trailer somehow. Thanks again.

Does it though? I thought this was a web-native engine written for WebGL/JS or wasm. But it's just an n+1th Unity project that got exported to the browser. There are (tens of) thousands like this on itch/Steam/mobile app store.

I don't see what's wrong with Unity or any other native engine that can export to WebGL via WASM. It's still building for the web none-the-less.

With tools like Unity you can focus more on the actual game development instead of building the tools for the game and then risk never releasing the game.

I think most people here celebrate the engineering effort that goes into the project, not the outcome. 'I built a car from nuts and bolts and drove it 500km' is much more impressive than 'I drove my car 500km', even though very likely the factory built car is better engineered.

Using an existing engine with an existing network library is not technically noteworthy.

The resulting game might be fun, polished, worth playing etc., but from a technology side, it's not interesting.

Are the thousands of games on itch/Steam/mobile app store multiplayer?

Reminds me of the days of spending dozens of hours in Sherwood Dungeon in my youth.

I haven't thought of that game in ages! The nostalgia hits hard.

Dude i remember that game it was so fun to wander around. One of the best memories of my childhood

ahhh yess use to play that game too!! I've been working on web games since about that time when adobe shockwave game became a thing. Fun times! = )

Now that's something I haven't thought about for almost 15 years, but have some nice and vivid memories about. Cool!

This took me back to a very fun time in my life.

Couldn't get past the consent banner. I am not going to click on a thousand "legitimate interest" toggles just to watch a trailer (and most certainly not going to "accept all" just to remove the banner). No idea what the game is about as a result.

Not the best onboarding experience, I must say...

I know it doesn’t address your concern about the website itself but you can also view the trailer directly on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/i2gPwAsKxCE?si=lx_61nxRWf5kTPN_

ah thanks for the feedback! I agree, not the best onboarding experience. I'll certainly look into this.

Looks like the banner is opt-out rather than opt-in. Do you need 150+ legitimate interest partners and what for?

It's for curated targeted Ads through our Ad platform AdinPlay. I'll certainly review this and see if we can improve that consent experience.

After choosing character, loading the game, got an alert with some error about wasm.

Second time I tried, was able to load the game.

Sadly my 2012 Thinkpad is not able to keep up even on Low graphics (12 FPS) and looks like there's only a server in US, which meant 200+ Ping for me

Looks pretty cool tho. Good luck working on the rough edges!

Thanks for feedback! Sadly yea the game may not run well on some older model laptops and anything with lower than mid-tier GPUs. We optimized as best we could to reach most hardware possible. We actually have servers globally, but depending on your region you will auto connect to servers closest to you.

Similar experience. On an older laptop with integrated graphics it looks ok, just not playable. Even moving the camera around is stroboscopic.

Graphics setting did not appear to change anything.

High, medium, low - 5-8 frames per second. Started at 2-10, yet that may have just been log in delay.

Ping started at 600, eventually stabilized at 300.

Seems like an interesting idea, just seems like it needs a better computer than what I have.

Really enjoyable overall.

As a noob, I did feel like I spent the majority of my time just running around trying to figure out what to do.

thank you for feedback... ah yes we are totally missing a tutorial with good guidance for noobs! we plan to work on that too.

Feedback: Got this error after pressing Play Now https://imgur.com/a/VCzACsF

thanks for sharing... actually pushing a new build to fix this shortly! it only happens when other players are in-game with the squads (friendly ai spawned) fixing sooon!!

Congratulations on your launch as an indie studio! It's a significant achievement and the game looks great.

thanks soo much! yeaa it's been a long road... feels great! Thank you.

Congrats on the launch! Looks like you can only play one game as a guest before getting stuck in a loop when hitting "play now" between "forgot to buy items?" and "you must be logged in to buy". I also wasn't sure which one was the base to defend once I'd wandered off.

thank you!! ahh stuck in loop because maybe you selected some premium items? thanks for the other feedback will for sure improve the onboarding.

I played one game without signing up for a quick tour. I played against one wave then quit. The game is good for a browser game there are server issues but I guess that will be fixed before public release. I was getting ping around 21.

thanks for testing the game, really appreciate it. We will be looking into improving things for sure between now and official release date. Thank you.

Meta: why don't we have more games like this ? Browser and 5 second to load? I wouldn't mind even some ads (outdoors) in the virtual space. Why can't I drop into some "2015 AAA level" multiplayer game in 5 seconds in my browser, for a quick shooter?

I think we will begin to see more likely in the coming year or two with WebGPU support on the rise!

Super cool music. Great vibes.

on Firefox with ublock origin the playbutton wasn't visible so I made an account first. Pretty slow fps not sure why + hard to figure out where to go.

Thanks for the feedback. What is your computer specs, do you have about a mid-range GPU or better?

I’ve always wanted to build an internet-wide MMO available to anyone with a browser (Megaman Battle Network style)…I don’t have 3D knowledge though.

This looks incredible.

You can certainly do it!! Ofcourse will take time and a commitment to learning but you'll get there. =)

You can always outsource some parts of development if you don't have the time to learn some parts as long as you got the money to invest it's possible.

Thanks for checking it out.

Congrats on the launch. Looking forward to giving this a shot.

Using firefox on android and the play button was hidden, even when I flipped my phone (zfold).

I concur. On a 1440 x 3216 screen I see the login/signup in landscape.

I really like it. My only concern would be the controls. It feels weird compared to doom or fortnite for some reason.

Thanks for the feedback. Did you try updating your key bindings? You have total control to assign the keys to your liking under controls.

It feels like the character continues walking for a second after letting go of a movement key, so it feels a little unresponsive from that. A bit of momentum is good but this is a little too long.

Also, my s.o. started talking to me so I started listening to her, and I got kicked after only about a minute, could you bump the idle kick to something like 5-10 minutes?

Additionally, I customized my character and hit play, and didn't realize I picked premium cosmetics until after I tried to play and got a message that I may have forgotten to buy the cosmetics. Maybe a clearer indicator on the item selection UI itself would help.

Lastly, could you add a public server host/join option, for people who just want to play with others who are online?

Besides that, it seems like you have a great foundation here, good character and enemy art and animation, and great sounds. Feels kind of like risk of rain 2, and that's a good thing.

Looks really good, you should be proud.

Thank you!!! = )

This is great! Really polished and fun to run around the map.

Do you have an announce list for the official release?

Thank you!! When you say announce list, do you mean like an email list of publishers or press that i'll be reaching out to? I have a few sources.

Just an email list for interested players. I'd like to sign up for updates if possible (followed on Bluesky but I'm not on there all the time).

I take it that it’s desktop only? All I see is the opportunity to watch a trailer.

Ah yes, unfortunetly just playable on desktop for now. I should put a notification of sorts to inform mobile users. Thanks for that feedback.

Stuck in a join lobby error loop, but can't wait to try it out!

One thing i will say, I LOVE the color picker options. I cannot stand games who nickel and dime for basic ass colors and you have an entire color wheel for free so kudos!

ahhh shoot i think the next build pushing shortly should fix the error you saw!! and yea haha i can't stand that either charging people for dang colors.

Here is the error log of the error I get when trying to connect https://pastebin.com/YMXijJhB

Looks like a shader doesn't support your GPU. Sharing what GPU you have might be helpful. I'm not sure if it is in the logs somewhere.

I am on Brave on iOS and I have no idea how to start the game.

Sign-up/in appears only in landscape mode

Firefox Nightly Android: the signup button appears in desktop mode, both portrait and landscape.

sorry the game is only playable on desktop at the moment... we will try to support mobile next year.

It might be worthwhile to point this out explicitly on your home page for all the people checking it out on mobile. It wasn't inherently clear to me that I could play right now. Only found out it was playable by reading the comments here.

Super cool! For some reason my mouse doesn't work on Chrome, Windows :( I get a WASM error message and then it immediately stops working. Shame!

this WASM error should be fixed now...

Arc browser, get stuck in a loop of "Connecting to server" and "Unable to Join! Connecting to New Server..." when I try to join.

thanks for feedback! New build should be coming shortly to fix this!

works great now btw, fun game!

I need look inversion. I can't play it this way.

Very cool, I am surprised how it loaded so fast!

thanks!! glad its working well for ya = )

Clicked "Play Now", made my little avatar, and it immediately told me to pay money. Not a great first experience.

thanks for feedback... although I think you selected items that are premium items... some stuff can be purchased for cheap which all players get a starting credit of 200. Other more expensive stuff need credits for that. We gota pay the hosting cost somehow =)

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that pattern, but it is an unpleasant experience when trying out the game.

Perhaps make it obvious via the UI that these are premium items when selecting them?

thanks for feedback, yep you are right we could certainly improve the UX here. Thank you.

Hey all, we just pushed a new build that should resolve the crash that was happening upon joining a game!

Worked fine in a window but too slow when fullscreen on my Surface Pro 8.

Should have dynamic resolution to maintain FPS.

thanks so much for the feedback, will certainly take note of this.

Would be nice to play on mobile.

ah yess we will certainly be looking into this in the new year.

I'm unable to play it on my chrome. No extensions enabled. OS Mac

ah you mean chromebook? YEs some chromebook may not have good enough GPU to run it.

Congratulations.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting with a web first game?

Lots of fun, really enjoy it! And Woohoo, love Nuxt!

Congrats! I played it for a bit and it looks great!

Is there a way to reverse the mouse Y axis?

Btw, the music is dope!

Couldn't find any setting to invert mouse. Sad. :(

Sorry, but if I can't see what it's about without an account I don't want to know.

You can play for free, no account required. Just click Play Now!

No. There is no such button on my Firefox. Nor anything about who wrote this, what it is, or what it does. Lots of social media "invite" type things though.

Congratulations on the launch!

thanks soo much!! =)

Really exciting!

Arc on OSX gives me a javascript alert() with a giant wasm stack trace about 2s after joining the match. Music continues to play but the graphics stop updating.

Edit: Chrome works fine on OSX, oddly enough. (M1 mbp)

Wonder if windows users are having trouble? Chrome on mac is infamously bad for OpenGL content

Also crashes with a Javascript alert on Firefox 133.0.3 on macOS Sequoia 15.2

ahh yes fix is coming shortly!! Thanks for reporting

ran on a depreciated 2013 chromebook. impressive

whoa! niceee thanks for checking the game out

Very clean job

thankk you! =)

Looks great

Thanksss!! =)

Broken link?

I just noticed that clicking on Terms of service link doesn't work and don't know where to find them to know what I am agreeing to. Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Found it on the Sign Up popup as I was investigating and thinking about playing. I will assume they are innocuous and that I don't intend on doing anyone any harm so I will just go ahead and see if it is something I like even.

ahhh yess Terms shoot need to get that fixed! Sorry about that.

Doesn't work. Perhaps too much hackernews traffic at the moment. Unable to Join! Connecting to New Server... Joining, Please Standby... Unable to Join! Connecting to New Server...

Try now... I think it's working OK after we pushed a quick patch update earlier today.

Crashed upon joining the game in Firefox. A modal dialog with a stack trace appeared.

Same with Chrome, Win 11.

Same with Arc on Mac...

I saw people jump and sound for a second then crashed, hope hes got some error logging on the server side

Yep. So much for "built for the web". While I know that a lot of software is only tested on Chrome and Safari, I would expect different when marketing as being web-based.

It’s out for “test play” so I guess these are test results. It’s a two-person team, cut them some slack.

Getting the same on Chrome though so not sure what you're referring to.

Give it another shot after we pushed a fix earlier today. =)

Same on Chrome and Safari on mac

thanksss fix coming shortly!!

The game now loads properly.

> Please make it easy for users to try your thing out, preferably without having to sign up, get a confirmation email, and other such barriers. You'll get more feedback that way, plus HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638

> Off topic: blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and other reading material. Those can't be tried out, so can't be Show HNs. Make a regular submission instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

This looks very interesting but Show HNs need to be usable easily without making an account

You don't need to sign up. But I saw the play button only in Firefox. In Chromium the Play button wasn't there.

Odd but still not within the guidelines as

> HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops

Is in them

It just isn't the case that you can't have a Show HN without signups - it's preferable for the friction-to-try be as low as possible but sometimes 'as low as possible' is, in the given context, still a fair bit of friction. Lots of Show HN's are in very early stages and unpolished, some use finicky/newish technologies, etc. If this particular one is too much of a hassle and you bounce off, that's fine but the suggestion the poster is breaking some sort of rule here is inaccurate.

what hoops? i clicked, play .. play now and got in... it crashed, on Arc (osx) but it started to load and i saw people moving around

You click "Play now" and you're in the game. That's less friction than most Show HNs. You’re misinterpreting the rules and being overly zealous for no reason.