Second-person tetris then?
[on a side note, I really need to learn how to game the front page. 2 year old, minute twist on 30 year old game -> front page. write a new game from scratch -> dustbin]
Try to post when the post the the bottom of /newest is close to an hour old.
Avoid posting during times of big events (e.g.: not when Google kills off Google Reader).
Have a linkbait title. Don't worry, it gets edited by friendly neighborhood moderators later, so you don't look like a jackass.
Need to re-post an article that didn't gain traction before? Add #SOMETHING to the end of the URL. The matching algorithm will think it's a new link.
Create a voting ring. Make sure to do some actual posting/upvoting, as there is voting ring detection. The simplest prevention is that upvotes from the same IP don't seem to count.
Have a short article, instead of a long one. By my estimate 90% of people upvote based on title alone, 9% upvote based on the first paragraph of the article, and 1% actually reads it.
Post something as "Show HN: please review my X". These seem to gain a lot of favor. Brag about how it was a weekend project, took you 2 hours, etc.
Have high karma and lots of fans.
Post "What I learned from building my tetris clone" article
Talk about how Paleo diet changed your life
Promise to teach us how to stop eating/sleeping/wasting time/driving/having stuff.
Write an article about how your work environment is different and how it makes you productive.
Do something that is otherwise trivial using only CSS. Apply the same approach to Haskell to get a PhD in Computer Science (I literally saw a thesis a while ago about memoization techniques in Haskell.)
Post a short angry rant or make a wild claim. This is especially helpful if you are a mildly popular blogger. Accuse Google/Apple of doing something that will ruin their business. Make a wild prediction about how the Entire Google empire is based on a dozen bloggers using Google Reader.
Read: http://jacquesmattheij.com/How+to+make+the+Hacker+News+homep...
Write a post about how to get on HN's front page.
Write a post about how you got on HN's front page and how your traffic increased as a result.
Write a post about how you failed to get on the front page, despite your best efforts.
For comments, try saying "OK, now you can downvote me".
For comments with negative votes, say "what's with the downvotes?"
I'll try again in the morning sometime. Something about spamming the site bothers me. Guess I need to get over it.
P.S.: Another evil technique that may or may not work: flood the /newest page with crap articles, and then put yours at the top. I remember reading an urban legend about a couple of guys that flooded a dating site (OKCupid?) with profiles of gorgeous women, then messaged real women, while other men were messaging the fake profiles. Dilute the market and you might tip the scales in your favor.
Edit: Do you mean? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5385857 The game is kind of odd. The way you move is somewhat confusing, though I did figure it out after a second. Having a hard time figuring out what I'm supposed to/can do.
Yea, it is a bit odd. The movement is intended to disorient you. You can pick up any items you want and try to use them. You're supposed to make enough movement in the specified direction so you can escape.
X X
XO X
XO OOX
XO OOX
XO oo OX
XO oo OX
XO OX
XO OX
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