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stankoon Speech Recognition and TTS in less than 500kb

This is really impressive.

If I get time, I would like to try compiling it to WASM. This would allow me to swap my robot poet’s native browser voice synthesis for it. Not sure if it is worth it, but it will be fun to play around with.

Edit: typo

[0] https://muffinman.io/bard/

stankoon Game devs explain the tricks involved with letting you pause a game

That is different, because you can't interact with the game anymore. In game pause can let you change your settings or map for example. Menus and map are still running in the game loop, so then you need to make they get the input events but not the gameplay part.

stankoon CadQuery is an open-source Python library for building 3D CAD models

As someone who uses JavaScript/TypeScript, I love Replicad. It is super easy to create and share parametric models from their online editor without any accounts.

I keep my models on github[0]. Disclaimer, they are pretty niche things I needed around the house.

[0] https://github.com/Stanko/3d-cad-models

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

Thank you, glad you like it! My idea was to make the player pick their cards during the shmup action, but then to have a breather when they reach the boss fight (contrary to the usual bullet hell boss fights).

Btw I think level 5 is higher than average.

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

Thank you, I did all of the sprites myself. This was the first time I tried doing pixel art and I love it. It is a kind of meditation for me.

I think you should give it a go, making games is a lot of fun. Try making a prototype with circles and rectangles. Later on, you can hire someone to do the graphics or you can buy an asset pack. In my case, I can't make music - the two tracks in the game are free PICO 8 tracks and my best friend is working on the new ones.

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

That’s very kind of you, thank you!

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

Haha amazing, thank you! This made my morning :)

If I ever release on steam, can I please use your comment in promo material? I would anonymize it of course.

Edit: grammar

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

https://muffinman-io.itch.io/spacedeck-x

I'm still obsessed with making my game, which you can try it at the link above (it is desktop only). This is my first "real" game, and it has been incredibly fun and rewarding. I've been working on it in the evenings for about 4 or 5 months.

It is a very ambitious mix of genres - shoot-em-up and deck-building. A lot of people said that those are genres that shouldn't be combined, but I think it turned out to be a fun little game. Folks who are not fans of one (or either) of the genres are actually playing it. I built a global high-score leaderboard, and there are people (including a few of my friends) competing on it. Whoever knocks my friend "BER" from first place will earn a beer from me.

This is purely a fun project, although I'm now seriously considering releasing it on steam when I finish everything I planned for it. It is made in Kaplay, a small JavaScript gamedev library, which is a big part of what makes it fun. If you try it out, please leave a comment, I would love more feedback!

stankoon Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

Maybe not that niche for this group, but I love pen plotting. I use code to create drawings and then pen plot them on paper [0]. The ability to bring something digital into the physical world is really fulfilling for me and makes the process much more tangible. I have an Axidraw A3, and it might be the best purchase I ever made.

In the last few months I haven't done much as I'm currently obsessed by gamedev. But now when you reminded me, I want to plot a few pieces I started last year and never finished.

[0] https://muffinman.io/art/

stankoon 48x32, a 1536 LED Game Computer (2023)

Hehe I know what you mean. I mentioned I have parts for v2 (stronger controller, rotary encoder with a big brass knob and completely offline - hardware real time clock), but we’ll see if it will ever happen.

stankoon 48x32, a 1536 LED Game Computer (2023)

LED matrices are so fun to play with. The low resolution and chunky pixels give them the aesthetics I really enjoy.

I’ve built a 64x64 pixel art frame [0]. With the diffuser in front of the matrix, it looks like animations are floating in the air. I got parts for v2, but I’m yet to find time to build it.

I really like how electronics today are very accessible to start playing with. Basic stuff is mostly plug-and-play, and essentially it becomes a software project.

https://github.com/Stanko/retro-frame

stankoon The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

I think you are going to enjoy this talk by Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

stankoon Show HN: Minimalist Glitch Art Maker (100% client-side)

Nice! I love that it is a single .js file.

I built a similar CSS only glitch effect [1] and I really want to check your code when I get to my laptop to see how did you do it.

[1] https://muffinman.io/blog/css-image-glitch/

stankoon Show HN: The HN Arcade

I did, you already merged it, thank you!

stankoon Show HN: The HN Arcade

Lovely!

Of course, I added mine as well, which got better feedback on “What are you working on” thread than I expected.

Since then I released two updates but Show HN thread didn’t catch on. I’m still actively working on it. Atm I’m tweaking level difficulty to make it easier to start and then ramp up the difficulty.

I have a todo list defined, and I’m having so much fun going through it.

edit: typo

https://muffinman-io.itch.io/spacedeck-x

stankoon Map To Poster – Create Art of your favourite city

There is a related project which I used several times:

https://github.com/anvaka/city-roads

Edit: it outputs SVGs and you can try it online. Anvaka (author) has other really cool dataviz projects.

stankoon Ask HN: Share your personal website

https://muffinman.io/

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)

Amazing, thank you! Unfortunately, hi-scores are local only for now, saved in local storage. But I’m working on global, shared leaderboard and stats.

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)

I completely understand what you mean, I often feel like that as well. Like every other skill, it takes time and it feels frightening when you see other people's work. Honestly I don't think I'm that good at pixel art, this is my first pixel art project. To be fair, spaceships and technology are pretty straight forward to draw.

Edit: typo

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)

I hear you, I have to add a tutorial.

- "z" plays a card - "x" ends your turn

If one never played deck builders, they probably have no idea what is going on. Thanks for trying it!

stankoon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)

I’m working on a video game, purely for fun.

Here is a work in progress build:

https://muffinman-io.itch.io/space-deck-x

It is a combination of a shoot-em-up and deck building. You fly and shoot until you get to the boss, when you get your deck out to fight them.

That genre combination is definitely too ambitious, but I think it is fun to play and I’m enjoying making it.

I have a bunch of ideas how to combine the two parts better. But over the years, I’ve learned to control scope creep and actually ship pet projects.

Right now I’m in a middle of changing how enemy waves are spawned. After that I want to make a short tutorial and add two more bosses as well as more enemies.

If you end up playing it, please share your feedback I’ll be glad to hear it.

The game is made using Kaplay, a game dec library which brings me joy to use. I can best describe it as my friend described Pico-8: “easy things are easy”. But compared to Pico-8, Kaplay doesn’t have virtual console limitations and comes with a big library of components. Try it out, the community is small, but the library itself is really fun and easy to use.

EDIT: For context, this is about two weeks of work, in the evenings when my kid is asleep.

stankoon Liquid Glass in the Browser: Refraction with CSS and SVG

Nice write up! I'm always happy to see interactive articles.

As someone who also do interactive articles from time to time, I'm wondering what is the tech stack you are using to make these?

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Haha I love your comment. I'll let you in on a little secret - you can add a seed parameter to the URL to get a specific invader. It has to be an integer, otherwise it will be ignored.

For example:

https://muffinman.io/blog/invaders/?seed=1234

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Thanks, it means a lot!

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

I have a plan to do it, but it is one of those never ending projects. Hopefully I will finally release it this year.

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Thank you! You can also think of the vector shapes as a kind of skeleton. I think that is one of the reasons it works well. Moving the limbs or increasing the size creates the illusion of movement and breathing. But it works well only while the grid is smaller and can hide the underlying shapes. Once the vectors start to emerge, it breaks the illusion. You could definitely improve it to work better at larger sizes, but I think you would need to introduce more constraints, which limits the random factor of the generator.

If you end up using something similar in your game, I would love to see it!

edit: It seems that I need to make the RSS link more prominent :)

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Very nice!

I was thinking about using walkers, but after some doodling decided to go with vector shapes. I think the combination of the two could also produce some cool results.

As lyr said, these are part of CCA's code challenge and we'll create a page to present all of the generators on one place.

edit: typo

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Thanks! I think AI sucks all the fun from projects like this one. The whole magic of creation process is lost.

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Thanks, when I started experimenting I was pleasantly surprised with results I was getting. After some polishing and adding UI I think it really came together nicely.

As for OKLCH, it is a big upgrade. Working with color from code is hard, and it really makes things easier. I also like HSLuv [1], but unfortunately it is not supported natively in browsers.

[1] https://www.hsluv.org/

stankoon How to Draw a Space Invader

Thank you both, it means a lot. I try to make it clean, but fun and personal too.