I'm sorry for your friend.
I would hope my friends would never use me to say otherwise.
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.
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…).
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.
Edit: typo
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
You misunderstand the entire premise of my original comment, presumably on purpose. Oh well, I guess that’s just how online discourse is now.
This used to be so ridiculous it was satire.
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.
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.
This is just wanton destruction and has nothing good in it.
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.
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.
what other kinds of games could we create using OpenStreetMap?
Could the game have a "rebuilder" role for people to rebuild destroyed areas?
Could you do like a "Pokemon Go" and search for hidden treasure in different areas?
Could you just "mark" areas without destroying them, like capturing different areas with colors or something?
Truck simulation seem a good target, beamng trough earth mod already see convoys happening
I guess cannonball runs works to an extent but osm road are quite buggy out of a 2d plane
Xcom apocalipse style would work too, with faction controlling zones, and building tags deciding if it count toward production, manpower, or economy
I'd like something like combat mission, that game was always limited by artificial maps and doesnt require a lot of details
Monster rampage is due a remake if we want to stay on the destruction theme
And maybe missile commando with real casualties
There is a number of games about responding to emergencies that would benefit from a real citiscape
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
of course there're still many games with violence which I played and I don't want to be a moralist, but here something clicked differently, is it the "real buildings" maybe?
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
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
I also have the bug where it keeps respawning me to the starting point after ~30 seconds
But I'll stick to destroying places that have made my life miserable.
Bye bye, ballroom!
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.