Starcraft: Ashfall
215 points by debo_ 21 hours ago | 73 comments

ggnore7452 20 minutes ago
Wow, thanks to whoever posted this! I made this game.

Like many, I was frustrated there's no new StarCraft coming till 2030, so I half-jokingly made the mini-game those mobile ads always promise and never deliver. Something you can play with one hand, that your friends who've never played StarCraft can just pick up.(Turns out you can squeeze a lot of extra gameplay/design on top of it.)

Also, if you're going to copy Blizzard you might as well copy the whole package right, so there's a CG trailer too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVDao71LC7A

Honestly didn't expect people to grind this. I designed the endgame to be layer 50 and thought ppl can get at most ~70 if they really try, and somehow there are people on the leaderboard past 100 (without cheating). That's StarCraft players for you.

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debo_ 9 minutes ago
Hi I posted it. I'm just a guy in the chat who saw it on YouTube.
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gbnwl 3 hours ago
Reddit thread from about a month ago where creator introduced this: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1wqdabw/i_made_t...
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neko_ranger 20 hours ago
Wow someone made the youtube ad game!
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butlike 4 hours ago
There's also pinball and an asteroids-like game if you click the "Arcade" button next to where it says "Ashfall Crossing"
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gs17 3 hours ago
A shame if they don't recreate the Lost Viking game from Wings of Liberty itself.
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dxcqcv 19 hours ago
cool, give me more
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bulbar 15 hours ago
Cool visuals, but doesn't count as a game for me. Can you do anything that make sense, except selecting the upgrade?

Could be a nice little game, though. Strip the IP and let the AI implement a bit more for the user to do.

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p2detar 2 hours ago
It’s actually very addicting once you play a couple of sessions. The scoreboard is crazy. Still don’t know how anyone makes it past wave (layer) 35-37.
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nicce 36 minutes ago
I got around 42. Protos commander felt stronger for the effort.
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andai 4 hours ago
It's like cookie clicker, with less clicking and more blood!
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AngryData 3 hours ago
Once you get high enough you can switch commanders which gives additional upgrades and active powers.
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an0malous 3 hours ago
I've been seeing a lot of Pokemon games recently as well, are companies just not enforcing their copyright/trademarks anymore?
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nilamo 3 hours ago
They can't sue everyone, comrade. AI tools will hopefully trigger a rewrite of what copyright means, it's always been silly that it prevents derivitive works.
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steelframe 2 minutes ago
When it comes to copyright, I am not so optimistic. When the AI bubble bursts, the usual corporate interests will resurface with a vengeance.
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lelanthran 2 hours ago
> AI tools will hopefully trigger a rewrite of what copyright means,

Maybe it will, but this ain't a copyright issues, it's a trademark issue.

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nilamo 2 hours ago
It's a legal issue, and the legal part has always been bullshit regardless of which specific label happens to apply.
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syspec 52 minutes ago
Surprised to see this level of discourse here on HN, reads like a reddit comment.

Copyright sucks, and Disney is bad etc, but how is using StarCraft and its assets in your random AI game okay?

I mean, creators should be allowed to exert control over how their assets and brand are used.

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nilamo 11 minutes ago
I've always found that defending laws that don't benefit people to be a stange attitude on a place called "hacker news".

Creative people should be able to create. Trademark/copyright laws, protecting assets for the great-grandchildren of who actually created the art, has never been a positive. The only people who benefit, are themselves not creative (or else they would create, instead of defending "rights" and "image").

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59percentmore 31 minutes ago
>Copyright sucks, and Disney is bad etc, but how is using StarCraft and its assets in your random AI game okay?

Because it's cool.

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Supermancho 18 minutes ago
The number of conglomerates has, unsurprisingly, continued to shrink. It's long overdue for a rethink. Maybe if the US political system ever stabilizes, we might get to it in a hundred years. Until then Copyright sucks and Disney is bad.
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sharkjacobs 18 minutes ago
> creators should be allowed to exert control over how their assets and brand are used

I hate to be glib, but no they shouldn't.

Creators should be allowed to create things and sell them. No one, whether the creator, or the company the creator worked for when they first created the thing, should be able to stop someone else from creating something.

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deadbabe 3 hours ago
Couldn’t they just use AI to sue at scale? No one should be too small to go after now.
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creakingstairs 2 hours ago
The court system is too bogged up as it is with the current load. So I guess we’d have to create some AI judges and lawyers :p
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bhhaskin 2 hours ago
Yeah the law firms just haven't caught up yet. But they will.
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nilamo 2 hours ago
And when the judges get around to the case in 300 years after all the other ai court cases, we'll be beyond caring about the consequences.
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Legend2440 39 minutes ago
Law firms are cautious about AI tools, they got burned a couple years ago by hallucinated citations.

Citing made-up cases sure looks like lying to the court, which is a punishable offense. Lawyers have been sanctioned, fined, and in one case received a 30-day license suspension.

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throwaway613746 2 hours ago
[dead]
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ForHackernews 58 minutes ago
It's a totally original creation laundered through LLM derivative works.
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larodi 3 hours ago
they may well be busy surviving AI induced chain reactions letting lots of people out of work.
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temp0826 3 hours ago
This is the second (probably vibecoded?) game in the last few days that I've seen using blizzard ip (the other being d2survivors.lol)
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sharkjacobs 17 minutes ago
It's not a fun game, but it's cool anyway
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mastax 19 hours ago
Game basically plays itself but fun nonetheless
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croon 12 hours ago
For 10-15 levels or so, then your upgrade choices start to matter.

I only played through it once, but I'm convinced I'd do better on a second run, and a third, etc.

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karim79 10 hours ago
The satisfying pop of the zerglings alone make it fun for me.
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throwaway613746 2 hours ago
[dead]
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buf 19 hours ago
Saw Starcraft, spent 30 minutes living the nostalgia playing this.
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j7ake 2 hours ago
Game crashes when trying to fuse units
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smallmancontrov 2 hours ago
THE MERGING IS NOT COMPLETE
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malfist 2 hours ago
You must build additional pylons
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andai 4 hours ago
Fun game.

I have to pick a new upgrade every 3 seconds. I thought they did that to stave off boredom, but actually it increases decision fatigue. (I just wanna shoot!)

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no-name-here 19 hours ago
I did not touch the controls at all, and I still won with zero losses on the first level - that does not inspire confidence.
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itishappy 2 hours ago
In snowball games like this, losing a unit marks the beginning of the end. As such, you really have to go out of your way to lose units in the tutorial.
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coralreef 4 hours ago
controls aren't important, upgrade/tech choices are
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nafey 19 hours ago
Is this AI generated? Pretty impressive if that is the case
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blueblock 19 hours ago
Definitely smells like ai. I don't think a human would spend so much time on the graphics and effects and not have streamlined the gameplay a bit.
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NorthernGulch 9 hours ago
The opposite would be correct. AI generated is the norm, and it would be impressive to spend xxx hours creating this when AI can do it in 4 hours
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datsci_est_2015 19 hours ago
Assets are very easily duplicated because of the editor that ships with the game. Not as impressive as it would be if it were other games with more tightly-locked assets.
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dmix 19 hours ago
Great game. It took me way too long to figure out I could use keyboard to control the positioning instead of mouse.
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lai 2 hours ago
So what's the meta?
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Noe2097 2 hours ago
there is no meta but what we vibe
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lai 2 hours ago
I'm noticing that armor pen is super important later on. However, eventually get rekt.. I'm curious how the top person got to the layer he is in now. I'm stuck at layer 26.
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butlike 4 hours ago
It's nice to know Stimpack marines still roll face.
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debo_ 3 hours ago
Ahhhh yeahhhh
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theogravity 3 hours ago
That was pretty enjoyable. Definitely like the ads you see online but with IP people care about.
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marvstazar 19 hours ago
I was wondering why there was a dragon there, is it from Wrath of the Lich King?
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tdhz77 20 hours ago
Lots of fun! Wish StarCraft would come out every year
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hirako2000 3 hours ago
Too busy making the new StarCraft.
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spicyusername 20 hours ago
Ah, the music is so nostalgic. Really takes me back.
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ReptileMan 2 hours ago
Big game hunters Terran vs 7PC zergs. Same feeling.
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karim79 11 hours ago
Cool game, but isn't this going to make blizzard bring out the big guns?
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jmcdonald-ut 20 hours ago
Great work on this, had a blast!
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debo_ 20 hours ago
I did not make this, for the record. I just found it.
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kixpanganiban 19 hours ago
Perfect, who needed to be productive anyways
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lofaszvanitt 8 hours ago
A mix of everything. Stolen from everywhere. We have AI, but people are still the bottleneck. They lack creativity and ideas :D. lol
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gigel82 3 hours ago
Fun, but... how is this not already taken down by copyright strikes? I mean straight rips of audio assets, music, 3d assets, graphics, even the damn name...
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noah640090 7 hours ago
This was really fun!
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seattle_spring 3 hours ago
Holy moly, just hearing those sound effects gives me a giant wave of nostalgia.
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johng 21 hours ago
Really cool game. Spent about 30 minutes playing it. Very fun!
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jonenst 2 hours ago
Wake up, Hank. That game ain’t gonna play itself. Oh wait it does.
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lgessler 3 hours ago
This is, respectfully, slop piggybacking on nostalgic associations with stolen assets.
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jdw64 3 hours ago
nice game
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bigwheels 57 minutes ago
See also: D2 Survivors https://d2survivors.lol/

The AI games mashups are starting to heat up.

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cyh555 17 hours ago
so nice!
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theylieeasieral 55 minutes ago
slop
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pavluu 2 hours ago
[dead]
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