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Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 2,925 posts.

Games & Graphics
Any year
2221

Fix Your Timestep

Introduction Hi, I’m Glenn Fiedler and welcome to Game Physics. In the previous article we discussed how to integrate the equations of motion using a numerical integrator. Integration sounds complicated, but it’s just a way to advance the your physics simulation forward by some small amount of time called “delta time”…

2222

Minesweeper: Advanced Tactics (2005)

In this position, I know about a bunch of mines on all the remaining fronts, but I can't quite determine where they are. There are a few mines that might be in one of two positions (red or blue), a cluster of mines that might be in one of two arrangements (green), and a more complex situation in the top left which I…

2223

How games cheat to help players

If we’ve done our jobs right, Wind-up Knight is a fairly simple game. There are only four inputs, and only two are ever needed simultaneously. Sir Sprint, our heroic spring-loaded knight, runs forward automatically, removing the need for a classic directional pad or analog stick. The challenge is derived from careful…

2234

A whole boss fight in 256 bytes

Endbot is a complete audio-visual demo that fits in exactly 256 bytes . It runs under DOS (via DosBox-X) and renders in real-time: a robot sprite with progressive bullet damage, a growing explosion, a scrolling checkerboard landscape, and a MIDI soundtrack - all from a single tiny .com file.

2239

How to print your Guild Wars 2 character

2025 update v2: I made a tool that fixes distortions introduced by Intel GPA, and that tool made few sections of this blog obsolete. As such, they’ve been deleted. Old version is still available here.2025 update. This blog post now also exists as a youtube video. Yes, the video is 1 hour 20, so about twice as long as…