I bought it a few days ago. Thank you for including native Linux support <3

So far, it's really fun and the tutorial is great! A few things that could potentially be added to the game:

- Crew management (nothing fancy, just a bit, like food management)

- Different kinds of torpedoes (if the US had that, I only know about German submarines)

- Countermeasures (like noise makers)

- Seeing resources (number of torpedoes) on the campaign map

- A better indication whether a ship is sunk or will stay afloat (I resolve and don't know if the ship has been sunk or not)

- And German submarines + campaign of course

• epaga

  today at 10:10 AM

  Thanks so much! A few of those are on my (very long) list already. It's been so great getting so much positive feedback and ideas coming in.

  • marvinblum

    today at 10:12 AM

    Love it! I'm looking forward to every update :)

    Btw. I found the game by watching Wolfpack345's video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7c9LfWvTt8

The game has quite the AI smell, which I think does it a disservice. The website feels AI designed, the game (transparently) uses AI graphics; it's hard to tell where the line between handcrafted and generated lies. Immediate question that shoots in my mind is: "How much of the game design is just LLM hallucinations?" As someone who's played around with using AI for games too, this makes me not even want to give the game a chance. Which is a shame, because I think the concept is really cool. Its just tainted by something that subconciously signals me that you dont really care much about your creation.

• epaga

  today at 10:07 AM

  I'd also like to hear what AI smells you are picking up in the game.

  The only AI graphics in the game (as described on Steam) are literally just clean-up jobs of existing historical maps. That is it.

  This is very much a hand crafted game. The design is my own - what I heavily used AI for was the coding side of things as well as for creating my own tools for myself to design things like ships, instrument dials, shipping lanes, etc.

  • xpct

    today at 12:14 PM

    Not OP. I can't claim whether it's AI or not, just why it could possibly raise such concerns.

    I think the UI elements and layout look very similar to how LLMs like to create them. It's hard to describe, but something about the rounded-edge, thick outline buttons equidistantly placed on the side bars, and heavily dependent on tabbed layouts in sub-menus. I'd argue there's parts where menus have too much empty space, which typically hints that a menu hasn't been thought out completely. It's also the most common type of game/dashboard view that LLMs are capable of: canvas in the middle with interactive buttons on the sides.

    For an example of an immersive and good looking UI I'd look to something like Sunless Sea. It's a different type of game and is more narrative driven, but it doesn't have any of the more web-like UI qualities.

• colinb

  today at 9:41 AM

  Can you explain more please? I recognise some Claude-isms when reading text, and I recall image generators that added more fingers than are usual, but I don’t know what the 2-d graphics on the app home page signify in this respect.

  • budsniffer952

    today at 10:14 AM

    I can explain: it's another person "too good for AI". It happens it happens in every single thread now.

    These people think that "hand written code" is superior, and they would prefer no product exist at all then something be AI assisted. They say idiotic things like, "is the whole game hallucinated?" as if they've never used an LLM before, and that having AI help code means you don't spend time play testing (when in fact you can spend more time there).

    Most of these people are simply angry gatekeepers who can't stand that "writing code" is no longer their personal advantage, and they are bitter. They will tell you, "you need to write and code by hand, like me" and then point you to their utterly mediocre work. It's tiring.

    • customguy

      today at 11:32 AM

      > They say idiotic things like, "is the whole game hallucinated?"

      You say this as if you can't even faithfully reproduce text that is at the top of your context window, which would explain the rest, such as hallucinating anyone saying anything about play testing.

      > angry [..] bitter [..] mediocre

      I detect no trace of that in the comment that sent you, and all the more in yours. Probably a coincidence.

    • today at 11:26 AM

    • llm_nerd

      today at 11:00 AM

      Not to do the <- this, thing, but <- this.

      It is astonishing how many submissions on HN now have a top comment doing the AI sniff test bullshit, usually based upon literally nothing. Aside from being angry gatekeeping assholes, these people really want to show how super advanced their AI-dar is, but it's just a gigantic waste of time for everyone else and just false positive matches everything: Every comment, image, website, game or app, book, and so on, it's all AI to these people.

      Many haven't yet caught on that these people think everything is AI now -- that they desperately want everyone to know that they haven't been "had" -- so people still sincerely ask "why?" like some secret tell will be revealed, when really it's just worthless nonsense.

      • speerer

        today at 12:23 PM

        I think normally it's just that someone has the thought and shares it for discussion. Not every comment is performative.

This is pretty cool and very detailed , I tried the web browser version and its way more advanced . I think it needs beginners level or (pre-pilot simulation training)

• epaga

  today at 11:21 AM

  Thanks! The "pre-pilot training" this is pretty much what the Basic Tutorial is all about, have you tried it?

  • ahmedxuhri

    today at 11:50 AM

    [dead]

I did the tutorial, it was good, I think that what would help is maybe have the arrows where people need to look at have some animation, e.g., pulsating scale or colour, something elegant but hard to miss, took a little bit at times to find them.

• epaga

  today at 10:08 AM

  Thanks for trying it out and for the feedback! I used to have the red arrows be pulsating and got feedback that it felt "too much" and kind of out of place in the game... probably need to find a middle ground.

[flagged]

• Neekerer

  today at 7:18 AM

  >This is not art.

  Correct, this is a sim game, a genre of game that typically puts data at the forefront and art on the burners.