from Hacker News

Trap the Critters with Paint

by deepanwadhwa on 10/10/25, 6:35 PM with 22 comments

  • by dddddaviddddd on 10/17/25, 4:58 PM

    Overlapping zigzags quickly trap them. Since ‘trapped’ appears to be determined by the rate of bounces, you just need to divide the area as much as possible.

  • by datadrivenangel on 10/17/25, 8:02 PM

    You can resize the levels to basically zero and instantly win each level

  • by aiiane on 10/17/25, 5:03 PM

    Resizing the window smaller makes the game a lot simpler.

  • by dddddaviddddd on 10/17/25, 4:36 PM

    Reminds me of the Brandon Sanderson novel, The Rithmatist, where creatures are also trapped in drawn shapes.

  • by ge96 on 10/17/25, 10:53 PM

    I drew a circle around the critter and it was trapped inside it, I didn't win? Did it in 4 strokes

  • by blahedo on 10/17/25, 9:48 PM

    It's giving Qix, a little bit, although the critter's different and the lines are way more freeform.

    Bug, I think: the critter definitely can cross some of the paint lines, which was a little unexpected. It slows down but then it's on the other side of it.

  • by theturtlemoves on 10/18/25, 6:34 AM

    Fun game.

    The collision detection seems to have the same problem as the yin yang game that was posted a while ago: The critters sometimes cross the lines. I wonder if the root cause is similar, having to do with this being a browser game?

    Nevertheless, fun little game

  • by ninju on 10/17/25, 3:51 PM

    How do you win a level?

    I trapped the critter with painted lines but when the time expired it said I lost :-(

  • by hooverd on 10/17/25, 4:12 PM

    It's easier to keep bisecting the area vs trying to draw a circle.

  • by nikolay on 10/17/25, 4:27 PM

    Reminds me of Xonix [0]...

    [0]: https://dos.zone/xonix-1984/

  • by 4b11b4 on 10/17/25, 3:36 PM

    I like it. I wish they'd bounce off each other too! - to incentivize getting em into the same zone.

  • by LoganDark on 10/17/25, 4:11 PM

    I just predict their path and draw a very tight circle and they explode in just one or two draws :)

  • by jmclnx on 10/17/25, 3:48 PM

    Very Cool and quite fun to play with