Show HN: Geo Racers – Race from London to Tokyo on a single bus pass (geo-racers.com)

72 points by pattle 12 hours ago

pattle 9 hours ago

Hello I'm Chris the creator!

For the past year I've been working on Geo Racers, a free to play web game where you have to race from one side of the world to another just using public transport. It's inspired by the BBC show "Race across the world".

It's early stages but any feedback on the game it's greatly recieved.

butlike 7 hours ago

Really like the game so far. Here's what I noticed and what I'd like to see after my first play though:

1. There should be an 'easy mode' where your money goes into the red, but you're still allowed to spend whatever to get to the end. It would be nice to see I'm $-14,952 in the hole, but I made it (with the ultimate objective to get to the destination while in the black).

2. The bottom overlays overlap. I was taking a ferry from Dublin, and tried to queue up walking to the hotel. The hotel overlay popped up under the "Skip this Ride" message. I don't really care if I can queue up actions, but the stacked overlays were unsightly.

3. I would say LEAVE THE SURPRISES. It was enjoyable to get blind-sighted by having to change my currency in the UK and the fact I lost an hour due to time zone changes.

Good work. Keep it up.

Nextgrid 2 hours ago

I think the "limited budget" mechanic should be scrapped - instead make the budget unlimited but rank the submissions based on the lowest budget.

vessenes an hour ago

Well, my run-through had no banks in the UK that I could find, so that was tough.

JKCalhoun 8 hours ago

I do wish I could do some in-game research—like show just train/bus stations that have international lines. Perhaps identify hotels with general affordability (€, vs. €€€).

4ndrewl 3 hours ago

I love this, but I'm thwarted. Apparently there are no trains from London Waterloo (one of the UKs busiest railway stations) at 1902. I've been stuck there waiting for trains for so many years I can tell you that's not the case :)

gallamine 7 hours ago

Hi! I got stuck in London. I walked around to a bunch of train stations at around 10PM on Monday night and there was nothing showing up in the timetables. Same for the next morning. I then walked to Portsmouth and the Portsmouth harbor also showed no boats. The API call was https://geo-racers.com/api/boats?from_id=43128&time=07:02&da... seems odd to me?

maeln 9 hours ago

I had a lot of fun :) . Cleaning up the leader board would be appreciated though. Seeing adolf hilter everywhere is ... something.

There also seem to be a bug where the game doesn't always spawn you where it should. Selected Galeway to Roma and was put in scotland with only euros and no banks around. Probably how some people manage to get was seems to be impossible score

JKCalhoun 8 hours ago

My wife thinks it looks like stress.

– Checking/unchecking some items does not appear to toggle their visibility. (Safari, MacOS).

— As another pointed out, walked to a hotel, could not enter hotel (too far off road?).

xd1936 7 hours ago

This rules! What a fun idea.

I couldn't get the "Walk Here"/"Taxi Here" tooltip pop-up to stay open on Firefox when clicking on a train station, but it's working in Chrome.

rathboma 8 hours ago

So cool! Couple of minor bugs - I can click banks / hotels and use them without being near them, also many hotels in ex Paris do not show up as usable, neither does the Paris metro. Still, super fun to play.

rathboma 8 hours ago

Some other features I'd love to see: - Ability to check transit timetables without going there - Metros / Tubes / Subways for in-city transit

Hit a wall going to Plymouth when I should have gone to Portsmouth, but had no way to check which one had the ferry I needed.

emzo 8 hours ago

Asooka an hour ago

No hotel accepts cash nowadays, there is absolutely no need to exchange currency basically ever. I would remove that part of the game.

wazoox 7 hours ago

Too bad apparently you can't ride bus and metro in London, Paris, etc.

gcanyon 9 hours ago

I highlighted a train station, clicked "walk here," and nothing happened. I sped up time and I did not move.

I gave up.

Also, an introduction explaining what the game is would be good rather than just asking for a player name and dropping the user into the game.

decimalenough 3 hours ago

How do I ride public transport on mobile? I've managed to get the timetable to pop up a few times by clicking around randomly, but there's no obvious button or action for this. I take it you have to actually be at the station to be able to see them?

baq 9 hours ago

The game has increased my appreciation of the airplane as a mode of transport, unfortunately

butlike 7 hours ago

I'm surprised how walkable Galway is, tbh

wackget 2 hours ago

A few feedback bits:

* At Dublin ferry port, only port 5 was clickable. * Card payments should be an option. Nobody would use cash like this. * Banks aren't open at 10PM. In fact, banks are hardly open at all. * You can change money at a Post Office or supermarket.

tekkk 6 hours ago

Just remove the work part man. It's incredibly frustrating when you run out of money. Add some credit card loan or something and your final score is the amount of money you have left. Also, add teleport button—I clicked the big red button thinking it would transport me instantly. Only to be dropped off to in the middle of nowhere. And when you select a departure from train station, it should auto-select the end-stop, so you don't have to scroll down and click it (which is non-obvious btw that you have to)

pattle 6 hours ago

The reason you have to work is because the game is based on a BBC show called "Race across the world" where you have to race from point A to point B with the money equivalent of an air fare for the journey.

If you run out of money in the show or your funds are running low you can work to earn more money. So that's why I added that feature. I do think it adds a extra layer to the game as it's something you always have to think about

aoeCoder 7 hours ago

I love the game thus far! I will say it is difficult to find work. I nearly went bankrupt cause I travelled to a large city thinking I could find work, but it didn't pay enough for a hotel room. Knowing how much it costs to get to a city via train/bus/taxi would help a lot.

jen729w 10 hours ago

I love the idea, but the whole interface is very twitchy for me. Tried Safari & Firefox on my MacBook Air M1.

szemy2 9 hours ago

When I select a destination at a bus stop or train station the listings only show the specifics but not the city itself. This kind of defeats the whole purpose as its essentially randomly clicking around

Liftyee 6 hours ago

Neat game! I would like the map to have a scale bar though. It would also be useful to see train station timetables while somewhere else to plan ahead.

Floating points for currencies :/ "You only have 306.99999999999994 GBP, you can't exchange 307. "

Karliss 7 hours ago

Bought a ferry ticket, it told me I am close enough to board. The usual popup for advancing time to leaving time didn't show up. Decided to speed up time and wait it manually it just kept going without getting in until 2am when out of hotel triggered game over.

pattle 6 hours ago

Hmm, that's not good. Where was the ferry from and to?

Karliss 3 hours ago

One of the 2 terminals in Cherbourg France, the city you reach by traveling from Dublin to France, but not the one I arrived in. It only had routes to England.

Stevvo 3 hours ago

Took a ferry to France, got a screen saying "Welcome to France", then it dumped me in the middle of the channel.

virtualritz 8 hours ago

I started Galeway-Rome but when I toogle Bus Stations they don't disappear.

They do disappear together with with the toggle for train station. I.e. I can't view train stations only.

xyzelement 9 hours ago

Really conveys the stress and horror of traveling by public transit.

butlike 7 hours ago

I think it's kind of fun. It's the sport of it, good chap. I mean, the 1000's of transfers mate.

walthamstow 7 hours ago

Transcontinental road/rail/sea transport would probably be a lot better if the airplane didn't exist

PokemonNoGo 8 hours ago

Its all the same to me. An airport is probably the last place i want to be at and driving in a foreign country is something i find more stressfull than utilising the public transport there.

xyzelement 8 hours ago

It's the 5000 transfers that I am talking about.

vvarp 7 hours ago

idea is absolutely lovely, but it is really hard to plan ahead without consulting with google maps about possible directions from your next stop - I understand this is part of the challenge, however some QoL changes like visualizing 1st or 2nd tier connections could be super helpful

I'll be keeping an eye on this one!

fatcow 10 hours ago

What an incredible idea! Love it, will spend some monopoly money on it!!

1970-01-01 3 hours ago

This is fantastic fun. Cheers!

baq 10 hours ago

Huge login form for a landing page without as much of a video of what's going on is a shot in the foot

jen729w 10 hours ago

There's a 'continue as guest' option at the bottom of that form. But yeah that was also my immediate impression.

pattle 10 hours ago

You can just enter any name to play as a guest

Titan2189 9 hours ago

It's like JetLag the Game, but without ever leaving your house!

b112 10 hours ago

The login screen overflows my screen, and it won't pinch zoom smaller.

monlockandkey 3 hours ago

Nice job! It would be helpful when using public transportation to see the names of places overlaid on the map.

aranw 9 hours ago

Was on an overnight bus and ended with game over

Karliss 7 hours ago

Similar thing here. Was in a ferry from Ireland to France and got a penalty for not being in a hotel. How is 20 hour ferry not considered an overnight transport.

PokemonNoGo 8 hours ago

Yeah i was an hour from boarding my overnight bus and it seems i got game over for not being at a hotel.

>There are just 2 rules 1. You can't fly 2. You must be in a hotel by 2am unless you have overnight transport

Guess the "have" doesn't work as i thought.

renato_shira 9 hours ago

I loved the idea. Playing around

janfoeh 5 hours ago

Just did Galway-Rome and enjoyed it! I'll check back in a while when you've had time to implement the minimap and tourist center, as you wrote elsewhere.

What was weird: Paris did not seem to have any public transport - I had to walk from one train station to another for 70 minutes, and the only bus I could find was an overland bus, not an inner city one.

Also, it's a bit unintuitive that the "Journey Details" at the end start at nine hours — to me, when I begin my journey at 9 'o clock, that is hour zero.

level87 8 hours ago

Love the idea!

wazoox 6 hours ago

So here I am, it's frozen there: https://demo.intellique.org/nextcloud/index.php/apps/files_s...

You can see several problems : I've deselected bus stations, boat stations, etc but they're still displayed. Time is frozen, my bus isn't coming, I'm stuck in Almeria, too bad !

Here's what's in the console:

    Uncaught TypeError: can't access property "geometry", xe is undefined
        lr App.vue:984
        callback App.vue:2183
        rr App.vue:894
    App.vue:984:25

wazoox 7 hours ago

Nitpicks :

* If there's a time limit, there's no way to know. I'm currently on my 3rd day travelling :) * I was waiting for my bus and I had forgotten the exact time. There is no way to know until it starts :) * While riding the bus I can't seem to be able to push speed over 100x. A Paris-Barcelona bus ride is long, even at 100x :) Later on a second bus, I could. Weird... * You should explain that "banks", "bus stations" etc are special game icons, not actual banks and bus stops on the map :) I was in Paris trying to change money in the "money exchange" at Gare du Nord, and I tried a while to do something until I understood that you can only use the special "Bank" icons. * In Almeria, the busses look like the regular city network. I tried taking one, but the game is now frozen... It's time for my bus, but nothing happens.