Firewood Splitting Simulator (screen.toys)

339 points by memalign 5 days ago

CamouflagedKiwi 24 minutes ago

This is kinda fun, but doesn't match most of my experience splitting firewood.

The wood barely moves after it's split. If you split it perfectly, the two halves will almost certainly both fall to each side (they're pushed outwards by the axe).

You can't just randomly split it across the grain into slices like you're slicing bread.

I guess mostly: it's not tiring, which sort of sucks when you're doing it for real, but it is satisfying. This doesn't scratch that itch for me, but I guess it's fun in a way, similar to that cleaning simulator thing.

scottcorgan 23 minutes ago

this is the most hacker news comment possible

troyvit 2 hours ago

There was this old Piers Anthony short story about a little kid who likes playing with his dad's wood-splitting kit. He's a little kid so he doesn't handle an axe, but he does use adzes, hatchets, I dunno stuff I don't remember now[1]. Anyway he gets kidnapped by aliens and gets to join a great intergalactic wood-splitting competition. I won't ruin it but maybe if you get really good at this simulation you could be next.

[1] https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?46184

conception 2 hours ago

Haha this is also the plot of The Last Starfighter but with video games. I wonder if the screenwriter was familiar with it.

jcims 44 minutes ago

Damn I loved that movie!

bicx 3 hours ago

People here seem a little confused. This is a simulator in the same way Goat Simulator is a simulator. It’s from a collection called “screen toys” and it’s meant to be mindless fun.

binoct 3 hours ago

Here here. This was a joy to wake up to and wish I hadn’t stumbled into the comments.

pranavm27 an hour ago

And this is HN, its acting as its meant to xD

wartywhoa23 2 hours ago

This is HN I'd like to see more of.

Mocking too nerdy gripes on "simulator" accuracy, sharing some real world experience with physical things beyond the screen frames, and on in the same vein.

A breath of fresh air, really, in the prevailing AI smog.

tylerrobinson an hour ago

FWIW, the creator’s Insta post for this thing says #vibecoding

@shapiro500

No shade if so, I think it’s an awesome little toy.

underdeserver 41 minutes ago

I don't think I could have vibe coded that.

At the very least, he photographed and built models of logs and his own yard.

jenniferhooley 24 minutes ago

lukan 2 hours ago

"in the prevailing AI smog"

How do you know AI was not used in the making of this?

(personally I don't care, the result seems nice to me)

wartywhoa23 2 hours ago

This I don't know, but at least the topic is not related!

jeron an hour ago

MatthiasWandel 3 hours ago

Looks like its coded by someone who has never split firewood. The challenge is not deciding where to split, its executing the split. Like hitting the same gap if it doesn't split, deciding orientation to aoid knots, figuring out how to put it on end if it wasn't cut straight.

And some of the cuts it allowed me would hit the ax handle on another part, the shock from that damages the ax handle and is painful on the hands.

And then there's the lifting the stuck block by the axe and hitting it axe side down to finish the split instead of pulling the stuck axe out.

So the simulation handles none of the challenges of splitting wood.

bsiverly 3 hours ago

I swear this forum needs to embrace their inner child more some days. My four year old loved this.

Well executed fun.

goosejuice 5 minutes ago

[delayed]

Jgrubb 2 hours ago

Yes, but obviously this toy faces a challenge when folks who take this stuff seriously walk by. I immediately want a bungee to put around it so the wood doesn't go everywhere. I also want to split it finer than in quarters. Had to nope out.

furyofantares an hour ago

bsiverly 2 hours ago

PufPufPuf 3 hours ago

The "beer drinking simulator" we all had on our phones in 2010 wasn't a very accurate representation of drinking beer either

mikestew 3 hours ago

Man, don’t ever play Goat Simulator, then. You’ll be all day typing a wall of text about that.

nik282000 3 hours ago

I am shocked that tapping a touchscreen is nothing like splitting wood with an axe.

JKCalhoun 3 hours ago

"So the simulation handles none of the challenges of splitting wood."

Ha ha, that's why we like it.

Daub 2 hours ago

Experienced wood splitter here. All your points are valid. I had to ruin one perfectly good axe handle before I learned how to swing. However, the sim is still a lot of fun.

embedding-shape 2 hours ago

> I had to ruin one perfectly good axe handle before I learned how to swing.

Is it really that difficult? Maybe my memory is vague, but chopping wood in autumn/fall for the winter just took a bunch of time, and wasn't very fun, but wasn't that bad, especially compared to other things like harvesting veggies stuff where you have to be on the ground. I'm not sure how you'd manage to ruin a axe handle before understanding how to do it well-enough, takes a couple of swings at max.

JackFr 5 minutes ago

MatthiasWandel 5 minutes ago

roarcher 34 minutes ago

aqrit 29 minutes ago

mikestew 36 minutes ago

raincole 3 hours ago

FYI Tree Simulator is coded by someone who has never been a tree too.

bot403 3 hours ago

Oh you guys are all gonna hate Sim Ant.

sgarrity 2 hours ago

I might print out this quote and put it on my wall! :-)

"Looks like its coded by someone who has never split firewood. "

andix 3 hours ago

It's obviously not an accurate simulation. I'm sure the creator knows it isn't. Probably the best they could come up with in limited time.

idiotsecant 3 hours ago

I don't know if you know this or not, but this is a game.

alamortsubite an hour ago

It's perfect because the kind of people who will enjoy it shouldn't be allowed near an axe, anyway.

As someone with a wood stove, for my first few chops I rotated the log to orient the checking. Then it dawned on me that the simulation likely wasn't that sophisticated, and I came here to meet up with you guys.

sklargh 4 hours ago

If this triggers your interest in IRL firewood splitting it’s a very meditative and satisfying yard job. Also great mild to moderate workout between the splitting and stacking, especially on a crisp Fall afternoon.

delichon 4 hours ago

I have a lot of splitting to do right now, and you're welcome to it. I'll only charge a low nominal fee. But let me know before September, because that's when I usually go rent a hydraulic splitter from the local hardware store. Then I spend a very long day splitting so that I can return it the next day.

I've spent a lot of time splitting with a big maul, but for me it's harder that it looks. I've broken two mauls by striking to far. And even with "soft" wood, I have stacks of green rounds that I couldn't split at all, the maul just bounces off. But I'm glad that you enjoy the process, I'd probably enjoy watching you work.

bee_rider 3 hours ago

If the hydraulic splitter could be electric, so it would not be so loud, I could see that task being meditative. Preferably if the rounds could on a raised platform, so they could just be rolled onto the thing.

Next request, the wood could stack itself somehow.

adm4 3 hours ago

as camping is to "glamping," splitting wood is to "sprinkle wood?"

1dontnkow_ 3 hours ago

This reminded me when we I was a kid we had to split the wood for the whole winter and that was actually a huge job all day or few days and way harder than just a moderate workout.

I hated it then but actually now I miss the time I spend with my father and brother.

Loughla 2 hours ago

I hated cutting wood, stacking wood, splitting wood, all of it. We ran a potbelly stove in the living room when I was a kid for heat. I hated the stove too.

The only thing I don't miss is rolling a piece of piss elm over to my city living "tough" cousins after two or three pieces of oak and watching the maul just bounce off. Always funny.

crimsonnoodle58 4 hours ago

Good workout and satisfying, I totally agree. I actually really enjoy it.

But the long term effects on your joints, even if you think you have perfect technique, its better to just get a wood splitter. We can do a whole winters wood in less than a day now, with minimal effort.

MatthiasWandel 2 minutes ago

Gotta agree with you there, log splitters rule. We got a little 4 ton electric one for my mom, and on some pieces it would stall. I thought, what a wimpy thing, but then hitting those pieces it wouldn't split with an axe, I realized, those were really hard to split pieces. Just growing up in the 80s we didn't have one cause my dad didn't believe in them.

PyWoody 4 hours ago

If you're chopping wood in the Fall, I sure hope it's for next year's winter.

codemonkey-zeta 3 hours ago

Nope, splitting green wood is much more difficult than splitting dried logs, so I often cut a tree in the spring, stack the rounds, then split those rounds in the fall.

People overestimate how dry wood needs to be to burn correctly. Just have some ultra-dry kindling (seasoned for 2+ years) and you won't have any problems.

On the contrary, I know some folks who let all their wood dry too far, and it burned way too hot and ruined their stove (and almost burned their house down).

cluckindan 3 hours ago

PyWoody 2 hours ago

nickstinemates 4 hours ago

Taking a few minutes out of the day to to split some logs to hear your house for your family feels incredibly rewarding and satisfying.

astura 4 hours ago

Don't listen to this noise; it fucking sucks, it's kinda dangerous, and it's not at all meditative. It's the exact opposite of meditative. My parents made me do it because they certainly didn't want to, because it sucks. I'm so glad I don't have to split firewood ever again.

If you're looking for a meditative exercise try yoga.

klibertp 3 hours ago

Well, it's the kind of "meditative" you get when training martial arts forms. It gets good after a few years of preparation; before that, it's not as fun as spars and way less useful than general conditioning.

Coming from a kendo background, when I had to chop firewood for a few years while living in the countryside, I generally focused on accuracy. The swing is completely different than with a sword, and getting the chop to land at the exact spot (I drew lines with a marker) tens of times in a row was very satisfying, but required a lot of conscious effort to get there. It's not trivial to land a chop at the exact spot you want, and it's also quite hard to ensure the axe travels at its fastest exactly at the moment of impact.

It can be fun, but you need to be into things like that in the first place; plus, having to do it no matter the weather and all the other things you need to do can kill all the joy instantly.

bee_rider 3 hours ago

It’s also astonishing how much wood needs to be split, to heat even a moderately sized house. Depends on the climate though, I guess.

dredmorbius 3 hours ago

AaronAPU 3 hours ago

You sound like my father when someone mentions green beans

yardshop 4 hours ago

The pieces look like they retain the shapes I cut them in when stacked. I started cutting them as pie slices, but then tried a few as parallel chops, and they get stacked in those shapes.

Also interesting is the shadows of leaves that stay consistent on the scene as the pile grows, but they don't appear on the splitting area itself.

Lots of engine noise too, I guess that's the ambience in this person's back yard! Probably true for lots of us.

felooboolooomba 9 minutes ago

Bug: No error displayed if WebGL is disabled.

ryanisnan 14 minutes ago

I like how it stacks the firewood.

comrade1234 4 hours ago

Half the battle is having the right stance so that you don't accidentally embed the axe in your shin.

oh_my_goodness 2 hours ago

I'm ok that they left that part out.

anon1094 an hour ago

It's all very satisfying: the animations, the chopping, the graphics, and the sounds. I spent more time than I should have chopping splitting firewood.

nZac 4 hours ago

This simulates a person far more skilled than me.

I never had to adjust the chunk to get it to sit right, the maul hit exactly where I told it to, and it even stacked itself!

bluGill 4 hours ago

Never had the maul get stuck in the wood. Never had the wood fly off the splitting stump.

oh_my_goodness 2 hours ago

It does fly off sometimes in the game.

bluGill an hour ago

adamddev1 an hour ago

Delightful little experience. Very nice. What would be even cooler would be if the axe only went partway down sometimes and then you have to lift the log up with the axe inside a couple of times to finish it off with that satisfying full split.

mac3n 3 hours ago

Nothing beats coming home from work, chopping something into pieces, and setting it on fire.

cinntaile 3 hours ago

It bothers me that I can split a log in 3 parallel pieces, rotate 90 degrees and then magically can split the middle piece. That's physically difficult! Besides that it was fun.

ptman an hour ago

kwdev an hour ago

Can I have a "Carry Water Simulator" to go with it?

Icons8 4 hours ago

That was a satisfying part of my day. Thank you.

ab_goat 5 hours ago

What about when you’re splitting a log with a branch and the maul bounces straight back up? Lol

ab_goat 4 hours ago

Beautiful sim. Looks like red oak. As someone who has split a lot of wood, wish it could incorporate more of the struggles of splitting logs.

- missing your spot by 6” or more and creating a tiny shard that goes flying - the log you’re aiming at falling as you are in your backswing - getting your maul stuck halfway down the split

andwur 4 hours ago

Could do with a difficulty setting that includes when you inherit someone else's log pile, someone who really enjoyed making every cut on a new and more inventive angle than the last.

Normally a wedge is used to split the wood, but it also doubles as a wedge to be wedged underneath just so you can get the log to stand up.

Also, Y sections (ycombinator mode?). 40 hits later and you might have a nice pile of woodchips, very rarely will it actually split in any clean way.

neogodless 4 hours ago

Yeah this needs pieces with knots, and having to swing at least 3 times before the initial split works. Very unrealistic, 3/10. Need some wedge + sledgehammer modes.

Also how do I simulate my shoulder and lower back hurting?

bee_rider 3 hours ago

With your additions, it probably could be a really neat mini game to have in a survival-crafting game... Game, so, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

But the axe could wobble a bit, depending on some combination of chopping skill and how tired your guy is (simulating shoulder pain and lower back pain). Number of hits required depends on character strength and how straight on the hits are.

I’m not sure how the game would track the pieces of various sizes, though. I guess this would just be for firewood (building wood might have to be handled separately) so maybe it would be fine to just calculate the volume of each slice and have it provide fuel based on that…

bot403 2 hours ago

I think if you sit and play it for 10 hours your lower back will hurt too. It just takes longer.

jojobas 4 hours ago

You'll like Spintires.

KronisLV 4 hours ago

1e1a 3 hours ago

This is fun and looks amazing, however there seems to be quite a bit of texture in the out of focus blur. There's also a lot of aliasing on the grass. Also, I think the camera shake could do with a very slight delay after the axe hits, and maybe a slightly slower decay curve.

basedbertram 2 hours ago

Fun experience, but the forced rotation after a certain number of cuts diminishes it.

blackdogie 5 hours ago

That was a fun work out. I was wondering what happened when you "filled" the circle of firewood.

ralfd 5 hours ago

What happens?

kevmo314 4 hours ago

It starts stacking a second circle

oytis 3 hours ago

supertroop 2 hours ago

Thankfully there are no knots and it is softwood. Oddly satisfying.

Waterluvian 4 hours ago

I need a fireplace or bonfire simulator that I can throw these into.

bot403 2 hours ago

There's a ton of non-interactive fireplace simulators on Netflix and YouTube. Especially around Christmas.

davidee 2 hours ago

Missing the splitting axe getting a little jammed at a knot.

Otherwise excellent.

traceroute66 3 hours ago

Fun but hugely unrealistic simulation, so many "bugs":

    - Able to split log into unrealistically thin slices and they remain perfectly upright
    - Split a log into two, rotate 90 degrees, and by some miracle you can split the half further away from you whilst the piece nearest to you doesn't get hit or move an inch
etc.

blueaquilae 3 hours ago

You don't understand don't you?

adm4 3 hours ago

great game and very satisfying.

kiriberty 2 hours ago

But why?

Aboutplants 6 minutes ago

Because

hagbard_c 4 hours ago

Nice sim, there's one thing missing though: splitting two sections at the same time. It do this all the time as it can almost double splitting speed when dealing with mid-size logs. Split the log in two halves, making sure to keep the halves close together. Rotate around the splitting block by about 60°, split again hitting both halves at the same time. Do this once more and you've split the log into 6 60° sections, a good size for stacking in the fireplace and also a good section size to be able to light a fire. I split between 5 m³ and 7 m³ of firewood per year which is enough to heat our house and cook our food, have been doing this for about 20 years now so I have some experience. The double-split is a good time saver.

wartywhoa23 2 hours ago

I'd upvote you twice for your nickname alone, if I could! All hail Eris! :)

MBCook 4 hours ago

This works amazingly well on my iPhone with obvious touch controls.

Very impressive.

alansaber 5 hours ago

The momentum on the camera spin is very annoying. Really cool though

tharkun__ 4 hours ago

That and the fact that you can rotate w/ left click as well. Turns out I naturally drag the mouse a little. So having rotate on right click only would be way less annoying, especially when combined with the momentum.

albumen 3 hours ago

But then it wouldn’t work on a touchscreen, and it wouldn’t go viral.

daakni 5 hours ago

Feels very satisfying

makach 3 hours ago

I spent too much time on this.

kubasienki 3 hours ago

Very infuriating, why does it rotate when i want to split it thinner

ETH_start 4 hours ago

Quite realistic. Could be more realistic still if you could chop two blocks at once.

KillerRAK 3 hours ago

good exercise!

stevenalowe 5 days ago

Very cool sim!

olalonde 5 hours ago

Honestly I'm more fascinated by the grass around, but I haven't played games in a long time.

cody_ellingham 4 hours ago

Chop wood, carry water.

mehtablr 4 hours ago

Its same as dbdiagram, what's new in this?

relevant_stats an hour ago