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Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
- meshko 4mo agofor the 25th anniversary (approximately) I vibecoded what i wanted to do for years -- port of the original remake (yes) to JavaScript. Alive again.
- alex_anglin 4mo agoDoing the lords work, as they say. Thank you for sharing.
- felooboolooomba 4mo agoGreat work! People are not realizing to press "start". Possible to add audio notification and/or highlighting the button red when ready?
- meshko 4mo agoyeah this is what happens when you let LLM design the UI. The whole flow needs to be updated.
- kylemaxwell 4mo agoI played the hell out of the original DOS game during high school in 1992 (or thereabouts, it's been a while.)
- api 4mo agoIt was fun. Was a bit younger but played it like crazy too on my 286. Rollers! Lava! It’s like the author started with a simple tank war game and then just threw in every weird little effect they could code as a creative weapon. There were all kinds of neat hacks.
- The_Blade 4mo agosame, it was a step up from dopewars, but not quite leisure suit larry which one of our friends had years later i defeated the high score of Stephen Meek and realized with horror Oregon Trail was intended to teach patience not just dysentery damn you MECC!!
- el_duderino 4mo agoSame! I remember playing this during my Borland C++ for DOS class in school. Good times.
- walrus01 4mo agoEarly 90s DOS games were certainly quite creative. I mentally draw a dividing line between approximately the start of the era when the first Soundblaster became a common thing to find in affordable home x86 PCs, and early CD-ROM based games were also available (1991-1992), and the December 1993 release of DOOM and everything that came after. Very interesting era in the time frame in between there.
- FireBeyond 4mo agoYeah, I remember our high school IT teacher buying a 486sx25 with 8MB and a CDROM ostensibly to explore multimedia in education but mostly to play Myst.
- conception 4mo agoI feel like Mario 64 was another one of those and AAA never really left Doom or Mario 64.
- jasonfarnon 4mo agoDon't I remember doom developing pretty organically from wolfenstein and a few other (what would now be called) first person shooters around that time? The name "hexen" is coming to mind too. I would put that whole era as the start of something new, so different from the strategy games and side-scrollers that preceded it. Those first person games were the first time I thought computer games were actually more fun than the console systems, which didn't really have anything similar.
- aidenn0 4mo agoWarcraft II and Doom are both examples of, while not being the first in their genres, defining their genres and inspiring every studio to stop what they are doing and make something in that genre.
- RetroTechie 4mo ago> ..and inspiring every studio to stop what they are doing and make something in that genre. This. After Doom, there were maaany releases where a studio had X out there, and then released [3D version of X]. Or also throw themselves onto the fps genre. Almost to the point of killing innovation. Don't get me wrong: that, and the 'infinite' storage of CD-ROMs got us many nice games. But neither did much to sharpen game developer's creativity skills. Many "me too! (meh..)" releases in that era.
- alterom 4mo agoWe played Tank Wars by Kenny Morse, it's from 1990 and preceded Scorched Earth: https://archive.org/details/TankWars_274 https://archive.org/details/TankWars_274 More unhinged fun IMO
- mpyne 4mo agoYeah, this is the one that ruled my homeroom during last bit of elementary school.
- sonar_un 4mo agoI was gonna say, this is totally tank wars!
- Cpoll 4mo agoThey had a shared ancestor in Tanx. I also remember Tank Wars fondly.
- alterom 4mo agoNah, Ken Morse's Tank Wars really was the mother of all artillery games. Tank Wars came out in 1990, Tanks came out in 1991. There were artillery games before Tank Wars, of course. But none, to my knowledge, had AI players and insane weapon purchases, which is what made the game really fun, and which Scorched Earth inherited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game#Artillery_games_for_MS-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game#Artillery_games...
- ndr42 4mo agoI just want to let this Atari ST classic here: Ballerburg (1987) is massive fun.
- skeeterbug 4mo agoOh man, we played this in computer lab in high school to pass time after we were done with our assignments. I believe it was a java/flash version though (year 2000/2001)
- meshko 4mo agoyup, it was a java applet. Stopped working when Java in the browser died.
- skeeterbug 4mo agoJust played a round, think I found a bug - It was down to one other computer and myself. For some reason the power capped at 235, so neither of us could come close to hitting one another.
- meshko 4mo agoyou probably got damage. If stuck like this, go to menu and select "mass kill"
- Forgeties79 4mo agoWow that’s a lot to unpack lol
- fullstop 4mo agoI brought it back to life at one point as a Java Swing app for my kids, but the server side of things was still wonky. I'm glad to see that it's alive again, I had a lot of fun with this in the early 2000s.
- vunderba 4mo agoNeat. The website looks the same (in a good way) from when I remember it over a decade ago - are you the creator of the original java port from back then? https://web.archive.org/web/20140210122645/http://www.scorch2000.com https://web.archive.org/web/20140210122645/http://www.scorch...
- ChrisArchitect 4mo agoA related page: Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games http://www.whicken.com/scorch/ http://www.whicken.com/scorch/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32092060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32092060)
- Forgeties79 4mo agoHoooooly hell I totally forgot about this. Talk about dredging up some memories. I don’t think I have thought about this game in literally 20 years.
- rickcarlino 4mo agoI did not realize Pocket Tanks was a derivative work.
- compiler-guy 4mo agoTank games like this have a long heritage. Scorch is probably the pinnacle, but I played primitive versions of this all the way back on an Apple ][.
- iamnothere 4mo agoGORILLA.BAS is arguably part of the lineage too, somewhere in there.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- nodrog3000 4mo agoHaha, same
- alterom 4mo agoSo is Scorched Earth, it's preceded (at least) by "Tank Wars" (aka BOMB.EXE) by Kenny Morse from 1990: https://archive.org/details/TankWars_274 https://archive.org/details/TankWars_274
- mock-possum 4mo agoBOMB.EXE was my first.
- Sharlin 4mo agoWorms is as well. It’s an entire genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game
- prmoustache 4mo agoI like Hedgewars which is an open source game similar to Worms but with hedgehogs. It is available as package in most Linux distros but also on Windows, Mac and FreeBSD. I believe it is available on Steam as well.
- motgnay 4mo agoLOL nostalgic
- sbinnee 4mo agoOMG. One of my favorite games. It was fun to explore all the weapons and utilities with my brother.
- rhema 4mo ago9 year old me got my first "hacking" experience out of this game. With the shareware version, you could not select the ultra tank that could shoot 3 bullets for a human, but you COULD if it were the computer player. The "hack": -start a game with a normal tank VS ultra computer player as p2. -save the game (as a file). -open the game file. -read the ASCII text and just flip which player has which text. Now, I had my ultra tank.
- leoooodias 4mo agoL33T!
- stackghost 4mo agoMine was similar but it was the original C&C. Found this sketchy-ass save game editor/mod editor, proceeded to give the little Nod buggies the laser from the obelisk of light to trivialize the single player campaign. That feeling of being the leetest of leet haxors just from editing some ini settings was pretty glorious.
- NBJack 4mo agoI recall the INI files of Red Alert were an open book for modding the game mechanics. I had spies with silenced pistols and "tesla cufflinks". It was really fun making crates spawn super frequently. I also vaguely recall making one of the planes into a nuke carpet bombers (fun, but the forced delay each time a nuke went off was a tad annoying). Then there were the Duke Nukem 3D CON files...
- vunderba 4mo agoCON files were great. One of the first enemies I made as a kid was a "basilisk"-type creature that if you looked at, there was a RNG chance it would wackplayer If you know, you know.
- wingmanjd 4mo agoMine was on a similar game, GORILLA.BAS. I would edit the banana code for a much bigger explosion. Lots of fun back in computer class!
- navigate8310 4mo agoPocket Tanks was my ultimate childhood game that I played with my classmates during our computer lab lessons. I believe Scorched Earth was it's inspiration
- nickandbro 4mo agoWow! Curious how you did multiplayer over the web? What stack did you use?
- meshko 4mo agoWebSockets.
- GavinAnderegg 4mo agoScorched Earth taught me the concept of software versions. It was the first program that I ever knowingly interacted with more than one point-release of. I had version 1.0, but a friend had version 1.2. My very young mind was boggled by the concept of software being updated.
- evilgeneralist 4mo agoI was thinking about this last night. "If it's a different... version.. then it's a different game" I think Super Mario 2 being what it was really messed me up.
- bandrami 4mo agoI wasted most of my high school years on the OG (1991) version. I love how such a simple concept can make for such a great game
- dylan604 4mo agoDidn't realize that in 2026 people still ran an http only websites
- meshko 4mo agopart of the 2001 charm?
- NewLincoln 4mo agoWhat was the game like this with apes throwing bananas?
- nope96 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(video_game)
- SigmundA 4mo agoI remember the original Scorched Earth being one of the few games that could actually do SVGA graphics at the time. Most games of the era where 320x240 8 bit 256 colors, I had a 286 with 800x600 SVGA monitor and that game could actually use it although it was only 4 bit 16 color, don't think I ever played the 256 color in the last version.
- erickf1 4mo agoThank you for this blast from the past.
- deepakhj 4mo agoWe used to play the DOS version in AP Computers in HS back in 1994.
- AbraKdabra 4mo agoHoly... the nostalgia, I played the hell out of this game in computer class back in school 25 years ago, time flies.
- skirmish 4mo agoIn my first job after graduation in a small company I was talking to the VP of engineering, and he mentioned offhand: "yeah, I wrote Scorch when I was in college". Mind blown.
- reconnecting 4mo agoMust be Wendell Hicken. https://www.whicken.com/ https://www.whicken.com/
- jnettome 4mo agoThis bring me back so many good memories! Thank you!
- sailfast 4mo agoNO. WAY. This made my whole day. Thank you.
- passive 4mo agoOH GOD! MY NOSTALGIA!!!!
- amarant 4mo agoOoh, and it's fully playable! Last time I tried this game, I think I had managed to get a hold of the original executable or something: the rate of turn for the turret was tied to CPU cycles. Paying it on a computer about a decade younger than the game made it quite impossible to aim, as the turret would spin several laps if you so much as looked at the arrow key
- HerbManic 4mo agoThere are some Chess games from that era that tied their difficulty to the CPU speed. Essentially calculate options for 5 seconds or something like that. So as hardware got faster, the games got way more difficult.
- ticulatedspline 4mo agoMother of all games. Played so much SE when I was younger, one of my all time favs. This version is ok but I prefer the original which is easy enough to run via dos-box, emulators of similar ilk or even online in a few places: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Scorched_Earth_1991 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Scorched_Earth_1991 https://dos.zone/scorched-earth/ https://dos.zone/scorched-earth/ https://www.playdosgames.com/play/scorched-earth https://www.playdosgames.com/play/scorched-earth I loved turning the explosion to the max and launching Nukes or Death Head MIRVs and watching the whole screen be annihilated. Despite many clones I've never found one that really captured the feel and fun of the original. I'd love to see a faithful remake that had a larger playing area though.
- Timwi 4mo ago> Despite many clones I've never found one that really captured the feel and fun of the original. Not trying to be contrarian, but for factual correctness I'm going to point out that Scorched Earth is a clone of an earlier game, Tank Wars. I've played both and I agree that Scorched Earth had more to it, but it wasn't the original.
- LocalH 4mo agoScorched Tanks on Amiga got decently close
- Fedot982 4mo ago[dead]
- johng 4mo agoMan, I used to play this game a ton.... and the throw the banana game that was written in basic and came with DOS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyBD0X81tjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyBD0X81tjk
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- xstefi 4mo agoomg, 286 with B/W CRT display
- Markoff 4mo agooriginal Scorched Earth is only 4 years older than Worms Hard to understand for me why would anyone play this when they can play much funnier Worms. I mean I played Scorched Earth with my cousin before Worms existed, but once they released Worms why would we play it? I am still playing Worms Armageddon in 2026 with my kids on PS3 at least once or twice a week (the original graphics didn't age very well for 4K TVs), though not retro levels, they are way too small, dunno why they didn't scale them up for higher resolution.
- mevinbuilds 4mo ago[dead]
- pcblues 4mo agoNo way! I played the original (too much) while doing computer science at uni in the early 1990s. My friends were either playing the Dune RTS or mmorpgs, depending on their leaning. A lot of the limited available computing power went into playtime in those days :)
- r721 4mo agoThere exists 3D version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_3D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_3D http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/ http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
- flyinghamster 4mo agoBack in the early 2000s, that scene was HOPPING. A whole bunch of mods were around, some of which seem to have disappeared, particularly Armored Warfare Evolved. A couple of things happened (at least to my perception): a bug cropped up in the Apocalypse mod where hitting a small shop would cause it to burn for over a minute, disrupting multi-player game play, and on the servers there was an invasion by trolls complete with Nazi avatars, who drove players away (myself included).
- vladsiu 4mo ago[dead]
- NoboruWataya 4mo agoThere's also xscorch http://www.xscorch.org/ http://www.xscorch.org/
- CyanLite2 4mo agoI'm making a WebAssembly clone of this fantastic game. Stay tuned...
- krupan 4mo agoOriginal scorch had a text file with all the sayings the tanks would "shout" out just before firing. Trading those around on BBSes was part of the fun. I still remember, "from Hell's heart I stab at thee!" which is probably from some classic literature that I don't know, lol!
- ghaff 4mo agoMoby Dick. Khan said something at least very similar in ST 2.
- IFC_LLC 4mo agoDamn it! Can you please stop thwarting my company release cycle? Now the entire dev team is playing this! Good thing that I'm winning. Everyone who looses his tank goes to do the deploy.
- npongratz 4mo agoJust remember: "NO KIBITZING"! Sadly, it appears ChatGPT 5.5 did not implement this crucial feature for this javascript port.
- RHSeeger 4mo agoI remember playing this in college. Such good times.
- felooboolooomba 4mo agoPSA: YOU NEED TO PRESS THE START BUTTON IF YOU ARE HOSTING A GAME. People are creating games and waiting and waiting ...
- meshko 4mo agofixed, i think.
- soupspaces 4mo ago[dead]
- Aardwolf 4mo agoGreat, I got the almost invisible red tank on a magenta background!
- joymonger 4mo agoThis triggered memories I forgot I had. Thank you!
- addybojangles 4mo agoMEMORIES!