Show HN: A CSS-Only Terrain Generator
terra.layoutit.comWhen I turn off JS, it shows a loader instead of the terrain. Is this really CSS-Only? I mean it's still a high achievement even with JS, but was expecting it would also work without JS. This one, for example, truly works without JS https://benjaminaster.com/css-minecraft/ .
I'm assuming it's the render engine that is in pure CSS. You could display a static map in CSS but things like the tools to modify the terrain definitely need JS.
You might not need it using the new :has() and different inputs as modifiers. Though that's a lot of :has() and probably would kill performance.
I wanted to check if your assumption is correct but I couldn’t find the source code.
Why do you think the renderer is pure css and not e.g. mostly css?
The top right button has a "Download code" which gives you a .zip file. That .zip file doesn't have any JS in it, and renders the terrain just like in the online editor, except you can turn off JS and it still works.
Edit: someone else wrote basically the same an hour ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45814791
Looks like it’s a “(css-only terrain) generator” - a generator that lets the user create and download a css only terrain.
As opposed to a “css-only (terrain generator)” - a terrain creation studio built with css only.
GP linked an example of a similar project that allowed you to modify the terrain without any JS at all
I think what's intended is that the completed and downloaded solution doesn't require any javascript.
Build something then hit the Download Code button - that packaged HTML solution doesn't require any javascript to render locally.
Yeah, it worked, it seems to be a static rendered html with no interactivity though.
Wow this really feels like roller coaster tycoon!!! (I can see lots of people refer to this to their favorite sim game though)
Great work!
I really miss these building games that used an isometric grid. RC Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, Sim City, TTD, …
Yes, it's less realistic, but it is so pleasant to work with. Everything you build aligns perfectly and if you want, you can neatly fill the entire map.
In comparison, (even with many mods) my Cities Skylines or Planet Coaster creations never look quite right. Building the roads and paths is always awkward and frustrating.
(I've commented this before.)
As someone who wrote one of those 2D-ish isometric games in the 90s, it was hell. All the problems with trying to render the tiles properly and figure out what tile the user was clicking on when some tiles are semi-transparent etc. The artists need medals though for creating amazing levels with tiny palettes of pieces to work from.
We made it especially hard on ourselves by having 3D characters interact with the 2D tiles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UOYps_3eM0
I absolutely adore the look of isometric, though.
Starcraft and The Sims 1 as well! Games that would let one rotate the isometric view once blew my mind, it was like going from 2D to 3D.
Reminded me quite a bit of Populous[1] as well.
Came to say this!
Funny, my mind went to OpenTTD
Both Rollercoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (which lives on in openTTD) are by the same author, and use the same engine :-)
Chris Sawyer, he made them with a tiny magnet that he used to write the games directly to a hard drive.
I once heard he tickled a butterfly in Brazil to cause a cloud in the UK that diverted a cosmic ray onto his hard drive in the exact right spot to flip the required bit.
The biome button graphics are taken from the OpenTTD main menu.
For me, "Briefing" from Ace Combat 2 played back in my head straight away.
I like it's also really 3d, while looking like older 2.5d games.
This is exactly what I thought of
Lots of javascript for a "css-only" tool. Looks like just the rendering is css-only.
You can open up your terrain in codepen with nothing but CSS/HTML, and it renders fine. It's just not interactive / draggable anymore.
So the JS is only being used, essentially, as a nice UI for configuring your terrain and the camera angle from which it's viewed.
This is still an incredible feat.
I guess it'd be more accurate to call it a "Generator for CSS-Only Terrain", as the generator itself is not CSS-only.
Not to mention of all of those pesky HTML tags and images, clearly not CSS-only, what a fraud.
"CSS-only" colloquially tends to mean HTML and CSS without Javascript, sometimes without images.
The tone of the parent comment suggests they were writing in jest and are aware that "CSS-only" includes HTML.
Yep. Can confirm this does not work with JS disabled. I'm disappointed by the misleading title.
is it a Generator for CSS-Only Terrain? or a CSS-Only Generator which creates Terrain?
We need PEMDAS for English.
Let's use sexpr?
actual meaning -> ((CSS-Only Terrain) Generator)
incorrect interpretation -> (CSS-Only (Terrain Generator))
maybe RPN?
actual meaning -> CSS-Only Terrain + Generator +
incorrect interpretation -> CSS-Only + Terrain Generator +
Really we may need BNF here
Loglan anyone?
This is incredible - looks like SimCity 2000.
Does it? All the tiles are usually a yellow brown aren’t they? 3000 has green land
So funny - I thought the same as the first comment. But yeah memory is a funny thing.
https://kagi.com/proxy/sim-city-2000.png?c=zBh1SYcmKrHnLf7qc...
https://kagi.com/proxy/00001307.jpg?c=vxNARhwMwSpmnHAfYQrnRr...
The colouring is brown for SC2000, but the geometry is basically identical; I definitely got the same energy from it.
While close to SC2000, it's much closer to Transport Tycoon (OpenTTD).
Really reminds me of openttd, especially the sandy border around the water
Looks really cool and runs great on my phone.
Seems like there's some kind of rendering bug in the corners sometimes causing the walls to intersect the grass
Reminds me of Populous!
Very cool
Thank you! Populous and Transport Tycoon were two big inspirations for sure :)
Next step Populous in only CSS + JS
Also reminded me a lot of simcity 2000. Congrats, it's very neat!
You nailed it. Well done!
I just came here to say the same thing. The raise and lower tools in particular reminded me of it.
For anyone who hasn't heard of it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populous_(video_game)
You guys have sent me down memory lane. Hopefully, I don't forget when I have free time to search, but hopefully I can find this to play in an emulator somewhere. This was the very first game I ever bought even though I didn't have an Amiga but had one that was very accessible.
edit: couldn't wait. did the search. it's very much available to play online. hello rabbit hole...
Just in case you never came across it, I think the second game is much better than the first one. Enjoy the nostalgia trip!
Do tell, I've been wanting to play Populous again for a few years...
dosbox top result in search
I've used a few terrain generators before but I think this one might be my favourite. Obviously the fact its a "CSS only" demo project restricts things a bit, but its got enough going for it regardless.
It actually comes at a really good time for me, I'm currently trying to make the transition from 2d game dev to 3d and things like this are really helpful.
This thing is killing my CPU, what's the actual bottleneck here for CSS? Is it the number of elements visible and rendered at once? Is it the calculation engine backing CSS is super slow? Or just that most of the work is being done on the CPU it seems (on my machine, rotating around the map, my integrated GPU goes to 20% but CPU stays around 40-50%).
it's effectively a cpu 'renderer' with gpu painter
Really cool, especially when I realised you could rotate the terrain and do some zooming as well.
Impressive, but there is a noticeable lag after modifying the terrain or moving the camera. Is there a way to know if the browser is using the GPU or CPU for rendering, and is there are way to see the milliseconds per frame?
It looks like a layout/style/composition issue with the browser engine.
In Safari I'm seeing 91% CPU time on paint, 6% on layout, 2% on styles. It looks like it's taking somewhere between 100-200ms on my machine to chunk through a state change each time.
> Is there a way to know if the browser is using the GPU or CPU for rendering, and is there are way to see the milliseconds per frame?
For Safari, you would go to the Web Inspector and navigate to the Timelines tab. Chrome has a similar thing.
Can someone please reimplement something like Warcraft 2 on a mobile web device?
It would be a hit, I’m telling you. Even from 1995.
Some people are still playing it 30 years later, obsessively.
And myth ii by Bungie is a classic too
The controls would take some serious reworking to make it work on mobile - I could see adding a ‘pause’ feature to give you time to scrub your fingers all over the screen to issue all your unit and build orders, performant pinch to zoom would nearly negate the need for a mini map, lots of reworked GUI for building stuff and managing workers
Anyone made a real-time-strategy engine for tiled games on mobile?
Stratagus has an android port at least ...
Oh yes I remembered, wargus exists!
Also Microsoft claims this after buying Blizzard:
Through great teams and great technology, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will empower players to enjoy the most-immersive franchises, like “Halo” and “Warcraft,” virtually anywhere they want.
https://news.microsoft.com/source/2022/01/18/microsoft-to-ac...
Very cool! Do you think it’s possible to do lakes and waterfalls?
Definitely! I'm planning for more landscape features for next versions. I think rivers will be a great addition, and waterfalls/rapids sound really interesting too. In the end it's a matter of adding a few classes and designing some sprites.
for those interested in more CSS-Only art, Lynn Fisher makes some neat stuff
I got some rendering issues, but otherwise very cool !
https://i.imgur.com/qT6ozyh.png
Firefox 144.0.2, Windows
Thanks for the report! Are you using a dark mode extension by any chance? I’ve seen that happen with Dark Reader in Chrome.
It is giving Sega Genesis "Populous" vibes.
Dark Reader mutilates the rendered output, but only certain tiles. No clear pattern as to what tiles get mangled. Peculiar.
The next obvious step will be SimCity 2000 completely implemented using web tech. One can hope!
1. what's a layou tit?
2. does it sometimes raise / lower by 2 units?
3. the "flatten" tool is missing.
Reminds me of RCT, very nice!
This is super cool! Wonder how hard it would be to use with an RTS game.
Amazing job by an amazing developer!
Nice! Now do collision checks ;)
In CSS?
Yes.
This is really cool.
Impressive work
looks sick! great job :)
Crazy that vibe coding can make things like this now! 2026 going to be crazy! There is no AI bubble