Fly By
A retro side-on biplane game in the browser: pop balloons, dive past barns and dodge airliners. The developer says Gemini Flash did the work.
Official site michaelteter.com, verified Nov 3, 2026. Linked from the developer's own Show HN post and hosted on the developer's own domain; the title screen reads “A game by Michael Teter”.
Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- Play free — official siteBrowserReleasedFree
Runs in a desktop or mobile browser. No download.
Browser (no download) · Mobile · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Fly By
Fly By is a small retro biplane game for the browser. You take off, fly side-on through a course and score by popping balloons, diving past barns, dodging airliners and flying stunts, with combos, near misses and power-ups such as a speed boost and an automatic machine gun; the plane burns fuel, and landing and pausing on the runway refuels it. By the developer's description, level flight and dives build speed up to a limit while climbing bleeds it off, so reaching high balloons takes a run-up. Settings include inverted pitch controls, an instrument dashboard (speed, altitude, angle of attack, throttle, stall warning), optional wind dynamics, a CRT scanline filter and on-screen touch controls. The developer, Michael Teter, says it was made to recapture an old console game remembered from childhood, without realistic physics as the goal. In the Show HN post the developer calls it “my concept, my guidance, and Gemini Flash doing the work”, over about 50 conversations with Google's Gemini. Free on the developer's website; best on desktop, and the developer says the mobile version needs more polish.
How it was built
VerifiedThe Show HN post says: “My concept, my guidance, and Gemini Flash doing the work”, taking about 4 hours and more than 50 conversations with Gemini; the developer credits Gemini Flash “since 3.5 and later” without naming the exact version. In later replies the developer describes about 50 conversations and “6 hours of intentional dozens of interactions”, says it was not a one-prompt game because they made many choices and gave Gemini a lot of direction, and says they now care “zero” about the details of the code as long as the result meets their requirements. Whether any code was written by hand is not stated.
Built in conversation with Google's Gemini Flash, with the developer supplying the concept and direction across about 50 conversations, by the developer's account. The game is a single JavaScript file loaded by one HTML page on the developer's site (observed); it keeps settings and high scores in the browser. The developer has said a write-up of the process may follow.
- Engine / framework
- None (one HTML page and one JavaScript file)
- Languages
- JavaScript
- Team size
- Not disclosed
- Initial build time
- About 4 hours and 50+ conversations with Gemini (developer's Show HN post)Developer ReportedHacker News (michaelteter)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“My concept, my guidance, and Gemini Flash doing the work.”Verification notes: The AI claim comes from the developer's Show HN post of 1 Sep 2026 (07:31 UTC) and replies in the thread on 2, 7 and 9 Sep 2026; in the 7 Sep reply the developer confirms being the author. Gemini Flash is recorded under Gemini, Google's chat assistant; the post does not say whether it was used through the Gemini app or another interface, and the version is given only as “since 3.5 and later”. Features come from the game page's own menus and settings and its description meta tag; the speed model and the refuelling-on-the-runway behaviour come from the developer's replies. The script on the page carried a version stamp of 2 Sep 2026 when checked, so the game was updated after the post. The Show HN post is the earliest dated mention found, so no release date is recorded. Team size and location are not stated. The game was not played through.
Development history
The developer posts the game on Hacker News as a Show HN.
OfficialHacker News (michaelteter)
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
Browser (official site)
Free in the browser. The developer says it plays best on desktop; touch controls exist but mobile needs more polish.
No public metrics recorded for this listing.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players (site), Monthly revenue, Gross revenue.
Sales & revenue (all platforms)
Browser game — there are no downloads to count.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Prototype: your vote is kept only in this browser and is not counted anywhere.
Not currently ranked.
No player reviews yet.
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Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game Hacker News (michaelteter) | Social post | Sep 1, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Fly By: Balloon Pop & Stunt Flight (game page) Michael Teter (michaelteter.com) | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Official game page (language check) Michael Teter | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
- Development time
- The Show HN post says the game took about 4 hours and 50+ conversations with Gemini; a later reply by the developer in the same thread speaks of “6 hours of intentional dozens of interactions”. (Hacker News (michaelteter))
