Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI
Comments
susam
jonathanlydall
My favourite bad volume control was in Real Player around 1997 where changing the volume in the application actually changed the global volume of Windows.
Waterluvian
I was so confused by the CD drives of that era. They all had a volume wheel and a headphone jack, but never once did I experience those working. The audio CDs were always “owned” by the OS, which piped the audio through the normal channels out my speakers or the PC headphone jack.
I imagine the existence of those means that CD drives had their own DAC and other logic. I guess there was an idea of wanting to play CD audio without it being a PC concern? Or on PCs without audio capability?
spicyjpeg
Almost all IDE and SCSI CD-ROM drives were indeed capable of playing audio CDs fully autonomously, with the host PC basically only sending them the command to start playing; many drives took it one step further and provided a play button in addition to the usual eject button, which worked even if the drive wasn't plugged at all into a machine. The audio was typically output both to the front panel headphone jack and to a 4-pin connector on the back of the drive, which you were supposed to connect to one of your sound card's aux inputs so that it would get mixed into the system audio output.
Unfortunately, a decent number of machines were not fitted with the relevant cable. Combined with the low-quality DACs that most drives used, the compatibility issues that plagued ATAPI implementations and the dramatic increase in CPU power and sound card quality throughout the mid-to-late 90s, this led media player software to quickly move on from drive based playback to so-called "digital audio extraction", where the CD is basically ripped in real time and streamed to your sound card's own DAC. Thus, unless you played older games that relied on hardware CD-DA playback [1], it's somewhat unlikely you ever experienced it under, say, Windows 98 or XP.
[1] As offloading playback to the drive had no CPU overhead, games often stored their music as additional tracks on the game disc and played it that way. Incidentally, basically all CD-ROM-based game consoles and arcade systems relied heavily on hardware accelerated playback as well, with some going even further and allowing for compressed (ADPCM) CD audio streaming with no CPU intervention.
acomjean
Had a 3x NEC external scsi cd drive. It had play/ ff and rewind buttons and a little lcd that showed the track #. With the headphone jack it made a decent cd player.
https://recycledgoods.com/nec-cdr-400-3x-scsi-external-plus-...
kibibu
They absolutely had a DAC. The earlier commercial CD-ROM drives used an internal audio cable connected to a dedicated input on the sound card pcb for cd-audio. It was years before audio players used digital audio streams.
wizzwizz4
Did you ever try using the drive with the computer switched off?
hyperman1
When a computer crashed, cd audio continued to play. My PC just kept playing trough a hard reset/reboot, in fact. It would only stop playing when DOS booted far enough that it loaded mscdex, a step I could skip with a startup menu. I've always wondered why it managed to survive a reset pulse on the wire.
Zardoz84
I remember my father powering one of these old cd ROM drives, without a computer and using it to play music CDs using these jack connecter
darknavi
It's funny because Microsoft Teams does this today, in 2026.
jonathanlydall
I almost didn't believe this, but I just tested and you're absolutely right.
I've never noticed because I use a Steel Series headset which presents as two output sound devices to Windows, the idea being that you can independently control the volume of your "game" and your "chat" application. Turns out it's useful for Teams as well.
arnitdo
Good solution that works is setting up something like voicemeeter, passing audio through a virtual device and then muting it in vb panel
malnourish
Until you invariably end up dealing with sampling rate disparities and other bugs that lead you to hear crackling or make you sound like a robot.
Insanity
Happy I never had to use Teams so far. Only heard bad things about it lol.
Ylpertnodi
I'm writing this, rather than use teams.
drfloyd51
Then you knowall there is to say about it.
anyfoo
I feel like that was super common. Apart from changing the volumes of entire channels (e.g. changing the level of Line In vs. digital sound), volume was a relatively “global” thing.
And I’m not sure if that was still the case in 1997, but most likely changing the volume of digital sound meant the CPU having to process the samples in realtime. Now on one hand, that’s probably dwarfed by what the CPU had to do for decompressing the video. On the other hand, if you’re already starved for CPU time…
jonathanlydall
I mentioned this in another thread now, but it was definitely noteworthy to me that it did this since I was used to other programs not doing so, for example Winamp, I would also have thought Windows' Media Player did not do this, but I can't remember for certain.
anyfoo
Winamp had a software equalizer with a preamp, which was noteworthy. Are you sure changing the volume did not mean changing the preamp level in Winamp?
If you turned off the preamp (could be directly done in the EQ window I think), what did the volume control actually do?
jonathanlydall
Maybe we're not understanding each other correctly here.
It's 30 years ago now, but my recollection is that Winamp did not change Windows' global volume.
I am less certain, but I thought Windows' own Media Player similarly also did not change Windows' global volume.
What I definitely recall correctly is being surprised that Real Player would change the Windows' global volume and this would not have been so noteworthy to me unless it was unusual compared to other applications I typically used.
anyfoo
No, I get you. I'm stating that Winamp might have been "special" because it had a software equalizer, and its volume control might have actually changed the preamp level. This would be fairly unusual for other app of its time, and I also wondered what would happen if you turned the Preamp off with its big shiny button, and whether that would let the volume control control the global volume instead, or whether it maybe would disable the volume control entirely.
What I'm saying is: I still feel (perhaps wrongly, quite possibly so) that in 1997, changing the global volume was more common, and that even being able to change app-specific volumes required some non-trivial features from the app who can do so.
whycome
That was a hardware/software thing as far as I remember. If it was using something like DirectSound it would adjust the audio independently. Other media players did the same thing.
jonathanlydall
It was definitely noteworthy that it did this since I was used to other programs not doing so, for example Winamp, I would also have thought Windows' Media Player did not do this, but I can't remember for certain.
SkySkimmer
For some time this was the default in pulseaudio on linux https://200ok.ch/posts/2019-05-20_disable_flatvolume_for_pul...
The debian bug linked there implies it started 2012 or earlier, and ended in 2019.
graypegg
This is not an issue at all, but when ever I come across something like it, I like to poke at the frontend in dev tools a bit. You can pass most levels with `setVolume(25)` in the web console, since that function is just sitting in the document object. That feels like the ultimate volume UI puzzle heh.
dsmason321
I'll have to patch that!
wizzwizz4
I had to use it for #19, since YouTube doesn't load on my machine. Patching it would make the game unplayable past level 19.
diacritical
Please don't. The game was fun, but level 22 didn't work on Tor Browser due to CORS errors. At first I thought the "NETWORK ERROR. TRY AGAIN" was part of the game until I saw the actual network tab. I wouldn't have made it past level 22 if not for the console command. Plus, if someone wants to cheat, why not?
dsmason321
Level 17 is NOT bugged. The slider is backward and the volume nonresponsive. Its a planned feature.
washadjeffmad
I still like to pretend that everyone played flash games growing up
apublicfrog
Yes, this took me a very long time to work out.
Retr0id
There are two types of volume slider I've encountered thus far, "too logarithmic", and "not logarithmic enough".
ErroneousBosh
It's actually possible to turn a linear pot into an approximation of a log pot by wiring a resistor in parallel with the wiper and one end. The volume pot is a voltage divider so the amount it "scales" by is given by Scale = Rbottom / (Rtop + Rbottom).
But, if you put a resistor in parallel, you need to work out that:
R = 1 / ((1 / R1) + (1 / R2)) or Rbottom = 1 / ((1 / Rbottom) + (1 / Rfixed)) where Rfixed is the amount you're "bending" it by.
So you could make the amount of "logness" be adjustable by having another (linear) control to vary Rfixed.
You'd work out, for a pot rotation Vol from 0 to 1:
Rbottom = 1 / ((1 / Vol) + (1 / Rfixed)) Rtop = 1 - Vol Scale = Rbottom / (Rbottom + Rtop)
Now for those better at arithmetic than me, how can you reverse this? Imagine you've got a pot in a piece of equipment with a resistor between the wiper and ground giving a log curve, and you've got to read that with an ADC and turn it back into the linear position of the wiper.
It ought to be possible but I've always sucked at arithmetic.
embedding-shape
That's because one ear is logarithmic-based and the other is exponential-based. Which one differs per person.
JulianWasTaken
Do you have a source, that seems unlikely at face value to me, though I've never gone and looked for perception studies myself.
graypegg
I think they're joking, this is on a thread about silly volume control UX
KolmogorovComp
It’s satire.
JulianWasTaken
Always hard to tell.
ua709
I am familiar with this game. I play a variant of it on iOS everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, with my AirPods and iPhone. I'm not very good though. Somehow iOS always wins and finds a hostile volume to initiate playback with regardless of what I do with the UI.
mort96
iOS is great! I especially like how they tied the "alarm through speakers" volume to the "notifications through earbuds" volume so that you can choose between "loud enough to wake you up in the morning and also burst your ear drums when you receive a notification with earbuds in" and "quiet enough to make notifications comfortable and also not wake you up in the morning". Truly genius parody of hostile UX.
ikekkdcjkfke
Their audio router (if any) needs a rewrite
MereInterest
I particularly love how they will periodically choose to only use the selected Bluetooth device for audio output, and will instead switch back to the builtin microphone. The builtin microphone may be in my pocket or across the room, and so the only indication I get is when the person on the other end of the line says that I’ve dropped off.
Nothing changes in the UI to indicate this, nor could I find any setting to change this. Sometimes swapping the audio away from the headset and back to it helps, but it it at best a temporary fix.
xnx
The worst volume control UI in the world (2017): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27819384
pimlottc
This works for almost all levels:
for (i = 0; i < 50; i++) { document.querySelector("#l3-down").click(); }jupin
Laughed out loud but gave up at level 5
apublicfrog
Great fun, well done to the horrible person who made it. Apparently my RSS reader leaves the browswr live in the background, as the audio is still playing. Horrible to do on a mobile device. Worst level by far was 17.
dsmason321
[dead]
LoganDark
These mostly seem to be variations of "takes a long time / is tedious" rather than "annoying/fiddly / takes skill / is creatively bad", which is a little disappointing.
TheLNL
Finished the game. It was fun to play. I got stuck for a while on the opposite level where the display doesn't update, but was able to go through the rest just fine
macromagnon
I could tell in edge that right side was muted based on the icon next to the address bar and noticed you could use arrows to move one by one so just pressed left 25 times.
apublicfrog
Much harder on a mobile device!
jimkleiber
Got an error on Level 17, just a heads up.
Love the game, btw.
chaps
Yeah, I took that to mean to refresh the game and so I did.... and then lost my progress :(. I really want to play the rest but I don't want to go through the rest of the levels.
dsmason321
Its intentional. Glad you like it!
deanCommie
ok but i manually used arrow keys to set it to by clicking right 25 times, and that didn't work, so i gave up.
tenderfault
that’s not an error
ironcow
Very interesting idea! Was happy when It was over haha good work!
Findecanor
I have encountered the rate-limited spinner (#8) and the self-resizing slider (#5) in real desktop UIs.
#3 are almost like Google Maps' zooming buttons. They jump around more, making you click on the map itself or swap in/out.
Culonavirus
Ended on the wheel of misfortune. Ain't nobody got time for dat!
zeknife
It's a bit of misdirection, since you actually have more options than just clicking the button.
VerifyID
level 19, after watching the video a wonderful 4 times it doesnt unlock anything to change the volume. the only saving grace setVolume(25) has been patched :(
burgerone
Prwtty neat. Unfortunately wasn't able to solve the UI desync one :/
cue_the_strings
It's inverted, 100 == 0, 75 == 25
sourcegrift
Im just happy theres someone out there who cares for masochists.
wild_pointer
Hilarious, some of them are easy with the keyboard
ahme
Unbearable. 9/10
mdx97
Level 27 is not possible.
dsmason321
[dead]
DrSiemer
Plenty of annoyance in here for sure. Looks like 17 cannot be finished on mobile though. Switching to desktop view resets progress.
RRRA
Not sure how on desktop either, I've inspected the value and set it to 25 to no avail :P
edit: ok... somehow my approach didn't work the first time, but got to 18!
dsmason321
It works fine on mobile. Planned feature. You'll encounter the same offscreen popup on desktop.
apublicfrog
Look where the slider sits initially at 75%, not the same as earlier levels ;)
Pipe94
somehow i'm amazed and annoyed at the same time
Leomuck
What the hell. I got so annoyed at level 5 I had to quit :D But I love the idea. It can actually teach you a lot of things about UI design.
danjl
...and, of course, there's really no need for a volume control in any app, since there's already a system volume...
f1shy
There are cases where you want to have 2 applications running and playing sound, and want to set the relative volume of each...
hdgvhicv
That’s what your system volume app does - each process outputting sound has its own slider and you can mix them at various levels.
XorNot
I mean technically that is a system level feature...and there's nothing really wrong with an application adjusting it's own volume as defined by a system level volume setting for that app.
watwut
Please dont. I do not want to do that much clicking to mute your app. Have own slider and have it easily instantly accessible.
LocalH
14m45s. 1,042 victims before me.
Diabolical villainy in this game
hsuduebc2
That was terrible. Thank you.
benryanx
[dead]
Daminoup
[dead]
anwar_nairi
[flagged]
I often write small userscripts to neutralise hostile or annoying UI patterns. I played the 'Hostile Volume' game for a while. Nice game! After a while, I wondered: if this were a real hostile website, could I write a userscript to make each level happy? Here is the script:
If you don't have a userscript manager, you can just copy the script between the two backticks and paste it to the web browser's Developer Tools console.