January 7, 2026
Click War: Cursors vs The Lag Boss
Show HN: Cursor Party – An MMO cursor game built in 1 hour with Elixir Phoenix
MMO in 1 hour? Cursor Party sparks lag drama as users beg for gifs
TLDR: A dev launched Cursor Party, a mass cursor “MMO” built in an hour and run entirely on the server. The demo wowed with its concept but drew complaints about lag and region hiccups, plus demands for screenshots—fueling a debate over whether server-only real‑time is brilliance or a bottleneck.
Cursor Party is a wild browser “MMO” where everyone’s cursor shows up in real time to team up against a boss. Built in one hour with Elixir and Phoenix LiveView (server-driven pages), it’s in open beta and the GitHub is open. Inspired by Discord’s scale, the dev brags: no client-side code, all logic runs on the server.
Community reaction? Hype meets side-eye. The loudest mood: “cool idea, but show receipts.” One user begged for visuals: “Please add screenshots or even a gif.” Others tried the demo and hit chaos. “Seems overloaded… slowed to a halt… switched into the KR region?” reported another, spawning memes that the first raid boss is actually Lag, not a monster.
Then came the hot takes: fans call it a slick Elixir flex and a hilarious party toy; skeptics say “MMO in 1 hour” means you’ll wipe when the crowd arrives. The no-JavaScript boast split the room—elegant minimalism or asking the server to bench‑press the internet? Either way, Cursor Party turned HN into Cursor Drama, and yes, people still want that gif.
Key Points
- •Cursor Party is a real-time browser MMO demo showing all users’ cursors and a cooperative boss fight.
- •All real-time synchronization is handled server-side via Phoenix LiveView, avoiding complex client-side JavaScript.
- •Cursor sharing uses WebSockets; boss HP is managed with a server-side GenServer state.
- •The system is built on Elixir with an OTP-based distributed architecture; styling uses Tailwind CSS v4.0 (Alpha).
- •Deployment uses Docker and Koyeb, with a live open-beta demo and a GitHub repo offering setup and contribution instructions.