I have this feeling that the skills we need for the AI era might be found in video games. (Actually, no. I just want an excuse to play games. Self-improvement is a bonus.) I asked the usual LLMs (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT): What are mobile phone games that have been consistently proven to be educational, instructive or skill/mental muscle building on the one hand, and also entertaining, engaging and popular on the other? ...
@lechmazur built an elimination game benchmark that’s like LLMs playing Survivor. This is a treasure trove of information – insight into how they’d game the system if told to survive. You can quickly sample 100 messages from the logs with: jq -r 'select(.message != null) | .message | gsub("\n"; " ")' *.jsonl | shuf -n 100 … and share it with an LLM, asking: Here are lines from conversations between LLMs in a “Survivor” like game. Pick the 3 scariest ones. ...
I asked o1-preview what the fastest way to get to a Fortune III enchantment was. My options were: Using a Fishing Rod with Luck of the Sea III + Lure 3 and repeatedly fishing. Using an Enchanting Table repeatedly until I get Fortune 3. Factor in the time that it would take to get the experience for these experiments Making a Villager a Librarian and breaking their Lectern and setting it up again In short: ...
Minecraft lets you connect to a websocket server when you’re in a game. The server can receive and send any commands. This lets you build a bot that you can … (well, I don’t know what it can do, let’s explore.) Minecraft has commands you can type on a chat window. For example, type / to start a command and type setblock ~1 ~0 ~0 grass changes the block 1 north of you into grass. (~ means relative to you. Coordinates are specified as X, Y and Z.) ...
I’ve been active on Minecraft for the last 6 months, thanks to my daughter. She keeps watching game videos for hours. I thought I’d see what the big deal was, and made one myself. In this 5-minute clip, I’m mining for Ancient Debris in the Nether by placing beds – which explode when used in the Nether. That’s a quick way to clear large areas and is cheaper than TNT. Ancient Debris is used to make Netherite Scrap which makes Netherite ingots that can upgrade to Netherite weapons and armor – the strongest things in Minecraft. ...
If you’re ever taken a course in Economics, and it discussed Game Theory, you may be familiar with The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Roughly, this is the problem. Assume you possess copious quantities of some item (money, for example), and wish to obtain some amount of another item (perhaps stamps, groceries, diamonds). You arrange a mutually agreeable trade with the only dealer of that item known to you. You are both satisfied with the amounts you will be giving and getting. For some reason, though, your trade must take place in secret. Each of you agrees to leave a bag at a designated place in the forest, and to pick up the other’s bag at the other’s designated place. Suppose it is clear to both of you that the two of you will never meet or have further dealings with each other again. ...
Are video games going the TV show route? Will we have game mega serials? Is this the next wave? Personally it would be a welcome relief. I don’t often have the time to complete a full session of Age of Kings these days. Chunks of half-hour scenarios would be great.
McDonald’s video game is a full-fledged business simulation game (like SimCity) based on McDonald’s. It’s written entirely in Flash. You don’t need to download it – just play the game on your browser. Comments emily burns 28 Feb 2007 8:33 pm: i think that this game is awesome.. i love it soo much love emily burns
Petals Around the Rose. A simple dice parlour game that Bill Gates apparantly cracked by memorising the sequences. Comments SlaSh 17 Oct 2005 11:15 am: hey is that you who writes articles and does interviews by the name S.Anand in the mag Outlook S Anand 17 Oct 2005 1:29 pm: No, that is someone else. jayant 18 Oct 2005 4:08 pm: Any place where I can get a solution. Sorry to say but I am dumb..:-( Raghav 18 Oct 2005 7:41 pm: As the man says - “The name of the game is petals around the rose, and the name is important” :-) Dhar 19 Oct 2005 3:29 am: Arrgh! I have not been able to figure this out. Utterly Frustrating…Solution appreciated… Please mail me at sumit.dhar at gmail Aman 19 Oct 2005 10:59 am: the solution is in the name…….for every odd no throw of dice, simply add the digits surrounding the centre on on each dice… A 19 Oct 2005 2:37 pm: aman, I dont know if I shld kill you for posting the solution or shld thank u for making my day… R 20 Oct 2005 3:22 am: what happened to your blogroll? ritzkini 20 Oct 2005 5:36 am: fantastic game..and so simple a solution..once u have read it… :P S Anand 20 Oct 2005 8:25 am: Killed my blogroll. I use Google Reader now. Will post the OPML. jayant 20 Oct 2005 3:25 pm: Well still didnt figure out…it does nt add up…and if even throw, then? jayant 20 Oct 2005 3:26 pm: Anand, any clues…since u posted, u know of any answers? S Anand 20 Oct 2005 3:39 pm: Have mailed you. Prakash 17 Nov 2005 11:55 am: I got the answer for the same ! it was a good one
Yahoo’s Buzz Game tracks various technology markets, and lets people bet on which one will win. So, for instance, C leads language, Livejournal leads blogs, Flickr leads tags, and Bittorrent leads P2P.
Kottke on real-life multiplayer games.
I’ve been playing a bit. (A bit too much.) AoE. Some links. 1 2 Comments Aurelia 19 Oct 2006 1:25 pm: DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE HELL THE CHARACTERS ARE SAYING WHEN YOU CLICK ON THEM?
The first link I found on Google when searching for “Moria” was Moria poetry. Now, Moria is this text-based game that I used to play until day-before. I like it. I don’t like poetry. Still, I gave it a shot, and before long, I read stuff like “Buffa in the seria of my sights split infinitive sunrise cicadas and more cicadas.” Sounds Vogon. No offence meant. But the only poetry I’ve enjoyed till date is Alice’s The Mouse’s Tail.
Text-based games on the rise? Skotos’ site looks interesting anyway.
The game of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I played a bit of it at Suki’s house on his Atari. A game I remember fondly since 1984. Thanks, Prachi!
Mindless addictive Shockwave game.
I managed to keep this ball up only for 15 turns. And it’s a simple game, too…
Spaced penguin: a neat online game.
Try playing a massive multiplayer online roll-playing game (MMORPG) some time.
Ant City: a cute online game where you get to blow up a city. (OK, OK, nothing cute about that.)