Interesting that you looped the denying life part. Initially I was frustrated by that, but once I accepted the life part things got really weird. The black and white minimalist background that grows with every frustrating click is negatively impacting my mind. This game offers a dark exploration into the depression of living into the computer, great job.
I’m really impressed by how well-written and thought provoking this is! small qualm: the binary doesn’t convert to real ASCII text, which would have been cute/a nice touch. Regardless, your writing is excellent and made your game very enjoyable.
I’m impressed. I know of P versus NP, but not into much detail. I think people like me, who doesn’t really know much about computer science, can still understand the overarching themes in this game. There is a conflict between more “abstract thinking” (what is the meaning of life) and logical, “computational” thinking. And there is a frustration that these concept of life, death, and God can’t be answered. I don’t necessarily know the deeper aspects of what you are trying to address (which I am now interested in), but the general gist of the theme is powerful enough to stand on its own. The language used was appropriate as was the typewriting effect. Great work!
I really liked the format and style, especially the true/false questions with non-true or false answers. It was interesting to read into the mind of an AI and see what it thinks.
This was clever and an appropriate level of geekiness for me to enjoy. The development from true/false to more human-like speech to binary was a nice touch, and brought out the AI’s character. It was a little tricky for me to understand how one choice led to the next question, but maybe that was the intent for a questioning AI.
You did a really good job creating a setting and encouraging the player to role-play this AI. Philosophically this game quickly becomes extremely complex. the question become convoluted to the point where I began to give up trying to make sense of them, which caused me to loose my connection to the protagonist. I did come into this piece with an understanding of P vs NP, and I really enjoyed the ‘I have found the meaning of _/I can verify that my meaning of _ is correct’ questions.
Loved it. The language is uncanny in the right way and choices like “I found meaning in death” don’t feel too pretentious. In my playthrough the breakdown at the end felt like a meh way to resolve a conceptual dead end (I know everything and now what), perhaps there can be a variety of ways to come to terms with artificial self-awareness: a descent into madness and self destruction, some kind of nirvana, the desperation of being aware and not be able to experience the world in a sensual way or to affect it… the issue of disembodiment should be addressed: what is it like to be a brain without a body (maybe it’s there somewhere but I didn’t find it).
I like the quotes bookending the piece. I’m fine with your readme but get rid of this self-dismissive: “(An explanation about my intent for this project, included just in case my storytelling is bad or confusing (it probably is) or you have no prior knowledge of the P vs NP problem.)”
Stylistically it works but links’ bold font doesn’t quite stand out. I would try to add a blinking cursor or maybe a simple character like > to mark the multiple answers.
The underlined links break the illusion of the terminal. I’d just use a different color.
Also: get rid of the theme’s footer by adding a #footer { display:none; } or something like that. You completely changed the theme anyway and you can always add the credit at the end.
Really nice layout and interaction. I was far more interested by the relationship between the player and the other and would’ve liked to see the development serve as the focus of the story. I wasn’t so excited when it started delving into faux-philosophy. You can make a story about these issues without explicitly focusing on them. Show don’t tell. Get the player invested in the characters and roleplay the AI so they can wonder about metaphysics themselves, rather than being told how to wonder about it.
– other than some parts feeling like they don’t really lead smoothly to the next, the flow of “questions” was nicely done
– maybe color the choices differently–bolded text is hard to distinguish especially when the answers get long
As with any scientific query into a unknown frontier, you leave us with more questions than answers (this is a good thing). But now, I am curious as to your thoughts on the following:
maybe trying to get a machine to think like a human is ultimately a misinformed problem: it is possible we also think just like machines, except we just use a lot more processing power with an electrochemical computer rather than a purely electrical one. If this is the case, maybe getting a computer to think as irrationally as people do is ultimately meaningless. But is life meaningless? We as humans attempt to define this ourselves, and perhaps being able to self-inquire about this is the only thing necessary to achieve a “human” level of thought.
For me this was a bit lofty and unrelatable towards the end. However I did love how simultaneously sterile and emotional the interaction is. I think you straddled the line between machine and man dialogue very well because the story seemed eerie but compelling.
The spiraling into 1s and 0s was the most powerful part of this story for me. That sequences parallels many Nirvanic myths, that once you attain a certain level of consciousness, you evolve past the need to communicate in ways that regular humans can understand. You enter into a perpetual conversation with Nirvana, which is what I felt between myself and the other entity. This is also a clever reference to language and understanding within a medium that relies heavily on language itself.
Interesting that you looped the denying life part. Initially I was frustrated by that, but once I accepted the life part things got really weird. The black and white minimalist background that grows with every frustrating click is negatively impacting my mind. This game offers a dark exploration into the depression of living into the computer, great job.
I’m really impressed by how well-written and thought provoking this is! small qualm: the binary doesn’t convert to real ASCII text, which would have been cute/a nice touch. Regardless, your writing is excellent and made your game very enjoyable.
I’m impressed. I know of P versus NP, but not into much detail. I think people like me, who doesn’t really know much about computer science, can still understand the overarching themes in this game. There is a conflict between more “abstract thinking” (what is the meaning of life) and logical, “computational” thinking. And there is a frustration that these concept of life, death, and God can’t be answered. I don’t necessarily know the deeper aspects of what you are trying to address (which I am now interested in), but the general gist of the theme is powerful enough to stand on its own. The language used was appropriate as was the typewriting effect. Great work!
I really liked the format and style, especially the true/false questions with non-true or false answers. It was interesting to read into the mind of an AI and see what it thinks.
This was clever and an appropriate level of geekiness for me to enjoy. The development from true/false to more human-like speech to binary was a nice touch, and brought out the AI’s character. It was a little tricky for me to understand how one choice led to the next question, but maybe that was the intent for a questioning AI.
You did a really good job creating a setting and encouraging the player to role-play this AI. Philosophically this game quickly becomes extremely complex. the question become convoluted to the point where I began to give up trying to make sense of them, which caused me to loose my connection to the protagonist. I did come into this piece with an understanding of P vs NP, and I really enjoyed the ‘I have found the meaning of _/I can verify that my meaning of _ is correct’ questions.
Loved it. The language is uncanny in the right way and choices like “I found meaning in death” don’t feel too pretentious. In my playthrough the breakdown at the end felt like a meh way to resolve a conceptual dead end (I know everything and now what), perhaps there can be a variety of ways to come to terms with artificial self-awareness: a descent into madness and self destruction, some kind of nirvana, the desperation of being aware and not be able to experience the world in a sensual way or to affect it… the issue of disembodiment should be addressed: what is it like to be a brain without a body (maybe it’s there somewhere but I didn’t find it).
I like the quotes bookending the piece. I’m fine with your readme but get rid of this self-dismissive: “(An explanation about my intent for this project, included just in case my storytelling is bad or confusing (it probably is) or you have no prior knowledge of the P vs NP problem.)”
Stylistically it works but links’ bold font doesn’t quite stand out. I would try to add a blinking cursor or maybe a simple character like > to mark the multiple answers.
The underlined links break the illusion of the terminal. I’d just use a different color.
Also: get rid of the theme’s footer by adding a #footer { display:none; } or something like that. You completely changed the theme anyway and you can always add the credit at the end.
Really nice layout and interaction. I was far more interested by the relationship between the player and the other and would’ve liked to see the development serve as the focus of the story. I wasn’t so excited when it started delving into faux-philosophy. You can make a story about these issues without explicitly focusing on them. Show don’t tell. Get the player invested in the characters and roleplay the AI so they can wonder about metaphysics themselves, rather than being told how to wonder about it.
– other than some parts feeling like they don’t really lead smoothly to the next, the flow of “questions” was nicely done
– maybe color the choices differently–bolded text is hard to distinguish especially when the answers get long
As with any scientific query into a unknown frontier, you leave us with more questions than answers (this is a good thing). But now, I am curious as to your thoughts on the following:
maybe trying to get a machine to think like a human is ultimately a misinformed problem: it is possible we also think just like machines, except we just use a lot more processing power with an electrochemical computer rather than a purely electrical one. If this is the case, maybe getting a computer to think as irrationally as people do is ultimately meaningless. But is life meaningless? We as humans attempt to define this ourselves, and perhaps being able to self-inquire about this is the only thing necessary to achieve a “human” level of thought.
For me this was a bit lofty and unrelatable towards the end. However I did love how simultaneously sterile and emotional the interaction is. I think you straddled the line between machine and man dialogue very well because the story seemed eerie but compelling.
The spiraling into 1s and 0s was the most powerful part of this story for me. That sequences parallels many Nirvanic myths, that once you attain a certain level of consciousness, you evolve past the need to communicate in ways that regular humans can understand. You enter into a perpetual conversation with Nirvana, which is what I felt between myself and the other entity. This is also a clever reference to language and understanding within a medium that relies heavily on language itself.