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You can't win the game, it exists only to destroy your mind

entire.spacebar.org

256 points by zmmz 11 years ago · 69 comments

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jwise0 11 years ago

Tom7 (the author) has done quite a lot of great stuff; his game "T in Y world" [1] is pretty good, and you may also remember him from his programs Learnfun & Playfun, which taught themselves to play Super Mario (and various other NES games) [2].

Do check out more of his work!

[1] http://tinyworld.spacebar.org/ [2] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/mario/

pbhjpbhj 11 years ago

It seems like the gaming equivalent of an anti-joke. Anti-jokes can be funny because they're not funny in the way you expect. The self-similarity and the structure of the map make it seem like you can achieve something but there's really no goal .. maybe that's really a lot more like most video games than one cares to consider.

All it needs is some soothing bloops and beeps to make it that but more of a non-goal oriented Skinner box - akin to Tetris without the scoring.

deaconblues 11 years ago

I played for a minute or two, said "Huh," and closed the tab. Sure feels like I won.

  • fnordsensei 11 years ago

    Indeed! Only losers need a machine to tell them that they are winners.

  • EliRivers 11 years ago

    What did you win?

    • digsmahler 11 years ago

      Did he win not losing? I played this for 6-7 minutes and can no longer do anything but cower in the horribly glorious splendor of the God of recursion. I can feel my mind draining out through my tear ducts.

RyanMcGreal 11 years ago

Weird stuff starts happening when you try to stack all the squares up against the left wall.

http://i.imgur.com/kc51uSQ.png

0xbadf00d 11 years ago

I feel like I have taken the red pill while watching Inception.

acconrad 11 years ago

You can never win the game[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)

sharkweek 11 years ago

Actually I did win the game - we all won the game. It only exists to benefit your mind.

ultrafez 11 years ago

It's hard to win the game when you can't determine what the goal is.

ominous 11 years ago

Said it before, but: if you hold shift, you can navigate the 'map'.

utopiah 11 years ago

Where is the Occulus Rift version?

  • hosh 11 years ago

    That would be awesome, though I wonder what you can do with a third dimension and additional freedom of movement?

dalke 11 years ago

"The only winning move is not to play." - WOPR

  • at-fates-hands 11 years ago

    "How about a nice game of chess?"

    I thought the computer went by Joshua, since that's what Dr, Falkan referred to it in the last scene of the movie:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s93KC4AGKnY

    • dalke 11 years ago

      I don't think we can conclude any name.

      Falken saw the computer as a surrogate for his dead son. In that scene he said "Hello, Joshua" but the screen only shows "Hello". Lightman and Mack never knew the name WOPR, at least not before the military got involved, so the only name they had to go on was the password. I don't think the computer ever mentioned a name for itself.

  • goblin89 11 years ago

    “Freedom to keep playing is a Bombadil-like equilibrium of worthlessness: the un-valued here-and-now.” — RF

rsahai91 11 years ago

i fell into an abyss. I consider that a win.

jonifico 11 years ago

Now this is a vicious one! I love how you can group the blocks one after the other and be all WTF is going on heeeere? Is it me or loops are becoming quite a trend? Yes, Silent Hills teaser, I'm talking about you.

splatcollision 11 years ago

I almost won but there are other players that keep getting in my way!

Springtime 11 years ago

Looks like we killed it. Site's down. Edit: back up.

gdg92989 11 years ago

Accurate description.

bradleypowers 11 years ago

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

ndespres 11 years ago

This made me feel quite nauseated!

danielweber 11 years ago

It's been HackerNews'd.

  • B5geek 11 years ago

    Honestly, I still prefer the 'verb' Slashdotted.

    So much warmer then DDOS'd.

    • ozh 11 years ago

      than.

      • B5geek 11 years ago

        I'm going to assume you are a grammar Nazi of the American variety.

        thEn is a correct and acceptable spelling in Canada.

        ###########

        As I was typing this up I was looking for references to back up statement. BUT I was wrong. (damn my 4rd grade english teacher!)

        I was taught that the two words were grammatically the same it was just a difference in US vs 'British/Canadian' spelling. (i.e. grey vs gray)

        So, please ignore my indignant reply. (Which I left in for reference.)

        For future versions of myself who will make this mistake again:

        THAN = a comparison

        Golf balls are smaller THAN bowling balls.

        THEN = a statement relating to time.

        I went golfing THEN bowling.

        http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/than http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/then

        • klipt 11 years ago

          Hahaha, oh wow, that's hilarious!

          Glad you learned something today :-) http://xkcd.com/1053/

        • mikeash 11 years ago

          Amusingly, "so much warmer then DDOS'd" could be used to describe what happened to this server.

        • ozh 11 years ago

          For the record, I'm just a non English speaker and it's really painful for us strangers to see things like this after so many years spent learning "academic" English :)

          Kudos on leaving your statement in full transparency anyway :)

        • skj 11 years ago

          I would never trust a 4th grade English teacher for any advice on grammar or spelling.

          • B5geek 11 years ago

            Well, I must admit to the possibility that I just wasn't paying attention and this 'wrong' rule was just shit I made up.

            /me has disgraced the entire Canadian education system, or has just highlighted his own ignorance.

hosh 11 years ago

This is pretty trippy, kinda like playing a psychedelic version of Sisyphus.

_lce0 11 years ago

actually there's a YouWin[1] function.

[1] http://entire.spacebar.org/entire.js

abandonliberty 11 years ago

Keep going left and jump. Freedom.

greenail 11 years ago

a thing of beauty, love the potential for team work.

weatherlight 11 years ago

SO trippy.

Shazamm 11 years ago

cool

sphericalgames 11 years ago

Win vs Beat

A lot of people fall into this trap.

When someone beats me at a game, they most likely say "I've won you." as oppose to "I've beaten you." The former implies I'm the prize.

I've fallen into this trap myself plenty of times and do wonder if messages like "You win ...." enforces this mistake.

  • maaarghk 11 years ago

    Not only do I fail to see the relevance to this link, but I've never heard anyone say "I've won you" in my life, and I doubt I ever will, because that is a stupid thing to say.

    • erikb 11 years ago

      I just suppose English is not his native language. There might be languages where someone says "I've won you"

    • lotharbot 11 years ago

      my fourth grade students said it all last year. (Most of them were not native English speakers.)

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