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Will you drown?
- caio1982 12y agoStill trying to figure out what exactly this is, but it's totally addictive. Which is odd.
- Aaronn 12y agoIt's Notch's Ludum Dare submission. https://twitter.com/notch/status/460054268935168000 https://twitter.com/notch/status/460054268935168000
- biot 12y agoIt's a skinner box disguised as a game.
- kazagistar 12y agoIf you remove the skinner box from almost any game, you have very little left.
- Brigand 12y agoPlease explain.
- jffry 12y agoPlay automatically: setInterval(function(){ $("a").click() }, 100) (Edit: Yes, this leads you through a very fast, very bad life. Play manually and have a better life.)
- caio1982 12y agoI think you missed the point here, but nice trick :-)
- parasight 12y agoDrowning in problems? Automation is the solution ;)
- wingerlang 12y agoAnd now you have N+1 problem.
- err4nt 12y agoAmen to that
- shawnz 12y agoHilariously, this gets stuck buying "Stuff" over and over and doesn't seem to ever complete the game
- jffry 12y agoFor me it ended in my death, with no hope left. It might be a slight timing problem (e.g. play around with the interval and see what happens)
- Rzor 12y agoAt some point this became depressant for me, but interesting concept.
- maccard 12y agohmm. I think I'm gonna go look at kittens
- brazzy 12y agoThere definitely needs to be a "You need to look at kittens" action there, which randomly gives you one of -Stress or +Memory
- Theodores 12y agoI would like to see a cat version of the game. There could be specific outcomes, e.g. if you don't want to end up de-balled/hysterectomied then you can be an alley cat and live a shorter life that may be harsher. Alternatively you could go for the cosy life by purring lots.
- teddyknox 12y agoThis is more art than game.
- kazagistar 12y agoYou say that as if those concepts were not totally orthogonal.
- noobermin 12y agoDepressing, but interesting. I find it interesting that even before you have a life, you start out with hope. What does that mean, I wonder? Hope of your parents? Society (for that "someone" who will make a difference)?
- aaronem 12y agoI spent a while looking, but I'm pretty sure there's no actual game there.
- jowiar 12y agoMy favorite twist in there is how little "creating" you are pushed to do...
- jweir 12y agoWritten in Dart. Can anyone familiar with Dart to JS explain what is going on with: var B=new dart delete B.x var C=new dart delete C.x ...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- floitsch 12y agoIn JavaScript every object is basically a hashtable. In order to get acceptable performance JS engines build type descriptions ("hidden classes" or sometimes just "maps") behind your back. That is, if you create a JS object (hashtable) with fields `x` and `y` it will create a hidden class with those two fields. This way it can access the fields efficiently. See http://mrale.ph http://mrale.ph for much more information on JS engines. These hidden classes are built on the fly: say you add `x` to a instance to get an object with a configuration that was never seen before. In that case, the engine creates a new description with that new field and remembers the transition (so that further objects with similar configurations can reuse the same hidden class). Keeping track of these hidden classes takes time and space. If you actually use the JS object as a hashtable, then there will be lots of unnecessary hidden classes, that will never be used again. However, there is a trick to tell the engine that an object is actually a hashtable (and shouldn't be optimized as if it was an instance of a class): when deleting a field from an object v8 (and probably all other engines) assume that the object is used as a hashtable and don't create these hidden classes anymore. Dart2js uses this trick to avoid this cost some important big hashtables (`B`, `C`, ...).
- encoderer 12y agoI thought it was stupid. Turned out to be slightly profound. I enjoyed that.
- moskie 12y agoWhat a simple and profound game.... I hope Notch is feeling ok.
- pygy_ 12y ago> I hope Notch is feeling ok. That was my first thought, and I suspect that's not the case at the moment :-\
- pygy_ 12y agoI'm out of the edit window, but he's actually fine :-) https://twitter.com/mxech/status/460058856216072192 https://twitter.com/mxech/status/460058856216072192
- freyrs3 12y agoGiven the fairly nihilistic ending ( You are dead, you are forgotten, there is nothing. ), I sure hope he's OK.
- EGreg 12y agoThere is nothing to do on an iPhone it seems.
- RollAHardSix 12y agoEnd up going in circles at one point because I didn't realize I had any integrity. Similar to life indeed.
- hisham_hm 12y agoSame here. I just replayed it and realized I didn't notice when exactly I got it. I had to play it for a third time to see the exact point. It made me go: "oh". Brilliant.
- MarkPNeyer 12y agocan you explain? i can't understand what 'integrity' means for a toddler to get, and why would it cost knowledge.
- hisham_hm 12y agoI think it's more the fact that this one is "hidden" in the beginning than anything else, but there are possible rationalizations one might conjecture as to why at that age.
- grannyg00se 12y agoYou just keep clicking on whatever links show up? I'm not catching the spark. But it reminds me of A Dark Room, which was excellent. http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/
- sp332 12y agoIt has potential, but I had a hard time relating to my character. I need a lover as a teenager? And 2 broken hearts to stop being a teenager? And the only way to get experience is by losing friends.
- arjie 12y agoAt the point where I was farming friends solely so I could convert them into experience, I started questioning myself.
- catshirt 12y agoages may differ but our stories are all so similar maybe the age isn't what matters. "And 2 broken hearts to stop being a teenager? And the only way to get experience is by losing friends." i'm not sure i directly relate to this either, but it really doesn't sound too crazy or unfamiliar.
- sp332 12y agoI guess it means that moving on usually requires leaving friends behind, and not that experience requires some kind of drama or even explicit un-friending. But the presentation makes it seem like losing friends causes gaining experience instead of the other way around.
- cvbncvbncgbc 12y agoIs the game deeper as it seems on the first playthrough? Are there any harder to reach options, like having children or reaching old age? edit: I looked in source, there are no hidden options, you will get everything on the first playthrough.
- rdtsc 12y agoFrom a personal revelation about his late father: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/37823268132/i-love-you-dad http://notch.tumblr.com/post/37823268132/i-love-you-dad I remember that story and it kind of remained with me. As soon as I saw the title of the "game" I recalled this part of this story: > ... turn around, see my dad being really close to the dog when all of the sudden a big chunk of ice around him breaks loose, tips over, and my dad falls in. I freak out. Then he stands up, the water only reaching about hip height. I urge you to read the whole story.
- robertfw 12y agoWow. This really struck me - what an incredible piece of art. Thank you notch, for helping me to spend some time this morning reflecting on how I want to live my life.
- Theodores 12y agoI like it how there is always 'hope', from before being born to after death (until you are forgotten).
- brazzy 12y agohttp://www.great-art.de/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/a/balloon_png.png http://www.great-art.de/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/...
- Xavura 12y agoAfter about 5 minutes, this just reminded me too much of real life and I couldn't take it anymore. As in no matter what you do, it doesn't work out... very profound.
- listic 12y agoDoes this http://game.notch.net/drowning/packages/browser/dart.js http://game.notch.net/drowning/packages/browser/dart.js actually run Dart? The home page looks like it has Dart scripts on a web page, but actually it does not?
- bshimmin 12y agoNo, that script looks for scripts of type "application/dart" in the page and then tries to find a compiled-to-JavaScript version of any scripts it finds by appending ".js" to them. It looks like the actual Dart file hasn't been uploaded - which is sensible, in a way, since browsers don't natively supports Dart right now, with the exception of Dartium (?).
- wdaher 12y agoVery reminiscent of Passage (http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/ http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- alcipir 12y agoAs long as you relax, make love and create, you will live forever. Thats the message I got from it. Beautiful.
- dhackner 12y agoI loved that this required no instructions. Really beautiful.
- robobro 12y agoCute presentation of his thoughts. Not a very fun game though.
- hmgibson23 12y agoWhat if you're Plato or Aristotle? Presumably then you never get forgotten.
- jiaweihli 12y agoGiven that 'You are forgotten.' takes a long time to 'solve,' it could be a reflection that even the greatest will eventually be forgotten. (Say, if the human race manages to survive millions of years, and colonizes different planets light-years away.)
- foulas 12y agoI don't get it. The outcome doesn't seem to change, even if options are selected in a different order.
- asveikau 12y agoKind of the point, no? The outcome doesn't change in real life either, no matter how important it seems at the time what options you pick and in what order.
- artyomkazak 12y agoOnly if you base your evaluation of “outcome” on what will happen to you, completely ignoring the effect you've had on this world. Which is why I am disappointed with this game and utterly false “wisdom” it's trying to convey.
- asveikau 12y agoI thought about this as I wrote my reply, and concluded that yes it's important, but that too is usually a rounding error. I'm all for feeling good about what you've done in the world, but for most of us whose names aren't going to be repeated for centuries it's a drop in the ocean and only becomes less relevant over time. Even something like parenting, which I don't think any of us will argue is not important. Each generation that goes by, your relative contribution is halved. I'll bet most of us can't tell very many stories about great-grandparents, for example. And we have twice as many great-great-grandparents, etc., which even fewer of us will be able to keep track of. So even as a father, while I try to do the best job I can, I have to admit that's going to happen to me too, and any impact I can have through parenting is going to be blended with an exponentially growing set of people. That's not bad, that's just how it works. I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy life or be ambitious or do a good job in the things that you do, or that helping people and doing big things is not worth it, but at some point we'll all likely have to humbly admit it: we aren't as important on the individual scale as some would like or expect.
- 12y ago
- xtc 12y agoBoiling every experience in life to make it nearly meaningless and lack any glimpse of context will eventually become depressing and appear highly relatable to others. Someone get this man some help.
- aristidesfl 12y agoIs it possible that he is not the one who needs help?
- xtc 12y agoEdgy.
- hanibash 12y agoTo me it seemed like this game actually gives a very accurate perspective of context. It reminds me a lot of [if the moon were only 1 pixel](http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...). Most of space is just pure nothingness. The fact that there is life at all is a miracle.
- brazzy 12y agoOne person's lack of context is another's space for imagination...
- joshmcmillan 12y agoI wonder if I would have done better if I'd somehow acquired a Fedora early in life...
- md224 12y agoThis is great... I love the way it lays out popular ways of narrativizing our lives and making sense of what we need to be content. This game captures a popular narrative and popular needs, but it's also a great starting point for ruminating on how we differ from each other. For example, some of us may have little ambition or no pressing need to create and yet may be perfectly content. We should recognize our own needs as important to us while also viewing them as deeply personal and not necessarily universal. This isn't a knock on the game in any way. I love how it cleverly expresses one man's view on what matters in his life.
- xux 12y agoFor me, the game is more about the increasing complexity of life and the difficulty in managing it. As a toddler, all you had tow worry about was play and learn. Pretty soon, you add in jobs, worries, lovers, heartbreaks, friendships, losing friends, money, self esteem, etc. And the more you try to optimize one area, the more you neglect the other areas, and the game becomes increasingly difficult to balance, just like life itself. What a beautiful piece of art.
- Rangi42 12y agoI got to "You are dead. (Solve: -Body)" and was slightly cheered up by the fact that I would still have Hope left. Then it says "You are forgotten. (Solve: -Hope)". Great. Just great. Very realistic for such a simple game.
- marbemac 12y agoReminds me of the top iOS paid app right now - A Dark Room. I wonder if he got some inspiration from that game.
- hungarian-eel 12y agoA strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
- gizmo686 12y agoNot really. You can farm as much stuff/money/ETC as you want.
- negativity 12y agoThat's a reference to the movie, WarGames. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames
- CyberShadow 12y agoHere's the full graph of the game logic (SVG) (spoilers): https://cdn.rawgit.com/CyberShadow/11329584/raw/5d295c9557d31d0225791d39c82e5035f59b47f1/drowning.svg https://cdn.rawgit.com/CyberShadow/11329584/raw/5d295c9557d3... Code: https://gist.github.com/CyberShadow/11329584 https://gist.github.com/CyberShadow/11329584 Legend: - Round nodes are problems - Rectangular nodes are things you can have - Gray round nodes are problems that don't go away after solving them - Green lines are things solving problems gives you - Red lines are things needed to solve a problem - Dotted black lines are things you need to have for a problem to appear - Dotted red lines are problems that disappear when a problem is solved
- jebblue 12y agoThanks that is it a dot graph? OK I see, it is. I recall (not a CS grad here either) using that on something complex I did several years ago. Your graph really puts Notch's logic and my decisions while playing his game, into perspective.
- Uncompetative 12y agoWow. I didn't think this would be possible, but Notch has managed to top Minecraft. This is even duller than that borefest.
- cmapes 12y agoSomehow this is extremely profound. After playing this, I feel like I need to digest my feelings for a while.
- joeyh 12y agoI played this for a while with redshift on, and so didn't realize that the requirements for needs were listed (in invisible red). I think it may have actually made the game better in some ways.
- sehugg 12y agoReminds me of the old Alter Ego .. sadly the JS reboot is down right now. http://jayisgames.com/archives/2010/11/alter_ego.php http://jayisgames.com/archives/2010/11/alter_ego.php
- DalekBaldwin 12y agoAnother depression-oriented game. Well, thanks to parallelization, I got to make love during work hours, so I must say my life wasn't all bad.
- gpcz 12y agoAt the end of every episode in "Once Upon Atari," Rob Fulop (author or co-author of Demon Attack, Night Driver, Space Invaders, and Missile Command for the 2600) talks about how many children in the 80s played thousands of hours of Atari 2600 games and the effect that it had in their psychological development. Specifically, he believed it produced a nihilistic generation due to the overarching message that "you always lose" in the end. He contrasts it to the early television he watched as a child where the overarching message was "it will all work out" in the end. He says that he thinks about this a lot, and that him and everyone at Atari is responsible for that.
- wpietri 12y agoThat seems a little harsh. It was a nihilistic time. Missile Command was brutal, but no more so than The Day After[1]. You always lose pinball in the end, too, but nobody blames that for ruining the youth. Well, nobody in that generation. Previously, like everything else novel the youth do, it was Satan's handmaiden. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
- gpcz 12y agoI agree that he's probably overestimating Atari's impact on an entire generation's psyche, but I like that a) he's indirectly reminding artists to stay conscious of the emotions their artwork provokes in people and b) that's he humble and introspective enough to accept and admit the possible negative by-products of his work.
- evincarofautumn 12y agoIt’s positive in a way. Sure, you always lose in the end, but you can have a lot of fun in the meantime.
- tripzilch 12y agoIndeed. To paraphrase Alan Watts, life isn't like a pilgrimage with a very important goal at the end, it's more like a musical thing, and you are supposed to laugh and sing and dance throughout, not just wait for the final chord.
- dkraft 12y agoIt's a one way trip. it's inevitable. More money. More Problems.
- jeandeklerk 12y agoAutomate the clicking with this small snippet: https://gist.github.com/jadekler/11337433 https://gist.github.com/jadekler/11337433. Ironically, you never move past 'teenager' if you always choose the first option available =)
- colinbartlett 12y agoI don't really understand what this is. There was just text that said there was nothing to solve but it had a link to click that said "Solve". I clicked it and it ran something and just said "You are not." which doesn't make sense. So I left.
- pizzashark 12y agoIt gets more complex. Just keep solving things.
- egypturnash 12y agoYou have: Hope Body Life Love 311 Memory Integrity 16 Friend Job 35 Experience 40 Respect 3 Stuff 7 Crushed Dream 6 Broken Heart 9 Project Lover 5 Money Knowledge You are troubled. [Can't afford] -Integrity -Lost Ambition You need to try harder. [Can't afford] -5 Respect -10 Stuff +Lost Ambition Man why do I even want to buy more stuff. I have projects to complete. Yeah, so seven of them failed. Nine of them didn't. And like a good third of those memories are of making love. Yeah, time to close this browser window and get back to my RL projects. Or to some playing, it's late.
- jtheory 12y agoI didn't try automation, but I noticed pretty quickly that the actions can run simultaneously -- e.g., I clicked on Play and Learn while I was reading & clicking other things, just to keep those two running as frequently as they could. [-- until those 2 options disappeared, which I felt was too soon; why should play & learn disappear as possibilities when work and get stuff are still available? Ugh. That's not my plan!] But a more interesting point -- I liked that while you can rapid-click to get a lot of plates spinning at once (and obviously "progress" faster in the game that way), you start missing things. E.g., I spent a minute just clicking every Solve I saw without reading carefully, and didn't notice how I gained/lost a few things. To experience life deeply, you have to do things one at a time, in other words.
- tcpekin 12y agoI absolutely loved this game. In the beginning, I took my time, thought about what each [Solve] would do, and really paid attention. As more and more options popped up, I ended up clicking faster and faster. This lead to a bitter life and then death. I don't think I've ever played anything as profound as that moment, when I realized I had just rushed through life. What a game.
- jtheory 12y agoThe dark aspect of the flow is that this seems like a life that ends in suicide. It's a question of interpretation, of course, but where does a retirement of any kind fit in? Not "stop work and focus on my gardening" type of retirement (which doesn't go so well for people who have defined themselves by their work!), but a switch back to more play and learning, a less rigorous schedule (and less "stuff") but more profound connections. There's not a possible flow where "go to work" disappears, but "play" and "learn" remain. Instead, Play/Learn drop out, as does the possibility to get a better job -- which implies that my capacity to grow fails while I'm still in my main working life; so my career will plateau while I go through "you are troubled", "you are bitter", and finally (as options disappear) "you are starting to accept". "Accept" that I've lost the ability to learn/play and nothing but work (but with no hope of further self-improvement) and "get stuff" remains in my life? That's bleak. I can't even make new friends, apparently. When I solve "You are starting to accept", that costs me "Life". I.e., accepting that there's nothing more I can expect from my life (in a game titled "Drowning in Problems", I end it. Counterpoint: "Hope" is the last thing to go -- that doesn't fit with the narrative I'm describing here -- but that strikes me as a red herring, possibly intentional. I have a bunch of interpretation to add to this -- is this a "too successful too young" anomie? Devaluation of the wisdom that comes with half a century of learning/playing because most people don't learn and play so long? Devaluation of what a relationship with another (friend or love) can be after decades of shared experience, because that doesn't seem to happen? But yeah, I've spent enough time on HN already today.
- hopfog 12y agoThis is Notch's (the creator of Minecraft) submission to Ludum Dare 29 where the theme is "Beneath the Surface". The competition ends tonight. http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/
- _mc 12y agoWhat I learnt : We need to embrace randomness to keep life simple! Could not complete the game with a "monotonous" set of instructions; function solve(i, selector) { if(i > 0) { if(selector('a' || Math.floor((Math.random()*100)+1) % 3 == 0) == null){ setTimeout(function(){ solve(i,selector);}, 1000); } else { selector('a').click(); solve(i-1,selector); } } } solve(1400,$); //worked thrice under 1400
- fugicolor5 12y agoWhat if we could live forever?
- jqueryin 12y agoI had a physical chill after the last few steps: You are dead. You are forgotten. My immediate thought was that I must build a legacy... P.S. If you stick around long enough after that step, everything starts from scratch: There is nothing. Solve.
- handyman5 12y agoThe first time I played through, I thought you could "Solve" only one need at a time. It made for a more interesting game and made the choices seem much more consequential.