Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
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Something that's not clear without doing some digging: this uses an AI in the background to generate the results of the combinations. That's why it has an answer for every possible combination.
Very fun, but hopefully the UI will be expanded a bit. Like it would be nice to be able to find items already discovered by typing. Also the ability to export/save would nice, but I don't know if that's possible
There definitely does appear to be an AI at the root of this - the further out you go, the more nonsensical the combinations start to get (I have some "first discoveries" like Piranha X, Mnemonic Galaxy, Super Hackzilla, and Robo-nine-nine which are entertaining but meaningless). Best I can tell, every time a combination is tried that has never been tried before by anyone, it's somehow fed to an AI (along with, I think, the list of everything that already exists), and the AI either declares that the combination doesn't work, that it produces something that already exists, or it creates something entirely new and selects an emoji for it; in any case, the result of that combination is then saved and always produces that same outcome for everyone from that point on.
This game reminds me of the 1970s binary growth animal guessing game. You would pick an animal and the program would ask you a group dividing question. After a few questions it would make a guess at your selection. If the guess is wrong you are asked to provide the animals name for the database. Your also requested to provide a question that would distinguish it from the wrong guess. In this way the program collects data to learn, but it is easy to mess it up.
I got tired of making every 2 item combination possible before I went down the earth chain. I found 4 combos that refused to mix with water. Heat, soda, hell, & devil. Would an AI. have this bug?
I laughed at the green alien icon for Prometheus. Also I found some other non combiners: Water & fire tornado Water & emulsion Wind & coffee Earth & curtain Earth & potato
This is Anon from 17:29 checking back in - I have become kind of obsessed with this game. (Honestly, it's not really a game so much as a weird funhouse mirror you can stare into forever.) You can get to pretty much anything you can think of if you're willing to try long enough and use circuitous enough routes - I've repeatedly set myself goals for words or sets of words to try to reach, like "herb," or "Dave Grohl," or all of the Zodiac signs, or all of the U.S. states, and they're pretty much all doable (though I've still got about a dozen states to go).
Even more fascinatingly, for me, is that because of the AI, you can sometimes "look up" specific events from specific years - I've gotten the World Series MVPs from various years, the WWE Royal Rumble winners from various years, etc. But the AI isn't perfect - for many such lookups, it will just reject the combination, and other times it can have really funny "opinions" - as the World Series MVP for 1985, it gives Don Denkinger (whom I'd never heard of, but was apparently an umpire who famously blew a call in the World Series that year), and when given "Stanley Cup" and "2011," instead of the Boston Bruins, it gives "Vancouver Riot," which was what happened in response to the Canucks' loss. (It also correctly gives "Lockout" when given "Stanley Cup" and "2005," which is really impressive.)
I really wish it saved progress, though - I expect that I'm going to keep one tab open for this as long as I can, and when I eventually have to restart my computer or something, it'll feel like a catastrophe.
This is just too fun to play with and be endlessly silly. So far, my biggest accomplishment has been getting "First Discovery" for "Harry Potter and the Zombie Percy Jackson."
Davidus: trial and error, basically. The more combinations you try, the more words you unlock, which gives you the ability to try new and more specific combinations, and so on. (I mostly don't remember any of the specific combinations I used to discover anything, and although it does now save progress, that change arrived too late for me and I lost all the stuff I had previously found when my computer updated.)
I am having the best fun with this...
ReplyDeleteGordon Ramsay...lololol
Surfer plus incense equals Buddha
ReplyDeleteVillage + Pig = Hamlet
ReplyDeletenice
US America + Monkey = Trump , whose emoji is a turd.
ReplyDeleteHow to create life...
ReplyDeleteI put an engine on fire, didn't get a fire engine, & got steamed.
ReplyDeleteSomething that's not clear without doing some digging: this uses an AI in the background to generate the results of the combinations. That's why it has an answer for every possible combination.
ReplyDeleteCyborg... actually no, some of them do not combine
ReplyDeleteVery fun, but hopefully the UI will be expanded a bit. Like it would be nice to be able to find items already discovered by typing. Also the ability to export/save would nice, but I don't know if that's possible
ReplyDeleteThere definitely does appear to be an AI at the root of this - the further out you go, the more nonsensical the combinations start to get (I have some "first discoveries" like Piranha X, Mnemonic Galaxy, Super Hackzilla, and Robo-nine-nine which are entertaining but meaningless). Best I can tell, every time a combination is tried that has never been tried before by anyone, it's somehow fed to an AI (along with, I think, the list of everything that already exists), and the AI either declares that the combination doesn't work, that it produces something that already exists, or it creates something entirely new and selects an emoji for it; in any case, the result of that combination is then saved and always produces that same outcome for everyone from that point on.
ReplyDeleteDo the lines and dots mean anything?
ReplyDeleteThis game reminds me of the 1970s binary growth animal guessing game.
ReplyDeleteYou would pick an animal and the program would ask you a group dividing question.
After a few questions it would make a guess at your selection.
If the guess is wrong you are asked to provide the animals name for the database.
Your also requested to provide a question that would distinguish it from the wrong guess.
In this way the program collects data to learn, but it is easy to mess it up.
I got tired of making every 2 item combination possible before I went down the earth chain.
ReplyDeleteI found 4 combos that refused to mix with water.
Heat, soda, hell, & devil. Would an AI. have this bug?
I laughed at the green alien icon for Prometheus.
ReplyDeleteAlso I found some other non combiners:
Water & fire tornado
Water & emulsion
Wind & coffee
Earth & curtain
Earth & potato
This is Anon from 17:29 checking back in - I have become kind of obsessed with this game. (Honestly, it's not really a game so much as a weird funhouse mirror you can stare into forever.) You can get to pretty much anything you can think of if you're willing to try long enough and use circuitous enough routes - I've repeatedly set myself goals for words or sets of words to try to reach, like "herb," or "Dave Grohl," or all of the Zodiac signs, or all of the U.S. states, and they're pretty much all doable (though I've still got about a dozen states to go).
ReplyDeleteEven more fascinatingly, for me, is that because of the AI, you can sometimes "look up" specific events from specific years - I've gotten the World Series MVPs from various years, the WWE Royal Rumble winners from various years, etc. But the AI isn't perfect - for many such lookups, it will just reject the combination, and other times it can have really funny "opinions" - as the World Series MVP for 1985, it gives Don Denkinger (whom I'd never heard of, but was apparently an umpire who famously blew a call in the World Series that year), and when given "Stanley Cup" and "2011," instead of the Boston Bruins, it gives "Vancouver Riot," which was what happened in response to the Canucks' loss. (It also correctly gives "Lockout" when given "Stanley Cup" and "2005," which is really impressive.)
I really wish it saved progress, though - I expect that I'm going to keep one tab open for this as long as I can, and when I eventually have to restart my computer or something, it'll feel like a catastrophe.
This is just too fun to play with and be endlessly silly. So far, my biggest accomplishment has been getting "First Discovery" for "Harry Potter and the Zombie Percy Jackson."
ReplyDeleteReminds me of a game like this some years ago, with pictures but not the tree.
ReplyDeleteBut how do you drive it to things like the zodiac or sports?
Davidus: trial and error, basically. The more combinations you try, the more words you unlock, which gives you the ability to try new and more specific combinations, and so on. (I mostly don't remember any of the specific combinations I used to discover anything, and although it does now save progress, that change arrived too late for me and I lost all the stuff I had previously found when my computer updated.)
ReplyDelete