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Comment by grouchy | Hacker News Reader

I'm not from the era of these games, but I remember trying them and finding them frustrating for the same reason.

But when I tried this, I literally couldn't stop. I could just write some random action.

It's actually amazing to me how many situations they were able to consider in the game, but having the LLM translate my language into the right action made the game feel way more natural.

I'd be interested in seeing how people can dress up these games with images, or more complex interactions. It could be a whole sub-genre.

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Or even make new games with the LLM translating what you write into a restricted set of in-game commands.

One thing I noticed about the linked page: I said something like "what's in the mailbox?" and the answer was "That mailbox is closed." I think the next level would be able to string together multiple commands like "open mailbox" + "look in mailbox"

You can, my first prompt in Zork 3 was “pick up the latern, light it, and walk down the dark path”, and it did all that.

In MOOLLM Adventures, you can have NPC characters with entire game mechanics, rules, and playing piece prototypes embedded in them, that can run cooperatively in parallel in the same game!

The Grue — The Darkness That IS The Game:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/tree/main/examples/adven...

Hint: GET LAMP

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/examples/adven...

MC Frontalot - It Is Pitch Dark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Snorax the Patient — The Wumpus Who IS The Game

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/tree/main/examples/adven...

Bottomless Pit:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/examples/adven...

Superbats:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/examples/adven...

Hunt the Wumpus BASIC source code from 1973 to resolve any rule ambiguities:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/examples/adven...

With a classic Zork mailbox integrated with the postal system, including junk mail, stamp collecting, chain mail, and offers you can't refuse:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/examples/adven...

Postal System:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/tree/main/skills/postal

Not to be confused with the Postel System:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/tree/main/skills/postel

Here's a whirlwind tour through all 117 skills, that shows how they fit together:

INDEX.md: https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/skills/INDEX.m...

The purpose of this index markup file (besides explaining skills to humans) is to be an index of all the skills and how they work together, so the llm knows where to find what it needs and activate more detailed information. This file is like a really dense human readable catalog, to conserve tokens. There is another yaml index too, a bit fluffier, but it helps to have two forms, one structural, machine readable, and another narrative, human readable.

INDEX.yml: https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/skills/INDEX.y...

I think if these were ported to IF6 and compiled into Z8 machine game the parser would be improved nearly for free but they woudn't run fast enough under an 8 bit machine. But for DOS, Amiga, Classic Macintosh and even the ESP32 it would be more than enough to run these.

The parser in Z-machine games comes from the game, not from the runtime, so the Z-machine version is completely irrelevant and the only reason porting to Inform 6 would make a difference is that you'd be linking it with a different parser.

Woudn't a Z8 game have an improved parser over a V5 one?

No because the parser is part of the game, not the runtime

Also cool: make your own RPG!

https://www.rpgprompts.com/

This is something else. I want an LLM to continuously interact with a persistent authored world, not just have it make things up as it goes.

They were way too rigid then, and still too rigid now after my brief attempt lol. Such a narrow puzzle you have to squeeze into.

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