You can't win the game, it exists only to destroy your mind | Hacker News Reader

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

entire.spacebar.org

256 pointszmmz56 comments

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/

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.

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

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

What did you win?

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.

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

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

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

Fuck my head is so broken right now. NEVER AGAIN.

You can never win the game[1]

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

Incorrect http://xkcd.com/391/

I feel like a burden in my life has been lifted, thank you!

I've been winning that game for over a year now. Damn it.

You weren't winning, you were just not losing.

Damn you. Life was much better before we knew about "The Game".

God damn it. Please warn people before posting cognitive hazards.

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

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

The goal is right in the title of this page.

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

Where is the Occulus Rift version?

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

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

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

"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

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.

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

Yeah, I just left the game

I also was able to "escape" the maze and fall into an abyss. I agree, that is winning :)

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.

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

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

Accurate description.

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

This made me feel quite nauseated!

It's been HackerNews'd.

Honestly, I still prefer the 'verb' Slashdotted.

So much warmer then DDOS'd.

than.

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

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

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

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.

Hahaha, oh wow, that's hilarious!

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

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 :)

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

actually there's a YouWin[1] function.

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

It's not much of a win screen :)

https://i.imgur.com/m62RePh.png

Keep going left and jump. Freedom.

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

SO trippy.

cool

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.

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.

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

Like when they auction off dates with fire fighters.

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

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