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MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

microsoft.com

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Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#11

Post by chongli »

Maimedpuppet wrote: post #3

They won a text adventure AI competition as well [1][2] and is now running their own with $2000 reward at stake [3]. Getting an agent to solve unseen RPG games like zork or modern games like Zelda and Witcher would be awesome and seriously impressive, but I don't think anybody is even close to that right now. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04259 [2] https://github.com/Microsoft/nail_agent [3] http://aka.ms/textworld-…

I would be genuinely surprised if anyone can build an agent that can solve Zelda for the NES without any foreknowledge of the game. So much of that game is bound up in the human cultural tropes associated with the monomyth. To finish the game you need to have at least a basic working knowledge of what it means to be a hero. There is no obvious, short-term indicator of progress the way there is in Mario (increase the x position to win).

The process of obtaining just a single piece of the Triforce (the primary indicator of progress) is so complicated that you'll essentially never see it happen with random button-pressing. So any agent attempting to play and win Zelda is going to need to develop its own model of the game world and try to understand things that way. I don't see how that is supposed to happen though, without any context.

Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#12

Post by wholemoley »

Maimedpuppet wrote: post #3

They won a text adventure AI competition as well [1][2] and is now running their own with $2000 reward at stake [3]. Getting an agent to solve unseen RPG games like zork or modern games like Zelda and Witcher would be awesome and seriously impressive, but I don't think anybody is even close to that right now. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04259 [2] https://github.com/Microsoft/nail_agent [3] http://aka.ms/textworld-…

This person https://github.com/pathak22/noreward-rl and his curiosity AI https://github.com/openai/large-scale-curiosity can do some cool stuff.

I used it to train an AI to play Mario Kart ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8oSnh0M864 )

I also had it playing The Legend of Zelda (got as far as finding the first dungeon, but with more power, I'm certain it could explore the whole map.).

Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#13

Post by wholemoley »

chongli wrote: post #11
Maimedpuppet wrote: post #3

They won a text adventure AI competition as well [1][2] and is now running their own with $2000 reward at stake [3]. Getting an agent to solve unseen RPG games like zork or modern games like Zelda and Witcher would be awesome and seriously impressive, but I don't think anybody is even close to that right now. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04259 [2] https://github.com/Microsoft/nail_agent [3] http://aka.ms/textworld-…

I would be genuinely surprised if anyone can build an agent that can solve Zelda for the NES without any foreknowledge of the game. So much of that game is bound up in the human cultural tropes associated with the monomyth. To finish the game you need to have at least a basic working knowledge of what it means to be a hero. There is no obvious, short-term indicator of progress the way there is in Mario (increase the…

As I mentioned in the other post, the curiosity bots can help with this.

They're rewarded by exploring, not by values in game.

Maybe alone they're not enough, but in conjunction with other things, I bet we could beat Zelda. I had the bot exploring enough to find the first dungeon of LoZ.

Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#14

Post by verst »

verst wrote: post #5
cwyers wrote: post #2

> TextWorld requires Python 3 and only supports Linux and macOS systems at the moment. Truly, this is a new Microsoft.

Probably works with Python3 in WSL (let's say Ubuntu). That's good enough for Windows support right? ;) Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft on Python, linux and container things. This however is just my personal opinion and I'm not affiliated with this project.

For anyone using Docker I created an image for convenience. https://hub.docker.com/r/berndverst/mstextworld

Source at: https://github.com/berndverst/mstextworld/

Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#16

Post by falcor84 »

escapecharacter wrote: post #8
pault wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to use Windows at work after ten years of development exclusively on Mac and Linux. Once I set up wsl at work I found that almost all of my gripes about developing on Windows were gone and a month ago I switched my home office to Windows. If you had told me two years ago that I'd be using Windows full time as a Dev environment I would have asked you what were you smoking and can I have some. I have to say thou…

What program do you use for command line work? I’ve found Powershell and Cmder clunky compared to macOS terminal and any Ubuntu terminal.

I personally am very satisfied with ConEmu, launching Ubuntu 18.04's bash under WSL. My only gripe is with how messy it is to set up arrow keys to work in vim, and the solution I found doesn't work over ssh.

EDIT: just to preempt suggestions that I should just use the home-row, I am, but it's really annoying for those of us not using qwerty (Colemak in my case).

Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#17

Post by daeken »

escapecharacter wrote: post #8
pault wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to use Windows at work after ten years of development exclusively on Mac and Linux. Once I set up wsl at work I found that almost all of my gripes about developing on Windows were gone and a month ago I switched my home office to Windows. If you had told me two years ago that I'd be using Windows full time as a Dev environment I would have asked you what were you smoking and can I have some. I have to say thou…

What program do you use for command line work? I’ve found Powershell and Cmder clunky compared to macOS terminal and any Ubuntu terminal.

I run an OpenSSH server inside WSL and then connect with Putty. It works perfectly, it's fast as hell, and it's super simple; it's just like connecting to any other box, really.

Re: MS TextWorld: open-source engine that both generates and simulates text games

#20

Post by wuschel »

What is the difference between TextWorld and a design system for interactive fiction games like Inform [1]?

It seems to be that the former has natural language processing/semantics integrated, while the latter relies on a rather old school approach to text-based games. Or am I mistaken?

[1] http://inform7.com/

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