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

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

#31

Post by bashinator »

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’m using gnome-terminal running in VcXsrv. The scrolling and font rendering is far better than any of the windows terninal apps I’ve tried.

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

#32

Post by lzybkr »

chongli wrote: post #30
wholemoley wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just took a look at the curiosity video. It's funny, I think with enough refinement something like this could beat Zelda. Except it wouldn't actually know it beat the game! I feel like that is cheating, somehow. Like maybe you could get American Fuzzy Lop [1] to beat Zelda. Isn't that the same thing, in principle? [1] http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/

AFL might eventually get lucky, but I'm guessing you'd want a hybrid approach that combines symbolic execution with a fuzzer like AFL, e.g. QSYM [1].

[1] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...

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

#34

Post by freeone3000 »

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.

I work on this project.

We needed to pull in a few ways of running the backend game and communicating with it that weren't quite convenient on Windows. A number of integrated third-party components related to generating and running IF games are either linux-only or behave differently in windows and linux. In addition, the target audience is reinforcement learning researchers, who overwhelmingly use Python on Linux, so that focus was prioritized.

Ubuntu on WSL actually is a test platform, and guided a few technical decisions (in part, WSL issues #902 and #162 narrowed what we could do). Honestly, that comment is not too far from the mark. :)

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

#35

Post by freeone3000 »

4thaccount wrote: post #23
cwyers wrote: post #2

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

Yes and No. I think they understand the very real limitations of Windows and how developers and power users hate it. Let's compare and contrast the two. Linux has a usable shell that has GCC, Bash, Awk, dozens of specific commands that can be piped together, Perl, Python, TCL...etc all built-in and easily composable. Windows has well...CMD which is horrible, Batch files, VBScript (deprecated), VBA, and Powershell (a…

This is a python framework for reinforcement learning, and has very little to do with the shell or development tooling on linux. Linux was the development focus because the vast majority of the reinforcement learning community use python3 on linux.

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

#36

Post by malloryerik »

marccote19 wrote: post #26
wuschel wrote: post #20

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/

Hi, I'm with the TextWorld team. TextWorld actually uses Inform7. The framework first builds a game object (e.g. objects, locations, quests) according to some settings. Then, it converts it into Inform7 code before being compiled into a playable game. See https://imgur.com/oOcy5kk

How could you run a TextWorld game in a web browser? Use a Glulx file interpreter like Quixe?

https://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/

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

#37

Post by jtolmar »

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…

Riffing on this, what about Zelda-like games /with/ foreknowledge? Let's say the game has items that serve as unique keys (like boss keys or the hammer), items that serve as interchangeable keys (like regular keys or triforce pieces), and maybe specific items that modify movement directly (ladder, hookshot, pegasus boots). Additionally it has switches that toggle certain walls.

This is a stateful pathfinding problem, you can solve it with Dijkstra's. But how fast can you find the shortest route through 100 Zelda-likes?

Or take a page from maze-running bots and not provide the map up-front, but require an agent that actually explores to get information, and judge results on the sum of three times through the same game.

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

#38

Post by taftster »

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…

Zelda was simply a means for Nintendo to sell Nintendo Magazine subscriptions. They had to have made a killing on subscriptions, and they were absolutely required for solving games like Zelda. For example, you have to place a bomb in this one obscure location without any in-game clues as to said location. Or burn a tree.

Here's the connection to your post. I think a human and a computer have about the same chance of solving Zelda. At least a computer could be programmed to drop bombs in every rock wall in the game. For a human, that would be too brain-numbing hard.

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

#39

Post by feanaro »

taftster wrote: post #38
chongli wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Zelda was simply a means for Nintendo to sell Nintendo Magazine subscriptions. They had to have made a killing on subscriptions, and they were absolutely required for solving games like Zelda. For example, you have to place a bomb in this one obscure location without any in-game clues as to said location. Or burn a tree. Here's the connection to your post. I think a human and a computer have about the same chance of…

You definitely do not need external hints to solve Zelda games. I've finished many Zelda titles without ever getting any hints. I've even finished A Link to the Past in German by using a dictionary to translate dialogue. Before that, I had not known a word of German.

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

#40

Post by korla »

feanaro wrote: post #39
taftster wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zelda was simply a means for Nintendo to sell Nintendo Magazine subscriptions. They had to have made a killing on subscriptions, and they were absolutely required for solving games like Zelda. For example, you have to place a bomb in this one obscure location without any in-game clues as to said location. Or burn a tree. Here's the connection to your post. I think a human and a computer have about the same chance of…

You definitely do not need external hints to solve Zelda games. I've finished many Zelda titles without ever getting any hints. I've even finished A Link to the Past in German by using a dictionary to translate dialogue. Before that, I had not known a word of German.

He is talking specifically about Legend of Zelda, or Zelda for short, the first game in the series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(video_gam...
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