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Universal Paperclips

decisionproblem.com

131–140 of 178 posts

Re: Universal Paperclips

#131
post #130

This did indeed consume my day whole, but it was amazing. This is one of the best games I have ever played. The shift in scale is funny and shocking and it's a nice way to experience principles like supply and demand. Its great at transitioning between different games that all kind of have something to do with paperclips, but are essentially different, though in the same genre. And it does it with almost unstyled but…

I just finished it too. It was really an unproductive but happy day.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only broke my Diablo 2 addiction in college when I used one of those tools that drives your character on Mephisto runs to scum drops. In the course of one night running it unattended, I got the two items I'd been looking for for weeks. Cheating at the game broke me out of the Skinner box overnight.

I like your quitting story. I quit when my very high level character died, in hardcore mode. Thinking about the hours that went into that character was horrifying.

I generally play “roguelike” games (the most important criterion of which, in my opinion, is permadeath), and I often feel the same way.. the thing is that I feel that way win or lose.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#134
post #31

A warning to fellow HNers that are not familiar with universal paperclips. Please don’t click the link as it will create a black time hole that will start absorbing your time and reduce your productivity. Be warned that this isn’t a naive lazy clicker game, it’s an instrument of destruction from the future, created by our paperclip overlords :-)

I've played through UP twice. When it comes to time sinks, it's nowhere near the ultimate death spiral that is Kittens Game. To date it has taken me about 5 times as long as a UP playthrough (and 500+ lines of JS automation which I seem to have to tweak every day to deal with the changing economy) and I don't seem to be anywhere near the end.

By played through, do you mean you got to the top corner of the universes? Did you get also all of the artifacts or complete all of the universes? (I’m not sure what counts as played through.) I did maybe a dozen universes and got a handful of artifacts before I bailed and deleted the game.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#135
post #134
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played through UP twice. When it comes to time sinks, it's nowhere near the ultimate death spiral that is Kittens Game. To date it has taken me about 5 times as long as a UP playthrough (and 500+ lines of JS automation which I seem to have to tweak every day to deal with the changing economy) and I don't seem to be anywhere near the end.

By played through, do you mean you got to the top corner of the universes? Did you get also all of the artifacts or complete all of the universes? (I’m not sure what counts as played through.) I did maybe a dozen universes and got a handful of artifacts before I bailed and deleted the game.

I don't remember anything about artifacts; I just went to the web page and there were no further buttons to click to continue playing - I'd have to reset.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've never played it, it's worth finishing once for the "story" and takes less than 10 hours if you grok exponential growth quick enough.

Does it have a branch where you hack your own utility function and gain +infinity utility?

Kinda!

Re: Universal Paperclips

#138
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played through UP twice. When it comes to time sinks, it's nowhere near the ultimate death spiral that is Kittens Game. To date it has taken me about 5 times as long as a UP playthrough (and 500+ lines of JS automation which I seem to have to tweak every day to deal with the changing economy) and I don't seem to be anywhere near the end.

I'm happy to have not tried Kittens and will stay away from it. UP wasn't too bad. It was a time sink until I played all the way through it, and then wasn't too bad. The murderous game for me was 2048. I had to block the site in /etc/hosts to break out of the game. More recently, duckduckgo has embedded it as an easter egg in their search screen, so it's harder to block that way. I also waste time on chess puzzles, l…

In terms of time commitment, Kittens was tops (I had the game running for close to a year in the background), but in terms of enjoyment, I have to say my favorite incremental game is Idle Loops: https://omsi6.github.io/loops/

Re: Universal Paperclips

#139
post #31

A warning to fellow HNers that are not familiar with universal paperclips. Please don’t click the link as it will create a black time hole that will start absorbing your time and reduce your productivity. Be warned that this isn’t a naive lazy clicker game, it’s an instrument of destruction from the future, created by our paperclip overlords :-)

I've played through UP twice. When it comes to time sinks, it's nowhere near the ultimate death spiral that is Kittens Game. To date it has taken me about 5 times as long as a UP playthrough (and 500+ lines of JS automation which I seem to have to tweak every day to deal with the changing economy) and I don't seem to be anywhere near the end.

Still, Kittens Game is nothing to the death spiral distilled into its true form in Antimatter Dimensions. If there was ever a piece of software which warranted getting classified as weaponry, it'd be this.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#140
post #55

Have there been any recent, good games of this genre? It seems to have reached a peak with Cookie Clicker, Kittens Game, A Dark Room and Universal Paperclips, others I've tried have been poor in comparison.

Not recent but in terms of distilling the technical aspect of the genre: Antimatter Dimensions.

I'd also add Candy Box and Candy Box 2/to your list of early influential games.

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