Universal Paperclips • Hacker News Board

Re: Universal Paperclips

#81

Post by Cerium » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #62

Cerium wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has excellent replay value.

It has basically no replay value, compared to games like Kittens or Evolve. Every playthrough is basically the same. There are no substantially different strategies, and only at the very end is there a single decision that determines which of two endings (and fairly simple boosts) you get. After one playthrough you have seen 99.9% of the content, after two you have seen 100% The writing and the story is pretty damn g…

Yet somehow over the last so many years I have played this game 3 or 4 times and had fun each time.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#82

Post by Kiro » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #44

jprete wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best ways to expand an incremental game’s gameplay is to gradually automate one layer, while introducing new mechanics in a higher layer. So one’s focus for optimization gradually shifts from older and better-understood mechanics to a higher level, where the gameplay is to manipulate the lower layer’s mechanics to make it run as quickly as a basic action did at the start.

a couple years ago a friend of mine got into botting Diablo II, which seemed like a whole game in itself, which made me think, how neat would that be, a game where you start off doing regular gameplay stuff, and then you eventually automate/optimize that gameplay at increasingly more meta levels of play. still think there's something to that idea...

All factory and automation games build on that concept. It's a huge genre with a lot of good titles.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#83

Post by cubefox » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #65

AlotOfReading wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept the implied premise that there are irresponsible deployments of AI out there, the alternative explanation is that they did consider the ramifications and simply don't care. That's even worse. Calling them ignorant is actually giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Or the researchers don't think existential threats are realistic, and paper maximizing thought experiments are silly. Maybe they're wrong, but maybe not. It's easy to imagine AI takeover scenarios by giving them unlimited powers, it's hard to show the actual path to such abilities. It's also hard to understand why an AI smart enough to paperclip the world wouldn't also be smart enough to realize the futility in doing…

> It's also hard to understand why an AI smart enough to paperclip the world wouldn't also be smart enough to realize the futility in doing so.

Terminal goals can't be futile, since they do not serve to achieve other (instrumental) goals. Compare: Humans like to have protected sex, watch movies, eat ice cream, even though these activities might be called "futile" or "useless" (by someone who doesn't have those goals) as they don't serve any further purpose. But criticizing terminal goals for not being instrumentally useful is a category error. For a paperclipper, us having sex would seem just as futile as creating paperclips seems to us. Increased intelligence won't let you abandon any of your terminal goals, since they do not depend on your intelligence, unlike instrumental goals.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#84

Post by adamrezich » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #68

skeaker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it's unfinished but the power balancing was always a mess, solar panels trounce everything else by a country mile. There's a whole "set up plants on planets and receive power from them" system that I missed until I had already completed the game because it is literally 1/100th the efficiency of just making another solar panel. Fun game though! Definitely worth a play if you're interested in clicker games…

I'd call it finished in practice. They might have had dreams of making alternate or more satisfying endings beyond the current, but there is an effective end. Re planets: yeah just don't even bother. By the time they arrive, your production will have outstripped anything that gets delivered. I had a bit of fun setting up huge quantities of cheap things on nearly every planet and then racing the stream of pointless su…

I didn't realize there was an ending! not sure if that was added after I played last or not but I'll have to check that out.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#85

Post by burnished » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #62

Cerium wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has excellent replay value.

It has basically no replay value, compared to games like Kittens or Evolve. Every playthrough is basically the same. There are no substantially different strategies, and only at the very end is there a single decision that determines which of two endings (and fairly simple boosts) you get. After one playthrough you have seen 99.9% of the content, after two you have seen 100% The writing and the story is pretty damn g…

It has non traditional replay value, because you are absolutely correct in your detailing of playthrough similarity, yet it appears few if any of us are able to ignore its siren song.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#86

Post by Groxx » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:17 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #84

Groxx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call it finished in practice. They might have had dreams of making alternate or more satisfying endings beyond the current, but there is an effective end. Re planets: yeah just don't even bother. By the time they arrive, your production will have outstripped anything that gets delivered. I had a bit of fun setting up huge quantities of cheap things on nearly every planet and then racing the stream of pointless su…

I didn't realize there was an ending! not sure if that was added after I played last or not but I'll have to check that out.

It's a typical incremental game-reset finish, if that works as a non-spoilery answer. AFAIK there's only one, and no reset bonus / nothing changes after it. The full story is readable through the decrypter.

I can elaborate if you'd prefer, just figure I should try to stay safe by default :)

Re: Universal Paperclips

#87

Post by at_a_remove » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

This game is probably one of the best inputs if you want to make estimates about the Drake Equation. Can you really trust every member of every advanced alien species not to hear the siren call of a hypothetical Hypnodrone? One might imagine a galaxy collapsing, the most streamlined self-replicators peeling off "seeds" that start their gravitational brake from ninety-five percent of the speed of light, collapsing the cooler matter of a solar system before waiting to tear apart any local suns and forging enormous linear accelerators so they can begin firing at other unconverted systems in the Orion Arm.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#88

Post by burnished » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #44

jprete wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best ways to expand an incremental game’s gameplay is to gradually automate one layer, while introducing new mechanics in a higher layer. So one’s focus for optimization gradually shifts from older and better-understood mechanics to a higher level, where the gameplay is to manipulate the lower layer’s mechanics to make it run as quickly as a basic action did at the start.

a couple years ago a friend of mine got into botting Diablo II, which seemed like a whole game in itself, which made me think, how neat would that be, a game where you start off doing regular gameplay stuff, and then you eventually automate/optimize that gameplay at increasingly more meta levels of play. still think there's something to that idea...

You should absolutely not check out bitburner then if you cannot afford a distraction, especially if you like programming and green crt hacker aesthetic

Re: Universal Paperclips

#89

Post by cubefox » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

d1str0 wrote: post #42

Kiro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the sad face when you have the solution right there in your quote?

The mobile app works much better than the website used to on mobile.

It seems strange though to make a mobile app instead of a mobile website which functions exactly like the app.

Re: Universal Paperclips

#90

Post by burnished » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 7:20 PM UTC

mjamil wrote: post #60

I don't know if people realize this, but the game now allows you to continue past the "you've converted all matter in the universe" point. You get to convert matter in other universes! (There is still a finite endpoint; I think there's only ~19 other universes you get to do this to.)

Does the gameplay loop change at that point?