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A comment on Ask HN: What are you working on?.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by twiclo on Thursday January 14, 2021 @05:36PM (#25783819)
Me and a friend have been working on a game that I describe as "Factorio but for programming". Essentially you're an AI who's mission is to mine every resource from a planet. To keep things efficient you start out small and have limited processing power. You're only able to run an assembly like language that we've developed. As you get more resources you can research new things like functions, variables, type arguments, whatever. We plan for there to be a tech tree so you can choose to build out a language that's not strict similar to JS or you can go the try hard route and build something like Haskell. You build bots that mine, explore, hunt, etc and each bot is a computer running their own script. We plan on there being battles you have to script around and even things like setting up your own network so you can have robots call home when they're out in the field.

I still need to think of a good name for it though.

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by Thorentis on Thursday January 14, 2021 @08:26PM (#25785722)
If Factorio feels too much like work, then this is going to feel... exactly like work.
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by aurbano on Friday January 15, 2021 @05:12AM (#25789074)
After playing a bit of Factorio I realised I had messed up the layout a little bit and that it would be good to "refactor" it, but that it would require some planning

And then it hit me, it was pretty much work haha

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Friday January 15, 2021 @08:21AM (#25790611)
Yeah. Factorio is exactly as addicting for our [0] kind of brain as it is claimed to be, and for some reason a lot of Factorio enthusiasts seem to think that is a good thing.

I played the game, and after a while I was miserable playing it, but I just couldn't convince myself to just put it aside and not finish it. Once I launched a single rocket, thus "completing" the game, I closed it, uninstalled it, wrote a negative review on Steam, and never have had any desire to play it again.

It may seem inflammatory, but my honest opinion on what the difference is between me and people who genuinely liked the game is this: those people are complexity fetishists.

[0] the kind of brain that generally ends up doing programming or IT work because it is suited to this kind of problem solving.

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by raldi on Thursday January 14, 2021 @10:23PM (#25786614)
You could just call it Assembly
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by tigerlily on Thursday January 14, 2021 @07:50PM (#25785413)
> I still need to think of a good name for it though.

How about "Syntact"?

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by moritonal on Friday January 15, 2021 @07:18AM (#25790060)
Sorry to be that guy, but if you didn't already know you're describing an MMO called https://screeps.com/

Although I do love the idea of a single-player version!

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by RhodoGSA on Monday January 18, 2021 @12:15PM (#25823946)
Screeps is like clash of clans for programmers.

__X__ is like factorio for programmers. However, I don't think that properly describes it. It's more like an evolution of AI and an exploration of programming 'topics' rather than just coding in javascript.

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by mywittyname on Thursday January 14, 2021 @06:07PM (#25784255)
Sounds like a really fun project and I hope it works out well for you. The last part reminds me of this PS1 game I used to play, Carnage Heart, where you program AI robots to go into battle.

Also, "import antigravity" would make for a perfect easter egg.

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by MereInterest on Thursday January 14, 2021 @06:04PM (#25784218)
Ooh, nice. So, sort of like Exapunks crossed with Screeps?
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by myartsev on Thursday January 14, 2021 @05:56PM (#25784100)
This is intriguing! Do you have a website / mailinglist / etc for those wanting to follow along?
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by twiclo on Thursday January 14, 2021 @07:40PM (#25785319)
I'll likely tweet it out when we release it. We're only working on it for a few hours a week so we won't have anything shippable for probably a year or more. My twitter handle is @twiclo
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by RhodoGSA on Monday January 18, 2021 @12:20PM (#25824036)
I don't have a twitter, but you guys should set up a static page and capture emails for alpha, beta and launch! I'd love to hear about it when you guys launch and I would play this game no matter how 'rough'. My email is [email protected].
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by agravier on Thursday January 14, 2021 @07:40PM (#25785324)
I remember Colobot, it was exciting (for a teen). Your project sounds deeper and cooler, I hope I'll get to play it.
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by WrtCdEvrydy on Thursday January 14, 2021 @08:01PM (#25785523)
I am very interested in playing this, following this and possibly taking part if you're looking for other people.
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by pxltr on Thursday January 14, 2021 @07:52PM (#25785436)
it sounds so cool! Is there any way to watch the development of your project?
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jcun4128 on Thursday January 14, 2021 @10:43PM (#25786746)
Paperclips
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by davidscolgan on Thursday January 14, 2021 @11:04PM (#25786876)
Assume you mean https://decisionproblem.com/paperclips/? One of my favorite game experiences ever about an ever-expanding AI. Best without any spoilers. I still think about it sometimes. Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15474055
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by Pyrodogg on Sunday January 17, 2021 @03:52PM (#25814843)
Universal Paperclips achieved in 7 hours 47 minutes 23 seconds

Oof, there went my afternoon. Had to leave it for dinner some where in the middle.

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jcun4128 on Friday January 15, 2021 @02:19AM (#25787978)
Yeah this game is surprisingly a time sink/addictive despite how "simple" it is. There's a speed run of somebody playing it on YT. Insane
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by mikewarot on Friday January 15, 2021 @02:38AM (#25788079)
I played through that game exactly 100 times before I gave up.
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by koeng on Thursday January 14, 2021 @05:48PM (#25783993)
Got a link or website? Sounds like a fun game.
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by aramachandran7 on Thursday January 14, 2021 @06:57PM (#25784889)
That sounds pretty dope, check out corewars!
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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by dunefox on Friday January 15, 2021 @06:02AM (#25789414)
Sounds great!
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