Play this game for 20 minutes - learn about concurrency

http://scarybuggames.com/2008/05/chronotron

94 31 18 years ago

You have to play through level seven to appreciate my point -- fork-and-exec is basic Level One stuff but you need to play for a bit to appreciate the full horror of shared-resource contention.

mechanical_fish3• 18 years ago

Aha - I think this thing I just encountered on Level 13 is an object you can synchronize on!

Of course, I now know this game better than I actually know concurrent programming, so this metaphor could be wrong.

coglethorpe• 18 years ago

I want to create another instance of myself so it can play this game all day while the other one works.

jmtame2• 18 years ago

this is great =]

sant0sk1• 18 years ago

has anybody finished it? I'm stuck on level 11.

EDIT: looks like there are 35 levels of increasing difficulty. This could waste a LOT of my day away...

dkokelley• 18 years ago

I got to level 13 and saw another see-saw thing and decided I was done. It was really cool while it lasted though.

quellhorst• 18 years ago

I'm stuck on level 15. I found the key is to alter as little as possible and make each life of your bot do a simple action repeated for longer than you think you may need to.

jamesjyu• 18 years ago

This game is pretty awesome. You can actually get yourself into a paradox, in which case, a big Paradox warning sign comes up reminding you to be careful with causality.

DenisM• 18 years ago

It's a great ide but there is too much timing involved in it. I prefer either timing or thinking, not both.

schtog3• 18 years ago

I find the combination of timing and thinking is what makes it very interesting.

Really superb game. Few games make you think both logically and philosophically.

Very cool mindbender!

Alex39172• 18 years ago

This would be a great way to teach kids programming if you combined it with Logo.

jmtame2• 18 years ago

what's the song playing in the background? i'm tired of leaving the window open and letting it loop lol

schtog3• 18 years ago

I misunderstood.

xlnt2• 18 years ago

reading comprehension...

Locke• 18 years ago

Conceptually reminds me of this game:

http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html

ars• 18 years ago

Once you win that game play it again, this time trying to click on all the triangles.

xlnt2• 18 years ago

the game is way too easy. even high levels are repetitive and simple and there is a lot of waiting.

Hexstream• 18 years ago

Really fun game, but there's probably better ways to learn about concurrency... Like reading about it and implementing it.

mechanical_fish3• 18 years ago

Well, yes. It's not so much a teaching tool as it is a riff on concurrency.

Playing pool really well isn't a great way to learn physics, either. And, yet, if you know a little physics pool becomes more fun, and vice versa.

jimgreer• 18 years ago

(shameless plug) - If you are an achievement addict try it on my site - http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

up to 19, haven't seen anything that is hard to figure out, just things that are tricky to time.

Alex39172• 18 years ago

There is a clock built into the game. Just perform every action on a multiple of 5s and it is very easy to remember when to move.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

duh :p it's not the movement of the character that's obnoxious.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

the timing in level 28 is just obnoxious. I would prefer more puzzles and less timing.

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

I had this idea a while back. But I think it would be fun in the context of a massively parallel action or arcade game. Imagine an assault on Normandy. Continue till you get killed, then jump back in time into someone else. If you manage to take out the guy you got you last time, that character is available to play to continue from that point on.

It could also work with a zombie invasion, and as an MMO.

eyudkowsky• 18 years ago

Only one-way interaction between different selves? And you call this time travel.

mleonhard• 18 years ago

A paradox could result if you could influence the behavior of the other versions of yourself. That's why it makes sense to use senseless robots.

mov• 18 years ago

I got to level 35, awesome!

dmoney• 18 years ago

Nifty game.

It runs slow on my 4-year old computer. Maybe because of all the ads on the page. Using the .swf file directly works better: http://www.scarybuggames.com/chronotron.swf

schtog3• 18 years ago

I'm stuck on 31, I'm so stuck I lowered myself down to looking in the walkthrough and I'm still stuck.

Is it a bug on that level? I throw down the block and try to jump on it but I don't get high enough.

gambling8nt• 18 years ago

You need both blocks down there.

Play this game for 20 minutes - learn about concurrency

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