Will you drown?

http://game.notch.net/drowning/#

by jebblue • 12 years ago

428 138 12 years ago

game.notch.net

caio19822• 12 years ago

Still trying to figure out what exactly this is, but it's totally addictive. Which is odd.

Aaronn• 12 years ago

It's Notch's Ludum Dare submission. https://twitter.com/notch/status/460054268935168000

biot• 12 years ago

It's a skinner box disguised as a game.

kazagistar2• 12 years ago

If you remove the skinner box from almost any game, you have very little left.

Brigand• 12 years ago

Please explain.

jffry4• 12 years ago

Play automatically:

  setInterval(function(){ $("a").click() }, 100)

(Edit: Yes, this leads you through a very fast, very bad life. Play manually and have a better life.)

caio19822• 12 years ago

I think you missed the point here, but nice trick :-)

jffry4• 12 years ago

I got the point, curiosity just got the better of me

kbaker• 12 years ago

I don't know, if you use this hack to get through life, you end up dying after a bitter, troubled life, having never created anything - you are always hitting 'buy more stuff' instead.

Hmm...

parasight• 12 years ago

Drowning in problems? Automation is the solution ;)

wingerlang• 12 years ago

And now you have N+1 problem.

err4nt• 12 years ago

Amen to that

shawnz• 12 years ago

Hilariously, this gets stuck buying "Stuff" over and over and doesn't seem to ever complete the game

jffry4• 12 years ago

For me it ended in my death, with no hope left. It might be a slight timing problem (e.g. play around with the interval and see what happens)

JumpCrisscross• 12 years ago

It is appropriate that relying on a static heuristic to point one's path leaves you unfulfilled, bitter, and dead.

callesgg• 12 years ago

I interpret that as Stuff gets in the way of life. Interesting, i wounder if he designed it that way or it just kind of happened.

hmgibson235• 12 years ago

- Integrity for using jQuery? Lol

LukeB_UK• 12 years ago

Actually, the chrome dev tools allow you to use $(selector) even if the site doesn't have jQuery enabled. [0]

[0] https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/co...

sashasklar2• 12 years ago

Seriously?

  window.setInterval(function(){ Array.prototype.forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll('a'),function(i) {i.dispatchEvent(event)})},1000);

jffry4• 12 years ago

I was going for quick and dirty. $(foo).click() was available so why not use it?

hmgibson235• 12 years ago

Seriously it was a joke

cturhan• 12 years ago

nope, that wont work at all. Even if you add jquery manually, this won't work at all. The correct one should be

  fireEvent = function(element){
   var event; // The custom event that will be created

    if (document.createEvent) {
    event = document.createEvent("HTMLEvents");
    event.initEvent("click", true, true);
    } else {
    event = document.createEventObject();
    event.eventType = "click";
    }

    event.eventName = "name-of-custom-event";

    if (document.createEvent) {
    element.dispatchEvent(event);
    } else {
    element.fireEvent("on" + event.eventType, event);
    }
  }

  setInterval(function(){
     Array.prototype.forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll('a'),function(d){
      fireEvent(d);
     })
  }, 1000);

elliottkember2• 12 years ago

Quick to call someone stupid, aren't we? Did you even try his code? Go try it. Just because a site doesn't have jQuery, doesn't mean $ isn't assigned to anything.

egeozcan• 12 years ago

The first thing I did after figuring out how the game works was typing this:

setInterval(function({[].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll("a")).forEach(function(a){a.click()})},100)

It feels great to know there are some more people who think of automating first, a better life second =)

jaeh• 12 years ago

this version of the script gets you through the game: https://github.com/jaeh/willyoudrown/blob/master/willyoudrow...

i am also thinking about writing some ifs into it that allow you to focus on "friends", "happy buddha", "people person", "wisdom", "early death" and maybe some other criteria, but that needs user interface and more time, which i dont have today ;)

dennisgorelik• 12 years ago

This code:

  setInterval(function(){ $("a").click() }, 1000)

leads to a very long life.

Since "You need to learn." is at the bottom of task list, with 1s delay it never gets attention, so you don't learn, so you don't age.

Here's what I've got:

  You have:
  Hope
  Body
  Life
  Love
  309 Memory
  Integrity
  Job
  180 Experience
  53 Friend
  4 Respect
  216 Stuff
  102 Broken Heart
  6 Stress
  Knowledge
  Lover

  You are troubled. [Can't afford] -Integrity -Lost Ambition

Rzor• 12 years ago

At some point this became depressant for me, but interesting concept.

maccard• 12 years ago

hmm. I think I'm gonna go look at kittens

brazzy3• 12 years ago

There definitely needs to be a "You need to look at kittens" action there, which randomly gives you one of -Stress or +Memory

Theodores2• 12 years ago

I would like to see a cat version of the game. There could be specific outcomes, e.g. if you don't want to end up de-balled/hysterectomied then you can be an alley cat and live a shorter life that may be harsher. Alternatively you could go for the cosy life by purring lots.

teddyknox• 12 years ago

This is more art than game.

kazagistar2• 12 years ago

You say that as if those concepts were not totally orthogonal.

joshlegs2• 12 years ago

but they're not bird-like at all :S

noobermin• 12 years ago

Depressing, but interesting. I find it interesting that even before you have a life, you start out with hope. What does that mean, I wonder? Hope of your parents? Society (for that "someone" who will make a difference)?

aaronem• 12 years ago

I spent a while looking, but I'm pretty sure there's no actual game there.

jowiar• 12 years ago

My favorite twist in there is how little "creating" you are pushed to do...

jweir• 12 years ago

Written in Dart.

Can anyone familiar with Dart to JS explain what is going on with:

  var B=new dart
  delete B.x
  var C=new dart
  delete C.x
  ...

floitsch• 12 years ago

In JavaScript every object is basically a hashtable. In order to get acceptable performance JS engines build type descriptions ("hidden classes" or sometimes just "maps") behind your back. That is, if you create a JS object (hashtable) with fields `x` and `y` it will create a hidden class with those two fields. This way it can access the fields efficiently. See http://mrale.ph for much more information on JS engines.

These hidden classes are built on the fly: say you add `x` to a instance to get an object with a configuration that was never seen before. In that case, the engine creates a new description with that new field and remembers the transition (so that further objects with similar configurations can reuse the same hidden class).

Keeping track of these hidden classes takes time and space. If you actually use the JS object as a hashtable, then there will be lots of unnecessary hidden classes, that will never be used again. However, there is a trick to tell the engine that an object is actually a hashtable (and shouldn't be optimized as if it was an instance of a class): when deleting a field from an object v8 (and probably all other engines) assume that the object is used as a hashtable and don't create these hidden classes anymore.

Dart2js uses this trick to avoid this cost some important big hashtables (`B`, `C`, ...).

encoderer• 12 years ago

I thought it was stupid. Turned out to be slightly profound. I enjoyed that.

moskie• 12 years ago

What a simple and profound game....

I hope Notch is feeling ok.

pygy_2• 12 years ago

I hope Notch is feeling ok.

That was my first thought, and I suspect that's not the case at the moment :-\

pygy_2• 12 years ago

I'm out of the edit window, but he's actually fine :-)

https://twitter.com/mxech/status/460058856216072192

freyrs3• 12 years ago

Given the fairly nihilistic ending ( You are dead, you are forgotten, there is nothing. ), I sure hope he's OK.

angersock• 12 years ago

That's the ending everyone gets, eventually.

EGreg• 12 years ago

There is nothing to do on an iPhone it seems.

RollAHardSix• 12 years ago

End up going in circles at one point because I didn't realize I had any integrity. Similar to life indeed.

hisham_hm2• 12 years ago

Same here. I just replayed it and realized I didn't notice when exactly I got it. I had to play it for a third time to see the exact point. It made me go: "oh".

Brilliant.

MarkPNeyer• 12 years ago

can you explain? i can't understand what 'integrity' means for a toddler to get, and why would it cost knowledge.

grannyg00se• 12 years ago

You just keep clicking on whatever links show up? I'm not catching the spark.

But it reminds me of A Dark Room, which was excellent. http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/

sp3322• 12 years ago

It has potential, but I had a hard time relating to my character. I need a lover as a teenager? And 2 broken hearts to stop being a teenager? And the only way to get experience is by losing friends.

arjie• 12 years ago

At the point where I was farming friends solely so I could convert them into experience, I started questioning myself.

catshirt• 12 years ago

ages may differ but our stories are all so similar maybe the age isn't what matters.

"And 2 broken hearts to stop being a teenager? And the only way to get experience is by losing friends."

i'm not sure i directly relate to this either, but it really doesn't sound too crazy or unfamiliar.

cvbncvbncgbc• 12 years ago

Is the game deeper as it seems on the first playthrough?

Are there any harder to reach options, like having children or reaching old age?

edit: I looked in source, there are no hidden options, you will get everything on the first playthrough.

rdtsc• 12 years ago

From a personal revelation about his late father:

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/37823268132/i-love-you-dad

I remember that story and it kind of remained with me. As soon as I saw the title of the "game" I recalled this part of this story:

... turn around, see my dad being really close to the dog when all of the sudden a big chunk of ice around him breaks loose, tips over, and my dad falls in. I freak out. Then he stands up, the water only reaching about hip height.

I urge you to read the whole story.

robertfw• 12 years ago

Wow. This really struck me - what an incredible piece of art. Thank you notch, for helping me to spend some time this morning reflecting on how I want to live my life.

Theodores2• 12 years ago

I like it how there is always 'hope', from before being born to after death (until you are forgotten).

brazzy3• 12 years ago

http://www.great-art.de/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/...

Xavura• 12 years ago

After about 5 minutes, this just reminded me too much of real life and I couldn't take it anymore. As in no matter what you do, it doesn't work out... very profound.

listic• 12 years ago

Does this http://game.notch.net/drowning/packages/browser/dart.js actually run Dart? The home page looks like it has Dart scripts on a web page, but actually it does not?

bshimmin• 12 years ago

No, that script looks for scripts of type "application/dart" in the page and then tries to find a compiled-to-JavaScript version of any scripts it finds by appending ".js" to them.

It looks like the actual Dart file hasn't been uploaded - which is sensible, in a way, since browsers don't natively supports Dart right now, with the exception of Dartium (?).

wdaher• 12 years ago

Very reminiscent of Passage (http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/)

alcipir• 12 years ago

As long as you relax, make love and create, you will live forever.

Thats the message I got from it. Beautiful.

dhackner• 12 years ago

I loved that this required no instructions. Really beautiful.

robobro• 12 years ago

Cute presentation of his thoughts. Not a very fun game though.

hmgibson235• 12 years ago

What if you're Plato or Aristotle? Presumably then you never get forgotten.

jiaweihli• 12 years ago

Given that 'You are forgotten.' takes a long time to 'solve,' it could be a reflection that even the greatest will eventually be forgotten. (Say, if the human race manages to survive millions of years, and colonizes different planets light-years away.)

foulas• 12 years ago

I don't get it. The outcome doesn't seem to change, even if options are selected in a different order.

asveikau4• 12 years ago

Kind of the point, no? The outcome doesn't change in real life either, no matter how important it seems at the time what options you pick and in what order.

artyomkazak3• 12 years ago

Only if you base your evaluation of “outcome” on what will happen to you, completely ignoring the effect you've had on this world.

Which is why I am disappointed with this game and utterly false “wisdom” it's trying to convey.

xtc2• 12 years ago

Boiling every experience in life to make it nearly meaningless and lack any glimpse of context will eventually become depressing and appear highly relatable to others. Someone get this man some help.

aristidesfl• 12 years ago

Is it possible that he is not the one who needs help?

xtc2• 12 years ago

Edgy.

hanibash• 12 years ago

To me it seemed like this game actually gives a very accurate perspective of context. It reminds me a lot of [if the moon were only 1 pixel](http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...). Most of space is just pure nothingness. The fact that there is life at all is a miracle.

brazzy3• 12 years ago

One person's lack of context is another's space for imagination...

joshmcmillan• 12 years ago

I wonder if I would have done better if I'd somehow acquired a Fedora early in life...

md224• 12 years ago

This is great... I love the way it lays out popular ways of narrativizing our lives and making sense of what we need to be content. This game captures a popular narrative and popular needs, but it's also a great starting point for ruminating on how we differ from each other. For example, some of us may have little ambition or no pressing need to create and yet may be perfectly content. We should recognize our own needs as important to us while also viewing them as deeply personal and not necessarily universal.

This isn't a knock on the game in any way. I love how it cleverly expresses one man's view on what matters in his life.

xux• 12 years ago

For me, the game is more about the increasing complexity of life and the difficulty in managing it. As a toddler, all you had tow worry about was play and learn.

Pretty soon, you add in jobs, worries, lovers, heartbreaks, friendships, losing friends, money, self esteem, etc. And the more you try to optimize one area, the more you neglect the other areas, and the game becomes increasingly difficult to balance, just like life itself.

What a beautiful piece of art.

Rangi42• 12 years ago

I got to "You are dead. (Solve: -Body)" and was slightly cheered up by the fact that I would still have Hope left. Then it says "You are forgotten. (Solve: -Hope)". Great. Just great. Very realistic for such a simple game.

marbemac• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the top iOS paid app right now - A Dark Room. I wonder if he got some inspiration from that game.

hungarian-eel• 12 years ago

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

gizmo686• 12 years ago

Not really. You can farm as much stuff/money/ETC as you want.

negativity• 12 years ago

That's a reference to the movie, WarGames.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

CyberShadow2• 12 years ago

Here's the full graph of the game logic (SVG) (spoilers):

https://cdn.rawgit.com/CyberShadow/11329584/raw/5d295c9557d3...

Code: https://gist.github.com/CyberShadow/11329584

Legend:

  - Round nodes are problems
  - Rectangular nodes are things you can have
  - Gray round nodes are problems that don't go away after solving them
  - Green lines are things solving problems gives you
  - Red lines are things needed to solve a problem
  - Dotted black lines are things you need to have for a problem to appear
  - Dotted red lines are problems that disappear when a problem is solved

jebblue2• 12 years ago

Thanks that is it a dot graph? OK I see, it is. I recall (not a CS grad here either) using that on something complex I did several years ago. Your graph really puts Notch's logic and my decisions while playing his game, into perspective.

Uncompetative• 12 years ago

Wow. I didn't think this would be possible, but Notch has managed to top Minecraft.

This is even duller than that borefest.

cmapes• 12 years ago

Somehow this is extremely profound. After playing this, I feel like I need to digest my feelings for a while.

joeyh• 12 years ago

I played this for a while with redshift on, and so didn't realize that the requirements for needs were listed (in invisible red).

I think it may have actually made the game better in some ways.

sehugg• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the old Alter Ego .. sadly the JS reboot is down right now. http://jayisgames.com/archives/2010/11/alter_ego.php

DalekBaldwin• 12 years ago

Another depression-oriented game. Well, thanks to parallelization, I got to make love during work hours, so I must say my life wasn't all bad.

gpcz2• 12 years ago

At the end of every episode in "Once Upon Atari," Rob Fulop (author or co-author of Demon Attack, Night Driver, Space Invaders, and Missile Command for the 2600) talks about how many children in the 80s played thousands of hours of Atari 2600 games and the effect that it had in their psychological development. Specifically, he believed it produced a nihilistic generation due to the overarching message that "you always lose" in the end. He contrasts it to the early television he watched as a child where the overarching message was "it will all work out" in the end. He says that he thinks about this a lot, and that him and everyone at Atari is responsible for that.

wpietri• 12 years ago

That seems a little harsh. It was a nihilistic time. Missile Command was brutal, but no more so than The Day After[1]. You always lose pinball in the end, too, but nobody blames that for ruining the youth. Well, nobody in that generation. Previously, like everything else novel the youth do, it was Satan's handmaiden.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

gpcz2• 12 years ago

I agree that he's probably overestimating Atari's impact on an entire generation's psyche, but I like that a) he's indirectly reminding artists to stay conscious of the emotions their artwork provokes in people and b) that's he humble and introspective enough to accept and admit the possible negative by-products of his work.

evincarofautumn• 12 years ago

It’s positive in a way. Sure, you always lose in the end, but you can have a lot of fun in the meantime.

IvyMike• 12 years ago

More on this subject: The Creation of Missile Command and the Haunting of its Creator, Dave Theurer

Missile Command was a social commentary ahead of its time. One that resulted in the haunting of its creator through constant nightmares, punishing him with a reminder of the value of human life and just how quickly that can be taken from us.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/8/15/4528228/missile-co...

dkraft• 12 years ago

It's a one way trip. it's inevitable.

More money. More Problems.

jeandeklerk• 12 years ago

Automate the clicking with this small snippet: https://gist.github.com/jadekler/11337433. Ironically, you never move past 'teenager' if you always choose the first option available =)

colinbartlett• 12 years ago

I don't really understand what this is. There was just text that said there was nothing to solve but it had a link to click that said "Solve". I clicked it and it ran something and just said "You are not." which doesn't make sense. So I left.

pizzashark• 12 years ago

It gets more complex. Just keep solving things.

egypturnash• 12 years ago

You have:

Hope

Body

Life

Love

311 Memory

Integrity

16 Friend

Job

35 Experience

40 Respect

3 Stuff

7 Crushed Dream

6 Broken Heart

9 Project

Lover

5 Money

Knowledge

You are troubled. [Can't afford] -Integrity -Lost Ambition

You need to try harder. [Can't afford] -5 Respect -10 Stuff +Lost Ambition

Man why do I even want to buy more stuff. I have projects to complete. Yeah, so seven of them failed. Nine of them didn't. And like a good third of those memories are of making love. Yeah, time to close this browser window and get back to my RL projects. Or to some playing, it's late.

jtheory3• 12 years ago

I didn't try automation, but I noticed pretty quickly that the actions can run simultaneously -- e.g., I clicked on Play and Learn while I was reading & clicking other things, just to keep those two running as frequently as they could.

[-- until those 2 options disappeared, which I felt was too soon; why should play & learn disappear as possibilities when work and get stuff are still available? Ugh. That's not my plan!]

But a more interesting point -- I liked that while you can rapid-click to get a lot of plates spinning at once (and obviously "progress" faster in the game that way), you start missing things. E.g., I spent a minute just clicking every Solve I saw without reading carefully, and didn't notice how I gained/lost a few things.

To experience life deeply, you have to do things one at a time, in other words.

tcpekin• 12 years ago

I absolutely loved this game. In the beginning, I took my time, thought about what each [Solve] would do, and really paid attention. As more and more options popped up, I ended up clicking faster and faster. This lead to a bitter life and then death. I don't think I've ever played anything as profound as that moment, when I realized I had just rushed through life. What a game.

jtheory3• 12 years ago

The dark aspect of the flow is that this seems like a life that ends in suicide.

It's a question of interpretation, of course, but where does a retirement of any kind fit in? Not "stop work and focus on my gardening" type of retirement (which doesn't go so well for people who have defined themselves by their work!), but a switch back to more play and learning, a less rigorous schedule (and less "stuff") but more profound connections.

There's not a possible flow where "go to work" disappears, but "play" and "learn" remain.

Instead, Play/Learn drop out, as does the possibility to get a better job -- which implies that my capacity to grow fails while I'm still in my main working life; so my career will plateau while I go through "you are troubled", "you are bitter", and finally (as options disappear) "you are starting to accept".

"Accept" that I've lost the ability to learn/play and nothing but work (but with no hope of further self-improvement) and "get stuff" remains in my life? That's bleak. I can't even make new friends, apparently.

When I solve "You are starting to accept", that costs me "Life". I.e., accepting that there's nothing more I can expect from my life (in a game titled "Drowning in Problems", I end it.

Counterpoint: "Hope" is the last thing to go -- that doesn't fit with the narrative I'm describing here -- but that strikes me as a red herring, possibly intentional.

I have a bunch of interpretation to add to this -- is this a "too successful too young" anomie? Devaluation of the wisdom that comes with half a century of learning/playing because most people don't learn and play so long? Devaluation of what a relationship with another (friend or love) can be after decades of shared experience, because that doesn't seem to happen?

But yeah, I've spent enough time on HN already today.

hopfog• 12 years ago

This is Notch's (the creator of Minecraft) submission to Ludum Dare 29 where the theme is "Beneath the Surface". The competition ends tonight.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/

_mc• 12 years ago

What I learnt : We need to embrace randomness to keep life simple! Could not complete the game with a "monotonous" set of instructions;

solve(1400,$); //worked thrice under 1400

fugicolor5• 12 years ago

What if we could live forever?

jqueryin• 12 years ago

I had a physical chill after the last few steps:

    You are dead.
    You are forgotten.

My immediate thought was that I must build a legacy...

P.S. If you stick around long enough after that step, everything starts from scratch:

    There is nothing. Solve.

handyman5• 12 years ago

The first time I played through, I thought you could "Solve" only one need at a time. It made for a more interesting game and made the choices seem much more consequential.

Will you drown?

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