The new XCOM game is ridiculously addictive. I only managed to break my addiction by setting a sufficiently high difficulty that play became frustrating, and I’m still in danger of relapsing.
You may take this as a recommendation or a caution. :-)
Note that the higher difficulty settings introduce artificial difficulty and some tricks that might be considered “cheating”. Your soldiers start weaker, there are more aliens, the aliens get arbitrary bonuses, etc.
Thankfully, the modding community knows how to fix that*, so with a minimum of technical skill at using computers and finding instructions (finding them is much harder than reading and following the instructions, seriously), the above can be corrected if you consider them downsides, and you’ll get the full benefits of XCOM’s AI opponents without the ridiculous arbitrary modifiers.
*(Fair warning: The realm of videogame ‘modding’ can increase a game’s addiction potential exponentially. If this is something you have to watch out for, be careful.)
A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments:
If you want a free computer game that is highly delightful and not especially addictive, I recommend Cave Story. (Even in the worst case, if you feel overly compelled to play it, it’s an RPG with a finite storyline so its opportunity for damage is pretty limited.)
There really is an art to finding break activities that have a high rejuvenation rate per minute but can also be put down easily...
Before Alan Turing made his crucial contributions to the theory of computation, he studied the question of whether quantum mechanics could throw light on the nature of free will. This paper investigates the roles of quantum mechanics and computation in free will. Although quantum mechanics implies that events are intrinsically unpredictable, the ‘pure stochasticity’ of quantum mechanics adds randomness only to decision-making processes, not freedom. By contrast, the theory of computation implies that, even when our decisions arise from a completely deterministic decision-making process, the outcomes of that process can be intrinsically unpredictable, even to—especially to—ourselves. I argue that this intrinsic computational unpredictability of the decision-making process is what gives rise to our impression that we possess free will. Finally, I propose a ‘Turing test’ for free will: a decision-maker who passes this test will tend to believe that he, she, or it possesses free will, whether the world is deterministic or not.
Glitch is an excellent infinite peaceful MMORPG that involves harvesting from egg plants and making cheese from butterfly butter. After two days I vowed never to play it again lest I become addicted and die.
Is there a way I can check this game out, even though they’ve closed new account-making as they’re heading towards their shut-down?
E.g. the FAQ says “existing account holders are still able to invite people in order to create new accounts.”. Can one of you account-holders please so invite me?
Haven’t tried the game yet, but mostly because the gameplay videos I watched and the overall concept remind me enormously of the Harvest Moon series (and spinoffs and fan-remakes), which gave me an urge to resume my latest save of Rune Factory 3.
Note: Most Harvest Moon games are peaceful; the Rune Factory spinoffs are not—at least, not entirely. There’s combat, though the storyline / dialogue insists upon the fact that nothing you “beat” actually dies… this doesn’t change the fact that you’re beating up monsters until they disappear, from a gameplay and visual standpoint).
TL;DR: Harvest Moon seems similar to this, and is generally single-player, and has a fixed storyline, so they’ve got much less potential for long-term time-wasting.
I found the addictiveness to fall off after a few days of play (as the time horizon of my ingame goals stretched out). I now find it a good activity for winding down in the evening or filling odd-sized/unpredictable bits of time.
I mean that for a few days it looked like it was going to eat my life, and then it stopped. Had it carried on being as compulsive as it was at first, I would classify it as addictive-for-me. It did something else instead. (Was that really unclear?)
It was clear that the word “compulsive” would work perfectly.and that we have inflated “addictive” enough that is used in contexts that make me double take at the irony of the contrast between the usage and the actual meaning.
Addictive means “creates compulsion which increases with use”, right? So it’s addictive at first and then compulsive but not addictive and then neither.
Other Media Thread
The new XCOM game is ridiculously addictive. I only managed to break my addiction by setting a sufficiently high difficulty that play became frustrating, and I’m still in danger of relapsing.
You may take this as a recommendation or a caution. :-)
Note that the higher difficulty settings introduce artificial difficulty and some tricks that might be considered “cheating”. Your soldiers start weaker, there are more aliens, the aliens get arbitrary bonuses, etc.
Thankfully, the modding community knows how to fix that*, so with a minimum of technical skill at using computers and finding instructions (finding them is much harder than reading and following the instructions, seriously), the above can be corrected if you consider them downsides, and you’ll get the full benefits of XCOM’s AI opponents without the ridiculous arbitrary modifiers.
*(Fair warning: The realm of videogame ‘modding’ can increase a game’s addiction potential exponentially. If this is something you have to watch out for, be careful.)
Since we still don’t have a lectures/talks thread I put it here:
http://fora.tv/conference/the_singularity_summit_2012/buy_programs
The Singularity Summit 2012
Content:
Singularity Summit: Opening Remarks with Nathan Labenz
Temple Grandin: How Different People Think Differently
Singularity Summit: Olah, Deming & Other Thiel Fellows
Julia Galef: Rationality and the Future
Luke Muehlhauser: The Singularity, Promise and Peril
Linda Avey: Personal Genomics
Steven Pinker: A History of Vio
Ray Kurzweil: How to Create a Mind
Q&A: Economist Daniel Kahneman, the Pioneer of Heuristics
Melanie Mitchell: AI and the Barrier of Meaning
Author Carl Zimmer: Our Viral Future
Robin Hanson: Extraordinary Society of Emulated Minds
Jaan Tallinn: Why Now? A Quest in Metaphysics
John Wilbanks: Your Health, Your Data, Your Choices
Stuart Armstrong: How We’re Predicting AI
Vernor Vinge: Who’s Afraid of First Movers?
Peter Norvig: Channeling the Flood of Data
I’d love to get these as audio files. I’d even volunteer to transcribe them if that were to happen.
Funny strip about seeing yourself as an NPC.
A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments:
http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/
If you want a free computer game that is highly delightful and not especially addictive, I recommend Cave Story. (Even in the worst case, if you feel overly compelled to play it, it’s an RPG with a finite storyline so its opportunity for damage is pretty limited.)
There really is an art to finding break activities that have a high rejuvenation rate per minute but can also be put down easily...
I am terribly amused by the parody Nate Silver twitter feed:
I don’t know how to feel about this.
Lloyd, A Turing Test for Free Will:
Glitch is an excellent infinite peaceful MMORPG that involves harvesting from egg plants and making cheese from butterfly butter. After two days I vowed never to play it again lest I become addicted and die.
Is there a way I can check this game out, even though they’ve closed new account-making as they’re heading towards their shut-down?
E.g. the FAQ says “existing account holders are still able to invite people in order to create new accounts.”. Can one of you account-holders please so invite me?
Glitch is shutting down: http://www.glitch.com/closing/
So you probably could’ve played it just as much as you pleased, since a power greater than you determined how long you would play...
Haven’t tried the game yet, but mostly because the gameplay videos I watched and the overall concept remind me enormously of the Harvest Moon series (and spinoffs and fan-remakes), which gave me an urge to resume my latest save of Rune Factory 3.
Note: Most Harvest Moon games are peaceful; the Rune Factory spinoffs are not—at least, not entirely. There’s combat, though the storyline / dialogue insists upon the fact that nothing you “beat” actually dies… this doesn’t change the fact that you’re beating up monsters until they disappear, from a gameplay and visual standpoint).
TL;DR: Harvest Moon seems similar to this, and is generally single-player, and has a fixed storyline, so they’ve got much less potential for long-term time-wasting.
I found the addictiveness to fall off after a few days of play (as the time horizon of my ingame goals stretched out). I now find it a good activity for winding down in the evening or filling odd-sized/unpredictable bits of time.
Addictiveness? Falls off after a few days? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Do we still call it inflationary if the word actually means something close the opposite of that which it is used for?
I mean that for a few days it looked like it was going to eat my life, and then it stopped. Had it carried on being as compulsive as it was at first, I would classify it as addictive-for-me. It did something else instead. (Was that really unclear?)
It was clear that the word “compulsive” would work perfectly.and that we have inflated “addictive” enough that is used in contexts that make me double take at the irony of the contrast between the usage and the actual meaning.
Addictive means “creates compulsion which increases with use”, right? So it’s addictive at first and then compulsive but not addictive and then neither.
...Damn you. I just spend two hours of my life squeezing chickens and milking butterflies.