
Snakisms - colinprince
https://pippinbarr.github.io/SNAKISMS/
======
jashkenas
This is delightful.

I only wish that someone would put it into a nondescript arcade cabinet in a
hallway somewhere, so that people could stumble across it unprepared.

 _Edit:_ Naturally, it turns out that Mr. Barr has a PhD in this sort of
thing, and that his thesis has to do with how we demonstrate our values during
the course of playing video games.
[http://www.pippinbarr.com/academic/Pippin_Barr_PhD_Thesis.pd...](http://www.pippinbarr.com/academic/Pippin_Barr_PhD_Thesis.pdf)

~~~
problems
It's not so much focused on demonstrating your own values so much as it's
about UI and the conduct that the UI is able to generate through cause and
effect.

Like in GTA, do you try to talk our your problems or do you shoot first and
ask questions later? The UI will repeatedly encourage you to shoot first and
players will learn that, because if you won't, your enemies will.

This is the definition of value they're using, which I guess applies in this
case: "A value is an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct is
preferable to other potential modes of conduct".

Seems like a weird use of the word "values" to me as it's essentially about
being able to figure out how it's best to progress rather than moral beliefs
as the term may imply for many people.

EDIT: Yet they try to mix these interchangeably in the paper, with examples
like "a value of PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT means that we will choose to put
out the recycling on Tuesday evening, rather than put all our plastic in with
the regular trash." \- the reason you believe that is probably not because you
stopped progressing and there was nothing else to do. I suppose this is the
distinction between "video game values" and real world values. But I think
it's important to note the lack of overlap and reasoning, which I'm not sure
this paper does. Though maybe it does say something about our real world
values changing to get the job done.

~~~
komali2
But maybe after learning there would be subtle difference in play between
different players, based on their values. Just like after you learn the rules
of the world and are an adult, you act differently.

So for example I really just _cannot_ bring myself to play a "dick" character
in games like Fallout 4, Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc, but I know plenty of people
who delight in it.

~~~
problems
See - this isn't what they're discussing at all, it seems to be what they're
trying to imply with the naming, but it's not actually that at all. They're
discussing game mechanics that force you to say - shoot some cops. Is it
dickish to shoot cops in GTA?

I don't think people's real world values have much if any influence on their
play style. Ultimately playing Skyrim and Fallout for stealth and one hit
kills will dictate a lot more the decisions I make than their moral value to
me. I need to make certain decisions in order to optimize my build, so I'll
make those decisions whether I like the values they show or not and whether
they're consistent or not. I kill for weapons and armor, I steal for cash,
etc.

~~~
tarsinge
> I kill for weapons and armor, I steal for cash, etc.

It's funny like the parent I cannot bring myself to do that to "innocents" in
games like Skyrim, even if the game reward it, I need to really force myself
to roleplay to start letting my values step back

------
brilliantcode
Existentialism performed exactly like I imagined. Endless banality of reality
symbolized by continuing borders.

I had to switch it off because I started to project myself to this small
square pixel that elongates in the backdrop of pitch dark oblivion staring
back into my empty soul.

~~~
weinzierl
You must be a true Existentialist then. I quickly committed suicide out of
curiosity.

 _" Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux: c'est le suicide"_
I guess.

~~~
brilliantcode
A true Existentialist marvels at the thought of having the option of choosing
the time, place and method of erasing oneself.

But the instance suicide is committed, he is no longer an existentialist.

It's better to be an existentialist as long as possible. Even if it becomes
absurd. To maintain life is to maintain my philosophy. Suicide is forfeiture
of the very thing existentialists cling on to-their ego created as a defence
mechanism against all man created banalities.

p.s. I am talking out of my ass.

------
kderbe
He's made a few other "variations on a classic" games:

[http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/breaksout/](http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/breaksout/)

[http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/pongs/Pongs.html](http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/pongs/Pongs.html)

------
scardine
I guess I don't know enough philosophy to understand some of the jokes.

Anthropomorphism: the apple moves like the snake, man was made to the image of
god and so on.

Apocalypticism: the game just ends after a few moves without notice.

Asceticism: the game ends if you eat the apple, you are supposed to be like a
faquir.

Capitalism: you start the game with 50, spend 10 each apple you eat - when you
are broke you can't afford the apple.

Casualism: I had to Google this one, the screen just flashes with random
squares.

Conservatism: just the plain old snakes game.

Determinism: the snake just moves by itself and you are unable to control the
game - your destiny was set in stone the moment you were born.

Dualism: you can control the snake body with the regular controls, and you can
move the snake mind with your mind. My mind is too weak so I was unable to
move the snake mind.

Existentialism: you move the snake in a dark screen - after reading the
wikipedia I guess the joke has to do with freedom in a meaningless world.

Holism: the whole screen moves with the snake (makes it very hard to get the
apples in the corners)

Idealism: imagine you are playing a game of snakes

Monism: your play is not restrained by the walls - after reading it I guess
the joke is about you being made of the same substance of god or something
like that

Narcissism: when you finish the game it sends an email to the creator about
how much you love his work.

Nihilism: just a black screen, no snake, no apples - nothing in the world
really exists.

Optimism: you see apples everywhere but looks like they are not nourishing
because the snake doesn't grow.

Pessimism: the play field is smaller and the apples appear outside of the
walls where you are unable to reach.

Positivism: you see only a narrow part of the play field, I guess the joke is
that you are unable to know the universe because our senses are limited.

Post-apocalypticism: no apples, you just move through a scrambled play field.

Romanticism: every time you eat an apple you see a cheeky statement like "food
tastes like ashes when I'm not sharing it with you".

Stoicism: like a plain old snake game but you don't die when you hit the walls
or yourself - after reading the wikipedia article I guess the joke is that
virtue is sufficient for happiness, so the sage is immune to misfortune.

Utilitarianism: you have only two very narrow paths, one with 5 apples and
other with one apple. If you take the one with more apples you win, otherwise
you loose.

~~~
david-given
Positivism's actually quite interesting from a game design point of view ---
because you can only see in front of you, you can't tell where your snake is
or how big it is; so you're playing blindly, waiting for that moment when you
get long enough that you start glimpsing parts of your own tail coming out of
the darkness... it genuinely adds new interest to a really tired old game.

(Although, UI-wise, I'd like the play area to distinguish between spaces which
you can see but don't contain anything and spaces which you can't see.)

~~~
TeMPOraL
A good joke would be if the game filled all the invisible fields with apples
that would disappear when they became visible.

[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3307](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3307)

------
ronilan
Game URL from author's site:

[https://www.pippinbarr.com/2017/01/25/snakisms/](https://www.pippinbarr.com/2017/01/25/snakisms/)

 _Life is meaningless!_

------
pippinbarr
Holy crap. So many comments. I'm going to read all of these!

~~~
Beltiras
How many narcissistic emails have you received?

------
valine
I love how the optimisitic snake never gets any bigger.

~~~
thomk
Hahah! I didn't notice that!

------
diegorbaquero
The games awesome. Capitalism: "You can't afford the apple". Excellent. I
didn't like the auto mail.

~~~
striking
Did it actually automatically email for you? For me it just popped up a window
to compose an email, with some content filled in.

And personally, I thought it was brilliant. I played that level for a solid
few minutes trying to figure out what the twist was.

~~~
kalleboo
Safari popped up a dialog that said "This page has been blocked from
automatically composing an email." with an option to allow it anyway

------
jug
I wish Pessimism would have let the snake move outside the constrained bounds.
That would have told the player that pessimism may be painting a darker
"reality" than what it really is.

~~~
platz
Pessimists consistently assign more accurate estimates on outcomes than
optimists.

~~~
Wizek
[citation needed]

~~~
platz
[http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/dont-
worry-...](http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/dont-worry-be-
happy)

------
justaguyonline
Beautiful, I loved the "value" aspect of it, but I found the simple, but good
game design the best part. A lot of people know to have a chime play when you
pick up an "apple" in games for pavlovian reasons, but fewer would add that
nice hum that movement created in general. It makes moving through space both
a visual and auditory experience.

------
msluyter
Some other possibilities:

Socialism: there are two snakes, and the 10 points for eating an apple gets
split between them.

Communism: the game starts as Capitalism with two snakes, but then the game
switches to Socialism, and the 50$ (or remainder) gets expropriated and split
between the two snakes.

Late Communism: Starts like Communism, but more and more points for apples get
allocated to the AI snake (and fewer to you) because it's a member of the
communist party.

Late Late Communism: Like Late Communism, but eventually no more apples
appear. Game implodes and turns back into Capitalism, but the party member
snake has all the money.

Platonism: another game runs in parallel alongside this one, but the snake is
perfect and the highest possible score is obtained.

------
dsego
How to get out of nihilism?

~~~
ursus_bonum
Indeed.

------
thomk
Suddenly I regret all of my lifes choices that led me to doing anything but
becoming Pippin Barr.

------
trop
Then there is Ze Frank's classic trilogy:

[http://www.zefrank.com/christian/](http://www.zefrank.com/christian/)
[http://www.zefrank.com/buddhist/](http://www.zefrank.com/buddhist/)
[http://www.zefrank.com/atheist/](http://www.zefrank.com/atheist/)

------
mikeash
I started out by randomly clicking on Idealism and couldn't figure out what
the joke was supposed to be. Trying another one made it click, though!

------
nsxwolf
Utilitarianism made me laugh.

------
ctoth
I have no idea what this is, as the entire page just shows up as completely
blank to my screen reader. Guessing some sort of game.

~~~
wlesieutre
It's little games based on Snake for various "isms":

For a couple of examples, the dualism version says "Arrows control snake body.
Mind controls snake mind." and utilitarianism gives you two dead-end paths,
one with 1 food and one with 5 food. Stoicism lets you run into walls and just
sit there without losing.

~~~
scribu
In stoicism, you can carry on after hitting the wall by making a turn.

------
pashariger
This is fantastic. Thank you!

Really enjoyed the Stoicism & Narcissism versions.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This person's other work is great too. I'm currently deriving much amusement
from _Game Studies_.

------
simplehuman
Is there an online gorilla.bas :-) ?

~~~
kmill
Funny you should ask. I translated it to Javascript a few months ago, fixing a
couple of bugs in the original game in the process[1]:
[http://www.kylem.net/stuff/gorilla/gorilla.html](http://www.kylem.net/stuff/gorilla/gorilla.html)

[1] and surely introducing a couple bugs of my own. I almost got it pixel-
perfect, but I couldn't figure out QBasic's arc-drawing algorithm! (And the
"slow rendering" is artificial delays. Because whole frames are drawn at a
time with HTML5, you have to do something on purpose to get the slow city
drawing effect.)

~~~
speeder
I think I found a bug the original game didn't had (or my dad fixed on my
version...), but suiciding results in you getting the score. (example: I
suicided as "player 2", the "player 1" made his victory dance, but the score
counted 1 point for player 2)

~~~
kmill
Thanks! Scorekeeping was always a part of the code I was unsure about, and I
thought I saw some scoring inaccuracies while playing the game, but somehow
never identified what they were.

If you're curious, the HITSELF constant in the original game is 1, but I was
testing a boolean against HITSELF using strict equality (===). Thus, you were
just scored based on how many gorillas you hit with a banana.

(fixed)

------
dahart
So good, abstract concept art in such a cute video game package. I can't play
it for that long, but getting through the list feels more meaningful than if
I'd spent two weeks mastering an amazing high score.

I think romanticism had me laughing the hardest.

------
rhardih
Nihilism made me chuckle.

------
soheil
Stoicism, you could never do anything to lose.

~~~
octohedron
Yes you can trap yourself making an inward spiral and then you can't do
anything so it's game over.

~~~
zardo
It's only game over if you give up.

------
AJRF
Here is what they all mean, saves you opening a bunch of tabs:
[https://airtable.com/shrfy8qWla6qIviin](https://airtable.com/shrfy8qWla6qIviin)

------
overcast
Pretty rad existential, abstract art. Only missing the really abstract
"kidism" in my opinion :) [https://kidisms.com](https://kidisms.com)

------
lemez9
This is a lovely tech equivalent of the immortal
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercises_in_Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercises_in_Style)

------
Cofike
This reminds me a lot of these neat little socratic games.

[http://gregkarber.com/philo/](http://gregkarber.com/philo/)

~~~
twic
Molleindustria is also worth a look, although they're coming from a slightly
different direction. The gospel in eight bits and ten seconds:

[http://www.molleindustria.org/runjesusrun/run_jesus_run.html](http://www.molleindustria.org/runjesusrun/run_jesus_run.html)

And "Kosmosis: a communist space shooter is an arcade game from an alternate
present where non-degenerated socialist values are hegemonic", and which is
more fun than that sounds:

[http://www.molleindustria.org/kosmosis/kosmosis.html](http://www.molleindustria.org/kosmosis/kosmosis.html)

------
gpawl
Is Conservatism the same as the classic Snake game? That makes sense, but it
would be interesting to see it contrasted against a Progressivism or
Liberalism version.

~~~
jerf
It's philosophical conservatism, not political conservatism. The Snake game
works as it is, why change it?

Of course the rest of the work is itself a rather potent rebuttal to that
idea. In the context of the Snake game, at least.

~~~
mos_basik
>The Snake game works as it is, why change it?

Ahhh, thank you. I was having some trouble figuring that one out but you
summarized things nicely.

------
thraway2016
This is a blank white page in Chromium. No JS errors in the console. When
switching from this tab to another tab and back again, the contents of the
prior tab are partially clipped into a top-centered rectangle. No
functionality or other behavior can be observed.

~~~
seba_dos1
Check the WebGL support in your browser.

------
gregorymichael
Narcissism is particularly well done.

------
nojvek
On a mobile phone. Using the swipe gesture was incredibly difficult. I missed
a lot and quickly gave up.

My be just track motion of fingers for movement? It would provide a more time
accurate interface. Otherwise it looked really cool. I love arcades.

------
RyanMcGreal
Positivism is particularly clever.

~~~
metaphorm
and particularly difficult as well. amazing how ragged and dysfunctional the
universe becomes if we don't allow ourselves to make certain assumptions.

------
noisy_boy
Holism: some goals are just unattainable.

Optimism: as your progress in your life, it just fills up with music no matter
whereever you go.

Stoicism: I think the snake should have kept the same size whether it ate an
Apple or not.

------
jstrassburg
Excellent. Now I want to make one illustrating different logical fallacies.

------
pippinbarr
Holy crap so many comments. I'm going to read them all.

------
lai
Wow! This is such a fun way to remember these concepts.

------
oon
I've never really thought that snake could be used as an art form before. I
have been truly enlightened

------
saurik
The "swipes control snake" interface for this is extremely difficult to
control... it seems like the swipes only register if you swipe while on the
snake, which means to do fast movements you have to keep your finger hovering
in front of the very thing you need to see constantly, and even then it isn't
like a swipe is remotely a fast action you can perform (particularly as it
seems to only register moderately long and deliberate swipes).

~~~
comex
You don't have to swipe on the snake. (I agree it's somewhat annoying to
control, though.)

------
hnal943
I just found out this week that my wife has never played snake, and is
unfamiliar with the concept.

------
r0m4n0
Reminds me of the underlying themes behind Binding of Isaac. Also a
brilliantly simple yet addictive game

------
kevindication
Something I don't get to say every day: Nihilism made me smile.

------
behnamoh
Undoubtedly the best set of games I've played in so long!

Really great stuff and mind-tinkling :)

Kudos

------
Fiahil
I wonder how many "narcissistic" email did he received..

------
goldesel
Great game, but why does it consume soooo much CPU?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
JavaScript, probably.

More serious answer: it's using HTML5 canvas, which is quite inefficient as
rendering APIs go. For example, if you use _n_ colours when rendering a frame,
and your game runs at _m_ frames per second, you are invoking the browser's
CSS parser n×m times a second, because CSS colour strings are the _only_ way
to express colours, and it is an exclusively immediate-mode API.

The engine in use might be layering on top additional inefficiencies.

(I love how easy to use HTML5 canvas is, but its CPU usage, performance and
power consumption properties make me want to cry.)

~~~
Scaevolus
That's only if you switch colors frequently. Canvas can be quite efficient.

It's irrelevant here-- the game is using Phaser, which can render as either
Canvas or WebGL (WebGL in my case), but it's spending most of it's time in
engine code updating _expensive_ transforms every frame.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Ah, I see. I did check the source to see if it was using canvas 2D, but I
failed to check if it wasn't using WebGL.

------
simondedalus
very good. dualism and pessimism particularly funny. like the overall design
too.

------
Lapsa
started with 'Nihilism' and thought 'what da hell?!!'

------
hex13
some options like Apocalypticism seem normal, without any special effects.

~~~
asp2insp
For Apocalypticism you randomly die at some point for no reason. For me it
happened around 40 points

~~~
Namrog84
I died randomly before reaching the first food.

------
kkajanaku
Monism is great.

------
revskill
How to win ?

------
cust0m
no comunism/anarchism?

~~~
beaconstudios
communism wouldn't really make sense with a single agent, and I guess
anarchism would just have an apple shoot you for violating NAP (and/or for
fun).

~~~
cust0m
lol, ancaps aren't anarchists although they claim to be

~~~
beaconstudios
I think it's fair to say they are, although I included the "(and/or for fun)"
to cover the usual kind of anarchy.

------
mk89
optimism! LOL!

------
alexmlamb2
#im14andthisisdeep

------
necessity
Site doesn't load without javascript.

~~~
d33
You're welcome to create a CSS-only version, since CSS is Turing complete ;)

