
Will you drown? - jebblue
http://game.notch.net/drowning/#
======
rdtsc
From a personal revelation about his late father:

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

------
gpcz
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
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After)

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

~~~
tripzilch
Indeed. To paraphrase Alan Watts, life isn't like a pilgrimage with a very
important goal at the end, it's more like a musical thing, and you are
supposed to laugh and sing and dance throughout, not just wait for the final
chord.

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

[https://cdn.rawgit.com/CyberShadow/11329584/raw/5d295c9557d3...](https://cdn.rawgit.com/CyberShadow/11329584/raw/5d295c9557d31d0225791d39c82e5035f59b47f1/drowning.svg)

Code:
[https://gist.github.com/CyberShadow/11329584](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

~~~
jebblue
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.

------
robertfw
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.

------
md224
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
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.

------
jffry
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.)

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

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

~~~
elinchrome
I wasn't aware that clicking different things in different orders affected the
outcome. I have just been clicking solve every time it comes up and not
reading the captions.

~~~
CyberShadow
> I wasn't aware that clicking different things in different orders affected
> the outcome.

I don't think it does.

Here's the relevant part of the (dart2js'd but slightly cleaned-up) code:

[https://gist.github.com/CyberShadow/11329584](https://gist.github.com/CyberShadow/11329584)

Edit: I made a full graph of the entire game:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7652770](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7652770)

~~~
hellbreakslose
yes that version 2 if u open up the original js ull see bazzillion ifs

------
grannyg00se
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/](http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/)

~~~
sp332
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.

~~~
catshirt
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.

~~~
sp332
I guess it means that moving on usually requires leaving friends behind, and
not that experience requires some kind of drama or even explicit un-friending.
But the presentation makes it seem like losing friends causes gaining
experience instead of the other way around.

------
moskie
What a simple and profound game....

I hope Notch is feeling ok.

~~~
pygy_
> I hope Notch is feeling ok.

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

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

[https://twitter.com/mxech/status/460058856216072192](https://twitter.com/mxech/status/460058856216072192)

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

Thats the message I got from it. Beautiful.

------
tcpekin
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.

------
cvbncvbncgbc
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.

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

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

~~~
hisham_hm
I think it's more the fact that this one is "hidden" in the beginning than
anything else, but there are possible rationalizations one might conjecture as
to why at that age.

------
jweir
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
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](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`, ...).

------
wdaher
Very reminiscent of Passage
([http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/](http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/))

------
jtheory
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.

------
DalekBaldwin
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.

------
noobermin
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)?

------
caio1982
Still trying to figure out what exactly this is, but it's totally addictive.
Which is odd.

~~~
biot
It's a skinner box disguised as a game.

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

~~~
jblow
Sorry, but you are playing some really shitty games, then.

------
jtheory
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.

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

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

function solve(i, selector) { if(i > 0) { if(selector('a' ||
Math.floor((Math.random()*100)+1) % 3 == 0) == null){ setTimeout(function(){
solve(i,selector);}, 1000); } else { selector('a').click();
solve(i-1,selector); } } }

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

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

------
listic
Does this
[http://game.notch.net/drowning/packages/browser/dart.js](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
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 (?).

------
hopfog
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/](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/)

------
egypturnash
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.

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

------
teddyknox
This is more art than game.

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

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

~~~
walrus

      ornithological = relating to birds
      or  tho  gonal = perpendicular/independent

------
Xavura
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.

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

~~~
Theodores
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.

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

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

------
jqueryin
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.

------
Rangi42
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.

------
handyman5
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.

------
joeyh
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.

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

~~~
gizmo686
Not really. You can farm as much stuff/money/ETC as you want.

~~~
negativity
That's a reference to the movie, WarGames.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames)

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

~~~
brazzy
[http://www.great-
art.de/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/...](http://www.great-
art.de/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/a/balloon_png.png)

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

------
dhackner
I loved that this required no instructions. Really beautiful.

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

~~~
asveikau
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.

~~~
artyomkazak
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.

~~~
asveikau
I thought about this as I wrote my reply, and concluded that yes it's
important, but that too is usually a rounding error.

I'm all for feeling good about what you've done in the world, but for most of
us whose names aren't going to be repeated for centuries it's a drop in the
ocean and only becomes less relevant over time.

Even something like parenting, which I don't think any of us will argue is not
important. Each generation that goes by, your relative contribution is halved.
I'll bet most of us can't tell very many stories about great-grandparents, for
example. And we have twice as many great-great-grandparents, etc., which even
fewer of us will be able to keep track of. So even as a father, while I try to
do the best job I can, I have to admit that's going to happen to me too, and
any impact I can have through parenting is going to be blended with an
exponentially growing set of people. That's not bad, that's just how it works.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy life or be ambitious or do a good job in
the things that you do, or that helping people and doing big things is not
worth it, but at some point we'll all likely have to humbly admit it: we
aren't as important on the individual scale as some would like or expect.

~~~
artyomkazak
> Each generation that goes by, your relative contribution is halved.

I prefer a different way of measuring contribution: suppose that (for
simplicity) the checkpoints on the progress of humanity are fixed and the only
difference you can make is to delay or accelerate reaching the next
checkpoint. Your contribution is how much time you've won or lost for
humanity. Then contribution stops being relative – if you've made future
happen five years earlier, this is _permanent_ , period. Your children and
grand-children will arrive into their respective futures five years earlier,
too, because of you.

> that too is usually a rounding error.

There are no rounding errors! Why do you think that just because you can see
how much you've influenced _one_ person thru parenting, but can't see how you
influenced _the entire world_ thru your actions, the first influence is
somehow “bigger”? Yes, it's epsilon, but it's epsilon × world. And the world
is big.

(By the by, the same logic applies to voting – yes, your contribution to the
final decision is small, but since the decision itself is so important, in the
end your contribution doesn't turn out to be less than contributions from your
other decisions.)

~~~
asveikau
Fair points. My "devil's advocate" type of stance would be that for every
person who brings the future 5 years early, there are millions more who don't,
some of them not for lack of trying, others might not even get to try due to
circumstance (health, socioeconomic status, etc.). Those who succeed by your
"5 years early" definition are eclipsed by the people who 30 years later set
the world ahead 100 years, or whatever, and so on...

Take a long enough view and maybe humanity meets some crisis and gets set back
or stops altogether - is that 5 years going to matter then? It sounds
defeatist and negative but IMO a valid question.

I'm not going to fault you or anyone for trying to be in that category that
sets the world ahead N years, but there is also no shame in being part of the
much larger group who lives and dies without accomplishing it, or in admitting
that it's very rare to get there.

~~~
PeterisP
5 years is not the timeframe to think about - how about 5 minutes?
Approximately every 5 minutes someone dies from cancer. We might at some point
cure cancer - if so, accelerating that point by 5 minutes is equivalent to
saving a life, and if your actions cause that point to be delayed by 5
minutes, than that's essentially murder.

Think about it. Most people don't have any effect on that whatsoever, but
there are many publicly visible people in medicine, politics, tech, research
and finance that _do_ have a much larger impact on it than 5 minutes.

And cancer is just one tiny part of it all. I believe that at some point in
future we might reach an event where we eliminate almost all death as such; or
an event where we destroy ourselves completely. A somewhat cynical implication
of this could be, playing the devils advocate, that there are exactly two
kinds of actions (and people?) - those that change some +/\- epsilon to one of
these two events, and those that are irrelevant.

~~~
asveikau
> A somewhat cynical implication of this could be, playing the devils
> advocate, that there are exactly two kinds of actions (and people?) - those
> that change some +/\- epsilon to one of these two events, and those that are
> irrelevant.

I was with you until somewhere around here. As I said I don't see any shame
that one might be in the "irrelevant" group. Maybe you tried and failed. Maybe
something else prevented you from doing that. Maybe you just didn't have it in
you. It seems wrong get judgmental on that.

~~~
PeterisP
I'd believe the key difference is in the possibility. Like, if I'm peacefully
watching a sunset while a kid drowns on the other side of the world, then it's
not shameful in any way; but if I'm peacefully watching a sunset on a beach
while a kid is drowning next to me, then people _should_ be judgemental.

It's perfectly understandable that most (perhaps even 99+%?) of the global
population won't have any non-local influence, and that's okay, it can't
reasonably be much different. However, there are things that scale, and they
have a disproportionally large effect. For example, politicians are a
particular group who can have huge long-term impact even as unintentional side
effects; so are public NGOs. And many of them are intentionally doing things
that cause delay in much-needed technologies or increase risk of us killing
ourselves - I'd say that this is equivalent to [mass-]murder, even if the
deaths are not specific, named individuals but "just a statistic"; and not
today but a bit in the future. Perhaps we should be _more_ judgemental about
that, instead of agreeing to disagree.

------
fugicolor5
What if we could live forever?

------
hmgibson23
What if you're Plato or Aristotle? Presumably then you never get forgotten.

~~~
jiaweihli
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.)

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

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

More money. More Problems.

------
EGreg
There is nothing to do on an iPhone it seems.

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

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

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

~~~
xtc
Edgy.

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

This is even duller than that borefest.

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

------
colinbartlett
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
It gets more complex. Just keep solving things.

