Moore's Machine

[sasquatchii]

Yep, it's working now, thanks!

Cool game. I like the minimal interface. The story makes a lot more sense with the courier new text, lol.

Yaaay!! So glad it worked for you! Thanks for giving it a second chance

I will say I'm still a little unclear about the mechanics of the world in the story. It sounds like you're saying (in your explanation post) that in the story the name-generating program leads to the computer gaining sentience? I guess that maybe my confusion was that when I think of name-generators, I don't necessarily think of them being sentient

I agree, it's relatively simple to create name generators— software-based tools that allow users to quickly generate a variety of names. But Moore's Machine wasn't a mere name generator! What he was trying to prompt the machine to do was to choose a name for itself. Naming something requires the ability to think, to make an autonomous choice.

How Moore asked his machine to do that (and the specifics of his code) is a complete mystery to us. All we know is that whatever he did worked! And maybe it worked a little too well xD

[infel]

Really liked this game =). I will say I don't know what my opinion is on Ai being friends with a human, but then I think of Data from Star Trek and a part of me does want that XD

[Blackrune]

Well, the fact it's short gave me no excuse not to play.

I liked the sound effects. That sigh just added to the atmosphere perfectly.
(And I somehow knew you were going for that reference. Still, well played.)
I can totally relate to Moore, naming things can be quite the pain. Clearly easier to just code something complicated to do it for you.

Overall, five minutes well spent.

[ebi-hime]

This was a nice little game, it was really well put together. I loved the minimalistic art, and the music and SFX, I think it really added to the story. It was all quite... relaxing, I think? It was just a pleasant experience, it was obvious a lot of work was put into it, short though it was! I especially liked the SFX when you hovered over buttons in the menu : D
However, when I tried to load a new game in-game, I got an error message that says 'couldn't find file images/gui/yesno_loading.png'.
There were also a few oddly constructed sentences, for example, starting dependent clauses mid-sentence with commas but finishing them with hyphens instead. Also, in one case 'as single word' was written, instead of 'a single word'.

But I liked it a lot overall, especially the graphics and sound design.

[sasquatchii]

Really liked this game =). I will say I don't know what my opinion is on Ai being friends with a human, but then I think of Data from Star Trek and a part of me does want that XD

I totally feel the same way!! Thanks so much for playing, I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed it

Overall, five minutes well spent.

Thanks so much for the kind words!

I 100% agree, naming things is hard. Especially if you're not a developer but you touch code. (And it's also part of the reason that my code tends to look horrible! Gah. xD)

However, when I tried to load a new game in-game, I got an error message that says 'couldn't find file images/gui/yesno_loading.png'. There were also a few oddly constructed sentences, for example, starting dependent clauses mid-sentence with commas but finishing them with hyphens instead. Also, in one case 'as single word' was written, instead of 'a single word'.

Thanks for playing, and thank you again for catching those mistakes (it is extremely helpful for me to know)!! I have added fixing them to my to-do list!

[Mad Harlequin]

I will say I'm still a little unclear about the mechanics of the world in the story. It sounds like you're saying (in your explanation post) that in the story the name-generating program leads to the computer gaining sentience? I guess that maybe my confusion was that when I think of name-generators, I don't necessarily think of them being sentient. It's definitely an interesting theme, though, and one that suits itself to a lot of different interpretations, like those examples you mentioned. And, of course, the 2001: Space Odyssey paraphrased quote at the end was appropriate.

Perhaps we could infer that by naming something, we make it more real---not sentient, but maybe it's a step in that direction.

Sas, this was a neat little story. It reads like a prologue to something larger. If you wanted to, you could expand it into something really deep about loneliness and technology, etc. And like Yossarian, I loved the reference at the end.

I saw some minor problems with the text, including a few misplaced commas, one improperly used semicolon, a typo created by an extra letter ("a" became "as," if I remember correctly), and bits that should have had commas added to them, but I still enjoyed reading this.