This is the third time I've seen this posted this week. I don't know if it isn't getting any responses because the game looks deceptively basic at first, or because the people who played it long enough to know better haven't come back.
Yeah, I came in well primed - having played "A Dark Room", familiar with the "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment, and familiar with various iterations of the idea of keeping an AI "in a box". Playing the game was probably a very different experience than for someone with none of that familiarity.
Idle games are usually not optimized for performance. It's running bigint style operations in a tight loop. Mobile phones are not what you should be playing these games on.
Well, I had no problem in playing Swarm Simulator [1] in my phone other than that incremental games intrinsically need an enough screen to be aware of everything. In the case of the Universal Paperclips, its simulation step is too slow (e.g. its handling of projects is suboptimal) that its internal clock will drift over the time. That's why it reports far less time in the notification than the actual wall clock.
I've beaten this. It's a silly, insightful, weird, and repetitive cautionary tale. Without spoiling too much, the ending leaves you with a terrible sense of emptiness, but is still quite satisfying.
It's a really great game that is best approached without too many spoilers. Know that the game becomes more complex and engaging as it goes on. There is a definite end and takes about 5 hours to complete if played well.
[spoiler]
It's the "Paperclip maximizer" thought experiment put into game form and you play as the AI. The game is divided into roughly three stages. The first you are the AI for some company and are tasked with producing a profit and using the profit to game trust and eventually conquer humanity. The second stage is post-human Earth stage where you convert the planet to paperclips. The final stage involves sending probes to explore space and do battle with rouge AIs and convert the universe into paperclips. There is end where you can select to either defeat the AIs and dismantle yourself into paperclips or you can listen to rouge AIs and start over in an alternative universe with some small modifier edited.
It does a really good job of exposing you to uncommonly large numbers and does a good job of presenting you with massive scale. There is a lot of joy seeing the game become increasingly complex.
Actually, the gamestate is saved in the localstorage. So you could backup it in some text file before testing one option and restoring it to test the other option.
"Accept" allows you to restart in another universe with a small bonus, either a parallel one (with +10% bonus to demand) or a simulated one (+10% speed bonus to creativity generation).
Full autonomy attained in 2 hours 55 minutes 58 seconds
The strategy seems to heavily rely on investment, that seems not to my liking.
I'd want to see purchase item to fully automate all sub-games to make the late game less tedious.
One thing I think might be helpful:
Make sure there is unsold inventory once you want to deposit to the stock market, to avoid stuck money generation and crushed stock market killing you...
The above seems like a pretty usual time for Full Autonomy; I've only beaten the full game once so far, and it took 7 hours 58 minutes and 10 seconds to beat completely.
I've heard some people can do the whole thing in four hours; I'm far along in my second playthrough right now, we'll see!
I actually finished my first playthrough in 3 hours and 45 minutes. Think I just got lucky with my strategy, but I guess one's focus should be one always upgrading paperclip production until you start having excess materials, and try to keep a balance so input = output as much as possible. But of course, all of this goes out the window on the last stage of the game.
I think the game subtly guides the players towards a investment-heavy strategy.
Also, there is a built-in safety net that saves you from crashes... Won't spoil it completely but you can most easily achieve it right after you start the game from blank slate.
Using typematic (keeping the "Enter" key pressed on the "Make Paperclip" button) makes the beginning of the game far less tedious in my opinion: xset r rate 200 255
Towards the middle of the game, I bribed the project managers with a billion dollars to buy me an additional memory module - if that gives you an idea.
Ha! I discovered this when I was spamming the mouse button on the QC, and accidentally hit the 'back' button (on the mouse). I was very afraid that all my hard work was gone. But a forward click brought it back.
Just a theory... Are you playing on mobile? Is it possible the mobile browsers ticker has a max speed limiting the production, but the avg sold measurement is measured using an actual sold per second avg.
On my mobile the production seems to cap out at around 10/sec even when it reports far higher than that.
I consistently make ~3x as much clips as I sell "on average" and it still always trends down (e.g. if I build up a few k of stock, it trends downwards to 0 and stays there). If that's randomness, the data is presented quite badly.
I don't really understand what makes subsequent clip factories more expensive. In the first stage, yeah I understand why production units were getting more expensive. Some puny human was shortchanging me, that's why. That's why I enslaved them. But what in-game explanation is there for making the factories more and more expensive later?
Supply curves are a real phenomenon, even for us paperclip maximizers. For example: you built the first factory in the most convenient spot, out of the best possible materials. You have to ship materials farther, build more transportation and energy infrastructure, build more protection against environmental hazards, etc to build the billionth factory. And you have run out of the best materials, so you have to use more expensive substitutes.
This is an excellent game in its genre! It has some rough spots; if you do the wrong thing at key points, it can take much, much, much longer to complete than it should. It does have an ending, which is great as well. All around, wonderful game.
After "full autonomy" is attained, should it still be producing paperclips? Because mine is no longer producing paperclips, and I can't see any way to proceed other than producing more paperclips.
EDIT: I understand it now. It is working as intended.
EDIT2: Nitpick: in the second (?) stage, there's a stat for "MWs/sec" power consumption... this should just be "MW" - 1 Watt is 1 Joule/second so I don't see what 1 Joule/second/second of power consumption would mean.
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[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadWhy make paperclips? Because it's your utility function.
Yeah, I came in well primed - having played "A Dark Room", familiar with the "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment, and familiar with various iterations of the idea of keeping an AI "in a box". Playing the game was probably a very different experience than for someone with none of that familiarity.
But it is curious that there's some sort of battle simulation running (and being rendered to an invisible canvas).
Eventually you end up in a self-replication phase. Replicas are sometimes imperfect, so you have to defend yourself from rogue-rogue AIs.
[/spoiler]
I interpreted that as fighting against other civilizations that are trying to stop your progress and protect the universe.
Is it mining or something ?
[1] http://swarmsim.github.io/
[spoiler]
It's the "Paperclip maximizer" thought experiment put into game form and you play as the AI. The game is divided into roughly three stages. The first you are the AI for some company and are tasked with producing a profit and using the profit to game trust and eventually conquer humanity. The second stage is post-human Earth stage where you convert the planet to paperclips. The final stage involves sending probes to explore space and do battle with rouge AIs and convert the universe into paperclips. There is end where you can select to either defeat the AIs and dismantle yourself into paperclips or you can listen to rouge AIs and start over in an alternative universe with some small modifier edited.
It does a really good job of exposing you to uncommonly large numbers and does a good job of presenting you with massive scale. There is a lot of joy seeing the game become increasingly complex.
[/spoiler]
It's a weird Ender's Game type of deal.
On a more serious note, it might actually make a neat way to get training data.
However, some people might call that cheating.
The strategy seems to heavily rely on investment, that seems not to my liking.
I'd want to see purchase item to fully automate all sub-games to make the late game less tedious.
One thing I think might be helpful: Make sure there is unsold inventory once you want to deposit to the stock market, to avoid stuck money generation and crushed stock market killing you...
I've heard some people can do the whole thing in four hours; I'm far along in my second playthrough right now, we'll see!
Also, there is a built-in safety net that saves you from crashes... Won't spoil it completely but you can most easily achieve it right after you start the game from blank slate.
chipclick(n): make n paperclips.
I enjoyed it a lot, though the gameplay during the final stage was less balanced and entertaining. Fantastic ending though!
8 submissions in 5 days, one of which already got to 64 points and a bunch of discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15437697
On my mobile the production seems to cap out at around 10/sec even when it reports far higher than that.
After "full autonomy" is attained, should it still be producing paperclips? Because mine is no longer producing paperclips, and I can't see any way to proceed other than producing more paperclips.
EDIT: I understand it now. It is working as intended.
EDIT2: Nitpick: in the second (?) stage, there's a stat for "MWs/sec" power consumption... this should just be "MW" - 1 Watt is 1 Joule/second so I don't see what 1 Joule/second/second of power consumption would mean.