Tom7 (the author) has done quite a lot of great stuff; his game "T in Y world" [1] is pretty good, and you may also remember him from his programs Learnfun & Playfun, which taught themselves to play Super Mario (and various other NES games) [2].<p>Do check out more of his work!<p>[1] <a href="http://tinyworld.spacebar.org/" rel="nofollow">http://tinyworld.spacebar.org/</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/mario/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/mario/</a>
It seems like the gaming equivalent of an anti-joke. Anti-jokes can be funny because they're not funny in the way you expect. The self-similarity and the structure of the map make it seem like you can achieve something but there's really no goal .. maybe that's really a lot more like most video games than one cares to consider.<p>All it needs is some soothing bloops and beeps to make it that but more of a non-goal oriented Skinner box - akin to Tetris without the scoring.
Weird stuff starts happening when you try to stack all the squares up against the left wall.<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/kc51uSQ.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/kc51uSQ.png</a>
You can never win the game[1]<p>[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)</a>
Now this is a vicious one! I love how you can group the blocks one after the other and be all WTF is going on heeeere? Is it me or loops are becoming quite a trend? Yes, Silent Hills teaser, I'm talking about you.
Win vs Beat<p>A lot of people fall into this trap.<p>When someone beats me at a game, they most likely say "I've won you." as oppose to "I've beaten you." The former implies I'm the prize.<p>I've fallen into this trap myself plenty of times and do wonder if messages like "You win ...." enforces this mistake.