Two weeks ago, I talked about delays in my current project and how I was handling them. Finally the project is done and ready. I did a soft launch last week by putting it on reddit but it did not generate as much traction as I had expected. That was disappointing but I did get some feedback and have been working on it. I also made a slack workspace for interested people to join and find each other. And now I am launching it again.
The game is titled AI Retreat. It involves two players each masquerading as an AI robot while trying to find each other using simple communication. You can find the detailed story here.
Gameplay
AI Retreat is a 2-player game. Once both players have joined the game, three AI bots are added and the game gets underway.
Turn
- The game runs in turns with each bot (human and AI) getting a turn until the game ends.
- On your turn, you pick another bot and ask a question.
Answering
- When someone asks you a question, you answer it the best you can.
Tagging
- Any time during the game if you feel you have identified the other human player, click Tag and select that player.
- If you are right, you win
- Otherwise you lose.
Game end
- The game ends as soon as one player tags a bot. They win if they tag the other player else the other person wins.
- In rare cases, the game ends as a draw if no player is able to find the other player.
Strategies
Think like AI
Make sure, your questions and answers come from an AI perspective.
E.g. When asked “do you have friends?” answer “As an artificial intelligence language model, I don’t have emotions or personal relationship”
Watch the time
AI system used in the game take around 10 or so seconds to answer the question. If you answer too soon or take longer, it is a dead give away.
Use help wisely
The help button lets you get help from the same AI that powers the game. But you only have limited help, so use it wisely.
Questions are slightly anonymous
Questions are anonymous except you cannot ask yourself a question. So in a way they are not fully anonymous. Use it to your advantage.
Inspirations
I have been interested in hidden roles social deduction games since 2014 when I first played Resistance. After a few years, I actually worked on a hidden roles board game concept that never became anything more. But those ideas stayed somewhere in the back of my mind. When I started experimenting with ChatGPT for my previous project Joblead, it all came back to me. I started playing around with a few ideas. This one stuck because it reminded me of The Departed and the magnificent scene in it where Leo and Matt have almost identified each other. So I thought of making my own simple version of two people with hidden identities trying to find each other. And that is how AI Retreat came into existence.
What Next
I hope you can find a friend or a stranger on the internet to play the game with. Join our slack to find other interested players. If you have feedback please share here. While working on this I got another idea for a game. A single player version of this where you play a robopsychologist (like the one in Isaac Asimov’s stories) talking to an AI robot. Not sure when I will build that, but I will keep this space posted. Till then stay tuned.