A zero-player game or no-player game is a simulation game that has no sentient players.[1]
Types
editThere are various different types of games that can be considered "zero-player".[2]
Determined by initial state
editA game that evolves as determined by its initial state, requiring no further input from humans is considered a zero-player game.[3]
Cellular automaton games that are determined by initial conditions including Conway's Game of Life are examples of this.[4][5]
Progress Quest is another example, in the game the player sets up an artificial character, and afterwards the game plays itself with no further input from the player.[6] Godville is a similar game that took inspiration from Progress Quest.[7] In the game, the player is a god that can communicate with a non-player character hero.[8] However, the game can progress with no interaction from the player.[9]
Incremental games, sometimes called idle games or clicker games, are games which do require some player intervention near the beginning however may be zero-player at higher levels.[10] As an example, Cookie Clicker requires that players click cookies manually before purchasing assets to click cookies in the place of the player independently.[11]
AI vs AI games
editIn computer games, the term refers to programs that use artificial intelligence rather than human players,[12] for example some fighting and real-time strategy games can be put into zero-player mode where multiple AIs can play against each other. Humans may have a challenge in designing the AI and giving it sufficient skill to play the game well, but the actual evolution of the game has no human intervention.[13]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Mukund, Madhavan (2021-05-01). "The Winning Ways of John Conway". Resonance. 26 (5): 603–614. doi:10.1007/s12045-021-1164-6. ISSN 0973-712X.
- ^ Björk, Staffan; Juul, Jesper (2012). "Zero-Player Games. Or: What We Talk about When We Talk about Players". The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference.
- ^ Segovia-Aguas, Javier; Ferrer-Mestres, Jonathan; Jiménez, Sergio (2023-09-28), Gal, Kobi; Nowé, Ann; Nalepa, Grzegorz J.; Fairstein, Roy (eds.), "Synthesis of Procedural Models for Deterministic Transition Systems", Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, IOS Press, doi:10.3233/faia230502, ISBN 978-1-64368-436-9, retrieved 2024-11-20
- ^ Martin Gardner (October 1970), "Mathematical games: The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game 'Life'" (PDF), Scientific American
- ^ Ljiljana Petruševski; Mirjana Devetaković; Bojan Mitrović, Self-Replicating Systems in Spatial Form Generation – The Concept of Cellular Automata (PDF)
- ^ Fizek, Sonia (2018-06-18). "Interpassivity and the Joy of Delegated Play in Idle Games". Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association. 3 (3). doi:10.26503/todigra.v3i3.81. ISSN 2328-9422.
- ^ Ogneviuk, Viktor; Maletska, Mariia; Vinnikova, Natalia; Zavadskyi, Vitaliy (2022). "Videogame as Means of Communication and Education: Philosophical Analysis". Wisdom. 1 (21): 101–116. doi:10.24234/wisdom.v2/11.626.
- ^ Ferreira, Cátia; Tavares, Roger, eds. (2013). Jogar, jogo e sociedade = Play, game and society (in Portuguese). CECC - Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Cultura. doi:10.13140/rg.2.1.3797.1604. ISBN 978-989-98248-0-5.
- ^ Alharthi, Sultan A.; Alsaedi, Olaa; Toups Dugas, Phoebe O.; Tanenbaum, Theresa Jean; Hammer, Jessica (2018-04-21). "Playing to Wait: A Taxonomy of Idle Games". CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 1–15. doi:10.1145/3173574.3174195. ISBN 978-1-4503-5620-6.
- ^ Madge, Christopher; Bartle, Richard; Chamberlain, Jon; Kruschwitz, Udo; Poesio, Massimo (2019-10-17). "Incremental Game Mechanics Applied to Text Annotation". CHI PLAY '19: Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 545–558. doi:10.1145/3311350.3347184. ISBN 978-1-4503-6688-5.
- ^ Deterding, Sebastian (2020-12-31), Payne, Matthew Thomas; Huntemann, Nina B. (eds.), "24. Cookie Clicker: Gamification", How to Play Video Games, New York University Press, pp. 200–207, doi:10.18574/nyu/9781479830404.003.0028, ISBN 978-1-4798-3040-4, retrieved 2024-11-20
- ^ "Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society", Rodney P. Carlisle, SAGE Publications.
- ^ Summerley, Rory; McDonald, Brian (2024-03-27). "Perceived Foolishness: How Does the Saltybet Community Construct AI vs AI Spectatorship?". Games and Culture. doi:10.1177/15554120241238262. ISSN 1555-4120.