Infinite Craft is a 2024 sandbox game for browsers and mobile devices developed by Neal Agarwal in which players combine interactive elements to form others.[1][2] The game uses the Llama 2 large language model to create possible elements, making the gameplay seemingly infinite.[3]
| Infinite Craft | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Neal Agarwal |
| Platform(s) | Web, iOS, Android |
| Release |
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| Genre(s) | Sandbox |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Agarwal began developing the game on January 16, 2024,[4] and announced its public release 15 days later on Twitter.[5] The game became popular on the internet upon release, gaining tens of thousands of active users.[6]
Gameplay
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In Infinite Craft, each element has a name and related emoji. The player starts the game with four classical elements – Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind – and combines them into new elements by dragging them from the sidebar and placing them on top of each other. For example, Wind and Earth combine to form Dust,[7] and Earth and Dust combine to form Planet.[8] All elements crafted by the player are saved to the sidebar, where the player can also search for crafted elements by their name.
The game uses a large language model to produce new elements,[3] which permits a virtually infinite amount of possible combinations.[2] These include: objects, places,[9] poems, fictional characters,[10] the universe, philosophical concepts,[1] video games, sports players and teams,[11] animals, God, and the Big Bang.[2]
If a player is the first person to discover an element, the game labels it as a "First Discovery".[1][2] The player can also see all first discoveries they have made by clicking on the Discoveries button on the bottom of the sidebar.
Development and release
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Infinite Craft was made by Neal Agarwal, a software developer based in New York.[12] He developed Infinite Craft for his website, which has a collection of various browser games. The website was launched on October 26, 2017,[13] but was popularized when Agarwal released The Password Game, in which the player needs to pick a password that abides by increasingly unusual and complicated rules. Infinite Craft was released for his website on January 31, 2024,[14] and a mobile app was released on the iOS App Store on April 30, 2024.[15] On May 21, 2024, a version was released on the Google Play store.[16]
Technical details
editAll elements in Infinite Craft are generated by a generative AI, Llama 2.[3][17] When a player combines two elements on the website, the game checks from its database if these two elements have already been combined before—if they haven't, the generative AI creates a new element which is then saved to the database. This is done to reduce repeated queries, and to ensure that the same pair of elements always outputs the same result for all players.[14]
Reception
editChristian Donlan of Eurogamer compared Infinite Craft to one of his lucid dreams, explaining that an element "always [runs] away" when the player tries to figure out what elements to combine,[10] while The New York Times's Kieran Press-Reynolds stated it was "like peering into an A.I.'s brain", adding that the game's nonsensical nature "adds to the allure".[14] Rock Paper Shotgun's Graham Smith praised how the game was "glorious, time-stealing fun to try", commenting how "the real joy comes" when a player finds a simple way to create an element.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c Litchfield, Ted (February 4, 2024). "This browser-based 'endless crafting game' starts you off with fire and water, but it quickly escalates to God, the Big Bang, and 'Yin-Yoda'". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on February 12, 2024. Retrieved February 10, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Smith, Graham (February 6, 2024). "Infinite Craft is a browser game in which you can craft anything, from God to Minecraft". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on February 9, 2024. Retrieved February 10, 2024.
- ^ a b c Ganguly, Sharmila (February 17, 2024). "Does Infinite Craft use AI?". Dot eSports. Archived from the original on February 17, 2024. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ Agarwal, Neal [@nealagarwal] (January 16, 2024). "Working on an endless crafting game with llama 2" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ Agarwal, Neal [@nealagarwal] (January 31, 2024). "The first version of Infinite Craft, an endless crafting game, is out now!" (Tweet). Retrieved February 18, 2024 – via Twitter.
- ^ Agarwal, Neal [@nealagarwal] (February 13, 2024). "I'm never going to financially recover from this" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ "🌫️ Dust on Infinite Craft Browser". Infinite Craft Browser. Retrieved 2024-07-18.
- ^ "🪐 Planet on Infinite Craft Browser". Infinite Craft Browser. Retrieved 2024-07-18.
- ^ "How to Make Asia in Infinite Craft". Infinite Craft Recipes. 2024-03-20. Retrieved 2024-03-30.
- ^ a b Donlan, Christian (February 6, 2024). "Infinite Craft is a powerful glimpse into other minds". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on February 8, 2024. Retrieved February 10, 2024.
- ^ Fay, Kacee (February 16, 2024). "How to make Minecraft in Infinite Craft". Dot eSports. Archived from the original on February 18, 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ Barrett, Brian (October 26, 2023). "Can anyone save the internet? Neal Agarwal is trying, one Hampster Dance at a time". Business Insider. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
- ^ Agarwal, Neal [@nealagarwal] (October 26, 2017). "Today I'm launching neal.fun. It will be a collection of everything I make when I'm bored during lecture" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ a b c Press-Reynolds, Kieran (March 4, 2024). "Playing Infinite Craft Is Like Peering Into an A.I.'s Brain". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 6, 2024. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
- ^ "Infinite Craft by Neal". App Store. 2024-05-19. Retrieved 2024-07-18.
- ^ "Infinite Craft by Neal - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Retrieved 2024-07-18.
- ^ Galekovic, Filip (February 7, 2024). "What is Infinite Craft? Neal Fun's latest game, explained". Destructoid. Archived from the original on February 9, 2024. Retrieved February 11, 2024.