Bird by Example
What is Bird by Example?
Bird by Example is — and I say this with great passion — an RPG sandbox where all the occupying NPCs are grotesque birds who mimic your behavior with deep learning algorithms. Nothing is scripted! Everything is emergent! Be the bird you want to see in the world!
Steam has asked me to be more explicit with the game’s features:
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world
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objects
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jump
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crawl
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punch
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squawk
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bite
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physics objects
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other*
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stories??**
It’s an artificial intelligence sandbox acted out by birds with concerning musculature! Help them see, help them love, help them eat a big fat bug! Right now at this very second, the metaphysical bounds of this game hold a throng of hungry birds who wish nothing more than to be like you! Like Mama!
_*: Imprint psuedo-neurologically upon independent bird agents, using recurrent neural networks, gradient descent, and a custom-built system of semiotic metadata evocation (to afford transferrable behavior between distinct objects and agents which share characteristics along an n-dimensional space).
**: Isn’t life a story? Aren’t we all little stories, flying on this crazy rock?_
You said this was a game? Who’s Mama? I’m Mama? Who are you again?
Please pay attention. These birds are equipped with artificial neural networks that optimize themselves against your own actions! Using trendy deep learning algorithms found in a black box at the bottom of the sea, and something called ‘gradient descent’, they will try to become mathematically perfect distillations of you! It’s very computationally expensive and very math!
But what do you actually do?
Explore, follow self-imposed rules, and cultivate your flock! Tutor a bird to act just like you! By simply doing things, they will learn from you by witnessing your play! Bite an orange and you may start to see other birds doing similarly! Squawk at a another bird and watch your flock erupt into squawkage!
Oh! That’s interesting. So they have brains!?
Woah, strong word! Let’s avoid that word!
Have you ever played a game, and thought: “This is fun, but I live in such fear that I cannot enjoy it…”
Yes, I do live a life of fear! And thank you for blowing off my silly and ethically challenging question!
Yes, you do live in fear! You’re like any brain-wielding creature! But in Bird by Example there will be nothing to be afraid of! In bird world there is nothing to be afraid of! Nothing to be afraid of! Turn that brain off!
Okay. And the game is fun? It’s a game?
You must teach the rest of the birds basic life skills! If not, they will all starve to death!
Wait, you coded these birds to feel hungry but didn’t teach them how to eat?
That feature was out of scope! Please!!! Hungry!!!
Hold on… What’s a bird?
A bird is a fictional creature which came to me in a dream on a particularly cold night in February. I woke up in a sweat the next morning and quickly tried to recreate the apparition from memory. The results? Remarkable.
Earliest known footage of a “Bird” from that morning.
They were perfect. All they needed was a name.
The word ‘Bird’ is a mix of the word ‘word’ and the letter ‘b’ This is because I needed a word — or “wird” — to describe the birds. Sadly, a word using ‘a’ was already taken. It’s like gamertags!
I experimented for many weeks with flight, but no matter how much I stretched out their arms they would not.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter.
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence Memes Games.
Dr. Derk’s Mutant Battlegrounds
If you have been intrigued by AI researchers showing AIs trained to overcome obstacles and fight, this game is made for you. Set up a training scenario and watch them learn by fighting hundreds of battles per minute. I often have it running in the background attempting to train some interesting behavior.
A bit early access feel at this point, but major bugs have been ironed out already by the responsive developer.
– Real player with 174.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence Massively Multiplayer Games.
In this game you get a dinusourodogomeow, a small pet to train, you train it badly to be agressive and kill other dinusourodogomeows or help your other dinusourodogomeows kill goups of dinusourodogomeows. or train it to be a traget in tranning for other dinusourodogomeows.
and they have actuall brain so they are alive.
GG iguana
buy
yes
EDIT: the developer stopped updating it, chacnged to negative because the game is dead
– Real player with 91.8 hrs in game
Haunted Shores
fun game
– Real player with 16.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence Female Protagonist Games.
I bought Haunted Shores on a whim because a friend of mine had mentioned it was just added to steam. I decided to check it out since it had paranormal and horror related tags. Man let me tell you what! I have anxiety and I use THX Spatial headphones which has obvious surround sound and allows sound to play from either headphone that sound is on. So for example if its on the left you hear it in your left headphone. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that I freaked out playing! Very few games can do that to me! I don’t wanna give away any spoilers as to what got me to jump, but just take my word on it. It will happen!
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
We Are Open
The game concept is interesting but
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it’s a little too messy with multiple people with the shopping lists around all at once, gets a little overwhelming tbh
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those people move around a lot so even after you get the item, they have moved to the other floor and you have to go find them again lol, a little annoying ngl
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the AI obviously knows where all the stuff are so it’s like impossible to try and compete with it at all really
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each item for each person can only be fulfilled once by you or the bot so it’s kinda frustrating that you scramble to find the item only to return and see that the bot had already gave it to the person lol
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Rustica
“Give the people what they want and they will… do what they want to do.”
Your Citizens Need You
Rustica puts you in the unique role of a custodian of a Greco-Roman colony. You have land but not much else and it’s up to you to spruce up the place. You’ll need to discover and provide resources for your world and your citizens will interact with it as they see fit, they have free will after all. Watch your world grow over time and with a keen eye for planning and a bit of luck you can sit back and watch your people thrive.
Start Out Small
You’ll need to begin by laying down the foundations. Your citizens can’t build out of thin air so you’ll need to give them the basics like trees and stone and hope they know what to do with it. Each object has requirements called schemas in order to be placed in the world and some need other objects present in specific spots, and it’s up to you to discover how to unlock them.
Plan For the Future
Eventually, some of your citizens will feel the need to specialize and focus on a trade. They’ll become farmers, miners, priests and then some. This will allow them to interact with their world in new ways and this in turn will open up new objects and schemas for your growing community.
A Hero Rises
Once in a while a citizen decides to go on a hero’s quest. Foolish mortals. You can then go and give the hero what they need to finish their quest or don’t mind them because you have better things to do, like making sure that temple gets built over there by those trees.
Sit Back and Watch the Sunset
Tinker and tweak with the world you create and watch your citizens hard work pay off. Or do like Nero and watch the world burn, figuratively.
It’s your world to play with, you decide.
RoboSnakes: Core Wars Legacy
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8
| I’ll be honest. I don’t play games like these at all, even more, I barely knew of their existence. I simply stumbled upon this game through the Strategy tag and got intrigued. After spending a few hours playing this game I must admit, I find the idea of a game like this brilliant. The mix of the classic Nokia snake and the experience of semi-programming it led me to discover a completely new type of way to enjoy video games. I’d say this is the strongest part of this game, except maybe for the multiplayer. |
*– [Real player with 26.3 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198005676927)*
I really appreciate the idea behind this game.
As someone who actually is involved with software programming in their daily life I can say that thanks to the code being so simplistic, you don’t need any previous experience.
The game (thank god) requires no mechanical skill from you and despite the levels looking similar the challenges are fun and different almost every time.
There is a potential for replayability in the campaign, however I enjoyed the versus mode the most.
Although it was intended to play against a friend I found it equally as fun to put two of my programs against each other just to test which would win more.
*– [Real player with 26.3 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970639739)*
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## Space Simulation Toolkit
Absolutely fascinating. The commercially available and accessible fluid simulation I always wanted, with great resolution *and* incredibly high framerates. The physics are incredible and I've never seen anything else like it on Steam. If you're a nerd as much as the next guy, this is ABSOLUTELY a must-buy. However, if you're unable to shell out the 10 bucks, you can still get 2/3 of the simulations, excluding the life simulation, and freely mess about with them.
Again, I cannot recommend this enough. I've been looking for a fluid simulator for the longest time, and I just got my wish granted.
*– [Real player with 57.3 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198162236961)*
It's a fantastic simulation, and the dev seems to definitely be improving stability, which was my biggest gripe with the game before. The problem I run into now is that I can't get the game to start 90% of the time. Either all text is just white boxes. The only way that sometimes allows me to run it is deleting the folder, and reinstalling it.
TLDR; It's fantastic if your computer runs it.
*– [Real player with 41.7 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198028989010)*
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## Wheel of Fate
### A mishmash of lots of good ideas…
It's a turn-based RPG with leveling, a skill-tree, and a myriad of weapons/armor just like Final Fantasy… but it has base-building and base-management mechanics as well. The game unfortunately doesn't have voice acting and the entire game (graphics, UI, artstyle, level-design, etc.) feels 'rough', which is usually indicative of a very small dev team, so those are 2 down-sides. But with all that considered, the real question is: Is the game fun, and is it worth $15? The answer to both those questions is 'sure'. It's not the best $15 game on Steam, and it's not the most fun $15 game on Steam, but it's 'fine'. The game currently does enough for me to recommend it, and who knows, in the future with a year or so of dev time the game might actually be very good and the 'rough' stuff I mentioned above can certainly be improved upon with time. So yeah, I can recommend it even in its current 'early access' state
*– [Real player with 204.0 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198284731206)*
I've been enjoying my play through of Wheel of Fate quite a bit. The colorful art of the game and the cute characters might make you think this is an easy game but in reality its quite challenging. You will probably die while playing this game and that is a good thing. Combat offers a good challenge and the quick time events keep it from getting stale.
I've played through to the final boss and lost badly. I am now on a second play through with different strategies that I learned through my first play through including spending more time in the labyrinth of Fate, the games dungeon. The dungeon changes each time the Wheel of Fate is spun offering new challenges and rewards.
*– [Real player with 22.5 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197985779074)*
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## Deisim
One of if not THE ONLY "God game" I have ever played that is not another RTS borefest.
You do not have to build everything for the people and I love that!
You place land tiles in a seemingly infinite grid. Land tiles such as grasslands, Forests, Deserts, Oceans, and the such. Each prividing different resources for little humans who live grow and die all on their own.
The game is still being developed and will continue to get better as the dev Myron continues to expand and advance the game.
Simply put, this is the first real God game!
*– [Real player with 31.0 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197995420608)*
https://youtu.be/35L9wGpR8Gc
It's neither Black and White nor Populous, but that's okay because Deisim actually manages to carve out it's own identity as a God game somewhere in between. Actually, on the surface Deisim kind of makes me think of Godus, except this is actually a good game. And in fact, one mind blowing consideration is that even in its current Early Access stage, Deisim is already a better game than Godus, despite being made by just one guy.
So anyway, the emphasis is on the placement of land tiles that you use to shape the environment, which then leads to tribal villages popping up. The villages will then use the environmental resources you've placed to grow and prosper, and eventually evolve into small towns, leading to more believers and more mana. Although indirect interaction is mainly how you grow your world, direct interaction is possible too, such as picking up villagers and buildings, or casting spells directly on things to either help or hinder the villagers. Towns will inevitably begin to spawn heretics who if given too much leeway, will convert their town into a heretic faith, eventually causing them to wage wars of conquest on their neighbours. To deal with this, a good old dose of fire or locusts can convince the heretics the error of their ways and show them that yours is the true faith.
*– [Real player with 10.9 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996194046)*
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## Duel Corp.
#### **Duel Corp. goes 3D!**
#### **GAMEPLAY**
Duel Corp. is a singleplayer rgp roguelike 2v2 death match mix between simulation and action combat. Take on the role of an rpg class, improve your organization and participate in tournaments. Agree on a behaviour-codex with your partner to get a tactical advantage in battle, because your opponents will.
#### **CLASSES**
Choose a strategic two team combination of Warrior, Priest, Assassin, Ranger, Paladin or Mage, take control of one and destroy your opponents with a unique combination of over 70 different talents and over 100 different spells.
#### **CORPORATION**
Improve your business, hire employees and use their unique skills to prepare for battle. You can also buy cats. Don't forget to pet them!
#### **CODEX SYSTEM**
Use your genius to assign a codex for your partner to keep the upper hand in battle. The same unique codex system is also used by the AI to drive their behaviour.
#### **TOURNAMENTS**
Buy tickets to participate in special tournaments that offer different prizes. Fight in varied arenas and impress the crowd with your skills.
#### **POWERS**
Won tournaments offer special Powers out of 50 unique Powers from which you get to choose one, allowing you to become an unstoppable force. This increases replayability and makes every playthrough a unique experience.
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