Hacker News with Generative AI: Video Games

AI masters Minecraft: DeepMind program finds diamonds without being taught (nature.com)
An artificial intelligence (AI) system has for the first time figured out how to collect diamonds in the hugely popular video game Minecraft — a difficult task requiring multiple steps — without being shown how to play.
Artificial Intelligence, Video Games, Minecraft, Deep Learning
6 points by bglazer 5 hours ago | 0 comments
Video game industry group expects Trump tariffs to have dire effects (gamefile.news)
The Entertainment Software Association, the U.S. trade group that reps all major gaming companies, including Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, says President Donald Trump's recently announced tariffs "are going to have a real and detrimental impact on the video game industry."
Video Games, Trade, Politics, Economics
4 points by SLHamlet 6 hours ago | 0 comments
Nintendo Switch 2: Everything Announced (ign.com)
The Nintendo Switch 2 Direct has finally arrived and Nintendo revealed a TON of new details about the Switch 2 hardware and the games that will be launching alongside it and in the future.
Gaming, Hardware, Nintendo, New Releases, Video Games
3 points by terrycody 1 day ago | 1 comments
We need a better term for GenAI output – "slop" is too benign (rockpapershotgun.com)
Earlier this month, Snail Games put out a widely and justifiably clowned-on genAI trailer for Ark: Survival Evolved's Aquatica DLC.
Generative AI, Video Games, Terminology, Criticism, AI
10 points by fjghajkhdfgjlk 2 days ago | 0 comments
An Ode to the Game Boy Advance (brainbaking.com)
In March 2001, Nintendo introduced an advanced portable model to the gaming market with the release of the Game Boy Advance (GBA, codenamed Advanced Game Boy or AGB). Equipped with a modernized 32-bit ARM CPU running at twice the speed of the Game Boy Color (GBC), this small device was more than capable of playing SNES-like games—still at the price of only two AA batteries.
Gaming, Retro Gaming, Nintendo, Video Games, Hardware
78 points by Brajeshwar 5 days ago | 40 comments
Veloren – Voxel action-adventure role-playing (veloren.net)
Veloren is an action-adventure role-playing game set in a vast fantasy world.
Video Games, Role-Playing Games, Fantasy
338 points by tete 5 days ago | 91 comments
Ship of Harkinian (wikipedia.org)
Ship of Harkinian is an unofficial open source port of the 1998 Nintendo 64 video game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch.
Video Games, Open Source, Emulation, Nintendo
4 points by tosh 7 days ago | 1 comments
A decompilation and port of Sonic Advance 2-a GameBoy Advance game written in C (github.com/SAT-R)
⚠️ This project is not completed and still under active development
Game Development, Programming, Video Games, Retro Gaming, C Programming
182 points by bane 7 days ago | 39 comments
Chrono Trigger Still Blows Me Away 30 Years Later (kotaku.com)
Occasionally the stars align and a once-in-a-generation group of creatives come together to make something spectacular and ahead of its time. That’s how Chrono Trigger was made, an RPG for the SNES that came out 30 years ago this week and still blows me away.
Video Games, Retro Gaming, RPGs
73 points by PaulHoule 10 days ago | 31 comments
Why Anthropic's Claude still hasn't beaten Pokémon (arstechnica.com)
In recent months, the AI industry's biggest boosters have started converging on a public expectation that we're on the verge of “artificial general intelligence” (AGI)—virtual agents that can match or surpass "human-level" understanding and performance on most cognitive tasks.
Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, AI Safety, Video Games
53 points by Workaccount2 10 days ago | 65 comments
The game designer playing through his own psyche (newyorker.com)
A little more than a decade ago, the video-game designer Davey Wreden experienced a crippling success.
Video Games, Psychology, Design, Success
142 points by FinnLobsien 11 days ago | 99 comments
Ultima III for the Vic-20 (wordpress.com)
VIC 20 Ultima III is a faithful conversion of the original C-64 version. All game logic is included as-is. VIC 20 specific graphics and sound routines were created from scratch. The 16×16 pixel tile graphics from the C-64 version were carefully adapted to 8×16 resolution, flat-pixel tiles on the VIC 20.
Retro Gaming, Video Games, VIC-20, Ultima III, Conversions
7 points by todsacerdoti 11 days ago | 0 comments
Technicalities of Homeworld 2 Backgrounds (simonschreibt.de)
Game Development, Video Games, Homeworld 2, Graphics, Programming
211 points by todsacerdoti 12 days ago | 72 comments
Little things that made Amiga great (datagubbe.se)
To most people, the Amiga is probably synonymous with the Amiga 500 and that machine was, above all, a video game: something into which you plonked 3.5" floppy disks that transported you to strange, wonderful worlds and hours of fun.
Retro Computing, Video Games, Personal Computers, Nostalgia
11 points by andsoitis 12 days ago | 2 comments
Bonobo genius Kanzi, who could understand English and play Minecraft, dies at 44 (livescience.com)
Animal Intelligence, Language, Video Games, Science
15 points by amichail 12 days ago | 2 comments
EU take action to protect children from harmful practices in video games (europa.eu)
EU, Gaming Regulation, Children's Safety, Video Games
7 points by trymas 12 days ago | 0 comments
The CRPG Renaissance, Part 5: Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate (filfre.net)
Video Games, RPGs, Retro Gaming, History
72 points by doppp 13 days ago | 44 comments
The CRPG Renaissance, Part 5: Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate (filfre.net)
Video Games, RPGs, Retro Gaming, Gaming History
7 points by cybersoyuz 13 days ago | 0 comments
EU to take action to protect children from harmful practices in video games (europa.eu)
EU, Video Games, Regulation, Children, Safety
10 points by jeroenhd 13 days ago | 1 comments
Magical Instant Bullets (militaryrealism.blog)
Welcome back, my new and regular readers alike. I’m doubling down on Unreal Tournament this week, following on from last week’s discussion of the Flak Cannon. If you need to get up to speed on Unreal Tournament (UT) you should read my previous posts on the game: Firstly on the Rocket Launcher, then the Flak Cannon. Today we’ll examine the Sniper Rifle with our usual pedantic criticism.
Unreal Tournament, Gaming, Video Games, Weapons, Reviews
72 points by baud147258 14 days ago | 58 comments
ByteCraft: Generating video games and animations through bytes (emygervais.github.io)
Imagine a world where you can write a prompt describing a video game or animation that you want, and a fully fledged executable file comes out. We take the first attempt at this crazy goal by training a model to generate the bytes of video games and animations!
Generative AI, Video Games, Animation, Software
24 points by atomroflbomber 15 days ago | 5 comments
Video game workers in North America now have an industry-wide union (engadget.com)
There’s now an industry-wide union for video game workers in the US and Canada.
Video Games, Labor, Unions, North America
412 points by ksec 16 days ago | 194 comments
In 1997, Age of Empires was just coming out. My job was to design a new RTS game (twitter.com)
Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.
Video Games, Game Development, History, Retro Gaming
6 points by tosh 16 days ago | 0 comments
Trauma treatment: Playing Tetris increased hippocampal volume in PTSD patients (nlm.nih.gov)
Recent work has provided evidence for the utility of the visuospatial video game Tetris as an early therapeutic intervention for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).1–3 Holmes and colleagues have shown that playing Tetris directly after trauma exposure can reduce subsequent intrusive memories of the traumatic event, and they have demonstrated the efficacy of this “cognitive vaccine” in both experimental1 and real-world settings.2–4
Trauma Treatment, PTSD, Video Games, Neuroscience, Health
10 points by haltingproblem 16 days ago | 0 comments
The Tragic Downfall of the Video Game Console (rz01.org)
My definition of a video game console is the following: A video game console is a highly specialised device designed for the consumption of video games that is connected to a TV. It has the option of connecting one or more game controllers, does not need a keyboard and does not require an internet connection. It is affordable, easy to operate, immediately ready for use and comes with just enough software to play games bought as modules or optical discs.
Video Games, Technology, Gaming Consoles
18 points by exitnode 17 days ago | 7 comments
Canadian Devs Are Backing Out of Attending GDC (wired.com)
Amid deteriorating relations between the US and Canada, many Canadian video game developers are opting not to travel to San Francisco for next week’s Game Developers Conference.
Video Games, Politics, Conferences, Travel
52 points by iancmceachern 18 days ago | 45 comments
Implementing "Tennis for Two" using op amps (2024) (qiqitori.com)
“Tennis for Two” is the name given to an early video game implemented on an analog computer. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_history_of_video_games for more information on the game itself. This post documents the construction of a “Tennis for Two”-like game using op amps.
Electronics, Video Games, History, DIY
37 points by rtpg 19 days ago | 2 comments
Commodore 64 vertical parallax scrolling with source code (youtube.com)
Commodore 64, Retro Computing, Programming, Video Games, Source Code
3 points by wellytopness 20 days ago | 0 comments
Super Mario Bros 3 completed in 0.32 seconds, or 19 frames (2021) (tasvideos.org)
This is the absolute pinnacle of technical TASing in my mind, the idea of having so much power over a single game that it's over literally before your hand even moves from the NES's power button.
Gaming, Video Games, Speedrunning, TAS
20 points by jsheard 21 days ago | 0 comments
Copyright and the Demo Scene (datagubbe.se)
Being eight years old and not speaking any English whatsoever meant that my early understanding of Amiga games was somewhat patchy. Nevertheless, some things will make an impression no matter what. Take German cracking group Unit A's 1988 cracktro for the flight simulator Interceptor, for example.
Copyright, Video Games, Amiga, Cracking Groups, Demo Scene
9 points by ingve 21 days ago | 0 comments