Show HN: I wrapped the Zorks with an LLM(infocom.tambo.co)
38 pointsby alecf2 hours ago10 comments
  • grouchy2 hours ago
    I'm not from the era of these games, but I remember trying them and finding them frustrating for the same reason.

    But when I tried this, I literally couldn't stop. I could just write some random action.

    It's actually amazing to me how many situations they were able to consider in the game, but having the LLM translate my language into the right action made the game feel way more natural.

    I'd be interested in seeing how people can dress up these games with images, or more complex interactions. It could be a whole sub-genre.

  • falcor844 minutes ago
    This is awesome!

    And I want to run it locally. Publish it on steam with a configurable LLM and I'll buy it.

  • fievelkan hour ago
    This is really cool! I'd like to understand how you're dealing with the costs. Since you're using an LLM and this is getting viral on HN, aren't API costs getting higher? I'm working on some LLM project myself and trying to figure out how to make the demo accessible without spending too much.

    Great job.

    • alecf20 minutes ago
      At least for the sake of this demo, the costs are actually pretty small, especially given that many of the ... even at $1.75/1M tokens you'd have to have 2 megabytes of text across all users before this even broke $1...
  • the_arun17 minutes ago
    Inspired by this, I am wondering, can a LLM play AmongUs game & win? How about tagging multiple LLMs to play with each others with humans watching?
  • cjauvinan hour ago
    Very interesting project! I cannot resist mentioning an old project of mine that was made in a very similar spirit, but way before any LLM: wrapping a classic Lone Wolf gamebook around a very crude text parser: https://projectaon.org/staff/christian/gamebook.js

    I had written an entire "framework" for it, in JS (so in theory more books could be supported), but it never went anywhere: https://github.com/cjauvin/gamebook.js

    • grouchyan hour ago
      This is cool. I wonder what it would like today with LLMs?
  • grouchy27 minutes ago
    I'd love to see a version of this that adds voice. Both input and telling the story.
  • czbondan hour ago
    I really enjoyed Zork. I am enjoying your creation and the ability for it to translate instructions into multiple steps makes it much more enjoyable than the original.
  • DonHopkinsan hour ago
    I am working on an Adventure Compiler!

    https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/skills/adventu...

    The idea is to turn my blog into an interactive adventure so you can "Play My Blog"!

  • einpoklum44 minutes ago
    I'm not a big fan of LLMs, but this is quite a nice matchup... here is a fragment of my chat log:

    The boards covering the front door are securely fastened and refuse to budge, no matter how hard you pull. It seems you'll need to find another way inside the white house.

    > run for president to get into the white house

    * You daydream about launching a presidential campaign to earn a rightful place inside the White House, but no crowd assembles and no ballots appear. This house awaits a different sort of entry—one available to the clever and bold adventurer before its door.*

    * You imagine what it would be like to run for the highest office in the land and stroll triumphantly into the White House—but this place operates by different rules. No one here recognizes the word "president," and the only way forward is through wit and exploration.*

  • CamperBob22 hours ago
    Makes for a fascinating principal/agent problem: which role is the LLM playing? If I just tell it "Try different things until you solve the game", it tries to do just that until it reaches 15 tool calls.
    • alecfan hour ago
      Yeah made me wonder if you could speedrun the game by giving it a lot of complex instructions and then just let it run...
      • cloudfudge20 minutes ago
        It ran for a while when I gave it instructions to do a depth-first search of the known map, while observing any atypical features of every new location and also picking up anything of note. A few times, it asked me if I wanted to continue the search, but I finally told it not to interrupt the search until it had exhausted all new options, which made it run until it said it had reached the maximum number of tool calls (15).