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[Micro102]

Hmmm what were those other similar games and how are they different/similar?

[Apple Master]

Arr god my Hero's retarted. She hasn't done anything yet.
Still armed with nothing.
Also I'm not sure how messaging etc works ):
edit: armed with a twig and a fig leaf for a shield.

[Micro102]

probably better then surgical gloves and a nut-bead necklace.....dam hero won't go to town or pray!

[Spartan 117]

I am Mole Pig Ryleth, my champion is Boota. He is a Mole Pig.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Similar games are several. Some are simple, like BattleOfTheScripts, MyBrute and other such duel-centered games, but you still have some direct control there - purchasing weapons and skills, for example. There was a game called WTFRPG, which is now dead, but you had way too much direct control there. Your character would still play by his lonesome though, choosing quests and levelling, but he wouldn't change equipment unless you told him to.

As far as I know, this is the only RP-like game where your character can completely play himself. Other than Progress Quest, which I suspect is similar.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well, with Progress Quest you name your character and then it just adventured without you. You had absolutely no control over anything, except to pause or unpause. I'd call that a non-game "toy". A lot of the dress-up Flash games are toys.

A Tomagotchi was a handheld virtual pet device. You had to feed it and play with it and clean up after it. I'd call that a "virtual pet" which is more than a "toy" but it's borderline on "game". Everything about it is toylike, but you do have control over it, so I can't just outright call it a toy. So "virtual pet". You see some Flash games like this too. There was one where you could do different stuff to kill your pet and that was the whole point to the thing.

Travian is a "game", because you have interesting choices to make, the outcome is uncertain, and you have various controls over it. It is a "massively multiplayer" game because it involves thousands of other players sharing a play environment, and their choices impact each other. It does continue working while you're gone, to complete your orders, and the pay account can set up build queues so you can leave it alone for longer and still have to carry out your orders.

Starcraft is a "game" as above. It's a "single player game" because you can play alone vs the AI. It's also a "multiplayer game" because you can play against / with a few other players at once. You can also set up a map where all the sides are AI, and they fight it out themselves. In this configuration it's a "toy" - it is no longer a game in that configuration because you do not make interesting choices or have control over it.

So if Godville has a mode where you can interact with your character, and you can make interesting choices, and the outcome is uncertain, then you have a "single-player game". The online rankings don't change that. If there is a mode where the character acts without your input, then that is a "toy".

EDIT: I just want to make it clear though, that both modes of Godville are covered by "single-player game" or "toy". There is no need for a "zero-player game" classification, and in fact such a classification is impossible because a game designed to include no players is a "toy". The closest you'd come is a "zero-player toy" which is redundant.

EDIT2: The whole quirky name thing just has me irritated. Makes me think of a sleazy young business-type guy trying to sell $1 sunglasses for $50 at a convention booth or street corner.

EDIT3: Look at me! I can call Mario Kart a Calculating Unit Number Taker! Or a Physical Entity Non-Intelligence Simulator! How in the world does that help anything? Who cares, it might move a few more units!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, in this game the "Toy" mode and "Single-player" mode are the same mode. Call it a single-player toy if you like, it's as much an oxymoron, and far less true since it's a game, after all. Can you name any other game where, within one session of normal unaided gameplay, you can relinquish control of everything to the game at any point, and have it continue playing unhindered by your absense?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well, in this game the "Toy" mode and "Single-player" mode are the same mode. Call it a single-player toy if you like, it's as much an oxymoron, and far less true since it's a game, after all. Can you name any other game where, within one session of normal unaided gameplay, you can relinquish control of everything to the game at any point, and have it continue playing unhindered by your absense?

No because I would call that a single-player game if you control it and a toy if you don't. The program has two modes then: in one mode it is a single player game and in the other it's a toy.

I get that the toy mode affects the single player game mode. I still would not call the toy mode a "game" of any kind.

Imagine an FPS where you could relinquish control of your grunt and the AI would take control of him. Later in the match you can resume control of your grunt. I would call that a "toy" during the AI-controlled period.

That makes it more complex, because if you're playing this FPS online with other players, and they are playing their grunts while yours is in AI, then for them it's a multiplayer game while for you it's a toy. When you rejoin by taking control of your grunt again you begin playing it as a multiplayer game.

Again, never during that time did it become a "zero player game" because the feature of it being a "game" is dependent on the status of the player.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Have you played IL-2? It has an autopilot function - which does, in fact, take control of the entire plane as if it were controlled by the AI. In this case, the game does enter a "toy" mode, but you still can't let the entire game play itself - the AI won't choose missions in the campaign, it won't select loadouts and tune your guns pre-flight. It won't play the game for you, it's just there so you can rest or get out of a nasty predicament you can't handle by yourself (works great if you set difficulty to Ace, since it means your AI is an Ace too). This game, however, plays COMPLETELY by itself. You can leave at any point and you won't be missed. It doesn't automagically switch modes because you suddenly log in, it permanently exists in a state of quantum control - it's a game because it's being played, but it's zero-player because that's how many players it requires.

[fenrif]

If i manufacture  22 tiny robots and program them to play football, and watch them play it, is it a zero player game or a toy?

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you have no control whatsoever, it's a toy. If you always have control of at least one of them, it's a game. Despite this seemingly strict distinction, you can still be inbetween - if your bots can play a full match unsupervised, recharge and start over. If they can play completely by themselves without you interfering, but you have the option to kick in and do something, at any moment, you have a ZPG.

[fenrif]

Ok, but then what if I build and program 11 robots, and someone else builds and programs the other team, and we see who wins? Is it still just a toy?

[Micro102]

dam this is bad, my guy has been fighting and running from monsters for some time now and I don't have any more god power. He is healing him self with mud >_>

[Sean Mirrsen]

If none of you interfere, what happens on the field is a toy. But when you compete between each other, the process of building and programming becomes a game. These are one of the favorites of mine, actually, "build-an-autonomous-robot" games. Roboforge, for example. What happens on the arena isn't the game - you use it to see how well you "played". The real game is in the workshop.

NEROGame is a similar beast, but is twofold. The process of training your NERO team is akin to a ZPG, but it's not - while your team will train by themselves, you'll usually need much more than one setting and a lot of time to train a good team. So you have a single-player game being a double game, with the non-educational fights on the arena being the "toy" mode.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

This game, however, plays COMPLETELY by itself. You can leave at any point and you won't be missed. It doesn't automagically switch modes because you suddenly log in, it permanently exists in a state of quantum control - it's a game because it's being played, but it's zero-player because that's how many players it requires.

Who is playing it in this "zero-player" state? The computer is handling everything. I get this. The computer is controlling the whole process. But there is actually no player. Hence the player cannot make interesting decisions and the player has no control. Hence the thing is not a game.

I agree that the thing has a zero-player configuration. Many things have a zero-player configuration. But if it is in a zero-player configuration it is no longer a game. A cinder block is not a game. Progress Quest is not a game. AI control of Godville is not a game.

Look, we're just going around and around about this, and I (again!) broke my own rule about arguing with people on the Internet. Who really cares, call it a donut, whatever. It's not like it's ever going to affect me.