There are two points which I want to cover here. First is about my own game, and second is about raising the sanity waterline through games.
Point one: "Girl with a Heart of"
It's been over a year since I found LW community, and as soon as I finished the Sequences I realized I want to dedicate my life to making games that raise the sanity waterline. I've started working on a game to do just that in January 2011. The game is called "Girl with a Heart of", and it's very close to being done. In this game I wanted to present the idea of recursive self-improvement in a way that's intuitively accessible to an average person. I don't think I've succeeded, but I'll leave the discussion of reasons behind that for postmortem. Suffice to say, presenting ideas in text, even if they are part of a game, doesn't make them more intuitive. In fact, the player might as well just read the original article/post.
You can see screenshots of the game here: http://bentspoongames.imgur.com/girl_with_a_heart_of
For the most part, the game is just a choose-your-own adventure game. There is a lot of dialog. There are many various ideas, which I took from LW posts, and you'll probably recognize most of them when you play the game.
I've also started a Kickstarter project to help me finish the game: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bentspoongames/girl-with-a-heart-of
This is a nice way to preorder the game if you are interested. However, no money will be charged unless the fund goal is met. (If people object to this link, I can remove it.)
I am not asking you for donations, since most people on LW donate to causes that are a lot more important, but I will ask for support. If you have friends that like adventure games, or you have friends that like reading, then let them know about this game. Follow the game - and myself - on Facebook and Twitter. That's where I'll be posting updates about the next game I'll be working on.
Point two: Using games to raise the sanity waterline.
My first game was/will be a bust in terms of this, but the idea itself is not without merit, but I don't want to start discussing game design in this post. What I am looking for are people who are interested in making this happen, whether by doing art, programming, design, PR, or contributing resources: connections, expertise, and/or funding. For me, this will be a full time job (if I can get funding/money) and my primary goal for the near - and I hope far - future.
I'll be moving to the Bay Area in the next month, so I would love to meet up with anyone who is sincerely interested in working on this. And even if you don't live in the area, let me know either way, and we can work together remotely.
Not everyone likes reading, and not everyone can learn the ideas from the way they are presented in the Sequences. I want to take those very basic ideas, and present them in a different format, which I hope will be more accessible, fun, and, in the end, more fruitful. Think HP:MoR, but in game form. My goal is to build a community of people who are interested in building games that leave the player with tangible, useful knowledge and skills. My goal is to create lots of games that people can play for fun, while receiving measurable benefits (in my case: rationality training). These games might even be used for training basic skills in rationality camps. During this year's mini-camp a lot of people, including myself, praised poker for its lessons in rationality, but we can easily create a game that focuses a lot more on those skills.
I am very curious to hear your thoughts on this, whatever they might be.
I have:
I'm currently on an autodidactic track to learn more advanced programming skills over the next three months. I am also thinking of learning and then working to master a new language, most likley Haskell (though I still have an unresolved crush on Lisp so perhaps I'll go with that). I also enrolled this fall in the free AI and machine learning classes offered by some Stanford profs, so in six months time I should have basic skills there as well.
I am intelligent, young but inexperienced in game design, I thrive on working in groups and I have several related skill sets. I hope that by working on such projects, in any capacity, I will get experience and learn more than I would have otherwise (also hopefully get my name in there among awesome finished projects/products).
I would be interested in any open source project or commercial thingy (will work for peanuts or free there to get xp and do something that has really caught my imagination).
How does that sound? Remember, free brains are neat.
Sounds good! Free brains are neat indeed. If you are interested in doing game programing, you'll have to learn C# (in context of Unity3D engine). If you want to become more familiar with game design, I would suggest reading A Book of Lenses. I'll keep your name in mind, and I'll let you know when the next game starts. Thanks!
Edit: From Luke's interview, I gather that people who are good at math can help with FAI research. Something to consider.
Also, while I was replying to AlexMennen, I realized I am looking for people who are already interested in game de... (read more)