Infinite Craft Explained

Genre:Sandbox
Developer:Neal Agarwal
Platforms:Web, iOS, Android
Modes:Single-player
Infinite Craft

Infinite Craft is a 2024 sandbox game for browsers and mobile devices developed by Neal Agarwal in which players combine interactive elements to form others.[1] [2] The game uses the Llama 2 large language model to create possible elements, making the gameplay seemingly infinite.[3]

Agarwal began developing the game on January 16, 2024,[4] and announced its public release 15 days later on Twitter.[5] The game became popular on the internet upon release, gaining tens of thousands of active users.[6]

Gameplay

In Infinite Craft, each element has a name and related emoji. The player starts the game with four classical elementsWater, Fire, Earth, and Windand combines them into new elements by dragging them from the sidebar and placing them on top of each other. For example, Wind and Earth combine to form Dust,[7] and Earth and Dust combine to form Planet.[8] All elements crafted by the player are saved to the sidebar, where the player can also search for crafted elements by their name.

The game uses a large language model to produce new elements, which permits a virtually infinite amount of possible combinations. These include: objects, places,[9] poems, fictional characters,[10] the universe, philosophical concepts,[1] video games, sports players and teams,[11] animals, God, and the Big Bang.

If a player is the first person to discover an element, the game labels it as a "First Discovery".[1] The player can also see all first discoveries they have made by clicking on the Discoveries button on the bottom of the sidebar.

Development and release

Infinite Craft was made by Neal Agarwal, a software developer based in New York.[12] He developed Infinite Craft for his website, which has a collection of various browser games. The website was launched on October 26, 2017,[13] but was popularized when Agarwal released The Password Game, in which the player needs to pick a password that abides by increasingly unusual and complicated rules. Infinite Craft was released for his website on January 31, 2024, and a mobile app was released on the iOS App Store on April 30, 2024.[14] On May 21, 2024, a version was released on the Google Play store.[15]

Technical details

All elements in Infinite Craft are generated by a generative AI, Llama 2.[16] When a player combines two elements on the website, the game checks from its database if these two elements have already been combined before—if they haven't, the generative AI creates a new element which is then saved to the database. This is done to reduce repeated queries, and to ensure that the same pair of elements always outputs the same result for all players.[17]

Reception

Christian Donlan of Eurogamer compared Infinite Craft to one of his lucid dreams, explaining that an element "always [runs] away" when the player tries to figure out what elements to combine, while The New York Times Kieran Press-Reynolds stated it was "like peering into an A.I.'s brain", adding that the game's nonsensical nature "adds to the allure". Rock Paper Shotgun Graham Smith praised how the game was "glorious, time-stealing fun to try", commenting how "the real joy comes" when a player finds a simple way to create an element.

Notes and References

  1. News: Litchfield . Ted . February 4, 2024 . This browser-based 'endless crafting game' starts you off with fire and water, but it quickly escalates to God, the Big Bang, and 'Yin-Yoda' . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240212040959/https://www.pcgamer.com/this-browser-based-endless-crafting-game-starts-you-off-with-fire-and-water-but-it-quickly-escalates-to-god-the-big-bang-and-yin-yoda/ . February 12, 2024 . February 10, 2024 . PC Gamer.
  2. News: Smith . Graham . February 6, 2024 . Infinite Craft is a browser game in which you can craft anything, from God to Minecraft . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240209054344/https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/infinite-craft-is-a-browser-game-in-which-you-can-craft-anything-from-god-to-minecraft . February 9, 2024 . February 10, 2024 . Rock Paper Shotgun.
  3. Web site: Ganguly . Sharmila . February 17, 2024 . Does Infinite Craft use AI? . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240217190719/https://dotesports.com/general/news/does-infinite-craft-use-ai . February 17, 2024 . February 17, 2024 . Dot eSports.
  4. 1747284257582506102 . nealagarwal . Working on an endless crafting game with llama 2 . Neal . Agarwal . January 16, 2024.
  5. 1752716375255101440 . nealagarwal . The first version of Infinite Craft, an endless crafting game, is out now! . Neal . Agarwal . January 31, 2024 . February 18, 2024.
  6. 1757437669594771780 . nealagarwal . I'm never going to financially recover from this . Neal . Agarwal . February 13, 2024.
  7. Web site: ️ Dust on Infinite Craft Browser . 2024-07-18 . Infinite Craft Browser . en.
  8. Web site: Planet on Infinite Craft Browser . 2024-07-18 . Infinite Craft Browser . en.
  9. Web site: 2024-03-20 . Crafting the Wonders of Asia in Infinite Craft . 2024-03-30 . Infinite Craft Recipes . en.
  10. News: Donlan . Christian . February 6, 2024 . Infinite Craft is a powerful glimpse into other minds . February 10, 2024 . . February 8, 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240208221001/https://www.eurogamer.net/infinite-craft-is-a-powerful-glimpse-into-other-minds . live .
  11. News: Fay . Kacee . February 16, 2024 . How to make Minecraft in Infinite Craft . February 18, 2024 . . February 18, 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240218163525/https://dotesports.com/general/news/how-to-make-minecraft-in-infinite-craft . live .
  12. News: Barrett . Brian. October 26, 2023 . Can anyone save the internet? Neal Agarwal is trying, one Hampster Dance at a time.. February 20, 2024 . Business Insider.
  13. 923603576546611208 . nealagarwal . Today I'm launching neal.fun. It will be a collection of everything I make when I'm bored during lecture . Neal . Agarwal . October 26, 2017.
  14. Web site: 2024-05-19 . Infinite Craft by Neal . 2024-07-18 . App Store . en-US.
  15. Web site: Infinite Craft by Neal - Apps on Google Play . 2024-07-18 . play.google.com . en-US.
  16. News: Galekovic . Filip . February 7, 2024 . What is Infinite Craft? Neal Fun's latest game, explained . February 11, 2024 . . February 9, 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240209175131/https://www.destructoid.com/what-is-infinite-craft-neal-funs-latest-game-explained/ . live .
  17. Web site: Press-Reynolds . Kieran . March 4, 2024 . Playing Infinite Craft Is Like Peering Into an A.I.'s Brain . https://web.archive.org/web/20240306182058/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/arts/infinite-craft-ai-video-game.html . March 6, 2024 . April 8, 2024 . The New York Times.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Infinite Craft".

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