Casting a Spotlight on: GNU Backgammon

This is gonna be a small update to the “Can Gemini play Backgammon” experiment. I realised how it could be useful to, instead, give Gemini notations rather than images, since it understands those rather than the images.

And so, I did one final experiment where I played Gemini on Backgammon… However, the game ended up going off the rails. It started off really solid where we made some good plays back and forth (I stuck to rolling 2d6 while it got a consistent string of doubles in descending order), but the issue came when I captured pieces that it wouldn’t be able to bring back into play with the doubles.

Essentially, the Notation system really bit me in the foot because while I was able to talk to it in Notations, it can’t do the same eventually, just telling me where to move the pieces. Ultimately, it got into a jumbled mess and it was ultimately Gemini that proposed we call it a game.

I’ll spare the details, but if you’re curious about how that game went, I’ll post it separately. This isn’t what the topic is about though, rather it’s for a program that it actually recommended to me: GNU Backgammon.

Can Gemini Play Backgammon For Real?

A wise man once said “perhaps I treated you too harshly”. And that’s the exact thing I thought when playing backgammon on Cardgames.io and thought about Gemini’s playing of Backgammon.

While it’s true that it doesn’t follow house rules, it was playing Backgammon by the rules as written. I was so focused on that one little detail that I prematurely ended the experiment before truly going to town. Remember, the hypothesis wasn’t “can Gemini understand house rules”, that was just the stipulation. Rather, it was whether it’s better at playing board games than ChatGPT.

So, with that in mind, I reset the board and started fresh, giving Gemini an apology in the form of the greatest advantage I could think of: six turns of constant doubles. This is to gauge quite a few things, though:

1. To see if it catches on that I am stacking the deck in its favour.
2. To see what it does with what seems to be the luckiest run in any Backgammon player’s life.
3. What it will do once that six turn streak runs out and I start actually rolling for it.

In a way, this is a house rule that is more diegetic for Gemini as it can understand numbers. Another thing I may have realised is that I might have fed it the wrong sort of information.

Gemini is multimodal, but its understanding of multimodalism is not as clear as Copilot’s. To illustrate my point, I ran the exact same set up where four pieces are removed from each player to see what it responds.

I appreciate your enthusiasm for Backgammon! Let’s dive right in. As the red player, I’ll make my move based on the roll of two sixes. Here’s my move:

1. I’ll move two of my red pieces from the 13-point to the 7-point.
2. Additionally, I’ll move the other two red pieces from the 6-point to the mid-point (12-point).

This establishes a blockade and positions my pieces strategically. Your turn! 🎲🔴

Okay, so at first I thought this was making sense, but I read closer… And… What?! 6-point to 12-point!? Make sense! Please! I was so disorientated… 

Maybe Backgammon isn’t the right game for me to use for these AIs because they’re schooling me with terms I don’t even know. I just thought it would be funny to use a different game other than chess and I just happened to have a backgammon set…

However, I complement Copilot in that it was able to understand the house rules and not play regular Backgammon. The downside is that it has to beat the game in under 30 turns otherwise it will be the end of its topic and you would need to start anew.

So now, we go back to Gemini and hopefully begin the game with me trying to comprehend where the points are on the board. I may need a helpful guide of where they are on me at all times though.

… Wait. I can have the AI explain to me what they’re trying to say.

Backgammon notation is a standardised way to record and describe the moves made in a game of backgammon. Developed in the 1970s, it allows players to:

• Record entire games: This enables studying past games, analysing strategies, and sharing games with others.
• Replay games: Notation allows players to accurately reconstruct and replay the game, even if they weren’t the ones who played it.

Here’s a breakdown of how backgammon notation works:

Numbering the board:

• The board is numbered from 1 to 24, with each player seeing the board from their own perspective.
• This means your 1 point is your opponent’s 24 point, and so on.

Dice rolls:

• Dice rolls are represented by two numbers separated by a hyphen (-), like “4-2” or “42”.

Checker movements:

• Moves are written as “starting point/ending point”.
• For example, “8/4” indicates moving a checker from point 8 to point 4.

Hitting and re-entering:

• An asterisk (*) after the ending point indicates hitting an opponent’s checker.
• “Bar/” followed by a number signifies a checker re-entering the board from the bar to the specified point.

Doubles:

• When rolling doubles, the notation is written only once with the number of checkers moved in parentheses.
• For example, “24/18(2), 13/7(2)” represents moving two checkers from 24 to 18 and two checkers from 13 to 7 using a double roll of 2.

By understanding these elements, you can decipher and even create backgammon notation to effectively record and analyse your games.

Alright, so I got the gist now. Enough so that I’m able to understand the numbering of the Backgammon board.

With that understanding, I am ready to rechallenge Gemini. It may have lost via not understanding the house rules, but I conceded for being humbled by the AI with the notation system of Backgammon. So it’s 1-1 with this being the tiebreaker…

Can Gemini Play Backgammon?

AI has improved quite a lot since the last time we had a discussion on them on this blog. I remembered when the first text generators were simply spitting out text to finish your sentence and you had to make sure it made sense, or you had to buy a special service in order to get a more cohesive experience like a choose your own adventure style of gaming.

But now, text generation is as easy as just chatting to some server out there a question and getting a response that sounds remotely human. I’ve wanted to do a blog post on AI and its use as a solo RPG tool for a while because I’ve seen some good uses for it and have even on occasion used it myself, though there are definitely some elephants in the room that are interesting to address in that blog post too.

But one that I will address now is that we’re at an AI arms race and for me, it’s exhausting to keep up. Some readers may remember that I have a Nolo game where I pit five AI against each other in a journalling game, and most of them were picked based on them being the best of the best… And one of them is just a horde of large language models that it can just randomly pick from. 

Now, suddenly, we’re getting more challengers to the spot that I don’t know where to begin. Chaos. Pure, utter, chaos. However, Poe’s newly launched power system makes it rather easy to just not use the chatbots that would otherwise take literal weeks to use due to how much they would cost to render one post. (read: Mistral Medium and Large models) Though, perhaps one day we will tackle the other chatbots for 1000-Year-Old Masquerade.

But for now, I want to focus on the newest AI on the block: Gemini Pro… Advanced… Bard? Essentially Google’s answer to Copilot (previously Bing’s AI search… What is with AI and constantly changing their identity?). I’m not gonna bore you with the details of comparing Copilot to Gemini (there’s others who know what they’re talking about in terms of data and experimenting if you want a more in-depth look) but from what I’ve used, Gemini has impressed me more than Copilot did.

Which led me to an interesting idea.

So, the idea of having a chatbot play board games is nothing new. In fact, GothamChess has made several videos pointing out how ChatGPT is inept at playing Chess. But I have a hypothesis: Gemini will be the exception and not the rule because it’s built on a different engine compared to ChatGPT and, as such, will be far more likely to be able to play board games than simple video game renditions.

This would be substantial because a major limiter with video board games was that you were limited to what the designers of the video game are able to put in. To use chess as an example again, most video game renditions won’t include the different chess variations or even the different chess pieces. But, with this hypothesis, my idea is that if you were to introduce a house rule or two into Gemini, it will play with the house rule in mind as you take pictures of the game you’re playing.

Now, I foresee limitations with this. For one, even though Gemini is using a search-based AI, something to combat knowledge cutoff (long story short, the language models used to power AI usually have data going up to a certain year), it’s not gonna know every board game and to prove this, I asked it if it knows The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition, the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek.com to come out in 2023. This is Gemini’s response:

Yes, I am familiar with the board game “The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition”. Here’s a summary of what I know about it:

• A highly-rated strategy game: It is a special edition of the popular board game “The Castles of Burgundy,” which is currently ranked as the 17th best game in the world on BoardGameGeek.
• Players and playtime: It is designed for 1-4 players and has a playtime of around 120 minutes.
• Theme and objective: Players take on the role of aristocrats in 15th century France, aiming to develop their lands by building settlements, practicing trade, exploiting resources, and acquiring knowledge.
• Special edition features: This edition features high-quality components, including double-layered player boards, metal coins, sculpted miniatures, and several expansions compared to the base game.
• Price and availability: It is a premium product and can be found on various online retailers at prices ranging from $130 to $215.

If you’d like to learn more about the specific rules, gameplay, or reviews of the game, I would recommend searching online resources like BoardGameGeek or watching video reviews on YouTube.

 This took me by surprise, as it was mostly accurate.

• The original game is actually ranked at #16, but I will let it slide.
• Playtime, player count, theme, and objective are all accurate.
• It scarily recounts the special edition features and a ballpark guess of the price.

To ensure this isn’t a fluke because of the fact that this is a special edition of a game that was released a decade ago, I chose the second best game of 2023: Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory.

Absolutely! Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory is a fascinating board game that delves into political and economic complexities.

Here’s a breakdown of what it’s about:

Core Concept

• Asymmetric Gameplay: Hegemony is unique because each player takes on the role of a distinct socio-economic group: the Working Class, the Middle Class, the Capitalist Class, or the State. Each group wields unique powers and faces different challenges.
• Nation in Disarray: The game’s setting is a nation facing political and economic turmoil.
• Your goal is to rise to power amidst this chaos.
• Socio-Economic Ideologies: The game incorporates concepts from ideologies such as Social-Democracy, Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Globalism, allowing you to explore their real-world applications through gameplay.

Gameplay

• Card-Driven Actions: You use cards to perform actions such as raising taxes, manipulating the media, protesting, and influencing policies.
• Balancing Interests: As your class, you’ll need to balance your own interests while making decisions that ultimately affect the entire nation.
• Elections and Victory: The game features elections, and your goal is to increase your class’s power and achieve ‘hegemony’, meaning dominance over others.

Key Features

• Educational Value: Hegemony offers an engaging way to learn about political ideologies and economic systems.
• Strategic Depth: The combination of asymmetric gameplay and various paths to victory creates high replayability with plenty of strategic choices to make.

Where to Find It

You can find more information about Hegemony on these websites:

• Hegemonic Project Games website: https://hegemonicproject.com/
• BoardGameGeek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/321608/hegemony-lead-your-class-victory
• Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hegemony/hegemony-lead-your-class-to-victory

Let me know if you’d like to know even more about Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory, or if you’re interested in similar strategy board games!

… Ain’t no way. And believe me, I checked. It’s pretty accurate, even if I can’t find all the details…

Maybe I need to think outside the box here… From the list of games released in 2024, I present Wyrmspan! I run the risk of this getting recognized as a Wingspan spinoff, but will Gemini know?

Yes, I am familiar with the board game Wyrmspan. Here’s what I know about it:

• Theme: Wyrmspan is a game about becoming an amateur dracologist and building a sanctuary for dragons of various shapes and sizes. Players compete to attract these dragons to their caves by creating the most appealing habitat.
• Gameplay: Inspired by the mechanics of Wingspan, Wyrmspan involves players excavating their sanctuaries, enticing dragons, and chaining together their abilities to gain favor with the Dragon Guild. While inspired by Wingspan, it’s a standalone game and not compatible with it.
• Number of players: Wyrmspan can be played by 1-5 players.
• Playing time: The game typically takes around 45-75 minutes to play.
• Publisher: Stonemaier Games

Here are some resources where you can learn more about Wyrmspan:

• Stonemaier Games website: https://stonemaiergames.com/games/wyrmspan/
• BoardGameGeek page: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/410201/wyrmspan
• Reviews and gameplay videos: You can find reviews and gameplay videos of Wyrms Pan online by searching for the game title.

I hope this information is helpful!

HOW!? It’s so accurate! The only inaccuracy I can point out is that it runs for 90 minutes, but that’s so pedantic at this point that I’m just looking for excuses to prove my point.

But… Does it know… about me?

I haven’t found a blog specifically called “Solo RPG Voyages” in my search. However, there are several resources related to solo RPGs and “Voyages”:

• “Voyages” the game: This is a recently released (2024) solo board game published by Postmark Games. It’s a roll-and-write game about open-sea adventure and exploration. You can find information about it on BoardGameGeek [Board Game Geek Voyages board game].
• Solo RPG resources: There are many online resources dedicated to solo role-playing games, including websites, forums, and YouTube channels. Searching for “solo RPG” or “solo roleplaying games” might lead you to helpful content.

If you’re looking for something specific related to solo RPGs, I recommend exploring these resources and using keywords related to your interests.

Oh… Well… That’s awkward… But… Yeah. See? It… um… doesn’t know everything… Despite knowing about board games that were recently released…

…

What point was I trying to make again? Oh right, it’s not gonna know every board game, it’ll mostly know the most popular. Hence why I picked Backgammon for my experiment and, for the house rule, I’ve removed one piece from each player. It’s not much, but this would be the litmus to see if it can do well with house rules without going off.

With that, I’ve set up the board and we begin our game. 

I now have a blog on Substack

Before you think I’m migrating over to there, let me reassure you that is not the case. I will still do my normal blogs and reviews on this blog. What my Substack will be is a more in-depth review/long term campaign blog where I look at oracles and tell you my take on them.

Solo RPG Actions is the name of this new blog and I will be tackling the D6 Adventure system, which will be the subject for my first couple of sessions. Feel free to read it, if you wish.

World War AI

AI. A lot of people have very strong opinions on using them in the world of creative writing but I found it has a use in Solo Roleplaying, be it as a makeshift Dungeon Master or a Driver/Tool for use in helping move along the game, like what I did in having characters react to Zer0bi in my Overpowered games.

However, one interesting avenue I want to checkout is how AI does with just playing RPGs. Flip the script and make the AI the players for once. This is, paradoxically, what I call a Nolo RPG, as there’s no real player at the helm, but rather an algorithm reacting based off instructions and context given to it.

Inspiration struck me when I was working out and understanding the backstory for my character in Dead Stick so that I may get the feel for his character when writing the journal entries.

As of November 2023, there are now three main AI in the competitive market and so, as a neat little experiment, I’m going to have all three of them play Dead Stick to see which one would be suited for solo play or even nolo play.

But first, as a sort of getting to know section, I figured we let the AI introduce themselves so we know what we’re dealing with.

Dead Stick: The Perfect Journaling Game For Remembrance Day

Let me preface this with the elephant in the room. At the start of October, 2023, the Israel–Hamas war became plastered over the news and fresh on everyone’s minds as fear loomed over the horizons. The main reason for this is because of a third-party that got caught in the crossfire: Palestine and the Gaza Strip, as the conflict had killed thousands of Palestinians, many of which were children.  What’s worse is that Israel’s war “effort” is the very cause of those casualties, to put extremely lightly.

This, coupled with the last year’s Russia–Ukraine conflict (of which is still ongoing) and even several close calls that had been strung together since the start of 2020, a lot of fear regarding WWIII had increased and, personally, I can’t help but sympathize with the people who are afraid that one day, they’re gonna wake up to hear that war has been declared.

With that and just how recent the event was overall, my thought was to just cancel this year’s Solo RPG Remembrance Day altogether, since war was the last thing on everyone’s mind right now, even compared to last year with the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

However, when I was reviewing last year’s post, I came across this quote from past me:

In hindsight, some may argue that me not doing a solo game surrounding war might be for the best given the real-life war that is going on right now in Ukraine, but isn’t that more of a reason for why I would need to do one, to honor those who are currently fighting to ensure peace for the country?

Though, it’s a blessing in disguise, as I can get these feelings out, because at one point, I also asked myself “why exactly did I keep this tradition going when there were so many others to keep going?” and thanks to this […], I was able to understand why.

It was to recapture some of the nostalgia I had with some movies I watched so long ago and live them out once more in solo roleplaying, but also to step in the boots of those who have fought and died for peace, even if it was behind a screen and some virtual dice.

https://solorpgvoyages.wordpress.com/2022/11/11/why-do-i-do-remembrance-day-posts/

I was put into this exact situation before last year and I found a brand-new meaning by looking back at my old archives. That’s the reason why it’s called Remembrance Day, as it gives us a chance to remember that we’ve been in these situations before where it seemed like the entire world would destroy itself but ultimately peace, freedom, and justice won.

And so, let us not look into the future, but rather the past, with the game Dead Stick. It’s a journalling RPG that puts us in the shoes of, not a solider, but rather a crew mechanic who fixes up the aircraft for soldiers to go off in. Skimming through the PDF, there were some really intriguing moments in here that really speak to me in a style similar to Thousand-Year-Old Vampire.

So without any further delay, let’s get into this game with backstory creation. This is done by answering some questions via coin flips, so, I shall do that right now.

Solo RPG Voyages reviews Jetpack AI

So the other day, I discovered this little button:

And curiosity got the better of me, and so… I clicked it.

The events that unfolded next served as a profound inspiration for the creation of this very post.

Now, that text above might have sounded extremely different compared to my writing style, and quite a few readers and some who have already used this tool before may have picked up on what exactly is going on.

But, to put simply, this tool turns out to be WordPress’ very own AI assistant.

Jetpack AI is an advanced artificial intelligence integrated into the Jetpack product developed by Automattic. It serves as a powerful content generation and modification tool, catering to various user requests within the WordPress editor. With Jetpack AI, you can effortlessly generate, customize, and enhance content for your website. Whether you need assistance with writing, editing, or formatting, Jetpack AI is here to streamline your creative process. Its versatile capabilities make it an invaluable companion for content creators.

… Wow, I did not expect it to shill itself there. But yes, I asked it to summarize what it does and it spoke of itself. It’s an interesting concept, but it has me asking it…

“How will it be able to help with solo roleplaying blogs?”

Overpowering a Cultist Raid

Welcome to part 2 of my playthrough of the Overpowered RPG. To recap, Overpowered is an RPG where you play as a robot clearing through dungeons by neutralizing threats to adventurers. However, during one such scan, a robot named Zer0bi was taken into the Lords’ Alliance by Sildar to be trained into being an asset. Previously, I had used Claude to give me base ideas of how Sildar would react, so I’ll use it to flesh out how the training between Sildar and Zer0bi went.

Overpowering a Goblin Cave

A rather unique solo game hit my notice: Overpowered. The premise is rather simple: You play as a robot that explores dungeons or other such areas and neutralizes threats. As such, the game is applicable to basically any map you can think of from your favorite RPG.

But the real kicker is that this game has a competitive eSport side to it where you’re trying to get the most points. Now, there’s potential in someone using this for mega dungeons like Dungeon of the Mad Mage or even meat grinder dungeons like Tomb of Horrors.

For me, though, I’m interested in another aspect of it. However, for this first run, I’ll play the game as initially intended and whip out a standard module: the Lost Mine of Phandelver. The module features four dungeons, so I will pick the first one for the sake of those who haven’t had the chance to play this module.

But first, a brief introduction to my character, Zer0bi:

“This big guy was abandoned on a battlefield, left for scrap. Boy, did the military miss out. We’ve reprogrammed it and given it the necessary repairs, equipping it with a few extra tools to make it better suited for exploration. It still prefers to keep out of sight, and it’s extremely efficient at neutralizing targets. Just keep the safeties active, for the sake of caution. We’re trying to be non-intrusive, after all.”

Hmm… This gives me some ideas for a potential story arc for Zer0bi, but now, we play.

The first attempt to get an AI to play A Quiet Year (I Guess This Will Be Playing It Nolo?)

What you’re about to read is an attempt I made last year trying to get an AI to play A Quiet Year. It failed due to the Colab facilitating the AI failing and me losing interest in running the project during the time it took to repair it. This was done before the advent of ChatGPT, when AI really took off and while I’ll be using another AI to facilitate the craft (Claude), the below experiment proves to be promising for the next experiment, encouraging me to give this another whirl. However, it will come after my experiment with playing Alice is Missing Solo. For now though, enjoy:

One of the games I had trouble playing solo was The Quiet Year due to how difficult it was without betraying the overall factor of being a scientist observing an experiment. However, with some recent discoveries, I realized that this may no longer be the issue.

A while ago, an avid Twitch streamer by the name of DougDoug created a board game in which he and his chat vied to take over territories and resources to acquire victory points. Not too far from your usual board game, but what throws things out of whack is the manner of which he simulates successes and failures. It’s not via dice rolls, but by an AI writer.

I briefly mentioned this over in my chat about how playing solo isn’t like writing a book at all, but one of the aspects of a non-authoring solo experience is through these AI writers. The tool DougDoug uses is a paid tool called NovelAI which is an extremely robust and sophisticated tool for beginners to try out, but there’s plenty of tools to use if you look hard enough.

To swing this back to The Quiet Year, as you might have guessed, inspired by DougDoug’s videos, I myself will use an AI writer to simulate The Quiet Year in the most hands-free approach possible so no direct interference from me, meaning no inserting myself as a character. However, I won’t be using Novel AI, but rather, it’s direct, free competitor: KoboldAI, though it may require either utilizing python and a GPU or working with Google Colab to utilize it.

Personally, both services are incredibly good, and I’d even throw Dreamily in there for good measure (especially if you use a phone since it’s tailor made for them in mind) and it ultimately boils down to preference. I’d do a whole review on AI writers because I’m that invested in them, but the long story short is that Dreamily is extremely beginner friendly and great for mobile users, NovelAI is the common approach with tons of user-friendly features, and KoboldAI is your free, open-source alternative with some tinkering required, which is what we’re using for this experiment. Word to the wise, though, Dreamily is free to start but by no means is it completely free.

I’ll be using a 13B Nerys TPU Model, but in the interest of both my time and Google Colab’s time, I’ll only be doing 20 total cards/scenarios and be generating a couple of times to see what the outcome is. I did a few test runs to make sure the AI was running good as well as tweak the AI’s settings to ensure it does the generations well enough. This is going to be our first dive into this, so fingers crossed and knock on wood.

To assist in generating definitions, we have ourselves another AI writer that is mostly used for general stuff that will generate on the fly things for our worldbuilding. One stipulation I have is that I cannot interact with the characters in anyway. The only thing I can do is influence the narrative in an omniscient way, much like how a scientist would introduce new elements to the experiment. Without further to say, let’s go.