Computer program that learns to play classic NES games
Why Hacker News recommends it
Loved on HN as a hilarious, brilliant example of hacker-academic work and cited whenever game-playing AI or fuzzing comes up.
What it is
Tom7 explains and demos software that learns to play NES games by finding score patterns in memory and then searching for inputs that raise it. It is the video companion to his SIGBOVIK paper.
Recommended by 9 HN commenters across 10 different months, 2015 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec learc83 · 2018-02 · on “A C89 compiler that produces executables that are also valid ASCII text files [pdf]”
Thanks for pointing that out. I wouldn't have noticed who that was otherwise. His video on learnfun/playfun is both hilarious and amazing. [this video]
Strong rec fartcannon · 2021-02 · on “Medical chatbot using OpenAI’s GPT-3 told a fake patient to kill themselves”
There was an AI created the absolutely brilliant Tom7 on on his YouTube channel 'SuckerPinch' on April 1, 2013 that paused a game of Tetris instead of losing. In my opinion, Tom doesn't get enough credit for his work. He released his AI a full 8+ months before DeepMind released their Atari playing AI. Watch the whole thing, it's delightful. The AI pauses Tetris right before it loses at around 16mins into the video. [this video] I also recommend his other videos. Brilliant guy. Edit: Here's the paper [LINK]
Recommends recondite · 2015-03 · on “SIGBOVIK 2015 Proceedings [pdf]”
Haha, I love it. There was a SIGBOVIK submission a couple years ago that looked at byte patterns within video game RAM (specifically NES) to automate the playing of. Pretty entertaining stuff. [this video]
Recommends fixermark · 2016-04 · on “Automatic 3Dification of Nintendo Games: The GlEnd() of Zelda”
Tom 7's work on machine learning and NES emulation is very impressive. This isn't the first time he's attacked that space; you can see previous experiences he had with an automatic game-playing AI he built called "LearnFun / PlayFun" on that YouTube channel also: [this video] [LINK] [LINK]
Recommends tomjakubowski · 2016-05 · on “Autonomous Mini Rally Car Teaches Itself to Powerslide”
If you're interested in a "dumber" approach to machines "learning" to play classic video games (including Super Mario Bros), tom7's video [1] and paper [2] on Playfun are both fascinating. [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]
Recommends d33 · 2016-06 · on “Deep Reinforcement Learning: Pong from Pixels”
In the context of AI and gaming, I definitely recommend this series of three youtube videos: [this video] Some games are played better than human would.
Recommends onli · 2017-04 · on “The glEnd of Zelda(): Automatic 3Dification of NES Games (2016)”
You should look at some other things the author did. They fit in the same area of craziness, and are absolutely great. For example [LINK] , Portmantout: A portmanteau of every English word, or the first one, [this video] , Computer program that learns to play classic NES games. I also liked the humor in What, if anything, is epsilon?, [LINK] .
Recommends onli · 2018-06 · on “Reverse-emulating the NES”
I'm not sure many people can pull this off. The author here was also great in his presentation about automated NES playing, [this video] . You don't see often academics & hacker work that is also combined with the right amount of humor. He even 3Dified the original Zelda!