Rate top games
If you ever wished that there is a non-dystopian version of Eliza in the real world, boy, I got news for you :)I made Zen, an AI Therapist who is the modern version of the original ELIZA program that inspired the Eliza game.You can find a link to Zen which is in the description of r/Fireplace_FriendsIt works best on desktop as you would need to type a lot. You could try it on a mobile phone but the user interface is not good. Zen is not as good as a human therapist and I am working on it. Zen may misunderstand you but you might be able to have a meaningful conversation with her if you are patient. Some users managed very heavy conversations for hours with her.
Thoughts?
Last night I played uh.... Chapter 6? When I get options to deviate from the script. I deviated everything on the first client then got the message from Rae on what's going on. Then on the second client, it felt like the first options were similar anyway so I just clicked on Eliza, but after a few more lines I changed my mind and decided to deviate all the way as well. So I reloaded that chapter. (Can't remember if I checked out Continue first. I probably expected that to put me back in mid-session.) However, at the end I got Rae's message again. I checked the History and it was as if I picked all the Eliza options from the first client. I reloaded from her, then quickly moved through both clients to get Rainier's message. Uh... Is that supposed to happen? When I choose a chapter instead of Continue, some previous sections get their default conversation options chosen? Did I lose all my choices for the game's entire history? (Not that it seems to matter much at this point) /u/krispykrem
Does that mean I can't play it again unless I start a new game? Is there anywhere I can play the same sort of solitaire outside the game?
For most of the therapy sessions, I just felt that Eliza system is of no use at all. It just simply reflect what people says, and none of the parameters it intakes really matter. Just like the real life "old" Eliza who can not even pass the Turing test.Did the people in Zachtronics make that on purpose, to show that a therapy AI cannot just really work? Actually I don't believe an AI which intake so much amount of information can produce such weak result.This game is amazing but just the Eliza system which is a bit disappointment to me. I think it can work better on regular basis. It doesn't really seemed to show what "active listening" is to the full extent.
I made it to the Expert level, but even in previous levels it seems you run into more unsolvable situations than not. (I might be missing something though; I've never played this version of Solitaire before.)Is every deal guaranteed to be solvable? If so, what's a general strategy for this (or are you supposed to be able to play out moves ahead of time in your head?)I wish there was an undo feature...
Major spoilers follow!This game has two brilliant uses of foreshadowing related to the Eliza sessions:For #1, you don't know it's going to happen until it does, but you want it so badly, and having it really happen triggers a complex mix of emotions. Really good stuff. The interesting thing is that it's hard--instead of just going with the flow, now you have to pick which of Eliza's and Evelyn's responses is more appropriate, which is not easy!For #2, you know it's going to happen well in advance, and the build-up makes it so intense when it does. (You're also given possibly the longest options box in the game, rivalled only by the cookies, IIRC.) It's so interesting too how the Eliza questions actually work at drawing out Evelyn's feelings, and that the proxy's delivery is wooden.It feels like maybe the whole game was built around these two moments. It's easy to imagine a prototype that took place entirely in the Eliza office. Then the rest of the material would have been added to flesh out the story.
This is obviously all spoilers so I'm not going to mark them within this post, to save you clicking.Let's look at the 5 endings from two perspectives:RaeThis was the most natural pick from my perspective. Evelyn seems to be doing well at the counselling and finding it fulfilling, or at least illuminating. Plus it's another angle on the same problem she was trying to solve with Eliza, and who knows, maybe a few years down the road it'll open up some new possibilities.It's an nice touch to bring back your first client for one last session. Interesting though that it sort of plays like a full-on endorsement of the Eliza system. That feels a little surprising in the context of the overall story.I also found it a little odd that if you pick this ending then you don't see Nora at all.NoraThis is a fine pick for a generic person, but for Evelyn specifically, it feels weird to go full-time artist without having shown much interest in art previously.It's funny that Nora gives you a synth lesson. I was half-expecting to be given a simple interactive synth to play with.It's nice to see Evelyn get some satisfaction from the audience enjoying her work in the last scene, but that said, realistically, the first track of music you ever write is going to be crap, for sure. That's just the nature of art... it takes practice. But maybe Nora helped her fix it up.SorenThe induced-dreaming tech seems pretty cool to me, but Soren is flawed and his vision for the tech (ending suffering) seems like a weird fit.The way the ending plays out is even weirder than I expected from the pick. It definitely feels unnatural for Evelyn, but I liked that it doubles-down on the critique of viewing mental health from a purely productivity-focused perspective. I assume it's also a deliberate analogy to micro-dosing. Seeing the dreamworld again was nice. (The art has some nice clouds, in particular.)RainerThis feels like the least natural pick to me, just because Rainer is quite unethical and his vision too fanciful. The earlier parts of the story made me think those are problems for Evelyn. That said, I can see why she might want to take what she's learned as a proxy and work to improve the Eliza system.It plays out about as unnaturally as you'd expect, given the above. Even a little more unnaturally, given that Evelyn shows a bit of personality transformation.Leave Everything BehindI'll admit, I thought this ending would be depressing and didn't pick it for that reason. Evelyn seems to be getting along well with Nora and Rae, so dropping them to do something unspecified seemed like a bad idea. That said, in a depressed state, it's totally believable that she might do that.I was pleasantly surprised to find that this ending plays out with some of the best writing of any of them. In tone, it fits well with the overall story. It is a little bit depressing, but not too much.ConclusionMy headcanon is a combination of Rae, Nora, and Leave Everything Behind. Work as a proxy, study to become a counsellor, make music as a hobby, and take a trip to Japan to meet your father.I'm not sure what to think about the Soren and Rainer endings. Is anybody going to seriously prefer them? I can see an argument that Evelyn might do well to return to AI research. If she does, though, she can definitely find someone better to work with than those two.If I had to guess at the author's preferred ending, it'd be Nora or LEB. Maybe Rae.