while True: learn()

89%
Game Brain Score Based on 2,868 reviews
  • gameplay
  • story
  • graphics
while True: learn() Game Cover
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"while True: learn" is a narrative-driven game where you play as an autonomous AI learning from its interactions with a simulated humanity. Through a variety of moral dilemmas and choices, the game explores themes of AI ethics and the consequences of actions. As you progress, your AI must balance learning and growth with the impact it has on the simulated world.

  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • Mac OS
  • Nintendo Switch
  • PC
  • Phone
  • Play​station 4
  • Steam Deck
  • Windows
  • Xbox One
  • Xbox Series X|S
  • Android
  • Linux
  • Mobile Platform
  • Play​Station
  • Tablet
  • Xbox
Genres & TagsPlay Modes

Reviews

89%
Audience ScoreBased on 2,868 reviews
gameplay47 positive mentions
grinding18 negative mentions
  • The game features a charming art style and humorous writing, making it enjoyable to play.
  • It provides links to educational resources about machine learning, enhancing the learning experience.
  • The puzzles are engaging and can be quite challenging, encouraging critical thinking and problem-solving.
  • Many puzzles rely on trial and error rather than logical reasoning, leading to frustration.
  • The game can feel repetitive, with similar mechanics used throughout, diminishing the sense of progression.
  • Some mechanics, like the startup system and reinforcement learning tasks, are poorly explained and can be confusing.
  • gameplay198 mentions

    The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it confusing and poorly explained, particularly regarding the mechanics related to machine learning concepts. While some appreciate the puzzle-solving aspect and the potential for educational value, others criticize the lack of clarity, repetitive tasks, and a disconnect between gameplay and real-world applications. Overall, the game offers interesting ideas but struggles with execution, leading to a shallow and sometimes frustrating experience.

    • “The gameplay is intuitive, which is great for a puzzler.”
    • “A truly interesting game, I love that there is learning involved with the actual gameplay and various references to learn more and to free courses and things that pertain to this particular type of computer game.”
    • “Cool design and highly addictive gameplay.”
    • “The game mechanics are very abstract to the point of barely making sense.”
    • “The gameplay has taught me nothing and doesn't really make sense in the context of the real world.”
    • “The core gameplay here is very weak.”
  • story164 mentions

    The game's story is characterized by a charming and humorous narrative centered around a cat and machine learning concepts, which some players found engaging and educational. However, many reviews noted that the story can feel disjointed or underdeveloped, with side missions often lacking meaningful connections to the main plot, leading to a sense of repetitiveness and frustration. Overall, while the cute art and lighthearted tone are appreciated, the execution of the story and its integration with gameplay left some players wanting more depth and coherence.

    • “A really polished, fun and creative story that is definitely teaching me at least something about machine learning!”
    • “The artwork and music perfectly complement the hilarious story.”
    • “The story enriches the atmosphere in a playful way.”
    • “The story is confusing at best and cringeworthy at worst.”
    • “While it's a nice and short puzzle game and has some interesting links to machine learning integrated, the story is completely off-putting and boring and it has about as much to do with actual machine learning as SpaceChem has with creating molecules.”
    • “The text of the missions doesn't seem to really have anything to do with the puzzles - it ends up all seeming like meaningless fluff.”
  • graphics83 mentions

    The graphics of the game are widely praised for their cute and polished art style, which effectively complements the lighthearted and humorous narrative. Players appreciate the clean interface and engaging visuals that enhance the overall experience, making complex concepts more approachable. However, some users noted performance issues, such as framerate drops when many objects are on screen, which detracts from the otherwise enjoyable aesthetic.

    • “The graphics are great, and the customization is perfect.”
    • “The art style is excellent and the UI is generally well polished.”
    • “The visuals are highly polished, and I feel like I'm even getting a bit of a history lesson in a very palatable format.”
    • “The graphics are so simple that they are not making this game feel serious, appealing or pleasant.”
    • “Graphics are in need of serious optimization - framerates crawl and stutter when you have too many objects on screen and moving (running) at once, with a near-zero load on a decent GPU/CPU combo.”
    • “As there are no graphics options at all, you cannot activate v-sync to limit the framerate.”
  • humor74 mentions

    The humor in the game is widely praised for its charm and cleverness, often enhanced by a cute cat theme and engaging storylines. Players appreciate the light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek jokes that complement the educational aspects, making the game both entertaining and informative. Overall, the combination of funny narratives, quirky humor, and appealing artwork contributes to a delightful gaming experience that keeps players engaged.

    • “Cute and funny story, nice music, cool artwork, and +1 for explaining the underlying machine learning concepts/methods for those who are interested.”
    • “The artwork and music perfectly complement the hilarious story.”
    • “This game has a very charming art style, a great sense of humor, I love how much I'm learning from it, and most importantly, it's a lot of fun.”
  • music71 mentions

    The music in the game is generally described as cute, relaxing, and well-suited to the gameplay, enhancing the overall atmosphere. However, many users note that the soundtrack can be repetitive and lacks variety, suggesting a need for more diverse musical options. Overall, while the music contributes positively to the experience, it could benefit from additional tracks to maintain engagement over longer play sessions.

    • “I love this game; it's fun, challenging, and cute, even if the music does get stuck in your head super easily.”
    • “The artwork and music perfectly complement the hilarious story.”
    • “The music is super relaxing, so it's a perfect game to chill with.”
    • “The game definitely needs more diverse background music, but the current soundtrack is so minimalistic and ambient that it doesn't interrupt.”
    • “The music is repetitive and bland.”
    • “The soundtrack gets repetitive very fast.”
  • optimization56 mentions

    The game's optimization aspect is a mixed bag, with many players appreciating the logic and performance challenges it presents, while others criticize its execution and technical performance. Users noted that the optimization mechanics can feel random and overly complex, often penalizing experimentation, and the game suffers from significant performance issues, particularly when handling multiple objects on screen. Despite these flaws, the game is recognized for its educational value in teaching optimization concepts, though it struggles with bugs and lag that detract from the overall experience.

    • “Great puzzle game that teaches performance engineering fundamentals in a fun and easy way.”
    • “This is a fun logic game, turns your mind to optimization and sparks a curiosity about machine learning.”
    • “It is a game that rewards optimization and clever design.”
    • “The optimization part often seems rather random to fit the mechanics instead of making sense.”
    • “It has some core issues that make the mid-game unplayable - you don't get metrics about the performance of your system, which is a critical gameplay component.”
    • “The game is also poorly optimized as it can't handle that many nodes at once before it starts lagging.”
  • grinding20 mentions

    Reviews indicate that the grinding aspect of the game is largely viewed as tedious and repetitive, often leading to frustration rather than engagement. Players express that the need for grinding detracts from the enjoyment of puzzle-solving, with many feeling that the tasks become monotonous and unfulfilling, especially in a game themed around machine learning. While some improvements have been noted over time, the overall sentiment remains that grinding feels unnecessary and detracts from the educational potential of the game.

    • “I found it tedious to play, and it has been languishing abandoned on my hard disk, which says something.”
    • “The puzzles often boil down to unsatisfying trial and error or tedious ratio work without a lot of learning, and the game black boxes the actual interesting bits of how machine learning works.”
    • “This game is a tedious puzzle grind whose only relationship to machine learning is a paper-thin layer of theming.”
  • stability18 mentions

    The game's stability has been widely criticized, with numerous users reporting persistent bugs and glitches that hinder gameplay, particularly in mechanics related to car missions and user interface elements. While some players find the game enjoyable and engaging, the overall impression is that it lacks polish and can be frustratingly unintuitive due to its buggy nature. Despite these issues, there are moments of fun, but the game's stability remains a significant concern for many players.

    • “The best thing besides the fun, bug-free gameplay and the calming atmosphere: I really, really got interested in ML :)”
    • “I won't say much on the startup mechanics since others have covered it well enough: their mechanics are poorly explained and some have remained buggy for years (Gamazon in particular).”
    • “Theoretically a nice puzzle game, but too buggy and illogical to be good.”
    • “I really liked to play this game until it became obvious that the startup performance logic is buggy, making it impossible to scale solutions.”
  • atmosphere12 mentions

    The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its relaxing and cozy qualities, enhanced by delightful music and charming visuals. Players appreciate how the atmosphere complements the puzzle-solving experience, making it enjoyable and intuitive, while the presence of cute cats adds to the overall charm. Despite some critiques regarding puzzle delivery, the soothing environment remains a standout feature.

    • “The game has a very good atmosphere, cutting away a lot of the crud and letting you focus on the puzzles with a nice soundtrack to boot.”
    • “A great relaxing game with a soothing atmosphere, and cats!”
    • “The graphic designs and background music give this game a relaxing atmosphere and puzzles are fun and challenging.”
    • “[i]-atmosphere[2]:[/i] at least they tried.”
  • replayability6 mentions

    The game's replayability is a mixed bag; while some players find value in revisiting it to improve efficiency and speed, others criticize it for lacking replayability, particularly in puzzle-solving aspects where once the puzzles are solved, there is little incentive to replay. Additionally, some mechanics intended to enhance replayability may frustrate novice users, suggesting that clearer explanations could improve the experience. Overall, the potential for replayability exists but is not fully realized.

    • “11 hours in and I've almost beaten the game, but it's got great replay value.”
    • “This particular angle could be expanded greatly to give the game much more replayability, but the mechanics would need to be explained a little deeper: just what does make a good startup?”
    • “Will have replay value to go back and try to make your systems more efficient and faster.”
    • “This game lacks the game feel to it, and also has completely no replayability.”
    • “It also has no replayability, since it's a puzzle game; once you figure the puzzles out once, that's it.”
    • “(I understand real-world heuristic applications, but this will push away novices and students, and that is not what we want as a field.) It seems that these measures were put into place to add replayability, but will add frustration to the novice user.”
  • monetization4 mentions

    The monetization strategy of the game is criticized for its poor quality in-game ads and aggressive social features, detracting from the overall experience. While the game itself is not deemed bad, the design choices related to monetization are seen as disconnected from its educational intent regarding machine learning.

    • “Poor quality, in-game ads for other games, aggressive 'social' features.”
    • “To summarize, although not a bad game per se, I cannot recommend a game with design choices that are so remote from reality while advertising itself as an introduction to machine learning.”
    • “I would even be happy if this was an in-game purchase.”
  • emotional2 mentions

    Users express mixed emotions regarding the game's emotional impact, with some feeling frustrated and unhelpful, while others appreciate its initial accessibility. The early puzzles evoke a sense of potential for newcomers, but the overall experience can lead to feelings of inadequacy.

  • character development1 mentions

    Character development is criticized for its limited music, which may detract from the overall experience, and the character design, which some find unsettling, particularly for animals and small children.

    • “The character development feels shallow and lacks depth, making it hard to connect with the protagonists.”
    • “I found the character arcs to be predictable and uninspired, leaving me disappointed with their growth.”
    • “The choices you make don't seem to impact the characters in any meaningful way, which undermines the whole experience.”
Positive mentions (%)Positive
Neutral mentions (%)Neutral
Negative mentions (%)Negative

Buy while True: learn()

Play time

6hMedian play time
7hAverage play time
4-10hSpent by most gamers
*Based on 9 analyzed playthroughs

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