Infinite Craft

File:Gameplay screenshot of Infinite Craft, 2024.png

Infinite Craft is a web-based sandbox game. The main aspect of the game are elements, which represent an idea, object, or concept. The player starts with the four classical elements and uses various combinations of two elements to form new ones. For example, Plant and Smoke produces Incense, which creates Perfume when combined with itself. 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 Llama 2.7 and Llama 3.1, a large language model, to create new elements and assign emojis. 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 have not, the generative AI creates a new element which is then saved to the database.{{Cite news |last=Galekovic |first=Filip |date=February 7, 2024 |title=What is Infinite Craft? Neal Fun's latest game, explained |url=https://www.destructoid.com/what-is-infinite-craft-neal-funs-latest-game-explained/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240209175131/https://www.destructoid.com/what-is-infinite-craft-neal-funs-latest-game-explained/ |archive-date=February 9, 2024 |access-date=February 11, 2024 |work=Destructoid}} This is done to reduce repeated queries, and to ensure that the same pair of elements always outputs the same result for all players. If a player is the first person to discover an element, the game labels it as a "First Discovery".

As the game can theoretically go forever and has a potentially infinite number of possible elements, there is no defined goal. Players have created databases of recipes, and some YouTubers have attempted to speedrun the game. Agarwal has said that Llama is "not quite as smart" as ChatGPT. A content filter is in place that filters offensive results, but there are still occasionally incoherent results, which players find amusing. The longest theoretically possible element in Infinite Craft is 320 characters long.

File:Neal working.png

Infinite Craft was made by Neal Agarwal, a software developer based in New York City. In an interview, Agarwal said that he has been developing games since the age of nine and that he thinks "There should be more people creating fun stuff on the web." After enrolling at Virginia Tech in 2016, he created neal.fun, a collection of small browser games about various topics, most of which he created during lectures. One of the site's first games, Spend Bill Gates' Money, received attention with over 80 million page views. The site was again popularized when Agarwal released The Password Game, a game in which the player needs to pick a password that abides by increasingly unusual and complicated rules, on June 27, 2023.

Development of Infinite Craft was announced on January 16, 2024.{{Cite tweet |number=1747284257582506102 |user=nealagarwal |title=Working on an endless crafting game with llama 2 |first=Neal |last=Agarwal |date=January 16, 2024}} The game was made available on the website on January 31, two weeks after the announcement. Mobile apps were later developed and released on App Store and Google Play on April 30, 2024, and May 21, 2024, respectively.{{Cite web |date=2024-05-19 |title=Infinite Craft by Neal |url=https://apps.apple.com/us/app/infinite-craft-by-neal/id6499235533 |access-date=2024-07-18 |website=App Store |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Infinite Craft by Neal - Apps on Google Play |url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fun.neal.infinite.craft&hl=en_US |access-date=2024-07-18 |website=play.google.com |language=en-US}}{{Cite tweet |number=1752716375255101440 |user=nealagarwal |title=The first version of Infinite Craft, an endless crafting game, is out now! |first=Neal |last=Agarwal |date=January 31, 2024 |access-date=February 18, 2024}}

The game became popular on the internet upon release. According to Agarwal, the game received over thirty thousand views in the first month{{Cite tweet |number=1757437669594771780 |user=nealagarwal |title=I'm never going to financially recover from this |first=Neal |last=Agarwal |date=February 13, 2024}} and over 300 million recipes are created each day. This has caused the website's servers to overload, and Agarwal had to petition the hosting service provider to increase its bandwidth.

The game received positive reviews upon release. 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{{'s}} 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{{'s}} 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.

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{{Cite news |last=Litchfield |first=Ted |date=February 4, 2024 |title=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' |url=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/ |url-status=live |archive-url=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/ |archive-date=February 12, 2024 |access-date=February 10, 2024 |work=PC Gamer}}

{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Graham |date=February 6, 2024 |title=Infinite Craft is a browser game in which you can craft anything, from God to Minecraft |url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/infinite-craft-is-a-browser-game-in-which-you-can-craft-anything-from-god-to-minecraft |url-status=live |archive-url=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 |archive-date=February 9, 2024 |access-date=February 10, 2024 |work=Rock Paper Shotgun}}

{{Cite web |last=Ganguly |first=Sharmila |date=February 17, 2024 |title=Does Infinite Craft use AI? |url=https://dotesports.com/general/news/does-infinite-craft-use-ai |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240217190719/https://dotesports.com/general/news/does-infinite-craft-use-ai |archive-date=February 17, 2024 |access-date=February 17, 2024 |website=Dot eSports}}

{{Cite news |last=Donlan |first=Christian |date=February 6, 2024 |title=Infinite Craft is a powerful glimpse into other minds |url=https://www.eurogamer.net/infinite-craft-is-a-powerful-glimpse-into-other-minds |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240208221001/https://www.eurogamer.net/infinite-craft-is-a-powerful-glimpse-into-other-minds |archive-date=February 8, 2024 |access-date=February 10, 2024 |work=Eurogamer}}

{{Cite web |last=Press-Reynolds |first=Kieran |date=March 4, 2024 |title=Playing Infinite Craft Is Like Peering Into an A.I.'s Brain |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/arts/infinite-craft-ai-video-game.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240306182058/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/arts/infinite-craft-ai-video-game.html |archive-date=March 6, 2024 |access-date=April 8, 2024 |website=The New York Times}}

{{Cite news |last=Barrett |first=Brian |date=October 26, 2023 |title=Can anyone save the internet? Neal Agarwal is trying, one Hampster Dance at a time. |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/neal-agarwal-saves-internet-making-web-fun-again-games-2023-10 |access-date=February 20, 2024 |work=Business Insider}}

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Category:2024 video games

Category:Android (operating system) games

Category:Browser games

Category:Game artificial intelligence

Category:Indie games

Category:IOS games

Category:Neal.fun games

Category:Sandbox games

Category:Single-player video games

Category:Video games developed in the United States