Game titles produced by AI
Andrew Eckel, July 1, 2018




I once had a dream I was playing a perfectly normal-seeming video game with the title Honoree Ass. I decided to train a recurrent neural network to dream up some fictional video game titles of its own.

A recurrent neural network (RNN) is a type of artificial intelligence model that can produce output endlessly, until it makes you sick. For a real definition, see Further Reading below. This project required zero coding of my own. I just downloaded an implementation of an RNN that was already set up, and I trained it on a list of 149,664 video game titles I found online.

The RNN started out knowing nothing about language, video games, or the world. It still knows nothing, but now it generates fake game titles. I read 5,000 of the titles it produced and selected my favorites to share. I felt like I was shopping from a mail order catalog. I think that's the best way to enjoy these titles. Imagine it's 1990. There are a bunch of new games on the market, but there's nowhere to read reviews. Would you spend money on one of these games, sight unseen?

Flybractorz
Mist Factory
Alien in the Fires
Limited Card
Learnia
Aton nn Ika: NoGames Out of the Bear 4U For Race (Return of Duck Edition)
Pacman Scenery
Knights & All
Dead Queen
ZapJusticePockets: Americal Tangstone
Curse of Donkey Shock
The Video
Krap
Plecktown
Semi's Eternal Creation Football
Hamblife
Barba: Alliance of Meen Earth
Bible Pink
Pete 2000
Beenage
Worms of Garfield: Shadows of Championship
Big Bird Panic
Two Sharp
Lots of Doom
Cyberry
Manager
Hyppy Strike
The Android™ Computer Cross: Fistfile Waterse & the Park
Winter Cry Race
Great Forget
Honey Talks
Jeepizations
War Walk
Weiny Pro Warrior
Fly Adventures
Chop Snowboard Nebula: England Madness
Fred Space Fop Gutter
Championship Bang
Judgeboardies
Trickomon's Caper McSpin
The Gamehop
The 6 Deer Davis
Battle Battle
Schambler
Land Command 2 II
Galaxy in Love
Sword Ruind 3
Princession
The Putt Raider
WWE Mink Blood (Conquest & A Might)
Highway Abe
World of Lore: The Floppy Hunter
Buzzz - Wizard Fever!
Jellilous
Silent One
Dark vs Frog
Simple Enter
Pirate Devil
Bomberman Dance 1736
Scarquite
The The Dut 7 Superbow
Stata Quiz Right: The Farrier Cheese
Trick Lever
Macs: The Infocom
CaveSnakking You
Space Dutch
Whonos
Dylanders
Computer Rally 18
Open Nor Your Blaster
The Tycoon Ghost Girls of the Power
Farten Kath & 2
CyberBoat
Disney's Unrear Kix
Revenge of Rocks
Men Conflict: Tree Last Baseball 6
Workship
Gear of The Nooper
NHL 1945
Rock Pack
Stormery
Fatestruction
One Extreme 2
House Ball
Soccer: Fighter Bay! II: Switter
Soccer for the Eye
Bubble Defender
Rockshot's Fire War
The Sonicalia
Bang-Bamp
Hallogy
Santa International vs. Mr. Vol. 2
Mega Golf Hockey
Total Doo Wolfonkin
Sports Blood
Spiky Hits
Greeper
Hard Boxing Golf
Madden's Tursh
Apple City
Lake Fighter
Foxes of Soccer
Jones of the Island of Battle Machines
Spy Blast Wars
The!
Broken Simulator
The Nazylamps
Mario Enforcer
Video Fine
Christmoo
Levemon 2: Death Baseball: The Droggoch
Solid Chickeystones
Dractory
Operation Sister
Birdle Beaster
Brick Sing
Zazty
Graama Tennis
Formatron Willbert
Squinbow
NBA Poker
Blood Waster

Not satisfied? Here's another hundred thousand fake titles I haven't even read. If you find this program's output hilarious as I do, having some understanding of what an RNN is won't spoil the magic; it will make it even funnier. Again, see Further Reading.

Specifics: What Great Resources I Found, and What Very Little Work I Did
This all started when I emailed my friend Kyle McDonald, just to ask if a couple of amusing AI projects I'd seen online were real or not. He sent me some interesting links, and that got the (crumbling, rusty) gears turning in my (caveman) brain.

I downloaded the Docker version of Torch-RNN and ran it with all default settings. For input, I gave it the List of Every Video Game Ever (v3) compiled by Pastebin member DATA_BASER, reaped from the Universal Videogames List and Moby Games, but with the entries shuffled randomly in Sublime Text. Removing all non-English titles would have been nice, but come on, I'm not going to manually edit a list of nearly 150,000 games!

For many fake titles, the RNN's output also included the developer, platform, and year, but I removed those details from the list above. Occasionally, the RNN spat out a real title from the list it was trained on, like The Sims. I checked all my faves, and none of them were directly from the input. So, I assure you, Princession is a word the RNN invented, and there is no real game called Lots of Doom.

Some of the titles the RNN produced were so perfectly goofy, I was worried no one would believe I hadn't just made them up. Revenge of Rocks was one of those. There were a bunch more I removed. Seriously.

Further Reading
If you're still reading, hey, check out my music videos and animations.