For The Lulz

I love to crack my knuckles and smash out ideas into my computer, programming has all ways been a joy to me. It often feels like a set of puzzles that reward me with new puzzles to explore. In that way, I think of coding as a puzzle game. Like any hard game I get stuck, I sometimes find my head will churn a on a solution to a puzzle with little progress. In these moments I find taking breaks to be very productive. After taking a break I can tackle a problem with a fresh outlook that is more productive and more enjoyable.

One of the key factors of this prescription to reinvigorate my problem solving is taking GOOD breaks. My definition of a GOOD break is one that will take my mind off the troubling puzzle. When I have the time I like to go for a walk, enjoy a podcast, read a book, or catch up with faraway friends. However, sometimes I just want to clear my head for a few minutes without leaving the computer. Me being the TUI-geek that I am, I have found countless great ways to spend time in the terminal just for the lulz. The following is a list of some wonderful games and tools that I use to take GOOD short breaks on the computer.

!YEEEEE lulz to take a break from HAXHAX lul-wut-fun!

Games WutWut

Text Adventure

In the late 1970s university students started playing with their code by writing games on their school mainframes. These games were shared, modified, and played by the few hackers that had the curiosity to poke about their computers for the lulz. Some of these early computer games took the form of what is now called text adventure games or interactive fiction.

I use the frotz emulator to play the following zmachine games. frotz should be available on your system's package manager, ie. apt-get, pacman, brew...

  • Colossal Cave Adventure was written in 1975. It was part spelunking simulation of the real Colossal Cave and part fantasy puzzle game. IT'S EPIC.

  • Zork 1 was written in 1980. You play as a treasure hunter venturing into a dangerous ancient empire in seek of great wealth.

  • Planetfall was written in 1983. Planetfall is a space adventure. You are a lowly ensign on a starship. After explosions on your ship, you find your self in an escape pod which crash lands on a nearby planet.

Rouge-like

Rouge-like games are turn-based role-play dungeon crawl games with randomly generated levels. They are highly inspired by tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. Rouge-likes got their name because the first of their kind was named rouge, written in 1980.

These games should be available using your system's package manager, ie. apt-get, pacman, brew...

  • nethack is an extremely difficult rouge-like. Choose from an array of character classes with different skills and play-styles, and begin your descent into a dangerous cave to acquire an amulet for your god. Don't forget to feed your pet :p

  • slashem is a variant of nethack, with new roles, races, levels, monsters, items, artifacts, and more.

Misc games

These games should be available using your system's package manager, ie. apt-get, pacman, brew...

  • dopewars You are slinging dope to pay off some debt. Cops are all ways on the lookout for you and your shady BLEEP. Get rich or die trying.

  • robotfindskitten A zen game where you, a robot, are looking for your cat.

  • moon-buggy Operate a buggy across the moon without crashing in a crater.

  • bastet Brutal Tetris with a special algorithm to feed your the worst block possible.

  • tron You are trapped in a computer and forced to race motorcycles to the death.

  • ninvaders Pilot a fighter spacecraft and fend off waves of descending aliens with your laser cannons.

  • pacman4console You are trapped in a chamber of labyrinths and need to eat your way out, but you must avoid the ghouls running in the corridors.

  • nsnake You, a snake, must slither through the tall grass in search of a hearty meal. When you eat you grow and there ain't much room. Don't accidentally eat your self, Ok?

  • greed Move around a grid of piles of money while trying to collect as much of the dough as possible.

  • nettoe is tic tac toe for the command line.

  • gnuchess is chess for the command line.

  • nudoku is sudoku for the command line.

Tools Yo

These tools should be available using your system's package manager, ie. apt-get, pacman, brew...

ASCII ART

  • sl is a great reminder that you need to slow down. sl stands for steam locomotive. Running sl will trigger an ASCII train animation to chug across your terminal. Because sl is ls backward you might find the train appearing more often than you expect.

  • figlet prints complex ascii bubble letters.

  • toilet also prints complex ascii bubble letters.

  • cowsay an ASCII cow, or dragon, or milk, and more, that will say anything you want.

  • cowthink an ASCII cow, or dragon, or milk, and more, that will think anything you want.

  • boxes is a tool for drawing ASCII boxes around your text.

  • aafire is an ascii camp fire simulator.

  • aview is a tool to view images as ASCII.

  • cmatrix is a visualization of falling green ASCII, that resembles The Matrix.

  • Run telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl to watch an ASCII implementation of Star Wars.

Misc Tools

  • espeak makes your computer talk like a robot.

  • rig will print a randomly generated fake identity.

  • fortune prints a unique fortune each time you run it.