e530 — Vibe It! - Ready Player Chum

e530 — Vibe It! - Ready Player Chum

Author: Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, Andy Piper September 29, 2025 Duration: 31:47
Friendly bipedal robot strolling down a path
Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-robot-toy-on-gray-concrete-floor-9026299/

Published 29 September 2025

e530 with Michael and Michael – an AI extravaganza with vibe coding, AI gaming chums, rating LLMs via Infocom games, robots for construction, self assembling space habitats and a whole lot more.

Michael and Michael get things moving this episode with an AI extravaganza while Andy is away.  The co hosts start things off with a vibe coding assistant to help you with your QBasic programming needs.  Next up, the pair consider a couple of stories dealing with assistants who can help users be more effective in playing games.  There is a real Goldilocks zone for the assistant to help the player remain in a state of flow, where the game is neither too easy due to the assistant’s help, nor too frustrating to play.  Michael R gives an example of his trying to get to Orc Town to progress in Mines of Moria.  Continuing on the theme of AIs playing games, Michael and Michael take a look at TextQuests, where a variety of LLMs take up the challenge of playing Infocom text based games.  With all the discussion on AI slop in the news, the article from Computerworld about the mathematical inevitability of hallucinations is particularly timely.

Michael and Michael move from AI to robotics and take a look at the construction bot from Dusty Robotics, which prints out a life size blueprint directly on the floor.  Michael M shares a space habitat construction solution from Aurelia that uses magnets to self assemble in orbit.  Michael R shares a story about the engineering feat of moving a viking ship without damaging it, which reminded Michael M of the challenge of moving the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  Check out the links below for all the details.

What would your ideal game chum be like?  What do you think about the current state of AI chum?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! 

These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Selected Links

AI

hackaday.io AI Coding Assistant for Microsoft QBasic

Engadget article: Google is turning Gemini into a gaming sidekick with a new Android overlay

PC Gamer article: Microsoft’s new Gaming Copilot AI tool promises to be ‘your personal gaming sidekick’ but it mostly seems to do the work of a Google search, with the potential for ‘hallucinations’

Games at Work e488: Fight. For Your Right. To Pla-aaay! for Jane McGonigal and flow 

The Gamer article: How To Find Orc Town In The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria

404 Media article: AI-Powered Animal Crossing Villagers Begin Organizing Against Tom Nook

TextQuests.ai 

Wikipedia article: Infocom

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws
computerworld.com/article/4059

— Charlie Stross (@cstross@wandering.shop)
2025-09-21T17:14:32.576Z

Computerworld article: OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

Rule 34 by Charles Stross

Accelerando by Charles Stross

Games at Work e306: Weak Ties for Accelerando 

hitchhikers.fandom.com: Infinite Improbability Drive

Washington Post article: AI firm Deepseek writes less secure code for groups China disfavors

Robots

Dusty Robotics

Aurelia: Tesserae: Self-Assembling Prototypes

Magnatiles

This is Colossal article: A Feat of Engineering Transports the World’s Best-Preserved Viking Ship to Its New Home

National Park Service article: Moving the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Two More Things

Six Colors article: Apple Announces a New Set of Immersive Film Releases

Random Thoughts post: My AirPods Review


The weekly conversation hosted by Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, and Andy Piper, Games At Work dot Biz, explores the intersection where our digital play and professional lives collide. This isn't just a review show; it's a deep dive into the technology that powers our hobbies, the business behind the leisure, and the cultural news shaping both worlds. Each episode feels like pulling up a chair with three friends who are as passionate about the craft of game development and the evolution of hardware as they are about the pure joy of finding a great new title. You'll hear specific discussions on everything from the latest graphics card impacting performance to the narrative design of an indie darling, all filtered through the lens of professionals who live in the tech space. The Games At Work dot Biz podcast operates on the belief that the games we play and the tools we use are inextricably linked, offering listeners a consistently thoughtful and engaging analysis that goes far beyond a simple score. Tune in for a regular dose of insightful commentary where the serious business of technology meets the serious fun of games.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Games At Work dot Biz
Podcast Episodes
e531 – Games and Such [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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Epredator created AI Generated image Michael R and Ian “Epredator” Hughes get together for a chat about #gaming, #VR, and #technology. We talk about some of our favorite comfort games, how they are procedurally generated…
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e528 — Monstrous Mice & Nano Bananas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:59
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e527 — AI Taco Trolls [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:06
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e526 — Beans and Bricks [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:24
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e525 – See Thru Wooden Pixels [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:02
Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash The Michaels take some time to talk about AI, Apple and Gaming this week, while Andy is out. While we are not an all Michael podcast, we did see a few Mike posts on Mastodon from Mike El…
e524 — Googlenight, AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:14
Googlenight, AI virtual book cover Published 11 August 2025 e524 with Andy and Michael M – stories about AI generated goodnight stories, Med-Gemini, GPT-5, skeuomorphism, scrobbling, seeing through doors and a whole lot…
e523 — Two hundred and sixty six starlings [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:42
Photo by Pete Godfrey on Unsplash Published 4 August 2025 e523 with Michael R and Andy, possibly arriving via carefully-arranged starlings? – stories about AI again, obviously; iPadOS 26; games, old and new; and, an inno…
e522 — Pointing at Doomed Fish [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:58
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash Published 28 July 2025 e522 with Michael M and Andy – stories about AI in multiple forms: bees that listen, a cat that chats, and then some fun with animating fish you draw, a GameBoy you…
e521 — We Like Big Drives [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:35
Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash Published 21 July 2025 e521 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories about expressive robots (Shoggoth Mini, Apple ELEGNT, SpiRob & facehugger), newly reengineered Commodore & Sinclai…