Editing Zero-player game

{{Short description|Game that has no sentient players}}
A '''zero-player game''' or '''no-player game''' is a [[computer simulation|simulation]] game that has no [[Sentience|sentient]] players.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mukund |first=Madhavan |date=2021-05-01 |title=The Winning Ways of John Conway |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12045-021-1164-6 |journal=Resonance |language=en |volume=26 |issue=5 |pages=603–614 |doi=10.1007/s12045-021-1164-6 |issn=0973-712X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 

== Types ==
There are various different types of games that can be considered "zero-player".<ref name="cat">{{Cite journal|last1=Björk|first1=Staffan|last2=Juul|first2=Jesper|date=2012|title=Zero-Player Games. Or: What We Talk about When We Talk about Players|url=https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/zeroplayergames/|journal=The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference}}</ref>

=== Determined by initial state ===
A game that evolves as determined by its initial state, requiring no further input from humans is considered a zero-player game.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Segovia-Aguas |first1=Javier |title=Synthesis of Procedural Models for Deterministic Transition Systems |date=2023-09-28 |work=Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications |editor-last=Gal |editor-first=Kobi |url=https://ebooks.iospress.nl/doi/10.3233/FAIA230502 |access-date=2024-11-20 |publisher=IOS Press |doi=10.3233/faia230502 |isbn=978-1-64368-436-9 |last2=Ferrer-Mestres |first2=Jonathan |last3=Jiménez |first3=Sergio |editor2-last=Nowé |editor2-first=Ann |editor3-last=Nalepa |editor3-first=Grzegorz J. |editor4-last=Fairstein |editor4-first=Roy|arxiv=2307.14368 }}</ref> 

[[Cellular automaton]] games that are determined by initial conditions including [[Conway's Game of Life]] are examples of this.<ref>{{citation|author=Martin Gardner|title=Mathematical games: The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game 'Life'|date=October 1970|url=http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/Library/life.pdf|journal=Scientific American}}</ref>''<ref>{{citation|author1=Ljiljana Petruševski|title=Self-Replicating Systems in Spatial Form Generation – The Concept of Cellular Automata|url=https://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/1450-569X/2009/1450-569X0919008P.pdf|author2=Mirjana Devetaković|author3=Bojan Mitrović}}</ref>'' 

''[[Progress Quest]]'' is another example, in the game the player sets up an artificial character, and afterwards the game plays itself with no further input from the player.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fizek |first=Sonia |date=2018-06-18 |title=Interpassivity and the Joy of Delegated Play in Idle Games |url=http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/1754 |journal=Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association |volume=3 |issue=3 |doi=10.26503/todigra.v3i3.81 |issn=2328-9422}}</ref> ''[[Godville]]'' is a similar game that took inspiration from ''Progress Quest''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ogneviuk |first1=Viktor |last2=Maletska |first2=Mariia |last3=Vinnikova |first3=Natalia |last4=Zavadskyi |first4=Vitaliy |date=2022 |title=Videogame as Means of Communication and Education: Philosophical Analysis |url=https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/videogame-as-means-of-communication-and-education-philosophical-analysis |journal=Wisdom |volume=1 |issue=21 |pages=101–116 |doi=10.24234/wisdom.v2/11.626|doi-broken-date=2024-11-24 }}</ref> In the game, the player is a god that can communicate with a [[non-player character]] hero.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://rgdoi.net/10.13140/RG.2.1.3797.1604 |title=Jogar, jogo e sociedade = Play, game and society |date=2013 |publisher=CECC - Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Cultura |isbn=978-989-98248-0-5 |editor-last=Ferreira |editor-first=Cátia |language=pt |doi=10.13140/rg.2.1.3797.1604 |editor-last2=Tavares |editor-first2=Roger | last1=Tavares | first1=Rogério | last2=Ferreira | first2=Cátia }}</ref> However, the game can progress with no interaction from the player.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Alharthi |first1=Sultan A. |last2=Alsaedi |first2=Olaa |last3=Toups Dugas |first3=Phoebe O. |last4=Tanenbaum |first4=Theresa Jean |last5=Hammer |first5=Jessica |chapter=Playing to Wait: A Taxonomy of Idle Games |date=2018-04-21 |title=Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3174195 |language=en |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |publication-place=New York, NY, USA |pages=1–15 |doi=10.1145/3173574.3174195 |isbn=978-1-4503-5620-6}}</ref>

[[Incremental game|Incremental games]], sometimes called idle games or clicker games, are games which do require some player intervention near the beginning however may be zero-player at higher levels.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Madge |first1=Christopher |last2=Bartle |first2=Richard |last3=Chamberlain |first3=Jon |last4=Kruschwitz |first4=Udo |last5=Poesio |first5=Massimo |chapter=Incremental Game Mechanics Applied to Text Annotation |date=2019-10-17 |title=Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3311350.3347184 |language=en |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |pages=545–558 |doi=10.1145/3311350.3347184 |isbn=978-1-4503-6688-5}}</ref> As an example, ''[[Cookie Clicker]]'' requires that players click cookies manually before purchasing assets to click cookies in the place of the player independently.<ref>{{Citation |last=Deterding |first=Sebastian |title=24. Cookie Clicker: Gamification |date=2020-12-31 |work=How to Play Video Games |pages=200–207 |editor-last=Payne |editor-first=Matthew Thomas |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/nyu/9781479830404.003.0028/html |access-date=2024-11-20 |publisher=New York University Press |doi=10.18574/nyu/9781479830404.003.0028 |isbn=978-1-4798-3040-4 |editor2-last=Huntemann |editor2-first=Nina B.|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===AI vs AI games===
In computer games, the term refers to programs that use [[artificial intelligence]] rather than human players,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=7DiB3z2fBpAC&dq=%22zero-player+game%22&pg=PT504 "Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society"], Rodney P. Carlisle, [[SAGE Publications]].</ref> for example some [[Fighting game|fighting]] and [[real-time strategy]] games can be put into zero-player mode where multiple [[Artificial intelligence|AIs]] can play against each other. Humans may have a challenge in designing the AI and giving it sufficient skill to play the game well, but the actual evolution of the game has no human intervention.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Summerley |first1=Rory |last2=McDonald |first2=Brian |date=2024-03-27 |title=Perceived Foolishness: How Does the Saltybet Community Construct AI vs AI Spectatorship? |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15554120241238262 |journal=Games and Culture |language=en |doi=10.1177/15554120241238262 |issn=1555-4120}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Single-player game]]
* [[Two-player game]]
* [[Multiplayer video game]]
* [[Incremental game]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Game theory game classes]]
[[Category:Game artificial intelligence]]