ChatGPT creates games now. Is nothing safe from AI?

ChatGPT creates games now. Is nothing safe from AI?

ChatGPT can do almost anything. He can write you a horror story about a killer clove of garlic, identify problems with your computer code, and teach you how to pronounce words in another language. You can also create new games from scratch, and you can try one right now.

ChatGPT's new game is the result of a tug of war between the AI and a certain Daniel Tait, who was interested to see if ChatGPT could recommend a puzzle like Sodoku to him. ChatGPT responded with a list of five alternatives, all of which Tait had already tested. So he upped the ante by asking ChatGPT to invent a Sodoku-like puzzle that didn't exist yet.

Just as easily as ChatGPT compiled a list of Sodoku alternatives, he came back with a new puzzle, Labyrinth Sodoku, which is basically Sodoku with barriers and paths to fear. Tait liked it, but he thought it could be better and made other games run ChatGPT. In the fourth game, he had a winner, something ChatGPT called "Sum Delete".

In the game, you are presented with a grid of numbers, from one to nine, with an additional number assigned to the end of each row and column. Your task is to remove numbers in the grid so that the row sum matches that number at the end. It's not just a concept, either: Tait asked ChatGPT to create a playable version of the game with Javascript and HTML, as well as CSS to improve the design. He even worked on the name with the AI, eventually coming up with Sumplete, a combination of "sum" and "full".

The playable version of Sumplete, which you can check out here, allows you to set the grid from 3x3 (which you label beginner) to 9x9 (labeled "master"). The 3x3 grid is easy enough to solve: my first puzzle only had two numbers to remove, and the pattern revealed itself quickly. Then I tried increasing the grid to 7x7 from the original concept and... yuck! Suddenly, there are many more sums to follow. Things may work for the first few rows, but you quickly realize you're screwing up other rows along the way. Fortunately, if you get stuck, there are Hint and Reveal buttons to help you out.

He's probably not the next Wordle, but I wouldn't be surprised if he takes off thanks to his ingenuity. It's strange to think about it: a free AI chatbot has created a game, both in concept and execution, and you can play it, and it's pretty cool. Who knows what this thing will do next?