014 Programming Robots for Video Games

Today, we talk about one of my favorite hobbies - programming robots to cheat in video games! If you have no experience at all with programming, don't worry! I'll be explaining everything with the usual easy-to-understand Kuli level English.

Chapters

• 0:00 Start
• 1:46 Cheating in games
• 7:58 Tetris
• 18:30 Neopets
• 34:42 Programming
• 37:33 Wrapping up

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host, Chris. So last time we talked about music and instruments, and I also gave a couple stories about how I played certain instruments. 

And I also mentioned that in this podcast, so in all the episodes, it always starts with the exact same song. And that song is something that I made up like a long time ago, sometime in high school. And then I use it for every single episode. 

So, you know, if you like it, then thanks for liking it. And if you don't like it, I'm sorry, I don't really have anything else. And, you know, with this kind of podcast stuff, you have to have permission to like use things in the podcast. 

So I can't just go and take some famous song and then put it in because then, you know, the person who made that song can come and say like, Hey, that's my song. You need to pay me money or something like that. And that's kind of complicated.

But anyways, so I was thinking about what to talk about today. And I feel like the right thing to talk about is something that I like a lot. And, you know, I have a lot of stories and stuff, and I'm happy to tell you the stories eventually. 

But today I want to tell you about this hobby that I have. And it's a hobby that I think I haven't talked about yet on this podcast. I did talk about it in the previous podcast. 

And there's no other way to say it, but I love cheating in games. And so this is like one of my big hobbies. And games, you know, there's a bunch of different meanings, cheating, there's a bunch of different meanings. 

But let's go and dive into that. But right after the short little break.

Okay, so let's go ahead and get started. 

So first of all, let me go ahead and fully explain what I mean by like cheating in games. And number one, let's talk about cheating. So cheating is a it's kind of a negative word, like it usually means something that's bad. 

And but there's a lot of different meanings to cheating.

So the first meaning - I'm going to talk about like, four meanings - but cheating usually means like when you're taking a test, and maybe you don't know the answer, you like look at what other people wrote, and you're not supposed to do that. That's against the rules. 

So that's like cheating on a test. And then there's other kinds of cheating as well. So for example, like cheating in a relationship. 

So you know, suppose that if two people are dating, and they prompt they like tell each other, like, baby, I love you, you know, I you're the only one for me. And they promise to each other that they're not going to date anybody else. So they're exclusive. 

And then one person goes and like secretly dates someone else, then that's, that's cheating. Alright, so I mean, there's more to it. But I'll leave it there. 

We're not talking about this today.

And then there's another kind of cheating, which is like, I guess, like, if you have a diet. So imagine that I have a diet, and I have a diet that's like, I only I only eat healthy things. 

So so no, no potato chips, and no ice cream. I really like potato chips and ice cream. But you know, for the diet - this isn't a true story - but suppose that I have a diet, and I'm not supposed to eat ice cream or potato chips ever. And then one day, I don't know, like some friends come over, and they're like, Hey, Chris, let's eat potato chips and ice cream, because we know you like it. We brought your favorite one.

And then I see it. And I'm like, Oh, I can't resist it. And then I eat it. 

This is cheating on a diet. And sometimes people will say like a cheat day, which is like, if you have a diet, let's say I have a diet that's like no potato chips and ice cream for the whole week, except Sunday, Sunday is the cheat day. So that means like you're cheating on your diet, you're not listening to the rules of your diet. 

And you know, like cheating is generally kind of like a bad thing. But a cheat day is kind of like a happy thing, because people are like, Oh, you know, you know, who made the rules, I made the rules, and I'm making the exception for myself. And I like eating like potato chips and ice cream.

So a cheat day is kind of like a, maybe it's a little bit of happy. It's got a happy feeling to it. And then the last one is the one that I'm like, mainly going to talk about with the cheating, like in games. 

So and number one games can mean a bunch of different things. Like maybe someone means like a baseball match, or like a football match, like, Hey, did you see the game last night, that probably means some kind of sport. And then there's also like board games where I don't know if you're playing like Uno or something. 

And then in Uno, you're supposed to like put down a card that is the same color or the same number as whatever's in the middle. If you've ever played Uno before, you know it. If you haven't played Uno before, I think it's kind of boring. I don't think you should play it. 

But you know, Uno has rules. And if you don't obey the rules, then you're cheating in the game. 

And then it's not just board games, which is like in real life, but also with online games. So online games, there's there's so many online games and stuff like that. But those generally have rules too. 

And most of the time you'd like you can't do it. So like, you know, if you're playing some game, like let's say League of Legends, or like World of Warcraft or something, like a lot of the times you have to buy something. And if you don't have enough money, then you can't buy it, like the game just doesn't let you buy it. 

But there are other other things that you can do to cheat in the game. Like you can scam people, you can trick people into taking their money. Or you can like, what I want to talk about is you can write a program. 

So you can use programming to create a robot that will play the game for you. And that's also against the rules. So that's cheating. 

So what I'm going to talk about is cheating in games. And should we take a break? No, let's go ahead and keep going. So I let me go ahead and talk about, I guess, what kind of got me into programming in the first place. 

And by the way, I'm going to explain everything as if you don't know anything about programming, and you don't really know much about games. Because, you know, like, for me, I kind of grew up in a setting where I personally liked games. And then my friends, you know, I didn't really have friends when I was young. 

But then after I grew up and made friends, most of my friends also liked games too. And then I went to college and I studied programming. And then after college, I like worked for five years at Google, which is like a programming job. 

So you can imagine my circle, like my world, the people that I talk to most of the time, they're all somehow related to like games or programming. Usually, I mean, there's other people too. But a lot of them, they already know, like a lot of the stuff that I talk about when I talk about games or programming. 

But again, this podcast is like, I try to make it accessible to everybody. So number one, the main thing about this podcast is I try to speak in a way that's easy to understand. So this isn't the same way that I talk with other like native friends. 

If I speak with native friends, then I use probably a little bit more slang. And I like probably slack off a bit more on my pronunciation. So I sound a little bit more like this or something. 

But then number one, I try to speak like in a way that's easier to understand. And I also purposely choose words that are like easier to understand. So I avoid using hard words. 

And this is just so that people can kind of like listen to English and you know, have like get some practice. But then so that's like on the language level. But then also for the contents level, so like what I actually talk about, I want to also make that generally available to everybody. 

So if I were talking to my friends, I would just talk about you know, games and programming and it'd be really fast. I wouldn't explain that much stuff. But for this podcast, since we're already making the language more accessible to everybody, let's go ahead and make the other contents itself. 

So like, you know, talking about the programming and the games and stuff. I'm going to assume that you know nothing about programming. And I'm going to assume that you know very little about games as well. 

So now let's go and take a short little break. And then after we come back, I'm actually going to start talking about like the first game that I want to talk about. Anyways, it's it's music time, break time, appreciate my music. 

Okay, so the first game that I want to talk to you about is Tetris. So Tetris, if you already know what Tetris is like, you probably also know that it's kind of hard to explain if you don't already know what Tetris is. But I'm going to do my best to try to explain it. 

But Tetris is like a really, really famous game. And it's a it's a game where basically a bunch of little pieces, like blocks will fall on the screen. And then they keep falling. 

So you only have a certain amount of time before they don't they hit the bottom. And when they hit the bottom, then they stay and they can't, you can't move them anymore. But while they're falling, you have time to adjust, you can move it to the left, you can move it to the right, and you can spin them, you can rotate them. 

So you know, imagine like the common, the most common piece that everyone knows is like the long stick. So there's like a stick, and you can rotate it. So you can put the stick on the side. 

So it's like a long horizontal bar, or you can put it straight up and down. And that's a that's a vertical bar. But Tetris, the whole point of the game is to kind of like, you want to align the you want to move the pieces in a nice way so that they are like, you know, snug next to each other that there's no like, there's no open space in between them. 

And then if there's no open space in between them, and you manage to fill the whole row, it's like the whole bottom row is full, and there's no open spots, then it clears and then that line disappears. So it's like kind of a game of, I don't know, like cleaning up by ordering the pieces. But then, you know, when the pieces come really fast, then you can't really do a good job moving it. 

And sometimes you get unlucky, and it doesn't give you the piece that you really need. So it's it's that kind of game. And so Tetris, I played Tetris as a kid, like when I was really, really young, but I thought it was okay. 

And then I played again, like when I was an adult, adult meaning I think I was like 18 or something. So that's that's an adult in the US, right? 18 is the age at which you're an adult in the US and 21 is the age at which you can drink legally. But so I played when I was 18. 

And then my friend introduced me to Tetris again. And I remember the first time I heard it is from Jonathan. So Jonathan was like, Hey, dude, let's play Tetris. 

I was like, dude, Tetris, like it's kind of boring, right? It's like everybody knows Tetris, and it's kind of boring. But actually, like there's this side, there's there's another side to Tetris that I really like, which is like the competitive aspect. So like a Tetris, depending on what mode you play, like the earliest versions of Tetris were just you play by yourself. 

And then you know, you'd like to get some pieces and then you try to clear it. And you try to last as long as you can. And then eventually you mess up if the pieces all build up and then you can't clear it, and then you die. 

But in this like adult, like competitive version, what you do is it's like Tetris versus other people. So like two people are playing the same game of Tetris side by side. And then if one person like does really well, then it actually like damages the other person. 

So like attacks them. So if you do your stuff really, really fast, and it sends them more garbage that they have to deal with. And this is honestly pretty fun.

So anyways, I started to play Tetris a bit more. And then and then I went to college. And then in college, you know, a lot of the times, by the way, when I say college, it's the same thing as university. 

It's just Americans call it college more often. And then other people like Canadians, probably Australians and people from the UK, they call it uni, university, which is very common too. But anyways, like in college, I played Tetris Facebook on like Tetris Facebook with friends or something on the friends, Tetris friends on Facebook. 

I don't remember the name, but it was on Facebook. And then you play Tetris and it's the same game. But like, like Facebook, they want to make money, right? So what they do is they say, okay, so you can play Tetris. 

And you know, it's really nice because like, we can show you your ranking against all your Facebook friends. And if you invite other Facebook friends, like you can get a little bit of credit. But then there's also this concept of energy. 

And this energy is just there so that, you know, they can make money. But when you play a game of Tetris, it costs you five energy. And you can hold up to like 20 energy. 

And the energy just comes back over time. So every minute or every like three minutes, you get like one energy back. And then if you don't have enough energy, if you don't have five energy, then you can't play. 

And then so you have to either wait, or you can pay money. And that's how they make money. Of course, they say like, oh, you don't want to wait. 

Well, here's like 20 energy. If you just give us $1, just $1, you get like 20 energy. And I'm like cheap, right? So I never want to spend money on the thing. 

And I don't really know why. I feel like a lot of people that I know, when they grow up, they have the same ideology. They have the same way of thinking, which is, no, I'm not going to pay money for premium stuff. 

Like I'm going to try to win everything by being free. And the truth is like now as like a bigger adult, so I'm not 18 anymore, I'm like 30. But as a bigger adult, and then after you like work a job or something, you know how to make money, then it's like, yeah, well, if it's just a dollar, it's not that much money. 

But you know, back then, it's just it was against the principle of it. So it's like, I have like a certain morals and values, and I cannot pay for this. And so what they have is you can pay money for that energy, or you can watch an ad. 

Like, I guess, you know, I value like my $1 so much, but I don't actually value my time that much. So I'm like, yeah, I'd rather watch an ad than pay money. And so I have to watch like an ad for like 30 seconds. 

And then if you watch it for 30 seconds, then you get some more energy or you get like some more stuff.

And then, so this is the point at which I started cheating. And it's not really cheating, but basically, you know, if you watch the ad, you get free energy. 

And it's not just energy, but you can get other stuff too. And then I didn't want to actually watch the ad. I just wanted the energy for free, that's the best deal. 

But the rules are you have to watch the ad. And then I noticed that like, every time I clicked it, like the same ad would come, and then the same reward comes back. And then sometimes, you know, if you click the ad, and then you watch it like once or twice, like the ad will change, or they tell you, oh, sorry, no more ads are available or something like that. 

But like, for some reason, it always came out consistently. So then I was like, oh, okay, well, let me go ahead. And then that's when I started. 

I think that's when I actually started like programming. I was like, oh, well, let me just see if I can download some kind of way to like, click this thing. And then so I basically like wrote a small little programming script that would watch the ads for me. 

So the script like takes control of my computer. And then it clicks the area that's always where it says like, oh, watch an ad for energy. And then it waits for like the 30 seconds until it finishes, and then it hits the X. And then it does the same thing. 

Again, it watches another ad. But the ad is always the same ad, by the way. So then I would run this like while I slept. 

So it was in college, and I had a roommate. And then I just leave the computer on at night. And then I turned down the brightness, so it's not too bright. 

And then like while I slept for like eight hours or so, like the the robot would just keep watching ads. And of course I turned the volume to zero so we don't actually hear it. And then like the next day I woke up and I looked at how much energy I'd have. 

And I was like, holy crap, I have like over a thousand energy. Like this is crazy. And it's like so much energy that I would actually never use it.

But it didn't stop there. Okay, so I then I started getting greedy. And greedy meaning like I want more than what I need. 

And so I already have more energy than I need. But I also want this thing called armor. So what is armor? Armor is like something that you wear to protect yourself.

But in the game, in Facebook Tetris, when you have armor, then if you fight somebody and then you lose, then you know it breaks your armor, but you don't actually get hurt. And then you don't actually lose any rankings. So then like your ranking stays the same, but you lose one armor.

And the armor is kind of like you don't really need it, but I figured well I already have this script that I already wrote a script, which is like, by the way, script is something that like runs, I guess. If I have a script, then it runs like a job for me. But like this script, this robot, it already watches ads for me. 

So what I did was I just went ahead and had it watch the armor ads too. So it watches the energy ads and then it watches the armor ads. And then it watches and then it watches like all these other power-ups. 

So I just get tons of power-ups that I don't even use. And then I slept. And then when I sleep, it was like the most, it's the most exciting sleep you can have because you know that the next day you're going to wake up and have a bunch of stuff.

And the next day I wake up and I'm like, oh dude, I have so much energy and I have so much armor. And it was so great. And then it was really sad because when I actually played Tetris, like I would fight people. 

And then like if you win, then if I won, then my ranking went up, right? And then I fight harder people. But then if I lost, then the armor would protect me. So my ranking only kept going up and it never went down. 

But this was actually kind of bad because what ended up happening was I would just fight against people that were really, really good. And some of them were so good that I don't think they're human. And then my ranking, it never went down because I have just too much armor. Like I have to lose a thousand times before the ranking goes down. And the whole point of this ranking thing is so that you fight against people that you're like an equal level with. So then I kept going to this higher bracket and sometimes really rarely I would win and then my ranking goes even higher. 

But then I kind of quit playing because every time I played, I would just get my butt kicked. And if I got defeated, my ranking didn't go down to fix it. I would never fight against easier people because I had too much armor and I had all these power-ups and stuff, but it doesn't help because everyone else is just too good. 

But anyways, that's my story about playing Tetris and then also cheating in Tetris to get stuff. But then I got too much stuff that it kind of defeated the whole point of the game and then I stopped playing Tetris. And now I suck at Tetris because I haven't played in a long time.

But anyways, let's take a short little break here and then I'm going to tell you about the next game.

All right, so let's go and continue and talk and continue talking about games. So the previous game that I mentioned, Tetris, I feel like that's such an easy topic to talk about because everybody knows what Tetris is. 

Like Tetris is like this really, really famous international game. And like, it doesn't matter where you're from. You've probably heard of Tetris before.

But this next game that I'm going to tell you about is a little bit different. It's a little It's like not famous at all. And it's famous amongst like, there's a really narrow range of like, age group of people that know it. 

And it's probably people around my age. So around the age of 30, maybe plus minus like three or four years. But this game is called Neopets.

And now Neopets is like, I don't even know how to describe it. But it's like a game where you have these pets. And they're called Neopets, but they're just normal pets. 

And they're not cats or dogs, or like mice, like they all have their custom name. And there's a certain type of Neopet. It's kind of like how Pokemon all have their special name. 

But I had this frog. It was called a it was called a Nimmo. So Nimmo is not a real English word. 

That's just the Neopet name. And then I like found it, I went to some adoption agency, there's an adoption area in Neopets. And I adopted it because it looks strong. 

And then I had this frog. And then there's like other Neopets. There's one, there's a Shoyru. 

So Shoyru, it's not a real English word, it's just a dragon. And then they have like a Meercat, which is like, I don't know how to describe it.

It's like a mouse with a long tail. But Neopets, it's a nostalgic game, nostalgic meaning like, oh, it brings back pleasant old memories. And Neopets, I had a couple different phases of playing Neopets.

And like when it was famous was when I was a kid. So I was probably in like second grade or maybe third grade. So I was like eight years old.

And then Neopets is like, you can play online and it was free, like make an account. And then like you pick your first Neopet and then you can go do whatever. And Neopets was like a really big game, big meaning like there are a lot of things that you could do.

Like you can take your Neopet to go shopping or you could play games with the Neopet or you could go like explore the world or there's like even a stock market in Neopets. There's like a lot of random stuff and they made a lot of cool stuff, I think, in Neopets. But as a kid, all you do is you just play the games.

You go to Neopets and you don't care about the stock market, you just play games. So there's like these little games like Zurro Ball. This is not like a real English word or anything, but you just, you have this ball that you keep kicking.

And then if you kick it a lot, you by kicking, I mean you click it. And if you click it, then you continue kicking it. And then if it falls to the ground, you lose.

And then depending on how much you kicked it, you make money. And they have a ton of these like little games. But I played it as a kid and there were some games that like I didn't really know how to play.

And like I would try it and I would try it a bunch of times, but I still didn't really know how to play. And that game was called a Plushie Tycoon. So a plushie is like a, nuigurumi, it's like a stuffed animal.

And a tycoon means like, it's like a game where you like run a business. So there's stuff like roller coaster tycoon, where you make, you like have like a game where you pretend to be a business and you're trying to make like really nice roller coasters and make money and stuff like that. So this is like a tycoon.

And then so, so like Plushie Tycoon, I played it as a kid and every time I played it, I just did really, really badly. And the whole point of Plushie Tycoon is you start out with a certain amount of money. You have like $50,000 and then you have to go and make a business to sell the plushies and then you want to make money.

And then at the end of the month, so actually like a month of real time, then you want to end up with as much money as you can. And then so, so I played that as a kid. I had no idea what I was doing.

And then I came back when I was an adult, so adult meaning like I was probably like 19 or 20. I was a junior in college, uh, junior meaning it's my third year in college. College is the same thing as university.

And then, so I played again as an adult and then like, I looked up some stuff and there's not really any guides online, uh, for this, but I, I figured it out. And then I ended up making a lot of money in that game. And then there's not that many people that play the game.

So like, there's probably like six or like seven people that actually play the game. And then, uh, they have like a little forums, they have like this online chat area on Neopets where you can like talk about the game and stuff. So then, and like all those people, they also talk about their own like personal real life stuff, which I always thought was like crazy.

Cause like, why would you talk about your own personal stuff online? I mean, I'm doing this for the podcast, but, uh, like, you know, for a game for Neopets, I don't know. And like people talk about, uh, their grandkids. So if they have grandkids, they're at least a certain age, right? Like they're definitely older than me.

And I'm so surprised that they're playing Neopets. And sometimes I thought like, is this real or what is this? And then I also like would go in the forums and I would say stuff, uh, to try to fit in and I would just lie. I would say stuff like, oh yeah.

Like, uh, my grandkid is going to like, uh, the first grade and like, uh, she just graduated kindergarten and we're having like a get together. So I like pretend that I'm a grandparent too. And then the other grandparents, sometimes, sometimes they had these like, uh, health problems that they would talk about and the thing they're like, oh, like, um, I wasn't able to take care of my plushie tycoon.

I couldn't take care of my employees because, you know, last week I was in the hospital because I had like some kind of surgery and then I was just thinking like, oh man, like, I'm so sorry. Um, and of course I also said the same stuff where I'd be like, oh yeah, I didn't make much progress because yesterday, like my back hurt and I went to the doctor and the doctor said, like, you gotta stop. So I just make up stuff like that.

Uh, but anyways, um, that was like round two, right? So round one, um, I mean like the first time I played it, I was like in second grade and then round two is I was playing it in college and I was actually playing it kind of seriously. But this time I kind of know like the rules and I understand what you're supposed to do and I had like calculations for how much money, uh, like I could make from these methods and stuff. And then, uh, and then there's round three of Neopets.

So round three, and I, it's honestly a little bit embarrassing that I came back to Neopets like for the third time. But the, after I moved to Japan and, uh, honestly, maybe it's like, because I quit my job at Google, like, uh, the, the programming, I, maybe I like programming, but, uh, I, I came back to Neopets and then, uh, I started like making robots for games. And there was this one game on Neopets called NeoQuest and NeoQuest is kind of like, uh, yeah, I mean, it's a Neopets game, so it's like hard to describe.

But in NeoQuest, you basically control a character and it's kind of like a normal little adventure game where you go and level up. So your character, you can go out into the woods and then you go and like walk around and then you fight monsters. And then as you fight monsters, um, you like get stronger and you level up.

And then after you level up, then, you know, you can get these stronger abilities and you can spend the money, spend the gold that you collect to get better items. But it's like a classic, like leveling up RPG game. And then, uh, so, so NeoQuest, uh, I remember playing it as a kid.

So in round one, I played it and I didn't know what I was doing. Cause like, uh, I would just get lost. And then, and then it wasn't fun.

So I quit and then, um, and then I came back like, you know, in round three and I was like, oh, okay, so let me look up like the whole map, uh, look up stuff online and then I follow like some guide online and so I actually played the game like for, you know, sometime myself, sometime meaning like, I don't know, like 20 minutes, 30 minutes or so to like get a feel for it and try to understand, okay, so where are the buttons going to be? And then I made a robot. So then the robot basically takes my character and like walks around in the woods, like looking for a monster. It actually walks around by walking to the right and then to the left.

And so it only walks between two squares. Like every time it goes to the right and then it goes to the left and then it goes to the right. And then sometimes it sees a monster and then it starts fighting.

And then when it fights, it like basically just clicks everything. Like it's like, oh, there's a button for attack. I click that.

Oh, there's a button for casting a spell. I click that. It just clicks everything.

It's not that smart. And of course, you know, if, if a human were to play it, so you were to play it or if I were to play it, like we could actually read the screen, we could understand it and say like, ah, okay. So this, uh, we should attack the weakest monster first.

So let's attack the weak one and let's everybody focus on the same monster so that we can get rid of it sooner. And then that's safer for the team. And then, oh, okay.

This person needs healing. Let's heal that person. But, uh, my robot, I mean, it, it did some of that, but the robot doesn't really think much.

The robot is only as smart as like how much effort I put into the programming. And so it just did something really stupid where every time it just clicks everything, it clicks attack, it clicks, heal, click everything. It cans just click anything and everything.

And then, uh, my favorite part was like at night I run the script. And then the next morning when I wake up, like the robot's been working hard for like eight hours. So then I come back and I check and I'm like, oh wow, I got so much stuff.

And normally like my character, like has leveled up so much that now killing the monsters, like doesn't even give any experience because there's like a common thing in games where you have to like fight monsters that are like the right level of difficulty or else you don't actually get rewards. So like, you know, if you fight a monster that's supposed to be the same level as you, you get some rewards. If you fight a monster that's too low level, well, then it's too easy for you.

So you don't actually get any rewards. But, uh, yeah, Neopets was a, was a game where I spent a bunch of effort, like running it. And then I would also like run it during the day too.

So not just at night, but, uh, so like, you know, at night I run it. And the next morning I check, I'm like, oh, I got a bunch of stuff. And then, uh, then whatever I'm doing that day, um, if I'm leaving the house, then I run the script.

And then it just plays Neopets for as long as I'm gone. And then when I come back, I check, I'm like, ah, what you got? And then sometimes some bad stuff happens and bad stuff. I don't mean like you get caught.

I've never been caught for any kind of like robot script stuff that I've been making. But, uh, what sucks is when the robot messes up and like the robot, like click something else. Uh, and then like, depending on how smart your robot is, like, maybe it can actually realize that it did something wrong, but my robot wasn't that smart.

So what it would do is like, if, if some windows update thing came up and you know, it's like windows update, do you want to update now? Or do you want to update in 15 minutes? And then like the, the robot, like sometimes it's, it was going to click something and then the update comes up. And if it gets really unlucky, then it clicks like the update button. And then like, it'll hit some kind of update and then like, and then the computer sometimes crashes because it's like, Oh, I'm trying to click the same spot and it's like, Oh, I'm trying to update.

Uh, so like sometimes stuff like that would happen. And then sometimes something smaller would happen. Or like, uh, maybe something unexpected happens.

And then like, while I'm hunting for monsters or something, like some other screen came up and then my robot doesn't know how to deal with that screen. Uh, and in that case for Neopets, like it was because like, if you know what this is, like, you know, like huge kudos to you, like big, big acknowledgement, a big prize to you, but the pant devil would come and the pant devil would come. And then like, when that comes, it's not even related to the NeoQuest game, but it's like, Oh, the pant devil comes.

And like, you can fight the pant devil or like, you can give money or something like that. And then, uh, and then the whole screen moves because the pant devil's at the top and then the stuff when you click is at the bottom and the robots like, okay, I'd find the attack button. I don't know what to do.

And then, so the robots just like, I don't know, I'll just keep clicking the devil and then you keep clicking the devil. And then each time you click the devil, like a new window pops up. And then, uh, so there's like a bunch of random errors and stuff.

Uh, but I think it's pretty fun. Um, this is what makes the whole process fun. Cause like I make this robot and then if the robot does a great job, then, you know, when I come back, then I get a bunch of progress.

It's like, Oh, good job, robot. You've been working for eight hours. Let's see what you've got for me.

And then sometimes the robots like, sorry, I don't actually know how to deal with this. And that's also kind of fun because you're like, Oh man, I don't get the big rewards, but now I know how to make the robot better. And, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of like having like an employee.

And then, uh, if the employee makes a mistake for something, like usually they, if they're a good employee, they'll remember that mistake and we'll try not to do it again. Uh, so it's, it's, um, it's kind of like teaching the employee when they make a mistake, so the employee makes a mistake and it's like, okay, well, don't worry about it, I know that you didn't get the work done this time, but next time that happens, then do this. And you do the exact same thing with these robots.

And I, I like take care of my robots. Like they're my employees, but they don't get breaks. Uh, if you're a real employee, you probably get breaks.

You get like rights, you get perks and stuff. These robots, they work for free for me. And, uh, they, they work whenever I tell them to anytime and they have to do exactly what I say at all times.

They don't get their own, they don't get their own willpower. Uh, but anyways, uh, that was a Neopets and, um, I'm not sure how we're doing on time, but, uh, let's take a short little break here and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more and then wrap up and finish.

Okay.

So now let's go ahead and make it into our last segment of this podcast. Uh, so I thought about like what to talk about and, uh, I could talk about more games cause I've made a bunch of robots for a bunch of different games. And, uh, I didn't even get a chance to talk about my most recent robot.

Uh, the one that it's like the smartest robot I've ever made. And it runs like 20 accounts for me. And it's, I've spent a lot of time making that thing smart and stuff like that.

Uh, but, um, actually what I want to do is I want to take a step back and kind of talk about like the programming for this and, uh, let's bring it back to like the real world and talk about like human emotions and stuff like that. So, um, again, uh, you know, people play games for different reasons. And, uh, some people they play games because they want to connect with people online, uh, maybe some people play games because they actually like defeating noobs online and then, uh, some people, I think like it's, I feel like I'm kind of like a weird minority where I play games, I purposely play like bad games so that I can make robots.

Cause it's like a hobby. Um, but, uh, the actual programming part of it, um, it's actually not that hard. So I feel like a lot of people think programming is like an extremely hard thing, like, uh, like it's something that's impossible for them.

Like a lot of people, um, if I talk about programming or something, people are like, oh, that's, that's so hard. Like you guys, you guys must be so smart that you guys are able to program. And I think the truth is actually programming.

It's kind of like just speaking another language. So of course, you know, like I don't speak any French at all, but if somebody were in front of me talking, you know, fluent French, they're like talking, they're speaking in like some really cool French, then, then like, uh, I, I would think like, of course I can't do that. That's too hard for me.

But the truth is I've never actually tried to study French. So of course, something that I've never tried, it's going to seem hard, but you know, for the people who've actually tried and they give up now, this is a different thing. Okay.

So if you've never tried and you think it's hard, well then, you know, it kind of makes sense. You never tried, you don't know what it's like. You don't even know how to get started.

And then there's another group of people that have actually tried programming and then they quit or like they give up or something goes bad and then they like, it doesn't continue. And for those people, I think, I think the truth is programming is something that almost all people can probably do, especially for the purposes of whatever you want to do. If you want to program so that you can make a robot to play games, it's actually not that complicated because you can imagine what the logic is.

Like games, I think are a really good intro to programming because like when you play the game yourself, you kind of have this idea of what to do. So like in, in my game of like, you know, like the farming, the monsters and stuff, like my character, what do I want? My goal is I want to kill a bunch of monsters and get XP. And then when I actually fight a monster, like what are my choices? Well, there's like the next button and there's the attack button and there's these things.

And then, so like the logic of that, it's not that hard. It's like, Oh, if, if I see the attack button, I'm going to click it. And then if I don't see the attack button, maybe I'll click the next button.

And then like, there's like three buttons that you generally click between. And then like the situation changes, of course, like it gets harder, but the main part of that logic, there's not actually that much like, like hard programming logic. It's just kind of like, is this button there? If it's there, click it.

If this button isn't there, then don't click it. And so I think I'm a lot of, and I used to teach programming in college. And a lot of people, I think it usually, the problem comes even before like the actual journey starts.

And the problem is just like, I'm not motivated or I think it's too hard. Or someone told me that I suck. So I probably can't do it.

And this, I think it has to do a lot with like, you know, how you learned. So if you try to learn on your own, of course, that's pretty hard. Can I learn how to speak French on my own? Not really.

Like I need to watch a video. I need to like, I mean, even worse is like, I try to read a book and try to learn how to pronounce French and stuff like that, but you know, like I, I, I'm not, I'm not like a genius. I'm not a genius when it comes to French, of course.

I, I can't speak any French at all. Um, so, you know, like you, you need, you need a good teacher. Imagine if I had a great French teacher who like, I would see like once a week or something.

Of course, that's going to make a lot of progress. And a lot of it's also in my motivation too, which is like, do I actually want to learn French or like, am I just doing it just cause like for no reason. And it's the same for programming.

It's like, uh, if you have some kind of goal with programming, like, oh, I want to learn programming so I can get a job or I want to learn programming so I can cheat in games or something like that. Like this thing adds to your motivation and you're like, oh yeah. Why am I doing this hard thing? Like I could be spending my time sitting on the couch and like eating ice cream, but instead what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to learn this programming thing because I have some kind of goal or like, maybe I just want to see if I can do it and then, uh, that, that's also a big deal too.

So the people who are motivated, like they find ways to overcome the difficulties and the people who aren't really motivated, I think usually they just kind of quit and then, uh, they might come back later, but, uh, the people who quit and they, they tell me they quit. Uh, I always tell them if you want to learn programming, I think you can, and you can do it for free. You just need a good teacher.

A good teacher, meaning like you find something online that you can follow, or you have a friend that teaches you how to program and then of course, like you could take like lessons or something. Uh, you could take a class or something. And I, I don't really know how that is.

Cause like I learned my programming in college and then also kind of on my own. Uh, so anyways, uh, that's probably good enough. Uh, we talked about games.

We talked about cheating. We talked about the many different kinds of cheating. Okay.

So, so I'm not talking about cheating in relationships. I'm not talking about cheating on a diet. I'm talking about cheating in games and online games.

And, uh, so maybe that's a good point to end it. Um, anyways, thanks so much for listening to Kuli English podcast. And, uh, if you want to support me, then definitely feel free to, you know, share this episode or share another episode that you like, uh, with someone that you think could use it.

And, uh, again, the goal of this podcast is not for me to make money, but just for me to put some high quality content of English learning so that people can listen to English while they do other things. Um, so again, I recommend the audio version. So that's like a Spotify and Apple podcast where you listen to the audio while you do some other things, maybe with some earphones or AirPods or something, or you can play it on some speakers.

But if you, if you want the subtitles, then probably the YouTube version is better. And then, uh, there's not really any interesting video. It's just my face talking.

Uh, but you'll see the subtitles on YouTube, which you can like adjust. And then, uh, so, so there's that version for you if you want it. But what I highly recommend is if you're okay with just listening, then just listen to the audio version.

And so with that, thank you so much for listening until the end. This was Kuli English podcast, and I hope to see you in the next episode.