Box Trainer (Demo)

This is a box. It doesn't know anything yet.

It will walk straight into a trap. It will bump into every tree on the island. It will eat any treat it sees. Your job is to teach it, with your own hand, while it runs.

Train it by hand

You send your box onto an island it has never seen. It sees only a cone of ground in front of it and has to find the goal by itself. You don't steer it. You reach in:

• Click the box to reward what it was just doing. Right-click to punish it.
• Lead it with the leash, so a new box learns by being shown. Drag it, push it, drop a lure to tempt it.
• Place traps, clear them, reveal the ground, heal it. New magic opens up as you play.

Every lesson changes what the box does next time. Punish it for stepping on a trap once and it hesitates at the next one, looking back at you. Punish it twice and it goes around without a second thought.

It tells you what it's thinking

The box talks in short lines, and only when something matters: "Trap. That hurt last time. Going around." If it says nothing, it hasn't learned anything yet.

It wants things of its own, too. A box with a sweet tooth knows it shouldn't go for that treat. Sometimes it does anyway. "I know. I'm doing it anyway."

Every box gets its own voice and its own opinion of your hand. Punish it a lot and it flinches when the cursor comes near. Reward it and it leans in.

Then watch it go

The peak moment is letting go. Your box heads off into ground you can't help with, and either it learned what you taught it or it didn't.

A road that keeps going

Clear islands to earn points and spend them on upgrades: wider eyes, longer memory, a tougher shell, a sweeter tooth. Beat the milestone at the end of each chapter and pick a new card, a new trick or a new kind of upgrade. The chapters get harder without end. Water drains your box's health, islands get bigger, and later on other boxes turn up. They can fight your box or race it to the goal.

Keep several boxes. Name them, colour them, clone a trained one and teach the clone something different. Build your own islands in the level editor and run your boxes on them.

This is a prototype

Box Trainer is an early test of one question: is it fun to train a pet and then watch it try on its own? I'd love to hear what you think. Did you feel like the box learned from you? Did it feel like yours? Leave a comment below.

Controls

Mouse and keyboard. Touch screens and phones aren't supported.

• Click the box: Reward
• Right-click the box: Punish
• Drag away from the box: Push
• Leash: pick it, then press on the box, hold, and move the mouse
• Other magic (Lure, Spike, Clear spike, Reveal, Heal): pick it on the hand bar or press its number key (1 to 9), then click a spot on the island
• Run speed: 1x, 3x or 10x on the run screen

You start with the leash. The rest of the hand opens as you play. Your boxes are saved automatically.