robotfindskitten is a free video game with an ASCII interface in which the user (playing the eponymous robot and represented by a number sign "#") must find kitten (represented by a random character) on a field of other random characters. Walking up to items allows robot to identify them as either kitten, or any of a variety of "Non-kitten Items" (NKIs) with whimsical, strange or simply random text descriptions. It is not possible to lose (though there is a patch that adds a 1 in 10 probability of the NKI killing robot). Simon Carless has characterized robotfindskitten as "less a game and more a way of life ... It's fun to wander around until you find a kitten, at which point you feel happy and can start again".[2]
The original robotfindskitten program was the sole entrant to a contest in 1997 at the now-defunct webzine Nerth Pork — the object: create a depiction of "robotfindskitten". The concept was originally created by Jacob Berendes, but the only submission he received depicted kittens meeting an untimely end at the hands of malevolent robots.[citation needed]
When the author rewrote the program for Linux in 1999, it gained popularity and now has its own website and mailing lists. Since then, it has been ported to and/or implemented on over 30 platforms, including POSIX, the Dreamcast, Palm OS, TI-99/4A, the Z-machine, the Sony PSP, Android, and many more.[3] Graphical versions, such as an OpenGL version with # emblazoned on an otherwise featureless cube, also exist. Remakes of it are also used as programming tutorials, such as for Gambas.
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