The Prisoner Dilemma Dilemma - Virtue's Last Reward pt. 2 | streamed 10/03/24

Virtue's last reward is a visual novel Saw-style escape room, but anime. It's the sequel to 999, except in this one there's a scene kid rabbit AI Jigsaw that changes the whole vibe. At least the main guy's name is Sigma, which is very funny.
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[@melephs_cap]

13:08 Within 4 hours of gameplay I think Keith hit on exactly why I like 999 so much more than VLR (at least unironically). The rules of the first/second nonary game are so elegant.

[@Ziraya0]

what... what was the nature of Akane's existence during the time while Santa was being her minion.... Was she just like, refusing to have died, and somehow existing for years knowing she would eventually not have died to begin with? Was baby Akane project managing atemporally into Santa's mind all the things he needed to do? Was Santa actually in all relevant ways Zero except that Akane in the past asked him to achieve this end state? Did Akane live in the pepsi field lines for a while? At the end of 999 is Akane a highschool graduate? Does Akane know Calculus? If Akane retroactively was alive the whole time before the second nonary game unkilled her, did Santa gas her?

[@Ziraya0]

If they played AB room exclusively, as fast as possible, without sleeping, with the established cycle time of 45 minutes, 24,009,004,897 rounds would take 2,054,158 years, 6 months, 10 days, 21 hours, and 45 minutes. It would take 50 years to do 584,400 cycles, the rabbit should know, the rabbit knows calculus!

[@melephs_cap]

On a related note, Akane's situation is funny to me because although the plot doesn't touch on it, the game's interpretation of time-travel-esque mechanics indicates that everything in the Nonaryverse is predetermined. Junpei couldn't have failed to save her or he would have broken the timeline. Akane didn't put together the Nonary Game with Santa because she wanted to save herself, she did it because reality demanded that she do it. She literally didn't have a choice. And once they save her, basically the whole cast can intuit what she knows, that choice doesn't exist. But I guess they don't? Because the game ends as if no such world-shaking has hit any of them.

[@Ziraya0]

Finally, harebrained theory time: Phi is a mooninite, Zero III is Zero II, Sigma and Phi are reverse-isekai'ing into their own bodies in the past when they die, but it's following otome game isekai rules so they don't immediately remember. Zero II/III is doing an Ace and trying to induce teletemporation via death game*, but where Ace just wanted to overcome his disability, Zero II/III wants to build a Prophecy Engine. * Saw type death game where the death is optional

[@Ziraya0]

@@melephs_cap I have faith that if they wanted to develop on this subject they could escape that, maybe some Many Worlds Theory, which is rooted in Quantum stuff so for all I know it may come up in this game; but yea, I definitely don't want more answers about this, the questions are so fun.

[@voyagerwitch]

most likely, almost everyone who said akane died, and actually everyone who said they saw her die, was lying

[@zigzaggedness]

oh keith is so right about them being on the moon, isn't he. zero's a rabbit and everything.

[@fyonnkalnonn]

After Keith knocked it out of the park so hard in 999, I have no choice but to assume any joke Keith says in passing is 100% canon.

[@voyagerwitch]

rat

[@vikramb183]

This is such a great example of a game I would never play in real life, but I love to watch being played

[@voyagerwitch]

keith mentioning that the prisoner's dilemma is totally different when you repeat it with memory is actually a genuine extension of the thought experiment! i read about it in the destiny 2 lorebooks (the only good memory i have of that game)

[@voyagerwitch]

Sigma dubbed over

[@nathanieljenkins3688]

Congratz on making it to VLR. I hope the insane twist and turns treat yall well!

[@electro_fisher]

so excited for more of this, its my favourite of the trilogy

[@knoathing]

I love this game series so much. It's been years since I last went through them, so its been so fun getting to re-experience it all through you guys

[@jack.miller3]

i feel like we were lied to about these games getting better about women

[@periscopic]

keith and sylvi's misogynist heel turn after the prisoner's dilemma reveal had me on the floor

[@cj-ch9zx]

dear lord. i feel like listening to this rabbit voice acting for this long is causing me physical pain

[@fyonnkalnonn]

I'm so confident that I know what Alice's job is that I keep worrying that I read a wiki about VLR at some point and a subconscious memory of that is resurfacing.

[@UnderstatementJones1]

Keith accidentally stumbling onto the optimal prisoner's dilemma strategy for repeat games

[@FriendsattheTable]

wait what was my strategy this was so long ago

[@UnderstatementJones1]

@@FriendsattheTable Ally to start with tit-for-tat retribution for defectors in subsequent rounds, going back to ally once the defector does. It's complicated though because you die if you reach zero, it makes it awfully hard to choose ally ever again if you buy into the fiction - you don't really have a chance to develop the kind of patterns that allow repeat players to establish cooperation, so probably you're stuck betraying forever or until you and whoever's left playing with you are so miserably trapped you decide you don't care if you die. Like, you're wrong about the solution to the prisoner's dilemma famously being to ally! It's famous because the solution is to betray even though you know it's a worse outcome than allying - if there are genuinely high stakes and you have any real doubts about the other person, you're compelled to screw each other. Once you relax the conditions of the game there are ways to get out from under its logic, but if you accept the conditions it's literally math.

[@UnderstatementJones1]

I'm honestly not sure what the dominant strategy is for the first decision given these conditions - you're right that betrayal makes it very hard to succeed in subsequent rounds, but the risk of being betrayed and getting stuck there is also pretty dire. For infinite-repeat type games, it's pretty easy to establish a trust-with-retribution pattern of collaboration, but the limitations here constrain you.

[@UnderstatementJones1]

Sylvi's right that it's a particularly clever move for Uchikoshi to have you betrayed here, because a lot of video game implementations of the prisoner's dilemma are trying to teach you "just choose ally, be good, and things will work out, break free from the logic of selfishness!" But you can only do that because the stakes of video games are low and because the developer controls the outcome; you can choose ally because if your character dies you can just reload, and they can choose ally because the developer programs their responses and the results.

[@UnderstatementJones1]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not like some edgelord libertarian over here, it's just the dilemma is a really good illustration of a bunch of really difficult problems in organizing society.

[@GreyDuovis]

This is truly the Heaven's Arena of Esoteric Death Games. Except Master Wing is really into early 2000s internet humor (this may already be canon for Master Wing, I have not read the manga).

[@claireless464]

man i really think I'm rooting for the rabbit in this one

[@coyote_yoshi]

I think Keith's clone/robot theory is right

[@xybergay8587]

Do we know which 999 ending was canon for VLR? Does the fact that Alice and Clover are there mean it has to be the one where Junpei escapes, or could Clover have freed Alice on her way out after killing everyone?

[@genevievet971]

this is my first time watching either so idk any more than you but my assumption is that since the last ending they played with everyone getting out is called the "true ending" that that one is considered canon