Pretty much everyone is familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation. And, of course, with any widespread concept there are those who will twist such concepts into different contexts, such as is the case with Six Degrees of Wikipedia. Similarly, there’s somebody who is going to try and make a game out of it.

A Mini Ludum Dare #12 entrant locked onto this concept-made-game — as initially defined by Jeremy Bushnell —and made a fully-fledged Python offering out of it, complete with AI to assume the role of either player in the game (or even both at once). The idea of Wikirunner is quite simple: 2 players are given a random Wikipedia page each, one chasing, one trying to evade the other, each constrained to following the links on their respective pages. In practise, it’s a combination of luck, a trivia/general knowledge game, more luck, and the educational value of those delightful wikitrips people tend to take when they’re bored. And it’s often amusing enough watching the AI chase itself all over Wikipedia.

Try it out.

– Chippit

Via Indie Games Weblog.