{"id":1974,"date":"2026-06-17T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcjv.de\/?p=1974"},"modified":"2026-07-24T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:18:09","slug":"small-tools-and-perfect-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcjv.de\/?p=1974","title":{"rendered":"Small tools and perfect players"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between the big projects there was always a drawer full of small ones \u2014 <a href=\"\/?page_id=111\">nifty tools<\/a> written as examples for my open source project, and <a href=\"\/?page_id=99\">mini-games<\/a> written for a very specific kind of fun: not playing the game, but writing a player that never loses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Small tools, sharp edges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The tools page reads like a workshop bench: an ASIO <strong>Metronome<\/strong> whose click is synthesized in realtime from a tiny formula, sine and noise generators for ASIO soundcards, a third-octave analyser, and two tools I remain fond of: the <strong>VST-Plug-In Screenshot Tool<\/strong>, a command-line utility that renders a PNG of any plugin&#8217;s GUI (point it at a directory, and it captures them all), and <strong>VST Plug-In Preset Match<\/strong>, which tunes one plugin&#8217;s parameters until it matches a reference \u2014 parameter estimation dressed up as a utility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The perfect player<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have been fascinated by computer games since childhood \u2014 but as a programmer, the real game was always: can I write a player that beats every human? <strong>Minesweeper<\/strong> was a long-time favorite; I did about five implementations hunting for the perfect player (most were lost to a hard-disk crash, which still hurts). The surviving version was written in roughly an hour, as a joke about &#8220;sweeps&#8221;. <strong>BubbleSmile<\/strong>, a clone of a game from my old Samsung phone, looked like you could play it forever with enough focus \u2014 and indeed the perfect player proved my assumption right: you can make the game twice as hard before even the perfect player runs out of moves after a handful of turns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Writing a perfect player turns out to be the best way to truly understand a game&#8217;s rules \u2014 and a surprisingly good way to practice algorithm design when nobody is watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between the big projects there was always a drawer full of small ones \u2014 nifty tools written as examples for my open source project, and mini-games written for a very specific kind of fun: not playing the game, but writing a player that never loses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospective"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Small tools and perfect players - Christian&#039;s private site<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcjv.de\/?p=1974\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christian\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Christian\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79b654f8c2fb5bf9405ccc4cb1c11880\"},\"headline\":\"Small tools and perfect players\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-17T08:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-24T15:18:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974\"},\"wordCount\":292,\"articleSection\":[\"Retrospective\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974\",\"name\":\"Small tools and perfect players - Christian&#039;s private site\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-17T08:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-24T15:18:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79b654f8c2fb5bf9405ccc4cb1c11880\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/?p=1974#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Small tools and perfect players\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.pcjv.de\\\/\",\"name\":\"Christian&#039;s private site\",\"description\":\"Private site of Christian-W. 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