Hello Quantum

Miro Aurela
Ryoshiban + Project Alpha (2021)

Summary

Hello,
future students of the Quantum Games course!

My name is Miro and I was a participant in this course in spring 2021. During the course I took part in making two quantum themed games. First one, Ryoshiban, is a Sokoban inspired puzzle game made for the Games Now! Online Jam #4, which adds a quantum twist to the game classic by adding the possibility of blocks being “entangled” with each other and moving as one. The second, Project Alpha, made as the course project work, is a rogue-like shooter with maps generated randomly using quantum computation and having the player simultaneously control two characters (who thematically are actually the same character, only in a superposition between two possible realities).

Even though both games have quantum related theme, only Project Alpha actually utilizes quantum computation as part of the game. I was originally interested in making a game that would involve even more quantumness than Project Alpha did, but after hours of thinking, I didn’t seem to find a good game idea that would achieve this. To those of you who have similar interests but think you are lacking the necessary knowledge about quantum, I would suggest you to start the learning process as early as possible, so when it’s time to start working with the course project, you will have enough knowledge to consider more possibilities to base your game ideas.

In this learning legacy, I have left you the one resource that has helped me the most in getting my head around the basics of qubits and quantum gates.

I wish you luck in your journey with Quantum Games.

Hello Qiskit Game

qiskit.org/textbook/ch-ex/hello-qiskit.html

This page is what actually helped me to really understand qubits and quantum gates the first time. It’s a really well written interactive Jupyter notebook that teaches the basic principles of qubits in an interesting, clear and fun way. The page consist of text parts which explains various aspects about qubits and short puzzle games where you can try to apply the theory in practice. In the puzzles, the goal of the player is to manipulate the qubits to certain states by using a given set of quantum gates. The theory is taught starting from concepts that are simple enough for anyone to understand and introducing new concepts one at a time, guiding the reader steadily towards the more complex topics. The puzzles also start simple, but they change more difficult and more interesting as new principles relating to quantum circuits are explained.

Having previous knowledge about quantum computers or not, I would strongly suggest to try this!