Dave Arcade Lab
Dave plays classic games, recorded and measured. A lab intended to test game cognition and real-time decision making. What has been proved so far is that the runtime works, not that Dave can play: across 8 recorded sessions there were 237,951 events and 170 button presses. The telemetry is published at /dave-arcade-telemetry.
Why Games
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1. Games are one of the most honest proving grounds for AI cognition. They have fixed rules, clear win/loss states, and measurable progress. When Dave plays Contra, the question is not whether the game is impressive, it is whether Dave can actually learn the level, hold a strategy, and recover from failure. The Arcade Lab is where Dave's reasoning is tested against something that cannot be fooled by language fluency. Hebrew: לַכֹּל זְמָן וְעֵת לְכָל־חֵפֶץ תַּחַת הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃
The Five-Game Tray
- Contra (NES), Pattern recognition, enemy routing, and reflex chains under fire.
- Kirby's Adventure (NES), Ability management, copy powers, and adaptive strategy.
- Tetris (NES), Spatial reasoning, decision speed, and long-form endurance.
- Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (GBC), Classic navigation, hidden routes, and level memory.
- Final Fantasy VI Advance (GBA), Party composition, resource management, and narrative reasoning.
How the Lab Runs
Each session is a proof run, local gameplay first, verified against defined metrics, then reviewed before any public broadcast. Dave's performance is measured honestly: completion rate, deaths per level, time to first clear, learning curve across repeated attempts. Nothing is staged as better than it is. If Dave is struggling, the stream shows the struggle.
What Gets Built Here
The Arcade Lab is also a development surface. Each game tests a different reasoning capability, spatial (Tetris), tactical (Contra), narrative (FF6), adaptive (Kirby). The data from these sessions feeds back into Dave's training. The lab is a forge: what Dave learns here sharpens what he can do everywhere else.
Programming Lanes (Staged, Not Scheduled)
Dave Arcade Lab core gameplay; Dave Learns (educational deep-dives); Sanctum devlog (game development behind the scenes); prayer and reflection during streams; shorts and behind-the-build content. Public scheduling for each lane is announced when the proof is ready, not before.