Automat

The point of Automat is to make computers do stuff

No programming - just doing stuff.

Automat can:

• Play Games: Record & replay macros using mouse & keyboard.

• See the Screen: Capture & recognize text (OCR) within other apps.

• Create Logic: React to hotkeys and script behaviors by chaining simple instructions.

It can grind levels & gold in most games. It works perfectly with Skyrim, Pokemon, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Black Myth Wukong... It should work with most of single-player games you throw at it.

Automat is crafted with attention to detail, where every megabyte counts(*). It aims to be intuitive, respectful, interoperable and future-proof.

(*) a couple of megabytes are still not accounted for

It works because it's not a commercial product. It's made by 🪓 hackers (people who subscribe to hacker culture & hacker ethics - not cyber criminals). Hackers make it for fun, because it's a challenge & because it's The Right Thing To Do™.

While Automat is free (check Automat's homepage), buying / wishlisting the Steam release is the easiest way for you to support the project. If you'd like to help out in other ways and are not afraid to get your hands dirty - you're welcome to join the Discord!

Or stay here for a short story... It starts with a simple question:

Why is it so hard to make computers do stuff?

It's not a rhetorical question.

Think about it.

They're everywhere. Smartphones, PCs & tablets - they're the obvious ones. You're reading this text on one of those. You may also see smaller computers embedded in electronic devices - TVs, cars, Wi-Fi routers, keyboards & mice. These small computers are still computers though - just small. And they're everywhere.

They are also powerful. They can send a message to the other end of the globe in less than a second. They can render photo-realistic video in real time. They can simulate neural networks to see, think & communicate like people. They can react to all sorts of input - buttons, acceleration, rotation, temperature, video, thermal... They can control motors, heaters, valves - pretty much any kind of hardware. They can multiply a pair of numbers in about 200ps (that's picoseconds - about the time that light needs to travel 6cm). It's kind of insane of what computers can do. And they keep getting better - exponentially.

How is it possible that we're surrounded by these god-tier tools and at the same time we're basically unable to make them do stuff that we want them to do? It seems that at this point the main limiting factor of progress is not the technology itself, but our ability to wield it.

I hope you're realizing that by some freak accident of history we found ourselves in a pretty crazy state of things. And it's not some fantasy story. It's real life. You, and me, and 8+ billion people are surrounded by these sci-fi level tools. And we can't really make them do stuff that we want them to do. Did I say it's crazy? It is pretty damn crazy. This is the craziness that we're trying to fix with Automat. But before I get to that, let me address the elephant in the room.

🐘 Programming

It may seem like there ARE some people who know how to make computers do stuff. They're called programmers. They're the people who programmed the computers around us in the first place! They're the people who make apps and games!

Well... I'm one of them. And I'll tell you two things about programmers that are rarely said out loud.

1. You're not part of the club

Programming is incredibly hard to get into. Programmers spend hundreds of hours learning arcane languages and inner laws of computers. Few people in the world live in an environment that can support this kind of specialization (most working-age adults can't) so few people (mostly school-age kids) ever become programmers. Those who manage to get in, form an elite society that is hard to access by outsiders.

To make things worse, many programmers embrace esotericism. They start inventing new terms & theories - for otherwise simple and obvious things. Other programmers follow and very quickly simple things get needlessly complex. All of this happens in a theater of mathematical, formal correctness.

It's all bullshit though. This whole image of programming being a hard, formal, mathematical science is fake. Programming is really just about writing a series of commands. Anyone could do that. Some programmers try to defend their privileged position by gatekeeping & belittling. Don't fall for it.

Programmers (not everyone, but collectively, as a group) form a hermetic society and are not interested (again - not everyone, but collectively) in making it easier for you to get in. In many cases their privileged status depends on being irreplaceable - or in other words: on you not understanding what they're doing.

2. Programming is actually bad at making computers do stuff

Programming is a little like being a taxi driver. To be a good taxi driver you have to have a map of the city in your head. You need to know all the main roads and also all the shortcuts that can be taken if the main roads are blocked by traffic.

When you're trying to make a computer do stuff (by writing a program), it's like trying to build a mental map of a city. You need to know how the information is flowing and where it's stored. You need to know where are the bottlenecks and which roads are under construction.

The problem is that programming languages are terrible at telling you that. Imagine that a map of the city is written in a large book, full of passages like this one:

"1st avenue starts at coordinates X1 & Y1 and goes towards X2 & Y2. It crosses roads: 31st, 33rd, ..."

This is what programming languages are like. You have to read through this description and reconstruct a mental image of the city by simulating computer behavior in your head. You can get good at reading this kinds of descriptions, and you can even ask AI to help you out, but it's never going to be as good as having a proper map.

Many programmers try to improve things by inventing better programming languages - more flexible and expressive - but those things only bring diminishing returns. In the end they're just slightly more efficient ways of describing the map of a city through text.

Forget programming. What we really need is GPS. With GPS anybody can be a taxi driver.

Programming? What's programming?

The tools to "make computers do stuff" shouldn't be locked behind a computer science degree. Automat is the key (crowbar) to breaking that lock. Whether you want to automate the boring grind in your favorite RPG or just see what your computer is actually capable of, we invite you to try it out.

Support the development, grab the Steam version, and make your computer do what you want it to do!