The English Restaurant

I am, generally speaking, an optimist. Some of that’s just the fruit of being born with a lot of privilege and a brain that knows what to do with serotonin, I suppose, but it’s also by choice: many years ago I came across a bit of Karl Popper arguing that nobody knows what the future will bring, or what will move it one direction rather than another, so we have an obligation to hope for a better world and act as though the little things each of us can do might bring that hope a bit closer to reality. That was persuasive to me and so I try to live into it, but I’ll confess that some days it’s harder than others, like for example the end of Supreme Court terms and when I play a Perplexity game.

I’ve been reviewing games using this engine since 2021 – this is the fourth, by my count – and while the pitch for a parser system that allows the player to use natural language input remains compelling, the reality is still so stubbornly far from the promise that reader, I begin to despair. Like you’re told your goal here is to order lunch at a diner for you and your vegetarian son, but when you say to the maître d’ “I would like to get some lunch,” the game butts in to say “I don’t know the words: lunch.” That’s small beans compared to this exchange with the waiter, though (the question marks are the prompts for player input):

?:my son is vegetarian

my son is not veggie

?:my son is veggie

I don’t know the words: veggie

?:my son does not eat meat

I don’t know the words: eat

Trying to couch your input as regular English sentences simply does not work – even as simple a phrase as ORDER TOMATO SOUP makes the parser throw up its hands in despair. What does work is single-word input: typing TABLE, MENU, SOUP to indicate what you want, which of course any existing parser engine under the sun can manage. It’s hard to hold this against the system, truly – natural language processing is quite difficult, from what I understand! But still, pushing the player to try to use complete sentences sets expectations the game can’t come close to living up to, while the blurb’s promise that it’s a good way for English learners to practice their language skills feels frankly irresponsible. Judged as a game, meanwhile, there’s basically nothing here – the only thing resembling interest is that you have a terrible waiter who needs too be reminded to hand you a menu and then prompted to tell you the specials – with no details to speak of and the world’s most basic prose.

In my previous reviews of Perplexity games, I’ve generally wrapped up saying some variation of “hopefully the system’s authors will keep fine-tuning things so it works the way it’s advertised to do,” but after three years, it’s hard for me to see any improvement on this front (at least the lag that I remember afflicting the earlier games appears to be a thing of the past). Perhaps it might be time to bring this experiment to an end? That’s maybe an unfair sentiment – and one certainly biased by the fact that the game doesn’t appear to end, so I spent a final ten minutes frustratedly typing BYE and LEAVE and I’M GOING and EXIT to the maître d’ who kept asking how he could help me today over and over like a robot – and I’d love to be proved wrong! But I’m not optimistic.

Oh, and the cover image is an AI-generated picture with myriad issues – beyond the standard-issue nightmare fingers, there are light fixtures hanging off of others, a double-handled coffee mug, an olive oil bottle standing in for wine, and a robot with only one eyebrow – and no attribution. Can we please stop doing this?

I've played a lot of Perplexity games over the years (well, I can remember 2 or 3). But something seems to have gone wrong with the programming. It's designed to accept full sentences, but even really basic stuff isn't understood. My start was like this:


You’re going to a restaurant with your son, Johnny, who is vegetarian and too scared to order by himself. Get a table and buy lunch for both of you. You have 20 dollars in cash.
Host: Hello! How can I help you today?
?:hello! I would like a table for two
Hello!
Host: Perfect! Please come right this way. The host shows you to a wooden table with a checkered tablecloth. A minute goes by, then your waiter arrives.
Waiter: Hi there!
Waiter: What can I get you?
?:hello! let me order for my son
Hello!
I don't know the words: let and I don't know the way you used: order
Waiter: What can I get you?
?:let me ask my son
I don't know the words: let, ask
Waiter: What can I get you?
?:johnny, what would you like to eat?
I don't know the words: johnny,
Waiter: What can I get you?
?:i would like a hamburger
I don't know the words: hamburger
Waiter: What can I get you?


I got through the whole game, but the whole thing was like this. The most basic words related to restaurants weren't understood:


?:i eat the food
I don't know the words: eat
Waiter: What can I get you?


I know the Perplexity engine is capable of some sophisticated worldbuilding, so I really don't know what happened here.

It's designed to allow you to practice English, it says. I'm a native English speaker and tried to type reasonable responses to the questions/situation.

Sometimes it took more than 30 seconds to respond before the game replied that it didn't understand what I was saying. Frequently it said "unrecognized word," which makes sense for a traditional parser game, but it makes no sense for a game where someone's supposed to practice their English.