Graphing CGP Grey’s Rock-Paper-Scissors YouTube Game

Author

Dheepak Krishnamurthy

Published

October 23, 2023

Keywords

python, julia, cgpgrey rock paper scissors youtube game

If you haven’t already checked it out, go watch CGPGrey’s Rock-Paper-Scissors YouTube Game.

In this post, I’m going to explore what all the possible paths available are. Let’s import some packages first.

using PyCall
using Conda
using Graphs
using WGLMakie
using CairoMakie
using GraphMakie
using GraphMakie.NetworkLayout
using JSON3
using JSServe, Markdown
using ColorSchemes
Page(exportable=true, offline=true)
CairoMakie.activate!()
Makie.inline!(true)

Fortunately for us, CGPGrey was kind enough to put links to the choices in the description of (almost) every video. We can use Google’s YouTube API to get the video descriptions and get all the YouTube links in the description.

We are going to use the google-api-python-client in Python from Julia.

Code 
API_KEY = ENV["YOUTUBE_API_KEY"]; # Get API_KEY from google console
build = pyimport("googleapiclient.discovery").build # from googleapiclient.discovery import build
youtube = build("youtube", "v3", developerKey=API_KEY) # call build function in Python

Now we can get the description of every video, extract the metadata from it into a Dict of Dicts, build a graph:

Code 
youtubeid(url) = string(first(split(replace(url, "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=" => ""), "&t")))

function metadata(url)
  id = youtubeid(url)
  request = youtube.videos().list(part=["snippet", "statistics"], id=id)
  response = request.execute()
  description = response["items"][1]["snippet"]["description"]
  title = response["items"][1]["snippet"]["title"]
  views = parse(Int, response["items"][1]["statistics"]["viewCount"])
  if url == "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPb168NUwGc"
    # Special case for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPb168NUwGc (description for this is not standard)
    return (; description="""
WIN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVLUX6BUEJI
LOSE / DRAW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDQqv3zkbIQ

🌐 Website: https://www.cgpgrey.com
💖 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey
📒 Cortex: http://www.cortexbrand.com

⛔️ Ah01F ✅
""", title="🔴", views)
  end
  (; description, title, views)
end

function links(url; visited=Dict(), duplicate_links=false)
  m = metadata(url)
  r = Dict(
    :id => youtubeid(url),
    :code => last(split(strip(m.description), "\n")), # last line is a special code
    :url => url,
    :links => [],
    :children => [],
    :title => m.title,
    :views => m.views,
  )
  for line in split(m.description, "\n")
    if occursin("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=", line)
      _status, video = split(line, ":", limit=2)
      video = strip(video)
      push!(r[:links], Dict(:status => string(_status), :url => string(video)))
    end
  end

  for link in r[:links]
    url = link[:url]
    if !(url in keys(visited))
      visited[url] = Dict()
      s = links(url; visited, duplicate_links)
      push!(r[:children], s)
      visited[url] = s
    else
      duplicate_links && push!(r[:children], visited[url])
    end
  end
  return r
end

function cached_links(url; duplicate_links)
  bfile = """$(youtubeid(url))-$(duplicate_links ? "dup-links" : "no-dup-links").json"""
  if isfile(bfile)
    return JSON3.read(bfile)
  end
  r = links(url; duplicate_links)
  open(bfile, "w") do f
    JSON3.write(f, r)
  end
  r
end

function _clean_titles(str)
  t = join([c for c in str if isascii(c)])
  t = strip(t)
  if occursin("Cortex", t)
    return ""
  end
  string(t)
end


function _node_builder(nodes, d)
  for c in d[:children]
    push!(nodes, (; id=c[:id], title=_clean_titles(c[:code]), url=c[:url], views=c[:views]))
    _node_builder(nodes, c)
  end
end

function _graph_builder(G, d, ids)
  from = d[:id]
  for c in d[:children]
    to = c[:id]
    add_edge!(G, findfirst(isequal(from), ids), findfirst(isequal(to), ids))
    _graph_builder(G, c, ids)
  end
end

function get_nodes(data)
  nodes = [(; id=data[:id], title=_clean_titles(data[:title]), url=data[:url], views=data[:views])]
  _node_builder(nodes, data)
  nodes = unique(nodes)
  ids = [n.id for n in nodes]
  titles = [n.title for n in nodes]
  urls = [n.url for n in nodes]
  (; ids, titles, urls, nodes)
end

function grapher(data, ids)
  G = SimpleDiGraph(length(ids))
  _graph_builder(G, data, ids)
  G
end
data = cached_links("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmWQmZXYd74", duplicate_links=true)
(; ids, titles, urls, nodes) = get_nodes(data)
G = grapher(data, ids)
{111, 206} directed simple Int64 graph

There’s 111 videos in this graph with 206 connections between the videos.

Here’s what that graph visualized looks like:

Code 
set_theme!(; size=(1600, 900), fonts=(; title="CMU Serif"))
views = [node[:views] for node in nodes]
min_val, max_val = extrema(views[2:end])
normed_views = (views .- min_val) ./ (max_val - min_val)
colors = cgrad(:viridis, scale=log)
node_colors = ColorSchemes.get.(Ref(colors), normed_views)

f, ax, p = graphplot(G;
  nlabels=titles,
  nlabels_fontsize=10,
  node_color=node_colors,
  node_size=20,
  arrow_size=8,
  layout=Stress(dim=3)
)
Colorbar(f[1, 2], limits=extrema(views), colormap=colors, label="YouTube Views")
# hidedecorations!(ax); hidespines!(ax);
# offsets = [Point2f(0.1, -0.5) for _ in p[:node_pos][]]
# offsets[1] = Point2f(0.1, 0.5)
# p.nlabels_offset[] = offsets
# autolimits!(ax)
# ax.title = "CGP Grey's Rock-Paper-Scissors YouTube Game"
f

This graph contains a lot of duplicate links to the same video. For example when losing after different number of wins, you might end up at the same video. Let’s remove those connections so we can visualize it as a tree.

Code 
data = cached_links("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmWQmZXYd74", duplicate_links=false)
(; ids, titles, urls, nodes) = get_nodes(data)
G = grapher(data, ids)
{111, 110} directed simple Int64 graph

There’s 111 videos in this graph with 110 connections between the videos.

Here’s what the graph now visualized looks like:

Code 
set_theme!(; size=(1600, 900), fonts=(; title="CMU Serif"))

views = [node[:views] for node in nodes]
min_val, max_val = extrema(views[2:end])
normed_views = (views .- min_val) ./ (max_val - min_val)
colors = cgrad(:viridis, scale=log)
node_colors = ColorSchemes.get.(Ref(colors), normed_views)

# If there's a space it is probably a unique name
node_size = [length(split(strip(t))) > 1 ? 25 : 15 for t in titles]

f, ax, p = graphplot(G;
  nlabels=titles,
  nlabels_fontsize=15,
  node_color=node_colors,
  node_size,
  arrow_size=8,
  arrow_shift=:end,
  layout=Buchheim()
)
hidedecorations!(ax);
hidespines!(ax);
offsets = [Point2f(0.1, -1.5) for _ in p[:node_pos][]]
offsets[1] = Point2f(0.1, 0.5)
p.nlabels_offset[] = offsets
autolimits!(ax)
ax.title = "CGP Grey's Rock-Paper-Scissors YouTube Game"
Colorbar(f[1, 2], limits=extrema(views), colormap=colors, label="YouTube Views")
f

There we have it; a flowchart of the Rock-Paper-Scissors game.

Here’s a table that contains the sorted view count as of April 19th, 2024.

Code 
import DataFrames as DF

# Create an empty DataFrame
df = DF.DataFrame(Title=String[], Views=Int[])

for idx in sortperm(views, rev=true)
  push!(df, (; Title=titles[idx], Views=views[idx]))
end

# Display the DataFrame
display(df)
111×2 DataFrame
86 rows omitted
Row Title Views
String Int64
1 One-in-a-Million YouTube Game: Can YOU Win? 1073774
2 R1h01W 420943
3 Really Over 386865
4 R2xF 354432
5 Post Game 306757
6 R2h01W 299879
7 285998
8 R1h03W 234144
9 R1h04W 228726
10 Ah01F 218414
11 R3h01W 195832
12 R1h12W 158979
13 R1h05W 148637
⋮ ⋮ ⋮
100 Ah22F 14462
101 Ah29F 14377
102 Ah24F 14309
103 Ah27F 14286
104 Ah28F 14184
105 Ah26F 14115
106 Ah25F 14112
107 R2h12F Scissors 12105
108 AntiEnd Over 1k 11331
109 R2xF PretFar 10516
110 Most Anti Lucky 10395
111 Ah35W 8809

If you liked this blog post, consider subscribing to CGP Grey’s Patreon so that they can make more awesome content like this.

If you are interested in viewing all the videos, you can check them out below:

Code 
using IJulia

function display_youtube_video(node)
  video_id = split(node.url, "=")[end]
  title = node.title
  if isempty(title)
    title = "---no special code---"
  end
  html_code = """
<details>
  <summary>$(title)</summary>
  <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/$video_id" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</details>
  """
  display("text/html", HTML(html_code))
end

@assert unique(nodes) == nodes

display_youtube_video.(nodes);
One-in-a-Million YouTube Game: Can YOU Win?
R1h01W
---no special code---
R1h03W
R1h04W
R1h05W
R1h06W
R1h07W
R1h08
R1h09W
R1h10W
R1h11W
R1h12W
R1h13W One Million Rock
Post Game Blue
Billion or Bust
RTh14W
RTh15W
RTh16W
RTh17W
RTh18W
RTh19W
RTh19 5W
RTh20W
RTh21W
RTh22W
RTh23W
RTh24W
RTh25W
RTh26W Trillion End
Over a Billion, Under a Trillion
Over a Million, Under a Billion
R1h13F Paper
R2h01W
R2h02W
R2h03W
R2h04W
R2h05W
R2h06W
R2h07W
R2h08W
R2h09W
R2h10W
R2h11W
R2h12W
R2h12F - Rock
R3h01W
R3h02W
R3h03W
R3h04W
R3h05W
R3h06W
R3h07W
R3h08W
R3h09W
R3h10W
R3h11W
R3h12W
R3 Rock
Post Game
R3 Paper
R1h13W One Million Scissors
Really Over
R1h13W One Million Paper
R2h12F Scissors
R2xF PretFar
R2xF
R1h13F Scissors
R1hPretFarF
R1hXF
R1h03F
R1h02F
Ah01F
Ah02F
Ah03F
Ah04F
Ah05F
Ah06F
Most Anti Lucky
Ah07F
AntiEnd Under 1k
Ah08F
Ah09F
Ah10F
Ah11F
Ah12F
Ah13F
Ah14F
Ah15F
Ah16F
Ah17F
Ah18F
AntiEnd Over 1k
Ah19F
Ah20F
Ah21F
Ah22F
Ah23F
Ah24F
Ah25F
Ah26F
Ah27F
Ah28F
Ah29F
Ah30F
Ah31F
Ah32F
Ah33F
Ah34F
Ah35W
Ah35F

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@online{krishnamurthy2023,
  author = {Krishnamurthy, Dheepak},
  title = {Graphing {CGP} {Grey’s} {Rock-Paper-Scissors} {YouTube}
    {Game}},
  date = {2023-10-23},
  url = {https://kdheepak.com/blog/graphing-cgpgrey-rock-paper-scissors-youtube-game},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
D. Krishnamurthy, “Graphing CGP Grey’s Rock-Paper-Scissors YouTube Game,” Oct. 23, 2023. https://kdheepak.com/blog/graphing-cgpgrey-rock-paper-scissors-youtube-game.