Recent surge in Large Language Model (LLM) availability has opened exciting avenues for research. However, efficiently interacting with these models presents a significant hurdle since LLMs often reside on proprietary or self-hosted API endpoints, each requiring custom code for interaction. Conducting comparative studies between different models can therefore be time-consuming and necessitate significant engineering effort, hindering research efficiency and reproducibility. To address these challenges, we present prompto, an open source Python library which facilitates asynchronous querying of LLM endpoints enabling researchers to interact with multiple LLMs concurrently, while maximising efficiency and utilising individual rate limits. Our library empowers researchers and developers to interact with LLMs more effectively and enabling faster experimentation and evaluation. prompto is released with an introductory video (https://youtu.be/-eZAmlV4ypk) under MIT License and is available via GitHub (https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/prompto).

Welcome back to Gaming IRL, a monthly segment where several editors talk about what they've been playing in their downtime. This month, we've enjoyed (to varying degrees) two flavors of Final Fantasy, explored Fullbright's new game, Tacoma, and lost ourselves in a "button-tapping mash-up between an idle-clicker and a text adventure." To open proceedings, UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith talks about how, when it comes to Final Fantasy XII, third time's a charm. My Final Fantasy completion list (barring those pesky online ones, pschh) had one glaring omission: the (ironically rather MMORPG-styled) Final Fantasy XII. Now that it's arrived on PS4, I got another chance to strike that iteration off the list -- and as they say, third time's the charm.