[life] I just thought of something...

[Douglas Zander <dzander@solaria.sol.net>]

I have been thinking about my proposal for a game that will
run in real-time.  What I propose is a game where any player
may make a move at any time and as frequently as they wish.
Originally the discussion lead to the game of "life" and the
formation of this discussion list.  I missed a lot of the 
original discussion but one topic I remember that was brought
up was how to determine when a 'cycle' was to be made and how
often.  It just occurred to me; why not devise a game 
(not nescessarily "life") where the board is not updated *until*
the next move is made, *and* the new configuration of the board
depends on the elapsed time since the game was started.  
Now I know that some of you will say that this is basically nothing
new; it is simply the board going through its cycles.  I believe
there may be a fine point here.  Instead of trying to determine what
a good length of time will be for a cycle of the game and then updating
the board internally so that a player my request the most recent
configuration, how about only updating the board internally when
a move of any kind is made.  This has some advantages as well as some
drawbacks.  One advantage is that the server's computer does not need
to run the program every 30 minutes to update the board.  Also, the
update can be precise, and to the second.  A player may send a move
specifically stating *at what time* he wishes the move to take effect.
It is the player's job to determine what the board will look like at
some point in the near future by computation and attempting to guess 
his opponents' moves.  Makes sense?   :-)

--
 Douglas Zander                |  
 dzander@solaria.sol.net       | 
 Shorewood, Wisconsin, USA     |