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From: vishniac@wanginst.UUCP (Ephraim Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.games.board
Subject: Re: Recruiting new gamers & Computer Games
Message-ID: <1027@wanginst.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 14:49:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: wanginst.1027
Posted: Wed Sep  4 14:49:16 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Sep-85 05:01:54 EDT
References: <394@brl-sem.ARPA> <51@ucdavis.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 26

> > I have great difficulty understanding the current computer game
> > craze.  I don't just play games for the strategic challenge, but
> > for the human interaction, as well.  Some my gaming friends have
> > been my best friends, on and off the board.  I sometimes worry
> > about a society that is so willing to abandon human society to
> > interact with a computer.  Anybody else feel this way?  Anybody
> > think I'm all wet?
> 
> Who says your friends can't play the game too?  The computer works 
> best, in my view, as a bookkeeper ...

On my VIC-20 (among other machines), I implemented a game called
"Nuclear."  It's a two-player strategy game, loosely based on the
idea of nuclear chain reactions.  For purposes of this discussion, 
the point is that the game involved so much computation to find
the consequences of moves that the computer, which acted *only* as
scorekeeper, was indispensable.  A friend to whom I demonstrated the
game commented that it was the only (worthwhile) strategy game he
knew of which required a computer to keep score.  

Surely there must be others.  How about it, board game fans?
-- 
Ephraim Vishniac
  [apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!vishniac
  vishniac%Wang-Inst@Csnet-Relay