Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!ames!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!jumbo!jg
From: jg@jumbo.dec.com (Jim Gettys)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Interactive game playing over an internet network
Message-ID: <13557@jumbo.dec.com>
Date: 5 Feb 89 21:38:33 GMT
References: <4051@ditmela.oz> <[A.ISI.EDU].5-Feb-89.12:53:46.CERF>
Reply-To: jg@jumbo.UUCP (Jim Gettys)
Organization: DEC Cambridge Research Lab
Lines: 20

In article <[A.ISI.EDU].5-Feb-89.12:53:46.CERF> CERF@A.ISI.EDU writes:
>There have been some interesting dynamic games run on low-delay
>nets, mostly LANs (e.g. XEROX PARC has several, but I don't remember
>the names - one involved a chase though a maze of corridors
>and you got zapped if a big, CBS-like EYE was caught staring at
>you - your opponent).

There are quite a few such games for X these days, including a
re-implementation of MAZEWAR (which actually precedes XEROX PARC; I played
it in 1972 or 1973 at MIT on IMLAC displays).  The possibly dubious claim
was made to me that it had been banned from the Internet because of
excessive use between MIT and Stanford, which was skewing network use
statistics.  (Maybe someone out there actually knows....).  There
is also xtrek, and at least one other empire like game, which are network
based.  Only mazewar is really distributed; the others involve invoking
a single server which then use multiple machines for display, which
X facilitates.

I guess I know X has succeeded by the proliferation of games for it... :-)
				Jim Gettys