jonab@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Jonathan Biggar) (12/15/83)
(This is a reposting, this article did not make it to most of the net before.)
I have developed a method for playing simulation games over uucp mail.
It allows players to resolve dice rolls without any possibility of
cheating. It works like this: both players encrypt and exchange
by mail a random number seed. Whenever player 1 does an action
that requires a die roll, he labels it with a unique sequence number
that player 2 uses with his seed to find the result. At the end of
the game, both players can echange the key to decrypt the others
random number seed and then check the other player to see that
he has not cheated.
If you are interested in having me post a detailed description of
the method, along with a standard random number generator that
everyone can use, please send mail to me.
If there is enough interest, I will consider setting up a player
locator service. You could mail to me what games you wanted
to play, and I would match you with someone who wanted to play
the same game, and send you his uucp address. This service
could also be extended to allow people to play games that require
simultaneous movement. Both players would send me their turns,
and I would forward them when I received both turns.
I think that many people could find this enjoyable. I just finished
testing my method by playing a game of Ogre with someone from
Colorado State University. Our turns took an average of 4 days to
arrive, which works out to about twice as fast as playing by USnail.
So if you are interested, send me mail!
--
Jon Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdccsu3,trw-unix}!sdcrdcf!jonab