Fergus, your reference to Zillions of Games being a constraining factor
appears to be a 'non sequitur' and not a premise.
Supposing the games on this website are adequately described, it follows
that all of the games on this website /can/ be played; not just online,
but face to face, should the opportunity ever arise. Computers could
eventually be brought in to help people learn how to play these games;
wasn't increased accessibility the main idea behind designing Zillions of
Games?
It's unfortunate that Zillions of Games doesn't have a ply-setting, as
that would have been extremely convenient for entry into my proposed
'Game Ply Rating' system. Even five or six computers that limit
themselves to 2 ply searches, are going to play wildly differently if they
disagree on the values of their pieces, or employ even slightly different
pseudo-random number generators. Even if they were all playing absolutely
randomly (and were therefore all assigned initial ratings of 1000), there
would eventually be a departure from that number, as their true colors
started to show, and the game results began to produce a bell curve of
sorts. The inherent differences in programming is what appears to be the
real quandary behind using a 'ply' based rating system; each computer
will naturally play a little bit differently. (What sounds good in theory
may not work out in the long run.)
As for computers that can play one or two of the games available at this
website, I'm still working on my Baroque computer game (for an ST
upgraded to 2.5 megs RAM, minimum).
Boy, it sure takes a ton of work to do all of the graphics, but at least
the calculation part is proceeding fairly well. My program just isn't
marketable, or user-friendly, in the slightest. (And I'll probably end
up giving it away for free, anyway.)
Zillions of Games appears to be a remarkable product, even if it won't
run on my hardware platform.
