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A comment on Chain World: a game that exists on a unique USB flash drive.

Re:Chain World: a game that exists on a unique USB flash drive by TerraHertz on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @12:39AM (#2779635)
If someone wanted to extend this concept a bit further, how about a one-play-only game that could only be passed on as a bequest. That is, no one else gets to play it until you are dead, for real. Bit of a technical challenge, to ensure the game data structures and code could always be run, no matter how much time passed. Also, to use a storage medium with a reliable lifetime of centuries - which Flash isn't.

Some people built an everlasting clock inside a mountain. http://longnow.org/clock/ It would be interesting to try building a 'game seat' like that - can only be reached by a hazardous journey, will be there and playable for a thousand years, you only get one go at it.

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Re:Chain World: a game that exists on a unique USB flash drive by a3_nm on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @02:27AM (#2779811)
> you only get one go at it

Sadly, I don't see how you could hope to enforce this constraint... The idea of a game seat is nice, though -- a collaborative time capsule of sorts.

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Re:Chain World: a game that exists on a unique USB flash drive by TerraHertz on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @10:56AM (#2781165)
Easy. Any biometric sensor. Fingerprints for instance. If the machine detects the same person trying to play again, it just refuses to run. Or... (if I was designing this) kills them where they sit. Next person that reaches the game's remote location gets to remove the skeleton from the chair. Good incentive to not cheat. (I'm assuming some kind of real-world post-apocalyptic scenario, in which 'legal ramifications' don't exist.)

Actually, if there was some decently functional strong AI in the game, this could get very mythological. Quest to visit the Oracle - you have to get to the site then play the game in order to reach the Oracle in the gameworld. If you die in-game before then - well tough.

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