Re: GSoC idea: Gnome Games + Telepathy Tube

[Zhang Sen <zh jesse gmail com>]

Hi Lobais,
On Sat, 2009-03-21 at 14:49 +0100, Lobais wrote: 
> I do wonder though, how much research you have done with sudoku
> players? I wonder if they are actually interested in having other
> people 'change' their fields, or it will mess up their mental image of
> the board.
> I have heard about sudoku competitions, so I guess competitive mode
> will be somehow popular, but I wonder if skilled players will be able
> to bring more light to how collaborative sudoku can make the most
> sense.

Thanks for this great point!

I did some search.
1. A game called 'Su Doku Live' [1] has the two modes but unfortunately
the free-trial version refuses to run. Anybody has tried it (on
windows/mac)?
2. Here is a collaborative sudoku, called sudocomo [2], based on adobe's
Cocomo. The number of players is not limited but players can't change a
field concurrently. I think they may use transactions or something. If
one player clicks in a field, the field will be grayed out for the
others.
3. Searching 'collaborative sudoku' on Google gives several other
interesting results, e.g. a paper [3] inferring peer-related emotions
(using a collaborative sudoku), and also a workshop [4] relating to
collaborative sudoku.

So for competitive mode, we can use a small grid beside the major one to
display the opponent's state (the exact numbers are hidden). Winner is
judged by time.

For collaborative mode, either use two grids as above (show numbers) or
only one. Using two grids will avoid all lag and conflict problems and
won't let player's mind be interrupted. To fill in one grid, the latency
should be considered, so it will be a little more complex, but I think
this is more fun, no?

Cheers,
Zhang

(This discussion really gave me enlightenment, thanks to all!)

[1]. http://deadpixelgames.com/
[2].
http://www.bryngfors.com/experiment/sudocomo-multiplayer-sudoku-med-cocomo.aspx
[3]. www.cinted.ufrgs.br/renote/jul2008/artigos/1c_edilson.pdf
[4]. http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~wmb/sudokuExperience/workshops/