Re: [piecepack] Re: Volity

[Porter235 <porter235@...>]

On Friday 21 July 2006 08:58, Brett Myers wrote:
>> http://www.volity.net/
>
> The page is blank for me this morning.. is this anything like these?
>
> Cyberboard http://cyberboard.brainiac.com/index.html
>
> VASSAL http://www.vassalengine.org
>
> Thoth http://geoman36.tripod.com/thothgames/
>
> Brett

Volity is a different kind of beast. 

All of the others are closer to "virtual cardboard". You have all of the 
pieces and you get online and can push them around and roll the dice, but the 
engine doesn't know much about the rules of the game. They are designed to be 
pretty easy to create new games (using point and click interfaces) and get 
online and play, assuming all parties, know the rules. You can play 
with "house" rules and varients because these engines do not enforce the 
rules.

Volity allows for [python|perl]+SVG+EMAscript programmers to create games that 
know the rules and enforces them. To create a new game you have to write some 
python or perl code to create a "referee" engine, and then you need to create 
the user interface using SVG and EMAscript. A lot more coding.  If you want 
to play with "house" rules, then the author of the game's referee will need 
to have made them options that you can choose prior to starting the game.

Volity also supports "bots" or automated players, where the other don't. (more 
coding)

Playing these games once created is nice because you don't have to worry about 
a bad move ruining things (assuming the referee author hasn't made any 
mistakes!) And they tend to play faster because the computer can automate all 
of the garbage stuff that is needed to be done.

(Vassal is getting better with automation available)