Saturday, February 18, 2012

[kjgavzlr] Chess arcade game

Create an arcade-style chess console: pay 25 cents to play a blitz or bullet game against an outrageously powerful computer.

Unfortunately, it can't be made a gambling game.  The video "grandmaster hikaru nakamura versus rybka at internet chess club" demonstrates that a human beating a computer is mind-numbingly boring (closed position).  So there should be no prize but bragging rights (maybe you get your 25 cents back).  Perhaps the point should be something like computer versus the world, either networked or with deterministic computers.

Regardless of win or loss or game abort, you get a receipt-like printout of your game.

What should should the interface look like, durable enough to withstand lots of public button mashing, but useful enough for the human to rapidly enter a move? Touch-screen is out, because of people's dirty fingers. 64 buttons, perhaps lit up to indicate occupied squares?

8 buttons (4 per hand) could allow move input in at most 4 keystrokes, or two chords (if not a1, b2, ... h8).  Less if a move can be specified uniquely.

Light pen or stylus.

Voice input might be a possibility.

Deterministic computer means it is not that necessary to provide reliable input (e.g., with backspace).  Just pay another quarter.

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