[ExI] Crowd Pong (was: simulation as an improvement over reality)

[Mike Dougherty]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 2:27 AM, J. Stanton <js_exi at gnolls.org> wrote:
> Mike Dougherty wrote:
>> immediate satisfaction.  I imagine most would be enjoy the opportunity
>> to positively defend their side and grief their opponent.  As you
>> mentioned, there is no reason why the game must be only 2 paddles in a
>> rectangle - the number of paddles could be a function of the number of
>> players and the room/board could be any N-gon [N > 2]
>
> Reality has beat you there by almost 20 years.  Someone at Lucasarts (I
> think Loren Carpenter) did this at Siggraph 1991, with each side of the
> theater audience controlling a paddle.
> http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/history/timeline/cinematrix.html

awesome.  There is still the opportunity to leverage the internet to
network the players - a flashmob in a theatre is one kind of
experience, a mob in a geographically distributed network using Flash
is another.  Also, the ability to change the rules quickly is not
easily facilitated with the 20 year old technology you linked to.

I don't consider that anyone "beat me" to this idea.  It's encouraging
that someone was more motivated than I and actually took steps to
realize even an old-school version of it.  I'd like to be spending my
time implementing coolness, but I need my 50+ hour a week job just to
keep what I have.  :(