My latest Crystal Quest high score is 3,550,225 (wave 42). If anyone can top that please push the Respond button. Paul and Holly are both inveterate Dark Castle players; I trust they will keep us informed of their progress. Maybe we can get some healthy competition going here!

Are there any Strategic Conquest fans out there? Paul and I have discussed how we might play such a game as a group. Unfortunately it would take too long to fight a war over the mail, but if there's enough interest we could at least distribute a Strategic Conquest game file and see who could beat the computer in the fewest simulated days. One of the packages on the main screen contains just such a file.

I think it would be great fun (and an interesting challenge) to design a game that we could all play through the mail. I am confident that I could use HyperCard to create a war game much like Risk or Strategic Conquest. But we would would need to design it so that no one is ever forced completely out of the game. The game should be easy to follow and not TOO time consuming to play; it could last for months or years (or could even continue perpetually like a soap opera).

Other possibilities include working on some kind of group adventure game in which we each create and explore interlocking parts of a huge imaginary world. Paul and I have experimented with such games in the past. Perhaps we could work together on an encyclopedia as did the secret society in Borges' story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." I once invented a game in which each player simultaneously tries to escape from one maze and enhance another maze in which an opponent is trapped; maybe would could give that a try.

The possibilities here are staggering and I am SERIOUSLY interested in starting some kind of group game. The first step is to kick around some ideas and establish a mutual interest in this project; please send me your ideas.