Microsoft game is a code-eating battle
ZDNet | at | by Mike
Coders around the world will be flexing their digits over the coming weeks in an effort to write software whose sole purpose is to propagate across the Internet and battle similar pieces of code to the death.
Terrarium is not a virus, says Microsoft, which created the game to show what can be achieved in peer-to-peer applications -- particularly those using the company's .Net Framework -- but it does share some similarities with the way viruses work. For instance, the object is to propagate as many pieces of code - or creatures - as possible in the three weeks that the competition will last for.
The best way to think of Terrarium, says Microsoft developer tools product manager Gavin King, is as a game like Age of Empires. The word Terrarium means a glass case for small animals, or a sealed globe for plants. In the Terrarium world, each creature represents a piece of code. Once written, it goes out into the world to do battle and the gamer has no further control over it.