Gamerz gone?

www.gamerz.net/pbmserv has been off line for about a week now. Has anyone heard from Richard Rognlie? I can't even email him through the server. It would be a shame to lose this resource for playing so many abstracts, plenty of which are available nowhere else on the Net. It was an email server, but also had a graphical web interface. Once you were logged in for free, you could just click to make your moves. Just as one example, These are Trilbert tiles. I don't know if any such exist in the real world or not.

!http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1338806.jpg(Trilbert)!

I hope that this absence of Gamerz.net turns out to be no more serious than the Zillions of Games scare.

what I would most like is a completely open gaming platform, rather than the intel/windoze specific platform that calls itself "zillions of games".

signed, someone who's not used an intel architecture, or a microsoft platform for about a decade.

Don't use windows/ms when i can avoid it, and don't know about zillions. But iggamecenter seems like a good, open site to me. More of us should go there!

JD

The existense of iggc doesn't change the fact that we need a completely open platform. Arty has clearly stated that he stopped development of iggc.

There's Axiom which is free and can work with Zillions but also works as a standalone product. There's also Vassal which is used for lots of wargames but can also work with abstracts.

Axiom is not open and requires programming in Forth (eewww!). Vassal doesn't even check rules, it's just a toy.

Jocly has it almost right except it isn't open. Check out its Yohoho, though - it's a nice abstract.

Did Arty ever mention why he stopped developing iggc?

Yes. I started another project (not related to IT at all) that takes 24/7 of my time and will most likely continue be so for the next couple of years at least.

Still, there are some recent events related to igGC, which may change its fate drastically this year. Doesn't depend on me personally, though, because I am not involved into active development at this phase.

Now that iGoogle will be shut down in a few months, what will happen to iggc gadgets?

Nothing special. igGC doesn't depend on iGoogle. Anyone can continue playing on igGC itself directly. Any site that uses the internal igGC gadget won't see any difference cause that internal igGC gadget has nothing to do with iGoogle.

Any news about Richard or Gamerz? Does anyone here know him IRL?

Richard sent an email to players saying that Gamerz will be back online tomorrow, but with the games as of about January 20. He had a fried hard drive and january 20 was his last backup.