Many people enjoy using the Internet for relatively mundane things, but that's not to imply that there aren't plenty of downright fun things to do. Among them are the various games you can play, and although it's beyond the scope of this book to go into all the possibilities, I do want to mention the best of the MacTCP-based game client programs. There are a few, like a client for the Interactive Chess Server at ics.onenet.net:5000 that simply don't work any more -- to play chess you must resort to other methods. For chess, you might check out this Web page:
http://www.delorie.com/game-room/chess/
As usual, unless I provide an alternative URL, assume that you can find all of these programs in:
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/util/
Stuart Cheshire's $25 (or £15 if you're in the U.K.) shareware Bolo is an addictive multi-player tank game that supports robot opponents as well. Although it's not arcade-level action, Bolo is graphical. Strategy is all-important, and Bolo makes all sorts of alliances and rivalries possible. Numerous "brains" (specially programmed robot tanks) have been created to spice up the action. Along with the brains, people have written numerous utilities for Bolo, including terrain map generators and utilities for finding Bolo games in progress on the Internet. There's even a rec.games.bolo newsgroup, and the FAQ for that group is a good place to start learning about the basic rules of Bolo etiquette. Bolo prefers a fast connection (a 28.8 Kbps modem might work) and doesn't work well over 14.4 kbps PPP connections that I've tried. The program does work over AppleTalk networks, if you want to play with friends locally. If you enjoy strategy tank games, definitely check out Bolo.
ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/game/bolo/
Paul Ferguson's free MacFIBS is a dedicated backgammon client for FIBS, which stands for the First Internet Backgammon Server. FIBS has several thousand players registered, ranging widely in skill levels. Rather than just provide a slightly enhanced Telnet client, MacFIBS gives you a completely graphical interface to the Internet backgammon game, to the point where you make your moves by dragging little colored checkers around on the board. MacFIBS seems well-done and has rather thorough documentation.
Mimir Reynisson's free MacMud is a Macintosh implementation of a MUD (which, as you may remember, stands for Multi-User Dungeon or Multi-User Dimension). From what I can see, MacMud is a definite instance of "If you have to ask, you won't understand it." I didn't understand it, even after reading the minimal documentation, but I gather that if you want to run your own MUD on a Macintosh permanently connected to the Internet, you can use MacMud, which is a port of the Unix LPMud program. One of the pieces of documentation is a description of MacMud's scripting language, but it too is fairly minimal.
Continuing on in the clients for MUD variants, we come to MacMUSH, a free program from Jens Johannsen. No, I can't tell you offhand what the differences are between MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, or MUCKs, other than that they use different server programs. MacMUSH's special features include a simple macro facility for typing repetitive words or phrases (a common need, unfortunately), a simple line editor for creating text before sending it, and the capability to mark certain words, which might make it easy to see when certain people say things or when certain objects are used. Check out the MacMUSH home page below for a bunch of other MUD-related links.
http://imv.aau.dk/~jenswj/macmush.html
The free MUDDweller 1.2, from O. Maquelin, is yet another dedicated MUD client program. MUDDweller enables you to connect either via the Communications Toolbox or via MacTCP. It has a few features that make it more useful than Telnet, such as being line-oriented (so you have an edit line to compose on before sending your command), a command history that you can use to avoid retyping commands, a logging capability, multiple sessions, and a simple file transfer tool.
ftp://rudolf.ethz.ch/pub/mud/muddweller-12.hqx
For those people who used to play role-playing games like TSR's lawyer-laden Dungeons® & Dragons(tm) but whose games disappeared with the departure of friends for college, check out Erich Bratton's $10 shareware NetRPG for a renewed fix. Based on the Chat server originally written by Peter Lewis and updated by Nathan Neulinger, NetRPG is essentially a server for easily running D&D-type games. Players connect via Telnet or through a more suitable program like MUDDweller, and the entire game takes place in text. Sounds like a lot of work to me, but then again, so are real-life role-playing games.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/