Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, said that "One of the most difficult tasks people can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of a good game." My difficult task this month was not as monumental as designing a game but the relatively simple one (I thought) of writing about games on the Internet. Let me clue you in. Getting a grip on rocket science is hard. Figuring out the gaming culture is pretty near impossible. 

If you are as naive about games as I was a few weeks ago, a summary of some game concepts might be useful. First, there are different genres of games: 

 
• Action games: are your basic shoot-‘em-up's. Yahoo divides them into 3-D games (the most popular being Quake); Fighting Games (think of Mortal Kombat) and just plain action (Tomb Raider, with 53 links, outpaces the rest.)

 

 
 
 

• Adventure games: are scripted adventure quests that require you to use your wits to reach a goal. The game company InfoCom was a pioneer in developing this type of game. A good starting place to learn more is the website Society for the Preservation of Adventure Games.

 

 
 
 

• Role Playing Games: Are fantasy games with knights, wizards and dragons. Utlima, the one with the most rabid following, has been around in various incarnations for more than 20 years. Good sources for Role playing games info are RPG Mania or the Vault Network. If you see the abbreviation CRPG, the C stands for computer to distinguish them from the games played on consoles such as Nintendo.

 

 
 
 

• Simulation games: include games that put you in the driver's seat, such as flight and race car simulators, plus games that recreate battles, hospital drama and city planning and space (X-Wing is wildly popular). Simulations are an important real-world tool as well - I took a political science course in simulation game theory in my senior year of college. Capitalism, for example, is a financial strategy game that puts the player at the head of a corporation and simulates different business environments as everyone competes to make money.

 

 
 
 

• Sports games: allow you to be virtual athlete in sports from basketball to cricket to golf. A good place to start learning more about sports games is at Russell's Sports Demo Archive. 
• Strategy games: include chess and other board games, bridge, poker and other card games, and hundreds of war games. Some sites set up a separate category for casino games, which makes sense now that there are so many online sites featuring Las Vegas-type games. Start learning more at The Independent Player's Home Page for Wargames and Strategy Games.

 

 
 
 

• Edutainment: is a combination of a game and an educational program, such as MathBlaster or the Carmen San Diego series. Parents, grandparents, teachers, aunts and uncles can read all about it at the New Edutainment Page.

 A third way to obtain games is to rent them. This is a popular way to obtain console games for a Sony PlayStation, a Sega or a Nintendo. Rentals are available at most large video stores. PC Alamode advertiser Spin CD rents computer games. You can play games on a BBS or over the Internet, which means you don't have to beg, borrow or rent a game at all - you play the game over a network. 

 Finally, we can categorize games by how they are played. You can play a game by yourself or with your family, gathered around a single computer. Multi-player games can be networked with a friend using a direct connection between two modems. You must have the game installed on your hard drive and you friend must also have a copy installed on hers. Some multi-player games can be played over the Internet or another network. Some of these require that you buy a game and have it installed on your hard drive. Others may require that you download free gaming software, such as VERGE or Kali95, or a virtual reality modeling language (VRML) plugin. Others use Active-X controls or Java, and no additional software is needed on your system. Many require registration and some charge a monthly fee. 

 A variation on networked games are MUDs, MUSHes and MOOs. These are typically text-based role playing games that reside on a BBS, often connected to the Internet. You use a telnet program to access the site, thus avoiding phone charges. MUD stands for Multi User Dimensions; MUSH is a Multi User Shared Hallucination; a MOO is a MUD object-oriented. And did I mention MUSEs and MUCKs? This is a specialty area that is attractive (and addictive) for some people. If you are intrigued, learn a bit more at the Game Commando site. 

 Total obsessives can go to networked LAN Parties. About once a month a bunch of people haul their computers with network cards to a central location, set up a local area network on the fly and play Quake until their mouse fingers bleed. Some of these are for-profit ventures, and some are labors of love. I wasn't able to find a local party, but if someone knows of one I will put it on the website. A good place to look for LAN parties is at the House of LAN or Blues News, which boasts "all the carnage that's fit to post.". There is also a LAN Party web ring, with 81 sites registered. Computer cafes also sponsor networked game tournaments. 

 Now that we've set the scene, get a feel for the Internet's awesome game resources by looking at some of the popular search engines. Excite has a great list of game sites, as does Infoseek. Also check out the Lycos and Yahoo games sections. If you haven't tried the Hotbot catalog feature, now is the time to familiarize yourself with it. Once at Hotbot, select hobbies and Interests from the short list of categories at the bottom of the screen, then follow the pop-up game link to the quaintly titled games on screens. These five sites will give you a mind-boggling overview of the game universe in cyberspace. 

 There are dozens of game mega-sites that should fulfil the game needs of the most demanding joystick jockeys. The Happy Puppy came out tops in the Yahoo Internet Life reviews. In business since February, 1995, it concentrates on downloadable shareware and demo games, console games for Sony Playstation, Nintendo and Sega, web-based games and hints and cheats. Their PawPrint Press carries reviews and feature articles. They have a weekly RealAudio-based Internet radio show, and can send you a weekly gaming newsletter, the Scoop. There is a "biz" section, with links to gaming companies, industry news and job leads. All in all, a first-class operation. 

 Computer Gaming World, published in a dead tree edition by Ziff-Davis', also has a ZD Net online version called GameSpot. Wow! I was especially impressed with its feature articles, which includes extensive strategy guides to popular games such as Tomb Raider, Wing Commander Prophecy, Ultima, Age of Empires and Quake II. They have previews and reviews, a download area and a place where you can sign up to become a beta tester for upcoming games. I was especially impressed with their hardware section, where hardware is reviewed from a gamers perspective. In addition to reviewing individual components, they are continually refining recommendations for the "ultimate machine" and the "lean machine," so you have no excuse not to pick the best of the litter. 

 Another goodie is the Adrenaline Vault. Again, they have reviews, previews, hints and cheats and downloads, plus a vigorous series of newsgroups on all aspects of gaming. There is also a fantastic hardware section. A feature I have not seen elsewhere is their price finder, which searches the web for the best online prices for hardware and software. I searched for Microsoft's Age of Empires, and within seconds it returned dozens of hotlinked options. My one complaint about this site is that it tends to use darkly colored text in a minuscule font against a back background and my aging eyes had to plaster themselves to the screen to read anything. 

 C|Net hosts the GameCenter. Their highlights are game news, sneak peeks, features, hardware, reviews, consoles and experts. They stirred up controversy with their audacious list of the top ten game downloads of all time. Number 10, MoonLander, is for a Palm Pilot - an indication of a new trend. In ascending order, the other 9 are Descent, Coach (for DOS, believe it or not!), patches (bug fixes for many games), Tetris, Duke Nukem , Kali95 (a utility that permits game play over the Internet), Doom Editor Utilities, Diablo (at 52 MB, one of the Internet's largest downloads) and at the number 1 position . . .The Trinity of Doom. The Trinity is a rollup of id software's three blockbusters: Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D. Needless to say, C|Net gives you the opportunity to download these games, plus many more. 

 The Gamer's Inn has downloads, but its real strength is in creating a community of gaming enthusiasts who enjoy interacting with each other in their live chat rooms, message board forums, customized guest chambers (free web pages) and GMail. Some of their services cost a modest $1.95 per month. 

PC Gamer Online is the Internet version of the popular magazine. In addition to news, reviews and strategy tips, they will also send you a daily e-mail update of game industry news. 

 Also try GamesDomain, Gamesmania, PCGames Review, (a great source for reviews and links to game manufacturer sites, or the Game Pen. 

All of the search engines I listed above have a category for online games, a good place to start looking. I mentioned last month that I sometimes play Jeopardy online, which is an example of an online game. Lycos recently opened a gaming center with about a dozen available games, and I spent a pleasant afternoon playing the word game tangleword against all comers. I could chat with my opponents between games, a popular feature of such sites. Phyllis Christian, our BBS files Sysop, often plays pinochle on the Microsoft game site, and tells me that her virtual card table is often filled with interesting people from all over the world who chat between hands. Yahoo also lets you play 14 different games online from their site, and has a handy review section as a sidebar to their gaming section. 

 Dedicated gamers should go to Tip World and subscribe to their three free daily game-related e-mail bulletins: Games.Net Games Tip of the Day, PC World's Windows 95 Shareware Pick of the Day and Games.Net Game Download of the Day. I subscripe to a half dozen of their tip sheets, which liven up my mailbox every morning and keep me informed painlessly. 

 If you are interested in game design, a good local-ish place to start is with the Austin Game Developers website. They have a great list of Austin-based game companies, plus links to many other sites. Those interested in becoming game designers should check out the IGDN Salary Survey. With salaries topping $100,000 a year, games aren't just for kids.. 

 Susan Ives, the ruthless president of Alamo PC, plays solitaire because her husband, after repeated humiliations, refuses to play Scrabble with her.