Lunchtimers

In response to my "Sand Box" idea I mentioned earlier, one of my classmates sent me a link to Lunchtimers, which is an interactive refrigerator magnet simulator. Players can move around colorful letters to spell words or sentences, and everyone has equal control over where the letters are placed (so someone in the middle of writing something can get his letters removed by someone else also writing something). Play isn't limited to just words, though--another player and I spent the last ten minutes organizing all the letters by color, and then sorted out each magnet by letter. Already, our work is being decimated by other players, and no one can expect their words to survive for too long. Sadly, the game seems to be most popular with thirteen-year-olds, and so the language reflects that, but the idea behind the game is clever nonetheless.

When I was brainstorming "Sand Box", I actually was partially inspired by this game, but I could not remember what it was called. It's a good thing some people in the class have a better memory than I do. The largest difference between Lunchtimers and Sand Box would be that Sand Box would allow for more control over the visual aspects: you are not limited to refrigerator magnets, and are able to hand draw not only your letters, but whatever you like. This, of course, would be much more difficult to program, and would definitely use more resources than Lunchtimers, but the trade-off might be worth it.