Food for Thought
From IFWiki
| Food for Thought | |
|---|---|
| Game | |
| Published | 26 May 2007 |
| Credits | |
| Author | Tara McGrew |
| Gameplay | |
| Interaction style |  Parser |
| Location |  One-room |
| Language | English |
| Cruelty scale | Merciful |
| Accessibility | Colour: none. Graphics: none. Sound: none. |
| Technical details | |
| Authoring system | Inform 7 |
| Format | Z-code |
| License | Freeware |
| IFID | 52B34075-D0C5-47EE-83BE-BD7C0B967230 |
| Browse the games database • Edit this page | |
Food for Thought
A Contentious Feast by Tara McGrew
How it begins
You are an employee carrying nothing at the legendary Dining Hall of Time, where six philosophers are seated around a circular table. A large serving bowl of spaghetti is in the center of the table, and it's so delicious one needs two forks to eat it. But there are only six forks on the table, each of which is between two adjacent philosophers and must be shared by them.
The philosophers will get hungry as random times and must cooperate using the limited number of forks in order to feed themselves. Will they succeed and leave you a big tip, or will they starve?
Notable features
- Puzzleless, not a game, and not very interactive either. The player character is only a passive observer and can only really examine things or wait.
- An implementation of the dining philosophers problem, which if implemented incorrectly, can result in deadlock if all the philosophers are waiting for a fork that their fellows won't relinquish, or starvation if a philosopher doesn't get to eat within a reasonable time after he gets hungry. (This problem is very well known by computer programmers and is used as a practical example of computer scheduling issues between processes trying to access limited resources.)
- If more than one philosopher is doing the same thing, the game usually reports that action in one combined statement, rather than reporting one statement per philosopher.
Versions
Release 1
Date: 26 May 2007
- Food for Thought (Tara McGrew; 26-May-2007; Z-code).
- Release 1 / Serial number 070526 / Inform 7 build 4U65 (I6/v6.31 lib 6/11N)
- IFID: 52B34075-D0C5-47EE-83BE-BD7C0B967230
IFID links: IFDB - Download food_for_thought.zblorb from the author's site.
Related games
- Part of "Classical Conundrums":
- Spyder and Jeb (Neil deMause; 1998; TADS 2).
- Schroedinger's Cat (James Willson; 2001; Inform 6; Z-code).
- The Knapsack Problem (Leonard Richardson; 2001; Inform 6; Z-code).
- Food for Thought (Tara McGrew; 2007; Inform 7; Z-code).
| Classical Conundrums in Math and Science | ||
| Spyder and Jeb (1998) The Knapsack Problem (2001) Schroedinger's Cat (2001) Food for Thought (2007) | ||
Date: 26 May 2007