The ImagiNation Network, orignally known as The Sierra Network, was the first online gaming network.
Games
ClubHouse
- Checkers
- Chess
- FlipFlop (previously called Reversi)
- Go
- Backgammon
- Bridge
- Hearts
- Spades
- Euchre
- Cribbage
LarryLand
(a.k.a. CasinoLand)
- Poker
- Black Jack
- Craps
- Roulette
- Veracity
MedievaLand
- The Shadow of Yserbius
- The Fates of Twinion
- The Ruins of Cawdor
SierraLand
- NTN Trivia
- Minigolf
- 3D Golf
- Paint Ball
- Boogers
- 3D Tic Tac Toe
- Red Barron
- Graffiti (collaborative art drawing board)
- Rocket Quiz (later moved into the school house)
- Stratego
FunHouse
- RocketQuiz
Arena
- Red Baron
- Front Page Sports: Football
History
Emoticons
INN had emoticons programmed into its system. The user just needed to type Alt+#, and it would give a corresponding face.
| Keystroke | Emoticon | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Alt+1 | Happy | File:Innface-alt1.gif |
| Alt+2 | Sad | File:Innface-alt2.gif |
| Alt+3 | Laughing | File:Innface-alt3.gif |
| Alt+4 | Tears | File:Innface-alt4.gif |
| Alt+5 | Kiss | File:Innface-alt5.gif |
| Alt+6 | Angry | File:Innface-alt6.gif |
| Alt+7 | Tongue sticking out | File:Innface-alt7.gif |
| Alt+8 | Wink | File:Innface-alt8.gif |
| Alt+9 | Heart | File:Innface-alt9.gif |
| Alt+0 | Zero | File:Innface-alt0.gif |
Protocol
The protocol was a simple stop-and-wait protocol with explicit acknowledgment of packets. Packets had a start marker, a sequence number, a 16-bit CRC, the data, and a stop marker. If the start or stop marker occurred within the data, it had to be escaped. All good packets received in the proper order were acknowledged. Any packet out of sequence cause a NAK for the missing packets that came before it. Any packet with a bad CRC also got a NAK. If a NAK was received, or an ACK did not occur within a reasonable amount of time, the packet was retransmitted.
We later moved to a sliding window version of the same protocol to cut down on the number of ACKs we had to send. Didn't change the packet format, but it did cut back on retransmissions.