Competitive Crossword Puzzle App (basic description)

 Competitive Crossword Puzzle App - Basic Description:

1. an individual clue and the number of words that comprise the 
  answer are given to the user and an alert signifies that 
  the countdown/stopwatch has begun to tick;

2. once this notification has occurred, the clock begins to run 
  (choice: countdown or stopwatch?)

3. the passing of time should be non-distracting - for example, 
  ticking to mark passage of seconds, earcons to mark 15, 30, 
  45, and so on seconds;

4. upon successful provision of an answer, the counter is paused; 
  until the new clue is served, and an alert is sounded to 
  signify that the user is "back on the clock"

5. each clue of crossword is presented one-at-a-time, with 
  previously filled-in values pre-populated (alphabetic characters 
  inherited from previous answers;

6. multiple choices of how to play game:

    * pit one player directly against another,

    * "tag-team" mode, in which players alternate;

    * play against the clock in an attempt to achieve 
         a "best time" (as in arcade games)

       * play against an opponent with same set of clues 
         or against a player solving an equally challenging 
         (with same number of clues and crossovers) puzzle

ASPECTS OF RICH WEB APPLICATIONS WHICH THIS APP WILL DEMONSTRATE:

1. puzzle served in response to user's preferred natural 
  language (or user can choose from a list of languages)

2. originally conceived of a "hangman" type game, but making 
  it a cross-word eliminates a lot of work that we don't 
  have time to do right now, but could do (or challenge the 
  SVGIG to) a hangman front-end

3. sighted players may want to/need to turn of sound effects; 
  blind players need them, but non-obtrusively, unless the 
  game is a count-down

4. some players may need to slow the game down to make it 
  practical for them to play (synchronize an alternate input 
  player with "temporarily non-disabled" user to level the 
  playing field (a.k.a. handicapping -- NO pun intended, as 
  i use handicap in its original sense)

5. your contributions here

see also: 
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-app-backplane/2008Dec/0019.html
* http://www.w3.org/2008/12/16-backplane-minutes.html 
* http://www.w3.org/2008/12/16-backplane-irc

gregory.
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 The optimist thinks that this is the best of all 
 possible worlds; the pessimist knows it is. 
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Gregory J. Rosmaita: gregory@linux-foundation.org 
Vice-Chair & Webmaster, Open Accessibility Workgroup 
http://a11y.org/              http://a11y.org/specs/ 
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