Some of you may know me as the author of a game client called MetaSquarer (which I’ve maintained for over a decade now! Phew!)

The client was a response to the removal of MetaSquares, the original game upon which it is based, from AOL in 1997. Approximately two years ago, I received an email from Scott Kim, the designer behind the original game (and a very interesting person to talk to) telling me the company had plans to re-create the game. They asked me to transfer the domain “metasquares.com” to them so they could use it for the re-launched game, and, because I felt indebted to them, I did so while moving the existing site to a new domain name (metasquared.com). They wanted me to remain active in the development process, and mentioned that I was to become their contact on server-related matters. They outsourced the actual development work to Russia, which I was always a bit puzzled about, considering that I had written all of the algorithms already (indeed, I wrote the whole client, network play and all, at the ripe old age of 12) and could very easily port them to any language they wanted. I did make some of these algorithms, such as my O(n) square finding algorithm, public to allow them to easily leverage the work.

Anyway, the game just re-launched, sort of. They did it in Javascript using AJAX and it currently works on Firefox, Safari, and probably some other browsers. It’s meant to be played on the iPhone. Since I don’t have an iPhone, I don’t know how that’s supposed to work, but I guess you simply browse to the site and play. Anyway, the client is at http://www.metatools.com/iphonemsq.

The client they have up there has some limitations: primarily, it only supports solo play against a rather weak computer opponent, although I was told that a version for the Mac (presumably a standalone app, although you could do multiplayer using AJAX too) that supports multiplayer games would be out soon. Still, if you’re looking for an officially endorsed client, there it is.

Once the client matches the features in MetaSquarer, I will be taking MetaSquarer offline, as there will be no further need for it. However, I will be sure to give plenty of advance notice of this, so as not to catch anyone by surprise. Maybe I’ll even opensource it.