research: new games, effects, and feature ideas

[HerbHall]

Description

Brainstorm and research additional games, visual effects, and features to add to cli-play. Focus on games that work well in a terminal and can be played in short sessions.

Game Candidates to Research

Card Games

• Poker (video poker / Texas Hold'em vs AI)
• Hearts
• Spades
• Cribbage

Word Games

• Crossword (mini puzzles)
• Boggle/word search
• Anagram solver challenge

Classic Puzzles

• Sokoban (box pushing)
• Nonogram/Picross
• Tower of Hanoi
• Lights Out

Arcade-Style

• Breakout/Arkanoid
• Space Invaders
• Pac-Man (simplified)
• Frogger

Strategy

• Reversi/Othello
• Checkers
• Chess (vs simple AI)
• Battleship

Feature Ideas to Research

• Leaderboard: local high score board across all games
• Achievements: unlock badges for milestones (e.g., "Win 10 games", "Score 300+ in Yahtzee")
• Daily challenge: one game per day with a shared seed for comparison
• Sound effects: terminal bell or BEL-based audio cues (research feasibility)
• Multiplayer: two-player local (split terminal) for games like Connect Four, Battleship
• Game statistics: play time, win rate, average score per game
• Themes/skins: ASCII art variations for game pieces

Performance Research

• Binary size budget: what's acceptable for a "quick terminal game"?
• Startup time: profile cold start, identify heavy initialization
• Memory footprint per game
• Lazy loading: only initialize game packages when selected?
• Build tags: allow compiling with a subset of games?

Deliverable

A prioritized list of candidates with:

• Implementation complexity estimate (S/M/L)
• Terminal feasibility assessment
• User appeal estimate
• Dependencies on other features