The basic idea is like a game cartridge (most likely a text adventure given the limits of my game dev abilities) with the difference being that the game keeps playing even when the cartridge is removed. The game world continues not only when you’re not playing, but even while the cartridge sits on the shelf, possibly for decades.
How is this possible? The cartridge contains a very low-power self-contained computer that runs the entire game. When the carriage is inserted, the player simply accesses this computer. In the case of the text adventure this interface could be a simple serial port.
I suppose this could be realized as something like a usb flash drive, but when I originally conceived the idea I was thinking about something that could fit into the GPIO “slot” of the Raspberry Pi Model 400because I was thinking about cool things to do with that port.
Theres something fascinating to me about the idea of this little self-contained world that exists in a box that you can put in your pocket and visit after being away for years and see what it’s inhabitants have been doing in your absence. It would be a great environment to experiment with artificial life and other evolution-based ideas.
I’ve only dabbled in realizing this idea (it’s not very high on the priority list) but I thought I should share something about it if only to remind myself about it when I have more time in the future for such things.