EditSo What is Terrarium?
Terrarium, a sample application built by Microsoft®, is game for programmers, both faculty and student alike, that provides a great introduction to software development on the .NET Framework.
The game provides both a competitive medium for testing your software development as well as a realistic evolutionary biology/artificial intelligence model for evaluating the role that various behaviors and traits can play in the fight for survival.
Terrarium also demonstrates some of the features of the .NET Framework, including the Windows Forms integration with DirectX® for generating powerful user interface (UI); XML Web services; support for peer-to-peer networking; support for multiple programming languages; the capability to update smart client, or Windows® based, applications via a remote Web server; and the evidence-based and code access security infrastructure that protects participating computers from the mobile code they are running
EditTerrarium Creatures
In Terrarium, developers create herbivores, carnivores, or plants and then introduce them into a peer-to-peer, networked ecosystem for a survival-of-the-fittest type competition.
In order for a creature to survive, that creature needs energy, creatures acquire energy by eating:
- Plants “eat” Light
- Herbivores eat Plants
- Carnivores eat Herbivores and other Carnivores
Anything that has enough energy can reproduce.
Top level objective is to sustain an ecosystem.
However, All animals and plants in the world have been created and introduced by users playing the game. The behavior of the animals is controlled by assemblies that the users have added to the system.
They all have their own objectives.
EditTerrarium In Curriculum
Terrarium as a learning tool covers the following principles:
- Object Oriented Programming
- n-Tier Architecture
- Peer to peer and networked communications
- Artificial Intelligence