I have been trying to think of ways to make Foldit more appealing.
One thing I think would help is if people could play it for a few minutes at a time
and still feel like their contribution matters. How can this be done?
First, many popular games are very simple and have rounds that last only a few minutes.
Then, when people have a few minutes to spare, they can always fit in a round or two.
Once people start playing, some will lose track of time and end up playing many rounds of the game.
When you add up all the time they spend each day, month, or year playing the game,
it can add up to a surprisingly large amount.
One idea along these lines is to have for each puzzle in Foldit an evolver mode that even players not in groups can do.
It could work as follows:
In the saved structures menu, there could be an option called "random" that would let the Foldit site
pick an initial structure at random based on all the structures all players have explored so far.
The Foldit site could pick these structures from parts of the parameter space that need more exploration.
If the user can improve enough on the given initial structure, the user gets on the evolver score board.
I suppose if the user doesn't like the given initial structure,
the user can click on "random" again until a suitable initial structure is chosen.
Perhaps Foldit could limit the initial structures to ones below a certain score level
so that a lucky user won't get dealt the best-scoring structure so far using the "random" button.
Another idea is to have Foldit keep track of moves done so far on a puzzle
and report this to the user as the game goes.
There could be separate rankings for best score in under 300 moves,
best score in under 1,000 moves, best score in under 3,000 moves,
best score in under 10,000 moves, best score in under 30,000 moves, etc.
This would let people who don't have much time to play the game
see how their scores compare with others over similar scoring periods.
http://fold.it/portal/node/993177 discusses puzzles with less residues to optimize.
This could be puzzles with a small total number of residues.
This could also be puzzles with a large total number of residues,
but only a small number of these residues can be optimized.
Have different rankings based on how long a person has worked on a puzzle. So busier folders who begin a puzzle two days before closing aren't ranked so low compared to the folders who started the moment the puzzle opened.
Take a look at eteRNA.cmu.edu. They have "challenges" Where you have to compleate the puzzle, kind of like tutorials, but you have to use all your knowledge to find the right way. Then there is the lab, which is like the main puzzles that are worked on to get synthesized. There are also player puzzles, designed by players. Perhaps something like that would be good?
I have talked to someone who folded before, but hasen't done anything in a while because it is too time consuming and needs a very good computer. Not all of us have brand new computers and hours to play foldit.
