This projects, like some others, inherits much from the Interactive Video
Environments project.
ALIVE is the projects that has come to focus primarily in interaction
with Artificial Life like Silas:
Other instantiations of the IVE interface include an arcade version
called SURVIVE (Simulated Urban Recreational Violence I.V.E.) created by
Ken Russel and others. SURVIVE provides
a much more compelling interface than the standard "bang on the keyboard"
approach. We've run an intercontinental version of SURVIVE between two IVE
setups: one here at MIT and one across the Atlantic at British Telecom's
Research Center in the U.K.