Question for those who develop web pagesFollow

I have a little single player game I've written in C which I've hacked into a hotseat multiplayer game (meaning each person uses the computer, in turn). I'd love to take this to the web. I guess my question is: by what method can I most easily get this up and running? I'm not worried about massive numbers of users or security - I'd just like my friends to play.

I've heard the gold standard is php/mysql. Is this overkill? Can I do something simple with just html?

I'll expand a bit more:

Most of my data resides in memory (the characters), and there is effectively a schedule file. On each player's turn, their commands edit the schedule file and then after all players "go", the computer reads the file and decides the outcome of events.

I'm envisioning something like this: each player signs on, and their character is read from disk, and each player issues commands and ends their turn. These are written to individual schedule files. (Or to a master file, I don't care). A script in the background is checking all the schedule files, checking to see when they are done (or, perhaps, going on a timer, such as once per day) and at that time each schedule file is read and the outcomes decided. The results are written to the character files (e.g. you're now level 2 and such).

Is this even possible without a database? Won't there be conflicts on accessing the files? A player may issue a new command while the computer is reading the schedule file.

Dear xXBiji - Thanks for your reply!



The data would be stored on the server, along with my C program, which would accumulate each player's info and determine what happens and re-write new files. The players would come back later and their browsers would read the new files which reflect the results.



Actually, yes, in reality, this is all that is needed. It could be a Play-By-Email game. However, I know I can create a simple form-based interface and give immediate feedback (e.g. the emails could be poorly formated).



I have no real fear of converting it to Java. However, I think there would still need to be a server - one central location which collects everything.

I have another really simple question: with html, how would players "log on"? How can the server know who is who? Store a cookie on the local machine of the player? I'd rather store it on the server. Is it possible? How is that cookie tied to a specific person? IP address? Is this a html server question (apache question?)

Lastly, assume I can acquire and set up any server and software necessary.

Thanks.

Thanks. My inspiration is Kingdom Of Loathing, which is also done in php, but it will take some time until I can learn php. My spare time is in demand.