Good idea for a variant?

[Charlie Reams]

How about a variant where you make your best word (9 max) from say a 12 letter pick, but the twist is that discarded letters are then carried over to the next round, thus making play strategic.

Kirk and I discussed this before, we couldn't work out what to do with letters which only one player used.

[Niall Seymour]

How about a variant whereby if you think you have the max (or the max you and your opponent are likely to find), you can hit the 'end round early' button and if both players have a word of the same length/same numbers target than the player who hits the button first scores?

[Charlie Reams]

How about a variant whereby if you think you have the max (or the max you and your opponent are likely to find), you can hit the 'end round early' button and if both players have a word of the same length/same numbers target than the player who hits the button first scores?

This seems to be "suggest Kirk's old ideas" day

[Marc Meakin]

How about a variant whereby if you think you have the max (or the max you and your opponent are likely to find), you can hit the 'end round early' button and if both players have a word of the same length/same numbers target than the player who hits the button first scores?

This seems to be "suggest Kirk's old ideas" day

As it's his birthday today, shouldn't that be '' suggest old Kirk's ideas day''

[Marc Meakin]

How about a variant where you make your best word (9 max) from say a 12 letter pick, but the twist is that discarded letters are then carried over to the next round, thus making play strategic.

Kirk and I discussed this before, we couldn't work out what to do with letters which only one player used.

Maybe the person with the longest word (or fastest declaration if words are of same length) should determine which letters are carried over.

[Peter Mabey]

How about a variant where you scored more for using awkward letters? (eg JQVXZ might count double)

Probably need to avoid Scrabble values to keep Mattel/Hasbro lawyers away

[Gavin Chipper]

Moving away from letters (this may have come up before) but how about a numbers scoring system where you score more for using fewer numbers?

[Ben Wilson]

My main resistance to it, in terms of actually implementing it, is that I'm mostly interested by variants which encourage exploration of any otherwise-neglected part of the lexicon, like Omelette and Unlimited.

Can we have hyper/junior omelette at some point then please? If only for the sheer fun hyperomelette numbers would provide.

[Marc Meakin]

Probably not the right thread for this, but how about an Apterous decathlon where players compete in 10 different variants to find the best all rounder.
I suppose it could be done as a special daily (Daley?) duel, (over 10 days)maybe.

[Gavin Chipper]

I think an implanted 9 system would be a good game. Not conundrums, but letters rounds where there is always a 9 available, so obviously you can declare less. Apterous would obviously have to pick the letters. Selections wouldn't be excluded on the basis of having more than one valid 9. The probability of each selection coming up would be proportional to the probability of it coming up normally.

I think this would make a good training aid for finding likely 9s (so I'll have none of this "it would be a boring variant" rubbish). I tend to think that training aid variants would be a good way forward for Apterous.

[Hugh Binnie]

I agree wholeheartedly with Gavin's suggestions (training aids in general, and that training aid in particular).

[Ben Wilson]

I had an idea last night for a dogfight-style game where rather than increasingly tight time limits, the number of letters you play with increases every other round. For example, you start off with 5 letters in round 1, then go up to 6 letters in round 3 and so forth until you hit 15 letters at round 21.

A letters challenge under these rules would get utterly lethal after a while and would have the advantage of having dogfight-style percentage scores and meaningful overall high scores- I honestly can't imagine many people with the possible exception of Paul Howe making it past 12 letters.

I can't quite see how numbers attacks would work under these rules- apterous brainfarts at hyper numbers enough as it is- but a 15-rounder with 11 different letters lengths, the 3 different numbers games and a random conundrum would be fun.

The only name I've come up for this so far is Hydra- the mythical beast where every time you cut one of its heads off, two more grew back in its place.

[Eoin Monaghan]

How about Nasty Letters? You can have unlimited vowels and consonants and you can have Q and Y and Z more than once in a round. It would increase the amount of obscure words and would provide lots of pencils.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

How about this variant: when you used all the numbers in numbers round, you get twice the points.

[Oliver Garner]

Adding to Dmitry's idea, I've thought of a variation for letters. You could have 9 letters, and you can use one of the letters unlimitedly. You 2x, 3x, 4x etc your score the number of times you use it. However, if you use the E 3 times eg STEEPER and your opponent uses it twice eg PEDERAST, your opponent would score 16 (8x2) even though your word would score 21.
It would be called Multiplier.

[JackHurst]

How about a variant where you make your best word (9 max) from say a 12 letter pick, but the twist is that discarded letters are then carried over to the next round, thus making play strategic.

I like that idea.

I also think the idea about a variant where you only pick consonants is a good one.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Adding to Dmitry's idea, I've thought of a variation for letters. You could have 9 letters, and you can use one of the letters unlimitedly. You 2x, 3x, 4x etc your score the number of times you use it. However, if you use the E 3 times eg STEEPER and your opponent uses it twice eg PEDERAST, your opponent would score 16 (8x2) even though your word would score 21.
It would be called Multiplier.

No. I think this is better: if your word length is equal to the length of the longest possible word in the dictionary, you get twice the points for that word (a rule which is REALLY used on http://www.wedigtv.com. I played it there many times). I call it The Undefeatable Dictionary.

[Oliver Garner]

No. I think this is better: if your word length is equal to the length of the longest possible word in the dictionary, you get twice the points for that word (a rule which is REALLY used on http://www.wedigtv.com. I played it there many times). I call it The Undefeatable Dictionary.

Kirk would get over 200 points every game!

[Hugh Binnie]

No. I think this is better: if your word length is equal to the length of the longest possible word in the dictionary, you get twice the points for that word (a rule which is REALLY used on http://www.wedigtv.com. I played it there many times). I call it The Undefeatable Dictionary.

Kirk would get over 200 points every game!

That's nothing — I just got 47,000. >__>
Probably the less said about wedigtv, the better.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

No. I think this is better: if your word length is equal to the length of the longest possible word in the dictionary, you get twice the points for that word (a rule which is REALLY used on http://www.wedigtv.com. I played it there many times). I call it The Undefeatable Dictionary.

Kirk would get over 200 points every game!

That's nothing — I just got 47,000. >__>
Probably the less said about wedigtv, the better.

Mi highscore is about 30,000 and my average score is about 20,000

[Michael Wallace]

Probably the less said about wedigtv, the better.

Totally. I forgot how absolutely dire this is. I could've played about two fifteen rounders in the time it took me to play one 'game' on there.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Probably the less said about wedigtv, the better.

Totally. I forgot how absolutely dire this is. I could've played about two fifteen rounders in the time it took me to play one 'game' on there.

Wedigtv is TOTALLY IMPRESSIVE!

[Kirk Bevins]

Wedigtv is TOTALLY IMPRESSIVE!

I suggest you visit http://www.apterous.org and then be prepared to use the 'edit' feature on here.

[Michael Wallace]

1) Almost certainly been suggested before, but how about a variant where you get points depending on how hard the conundrum is? (i.e. 10 for a level 10, 1 for a level 1, etc.)

2) A Top Dog conundrum type affair - you start on a level 1 conundrum (or some higher level if you're better), get it right you go up to a level 2 conundrum, get it wrong you take a strike. Once you're on a level 3, say, if you get it right you go up to level 4, if you get it wrong you go down to level 2. You 'win' if you manage N conundrums correct at level L (maybe in a row, but that might be too hard), where L is the peak conundrum level Mr Dog thinks you're suitable for, and N is calculated too. Maybe not different enough to existing variants, but I quite like the idea of working your way up to your 'target' level where you then have to get a certain number right, plus it's a good one for those of us who are shit at conundrums (i.e. me). I'm not sure I've explained this particularly coherently, though.

[Charlie Reams]

1) Almost certainly been suggested before, but how about a variant where you get points depending on how hard the "conundrum" is?

Why must you push your disgusting homophiliac agenda on the rest of us? I'm 12 years old and what is this? Some of us are just trying to raise a family LIKE GOD INTENDED and you want my darling son Archibald to be taught how to put on a conundrum IN SCHOOL. "Just on a banana?" you say. That's just the beginning! If you tolerate this then your children will be next. Homeopathy is a choice, and a sickening one at that. Ban the burka. ENGERLAND! ENGERLAND! ENGERLAND!

A Top Dog conundrum type affair - you start on a level 1 conundrum (or some higher level if you're better), get it right you go up to a level 2 conundrum, get it wrong you take a strike

Good idea.

[Matt Morrison]

I like the idea of different points for different difficulty rounds... which has given me this idea (also maybe idea'd by someone else before).
Reminded me of gameshows where you can choose a difficulty for a question.
Would be cool if you could choose difficulties for apterous rounds.

Letters would be easy - you choose a max between 5 and 9, apterous picks a round where the letters will yield that length of maximum.
Conundrums - you choose a difficulty between 1 and 10.
Not sure about numbers.

Would potentially produce some awesome tactical battles. Not entirely sure about scoring or limitations, for example the elite players would fancy themselves to know most 9s so would keep picking rounds with 9s in, so maybe you can only pick one 9 round each per game? Actually, just making a 9 worth 9 points rather than 18 would help a lot too. Maybe even enforced flat scoring for the letters rounds could work a treat. Hmm. Conundrums presumably 1-10 points for hardness like Michael suggested.

Positive feedback, etc.?

[Kirk Bevins]

Letters would be easy - you choose a max between 5 and 9, apterous picks a round where the letters will yield that length of maximum.
Conundrums - you choose a difficulty between 1 and 10.
Not sure about numbers.

Interesting....and when you click "6" to say you want a round where the max is 6, your opponent doesn't know you've clicked 6 and is still able to risk 7s whereas you know that the dodgy 7 is clearly invalid. Good tactical game. Not sure if it will work as, like you suggest, I'd always click 8 or 9 probably.

[Charlie Reams]

Furthermore, what if: you get to pick the difficulty of the round and, if you max it, you retain control for the next round. This adds a further tactical element, akin to the "question or nominate" aspect of 15-to-1.

[Matt Morrison]

Yeah this is sounding really rather good. Obviously "enforced max" rounds auto-picked by apterous have been mentioned many times before, and I don't know how much extra work that is for you Charlie but I'm loving that you are responding positively! It's so TV friendly we could one day even see an apterous gameshow.

[Kirk Bevins]

Furthermore, what if: you get to pick the difficulty of the round and, if you max it, you retain control for the next round. This adds a further tactical element, akin to the "question or nominate" aspect of 15-to-1.

By 'retain control' do you mean both players still score 8 points but you retain control over length of word to play? I'm not sure I'm a fan of this as if you're playing one of the top lads the control won't be passed around much and then going first is a huge advantage. I prefer alternating controls.

[Ryan Taylor]

Furthermore, what if: you get to pick the difficulty of the round and, if you max it, you retain control for the next round. This adds a further tactical element, akin to the "question or nominate" aspect of 15-to-1.

By 'retain control' do you mean both players still score 8 points but you retain control over length of word to play? I'm not sure I'm a fan of this as if you're playing one of the top lads the control won't be passed around much and then going first is a huge advantage. I prefer alternating controls.

Yeah you would still score same points but you would always be the one who knew what max was available. You could play a conundrum in the first round to see who gains control.

[Kirk Bevins]

Yeah you would still score same points but you would always be the one who knew what max was available.

So not only is it much easier that you get to pick the tactics every round, you also know what the max available is and your opponent doesn't. Sounds unreasonably biased to me.

[Charlie Reams]

I'm not sure I'm a fan of this as if you're playing one of the top lads the control won't be passed around much and then going first is a huge advantage.

Having control isn't a huge advantage really, it just allows you to dictate the pace of the game. Anyway, since the top players are likely to be pushing each other to try to gain an advantage, they'd generally be requesting the most difficult rounds, so control would change more often than in a standard 15 rounder.

[Matt Morrison]

Would it definitely need to be a case of only the picker knows the max though?
It would be tactically more complex that way, but if the max was announced on the letters round window then on the other hand that would counter at least part of Kirk's assertion that it biases the player in control too much.

[Ryan Taylor]

Would it definitely need to be a case of only the picker knows the max though?
It would be tactically more complex that way, but if the max was announced on the letters round window then on the other hand that would counter at least part of Kirk's assertion that it biases the player in control too much.

Like Kirk said though, it would eliminate people going for a risky 7 if the max was declared as a 6. So one player not knowing the max should be a part of it.

[Marc Meakin]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

[Matt Morrison]

Ssshhh Meakin, we're discussing something important.

[Ryan Taylor]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

[Marc Meakin]

Yeah you would still score same points but you would always be the one who knew what max was available.

So not only is it much easier that you get to pick the tactics every round, you also know what the max available is and your opponent doesn't. Sounds unreasonably biased to me.

IAWK

[Michael Wallace]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

It's such a good idea it's suggested in the first reply in the feature request thread (and has been repeatedly suggested by other people (myself included) ever since).

[Jon Corby]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

Me too. I don't think Charlie's smart enough to program it though (clever reverse psychology)

[Marc Meakin]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

Or maybe have unlimited time, but points would be deducted for going over a set time.
Say, 10 points off for every 5 seconds over a minute.

[Ryan Taylor]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

Or maybe have unlimited time, but points would be deducted for going over a set time.
Say, 10 points off for every 5 seconds over a minute.

No I like the idea of a set time so you get all giddy when you have like 10 seconds left and about 6 rounds to go. How would the conundrum work?

[Marc Meakin]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

It's such a good idea it's suggested in the first reply in the feature request thread (and has been repeatedly suggested by other people (myself included) ever since).

Oh yeah, http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic. ... 86&start=0
Good idea Jono.

[Ryan Taylor]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

It's such a good idea it's suggested in the first reply in the feature request thread (and has been repeatedly suggested by other people (myself included) ever since).

Bloody hell Meakin. You have disappointed me again now

[Marc Meakin]

I thought that it sounded too good to be original

[Charlie Reams]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

I actually like this idea. Minute would probably be too short, or at least it would make it challeneging. You should be able to set the length.

Me too. I don't think Charlie's smart enough to program it though (clever reverse psychology)

Honestly, this. I tried once and it proved very difficult to reconcile with the existing code. One day, though.

[Jon Corby]

Me too. I don't think Charlie's smart enough to program it though (clever reverse psychology)

Honestly, this. I tried once and it proved very difficult to reconcile with the existing code. One day, though.

Yeah, I think I remembered you saying before about that, which is why I wrote what I did. I have to say I am frequently taken aback by the new stuff which you do introduce and the timescales involved. Do you put much effort into refactoring existing code, or is it gradually getting more unwieldy?

[CF Warran]

is there a variant where you get points for going outside and not being a loser?
i think that's got wings

[Charlie Reams]

I have to say I am frequently taken aback by the new stuff which you do introduce and the timescales involved. Do you put much effort into refactoring existing code, or is it gradually getting more unwieldy?

Yeah, a lot of time is spent refactoring, generalising, stream-lining and so on. I have a somewhat autistic obsession with doing things The Right Way, and I often hold out on implementing features if I can't see The Right Way to do it. This is helped by the fact that I'm the only developer (sorry Jono), so there's no one else to get confused if I suddenly rewrite big portions of the code.

The only subsystem which is a real hornet's nest is conundrum generation, because that involves generating five different types of conundrum of variable length in variable languages and alphabets, variable constraints on allowable solutions and scrambles, six different scramble generation modules, multi-threaded caching, difficulty constraints, frequency balancing and so on and so on. Mostly it's fine and given the large feature set there's not really any other way to do it, but if something goes wrong, debugging can be deeply frustrating.

Oh yeah, the way there's no vowels in Hebrew is a hack as well (it just hides the button), but that would be a major undertaking to fix for no material gain, so probably something for a day when I have nothing else to do.

[Jon Corby]

I have to say I am frequently taken aback by the new stuff which you do introduce and the timescales involved. Do you put much effort into refactoring existing code, or is it gradually getting more unwieldy?

Yeah, a lot of time is spent refactoring, generalising, stream-lining and so on. I have a somewhat autistic obsession with doing things The Right Way, and I often hold out on implementing features if I can't see The Right Way to do it. This is helped by the fact that I'm the only developer (sorry Jono), so there's no one else to get confused if I suddenly rewrite big portions of the code.

Yeah, I don't like working in teams either. Not a good thing to say in interviews. Java (well, OO in general) is indeed a thing of beauty when it's done properly. It's certainly worth putting the effort in if it's a constantly evolving project. Well done though.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

Reminded me of gameshows where you can choose a difficulty for a question.

1 tegen 100, for example.

Not sure about numbers.

For numbers you could use THIS: you can pick a max "off a target" (one-off, for example).

Not entirely sure about scoring or limitations.

You double the points for equalling the max word length (in letters rounds) and reaching the best "off a target" (one-off, in this example).

Conundrums presumably 1-10 points for hardness like Michael suggested.

Yep, that's it.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

You could have a variant whereby each player has a maximum of 1 minute on their clock (or maybe even 30 seconds)
to complete ALL the rounds. When your clock runs out you cannot score in any more rounds.
It would be flat scoring.

No, 30 sec*number of rounds.

[Jon Corby]

No, 30 sec*number of rounds.

You're very masterful. It's quite a turn-on.

[Charlie Reams]

No, 30 sec*number of rounds.

You're very masterful. It's quite a turn-on.

You'd be masterful too if you were probably a genius.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

No, 30 sec*number of rounds.

You're very masterful. It's quite a turn-on.

You'd be masterful too if you were probably a genius.

Do you remember that I'm a probability GENIUS?!

[Michael Wallace]

Do you remember that I'm a probability GENIUS?!

Possibly.

[Gavin Chipper]

I like the idea of different points for different difficulty rounds

Going off at a tangent, this reminds me of a variant I suggested a while back where your score in each round depends on where a word is ranked in order of length. So you get the top score if you get the longest word. But if there are two the same length you could get the score you would for getting the 1.5th best word (based on some formula - maybe just reciprocal of rank, or maybe something that gives nicer numbers). So the highest available scores would be for darrenic games rather than games with lots of nines.

[Dmitry Goretsky]

How about binary variant? All numbers below are in the binary numeral system, except the numbers in brackets which are in decimal system.
Regular Binary
There are 16 small numbers: 2 each of 1-1000 (1-8) and 4 large: 100000 (32), 1000000 (64), 1100000 (96) and 10000000 (128), one each. The target range between 10000000 (128) and 10000000000 (1024).
Hyperbinary
There are also two large numbers: 11000000 (192) and 100000000 (256). The target range between 10000000000 (1024) and 10000000000000 (8192).

[JimBentley]

There are 16 small numbers: 2 each of 1-10000 (1-8)

10000 is 16. I don't think you'd be very good at this format, Dmitry. Possibly you need a more probability-focused format.