Feature requests

[Gavin Chipper]

Fair enough if you want people to donate before they can play the robots, but it might be an idea to have an option to play completely on your own (against yourself so to speak) before committing any money. This is because it would be nice to try out the game before committing any money, but without the pressure of having to play someone miles better than you while simultaneously working out how to enter your solutions properly.

[Charlie Reams]

IMHO priorities should be: sorting out the conundrums (making the scrambles into word-forms like on TV,

That already happens, except it's very difficult to do and the program can't always manage it, so you sometimes get random shuffles.

and having some way of making tournament conundrums be of an appropriate difficulty level) and having a challenge feature for disallowed words.

Yep.

Otherwise, as mentioned before Charlie, if there's some way of incorporating the clock music, that would be brilliant.

No chance, sorry -- the legal implications are too serious.

Also is there any way Apterous could be connected to the (old-style text) recap writer, so that it writes those sorts of recaps automatically? Obviously the Wiki-style recaps are fine as a record of the game, but they're hard to 'play along' with, what with the contestants' offerings being shown right next to the selections.

Not really (see other post.)

Anyway, it's a great site

Thanks!

[Gavin Chipper]

IMHO priorities should be: sorting out the conundrums (making the scrambles into word-forms like on TV, and having some way of making tournament conundrums be of an appropriate difficulty level) and having a challenge feature for disallowed words.

How are the conundrums currently done? Are they just random nines jumbled randomly?

[Ben Pugh]

What happened to the list of fastest conundrums?

[Gavin Chipper]

Fair enough if you want people to donate before they can play the robots, but it might be an idea to have an option to play completely on your own (against yourself so to speak) before committing any money. This is because it would be nice to try out the game before committing any money, but without the pressure of having to play someone miles better than you while simultaneously working out how to enter your solutions properly.

Or maybe if that's giving too much to the cheapskate, you could just have a demo mode where you just get one round of each (letters, numbers and conundrum) or even a full game that's the same game every time - just something to let you practise the controls. In terms of drawing in a wider audience and getting donations from them, I think this would help matters.

Excellent program by the way.

[Charlie Reams]

you could just have a demo mode where you just get one round of each (letters, numbers and conundrum) or even a full game that's the same game every time - just something to let you practise the controls. In terms of drawing in a wider audience and getting donations from them, I think this would help matters.

That's a pretty good idea. Prod me if I haven't done this in a week's time.

[Gavin Chipper]

How about a minimum time between selecting each letter? I like to write them down!

[Martin Gardner]

How about a minimum time between selecting each letter? I like to write them down!

For the blind Countdown you'd need this as well, otherwise someone can just pick all nine letters in three seconds and the other person can't see.

[Gavin Chipper]

An invisible mode for those to want to look around but not play anyone without looking like they're avoiding anyone?

[Gavin Chipper]

Is there any need to say how many letters the other person has declared while you decide? I know it's more "realistic", but I think it's unnecessary and this game seems to be attempting to be more "objective" than television Countdown, and I see no reason to give each player this alternate advantage (I assume that's what happens - I haven't checked that it alternates).

[Charlie Reams]

Is there any need to say how many letters the other person has declared while you decide? I know it's more "realistic"

You answered your own question there mate The tactics of declaring first and second are important to learn, so it's worth reproducing.

[Jon O'Neill]

Yeah, declaring first or second is a big part of strategy. Keep.

[Julian Fell]

The conundrums do need sorting out though Charlie - it seems to be most of the time that it's jumbled randomly. Perhaps have a feature whereby a third party - a human - can set the conundrum for tournament games? I know you don't like this whole human-intervention thing, but still...

On the same lines, how is it decided who is C1 and who is C2 for tournament games? Do the players just agree beforehand? Could a 'coin-toss' function be built into the program? (I suppose you could always get an observer to do the 'coin-toss' via the chat window)

Also: could you make it so that players can see what type of selection their opponent's chosen on numbers rounds, before the actual numbers start coming up? Would be more realistic, and would give you that crucial second or two to get psyched up knowing there's a 6 small or 4 large or whatever selection coming up... it's a bit rough when you don't get that IMHO.

And as mentioned in another thread: separate chat windows for separate games, and making old tournament games viewable by anyone, any time

[Paul Howe]

Display the max score in Goatdown as the score with the optimal final letter pick?

Actually maybe isn't a great idea because you only get to pick half the letters so you could be punished for the opponent's picking, and the optimal pick might not be the longest available word (if it's something dead easy to spot). I'll put it out there anyway...

[Charlie Reams]

The conundrums do need sorting out though Charlie - it seems to be most of the time that it's jumbled randomly.

I will put some effort into making them slightly more interesting. Sometimes the shuffler comes up with real gems like FRONTRIBS (which I reused myself in Sfyris vs O'Donnell) and HEPATICAL. It's computationally hard though.

Perhaps have a feature whereby a third party - a human - can set the conundrum for tournament games? I know you don't like this whole human-intervention thing, but still...

It's just such a hassle to introduce a third person into the set up. There's so much crap you have to handle. What if the person setting the conundrum gets disconnected? What if they set an invalid conundrum, or one with several solutions, or not in the dictionary but maybe it's an error in jimdic so maybe we should allow it after all I don't know my head hurts now okay full stop.

On the same lines, how is it decided who is C1 and who is C2 for tournament games? Do the players just agree beforehand? Could a 'coin-toss' function be built into the program? (I suppose you could always get an observer to do the 'coin-toss' via the chat window)

The program does an internal coin toss to decide who goes first and who goes second. On MSN, the player who wins the toss chooses whether to go first or second, but since any sensible person would choose to go second, I don't think this is a major shortcoming. Which is not to say I won't add some feature where the players can choose, but it's not a priority.

Also: could you make it so that players can see what type of selection their opponent's chosen on numbers rounds, before the actual numbers start coming up? Would be more realistic, and would give you that crucial second or two to get psyched up knowing there's a 6 small or 4 large or whatever selection coming up... it's a bit rough when you don't get that IMHO.

Yeah, I've been meaning to do this for ages, but I think you've finally ground me down to the point of doing it.

separate chat windows for separate games

I did this two or three days ago!

making old tournament games viewable by anyone, any time

Yes yes, I will do it, but it's not as easy as it sounds.

Display the max score in Goatdown as the score with the optimal final letter pick? Actually maybe isn't a great idea because you only get to pick half the letters so you could be punished for the opponent's picking, and the optimal pick might not be the longest available word (if it's something dead easy to spot). I'll put it out there anyway...

I've been pondering this for a while. I think Susie should certainly tell you what the best pick was. I'm not sure whether that should affect the maximum. They're kinda two different things.

[Karen Pearson]

For those of use who are pretty inept, would it be possible to have the following (please!?)..

The ability to cancel a particular number or function choice on the numbers (for when I inadvertently click on + instead of X, or when I start with the wrong number (forgetting that I needed to add together 2 numbers first)). I always realise the instant I have done this and I get really cross with myself.

The ability to backspace (just one place) on the conundrum without it being disallowed? I was typing in BLOODYING the other day and left my finger on the O for too long (i.e. blooo) and it registered as a mistake. In MSN, everyone would accept that as just a typo.

Just suggestions. Probably not needed by the more capable people!

Thanks.

[Joseph Bolas]

The ability to backspace (just one place) on the conundrum without it being disallowed? I was typing in BLOODYING the other day and left my finger on the O for too long (i.e. blooo) and it registered as a mistake. In MSN, everyone would accept that as just a typo.

Thanks.

I'm with you on this Karen. I have lost a few conundrums before, just because I tried to backspace and it is annoying .

[Charlie Reams]

The problem with both of those is that they're a massive encouragement to people to, if not exactly cheat, then certainly exploit the system (maybe akin to Jeffrey's buzz-then-solve approach.) If anyone has a suggestion that can allow a little more flexibility without encouraging sneakiness then I'd love to hear it.

Edit: Okay, I came up with a way of doing it for the conundrum. Numbers still unsolved.

[Karen Pearson]

Maybe you could allow just one correction in the numbers and just one backspace (not including deleting the first letter) on the conundrum. Knowing absolutely nothing about programming, that is probably very difficult to do - sorry!! Or an overall time limit for entering the whole solution.

[Charlie Reams]

Maybe you could allow just one correction in the numbers and just one backspace (not including deleting the first letter) on the conundrum. Knowing absolutely nothing about programming, that is probably very difficult to do - sorry!! Or an overall time limit for entering the whole solution.

That wouldn't be difficult to do, but I think I've come up with a better way. I will upload the new version some time later today -- check the front page for news.

[Ben Pugh]

Could we have the list of fastest conundrums back?

[Jon O'Neill]

It looks something like this:

Jono - REALLY FUCKING FAST!
Everyone else - not that fast.

[Paul Howe]

It looks something like this:

Jono - REALLY FUCKING FAST!
Everyone else - not that fast.

Hmmm....

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=1718

If you're allowed to do that then I think my instantaneous one (literally clocked at 0ms in the database ) should stand.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=1355

[Charlie Reams]

Could we have the list of fastest conundrums back?

Oh yeah, I was meaning to do this. I will get around to it soon, I promise.

[Charlie Reams]

The conundrums do need sorting out though Charlie - it seems to be most of the time that it's jumbled randomly.

I will put some effort into making them slightly more interesting. Sometimes the shuffler comes up with real gems like FRONTRIBS (which I reused myself in Sfyris vs O'Donnell) and HEPATICAL. It's computationally hard though.

Okay, I've done a lot of work on this today and it now works quite well (only about 5% of conundrums are now random junk, and those are things like DWINDLING where it's practically impossible to make anything.) Here are a few things it's set me:

GLOOPYOIL
MAKEBIRDS
LIONCHUGS
CHINGFOLD
NOBLERVOW
OPENPIPER
CLAIMWISH
COMESSTYE (this amused me because it sounds like the Italian for "how are you?", although I'm guessing the computer doesn't really appreciate that.)
BIDICHEER

I can't upload the changes til midnight or I'll break the Daily Duel, but today should be the last day of crappy conundrums

[Julian Fell]

Nice one Mr Reams you are a legend!!

[Charlie Reams]

Could we have the list of fastest conundrums back?

Oh yeah, I was meaning to do this. I will get around to it soon, I promise.

As Jesus said, "It is done."

[Charlie Reams]

Could we have the list of fastest conundrums back?

Oh yeah, I was meaning to do this. I will get around to it soon, I promise.

As Jesus said, "It is done." I don't think his was hyperlinked though.

[Ben Pugh]

Could we have the list of fastest conundrums back?

Oh yeah, I was meaning to do this. I will get around to it soon, I promise.

As Jesus said, "It is done." I don't think his was hyperlinked though.

Thanks, this means we can all battle for second place behind Jon O'Neill/Jeffrey Hansford.

[Jon O'Neill]

It looks something like this:

Jono - REALLY FUCKING FAST!
Everyone else - not that fast.

Hmmm....

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=1718

If you're allowed to do that then I think my instantaneous one (literally clocked at 0ms in the database ) should stand.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=1355

Whatever happened to our 'don't expose eachother as a fraud' Gentleman's agreement?

Now I'm forced to reveal that you're the lovechild of Damian Eadie and Joyce Cansfield.

I had to do it mate. I had to do it.

[Gavin Chipper]

[any sensible person would choose to go second

Given this, does tournament Countdown (not that I play it but if I ever became good I might) have to conform to what happens to be the current format on television? Couldn't a system be adopted with an even number of each type of round? I know this isn't really a question for here in particular but a question for each tournament organiser, but even so I thought I'd mention it.

[Gavin Chipper]

I think that the way of pressing the first letter of the conundrum to buzz does give an advantage to typing geeks who know their way around a keyboard. My suggestion would be to press space to buzz but then you still have to type the conundrum immediately afterwards, so you would have less time to do a Hansford than Hansford himself did.

[Charlie Reams]

I think that the way of pressing the first letter of the conundrum to buzz does give an advantage to typing geeks who know their way around a keyboard. My suggestion would be to press space to buzz but then you still have to type the conundrum immediately afterwards, so you would have less time to do a Hansford than Hansford himself did.

A decision was very deliberately made against this. Far too many conundrums are soluble in less than the 2 or 3 seconds you'd have to allow people to start typing the answer.

[Paul Howe]

Whatever happened to our 'don't expose eachother as a fraud' Gentleman's agreement?

Now I'm forced to reveal that you're the lovechild of Damian Eadie and Joyce Cansfield.

I had to do it mate. I had to do it.

Knock it all you want fella, but those genes have given me the gift of doing conundrums FASTER THAN SUPERMAN. And THE FLASH.

[Joseph Bolas]

I was playing a game with Dinos before and I ended the game by closing the page (the game was unfinished). Now I have done this before with the bots and I was able to resume the game after clicking on their name again, but this time I was unable to do this with the game that I was previously playing with Dinos and tought you could do it with human players too.

Therefore is there a way to save a game, if one person does have to end the game early?

Apologies to Dinos as well, as I genuinely thought we could resume the game we were playing.

[Charlie Reams]

I was playing a game with Dinos before and I ended the game by closing the page (the game was unfinished). Now I have done this before with the bots and I was able to resume the game after clicking on their name again, but this time I was unable to do this with the game that I was previously playing with Dinos and tought you could do it with human players too.

Therefore is there a way to save a game, if one person does have to end the game early?

Apologies to Dinos as well, as I genuinely thought we could resume the game we were playing.

Yes, you should be able to. Not sure what went wrong here. I'll look into it.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Yeah this seemed to be happening all over the show tonight. I couldn't resume a few games against Ben Pugh.

[Karen Pearson]

OOoooooh, I can backspace on the conundrum now!

Brilliant. Thanks Charlie.

[Gavin Chipper]

A decision was very deliberately made against this. Far too many conundrums are soluble in less than the 2 or 3 seconds you'd have to allow people to start typing the answer.

OK, but I think 3/4 of a second would probably suffice.

[Gavin Chipper]

you could just have a demo mode where you just get one round of each (letters, numbers and conundrum) or even a full game that's the same game every time - just something to let you practise the controls. In terms of drawing in a wider audience and getting donations from them, I think this would help matters.

That's a pretty good idea. Prod me if I haven't done this in a week's time.

*Prods*

[Gavin Chipper]

A decision was very deliberately made against this. Far too many conundrums are soluble in less than the 2 or 3 seconds you'd have to allow people to start typing the answer.

OK, but I think 3/4 of a second would probably suffice.

Thinking about this, even if you allow two seconds to start typing after hitting space, it's not two seconds for them to Hansford the answer - it's two seconds to Hansford the answer and then find the first letter. I think the crucial question is whether more people would lose the conundrum under your system because they don't know their way around a keyboard well enough or whether more people would lose under my system by being Hansforded. My hunch is that your system would produce more "false winners", and it could put off the non-geeks.

Or as an alternative, you could have it so that you click on the first letter of the conundrum, like you do in the numbers games if you enter after the time has run out. In fact when I first played the game I thought that's what "press" might mean as opposed to "type" which is what I would have expected to see.

[Gavin Chipper]

How about an option to put in any nine letters just to see what the maximum is? Is that what Countmax does? You could still have it anyway.

[Gavin Chipper]

An invisible mode for those to want to look around but not play anyone without looking like they're avoiding anyone?

Also for playing the bots if you're feeling unsociable.

[Charlie Reams]

Thinking about this, even if you allow two seconds to start typing after hitting space, it's not two seconds for them to Hansford the answer - it's two seconds to Hansford the answer and then find the first letter. I think the crucial question is whether more people would lose the conundrum under your system because they don't know their way around a keyboard well enough or whether more people would lose under my system by being Hansforded. My hunch is that your system would produce more "false winners", and it could put off the non-geeks.

I think that's half the crucial question. The other half is which is worse. Personally, if I lost because I couldn't find the key fast enough, I'd just accept it as the nature of the beast and work to improve my keyboard skills. If I lost because the other person Hansforded, well, there's not much I can about that, which makes it much more annoying.

Or as an alternative, you could have it so that you click on the first letter of the conundrum, like you do in the numbers games if you enter after the time has run out. In fact when I first played the game I thought that's what "press" might mean as opposed to "type" which is what I would have expected to see.

Yeah I'll do that.

[Martin Gardner]

A few thoughts I wanted to give all at the same time:

Perhaps more robots, although I'm not sure how easy this would be. I find the weakest robot is hilariously bad (like not getting 103 from numbers with 100 and 3 in them) while the second lowest one could probably score 800 (or at least 760) on the real show. How about those contestants that don't declare nothing every round, but miss the max virtually every round. This might encourage weaker players to donate.

I can probably make you a French conundrums dictionary - I'm aware that the conundrums don't use the same dictionary as the letters games, otherwise you'd get plurals and conundrums with more than one answer like DERATIONS. I'll get a friend to try and come up with a French conundrum dictionary over the weekend, if he's at home. I'm aware this interests basically nobody.

Interesting thing about the second lowest bot it is is shit at conundrums, and I've managed to go up 100 points just be playing it at conundrum attack. It makes it a bit easy to go up like that (I beat it 130 - 10 in my first effort).

I seem to think I had one other thing but I can't recall it right now, so I'll leave it.

Edit: I know what it was, a Masters mode LNCLNCLNCLNCLNC, which I played myself twice as a custom game today, which is really cool (see my games history)

[Charlie Reams]

Perhaps more robots, although I'm not sure how easy this would be. I find the weakest robot is hilariously bad (like not getting 103 from numbers with 100 and 3 in them) while the second lowest one could probably score 800 (or at least 760) on the real show. How about those contestants that don't declare nothing every round, but miss the max virtually every round. This might encourage weaker players to donate.

Yeah the difficulty gradient is a bit off (there's a huge gap between Prime and Plum, and not much difference between Prime and Rex.) That kind of thing is hard to tweak but I'm trying.

I can probably make you a French conundrums dictionary - I'm aware that the conundrums don't use the same dictionary as the letters games, otherwise you'd get plurals and conundrums with more than one answer like DERATIONS. I'll get a friend to try and come up with a French conundrum dictionary over the weekend, if he's at home. I'm aware this interests basically nobody.

The conundrums should already be in French, and it should weed out defective ones automatically, so if that's not happening then it's a bug.

Interesting thing about the second lowest bot it is is shit at conundrums, and I've managed to go up 100 points just be playing it at conundrum attack. It makes it a bit easy to go up like that (I beat it 130 - 10 in my first effort).

See above

Edit: I know what it was, a Masters mode LNCLNCLNCLNCLNC, which I played myself twice as a custom game today, which is really cool (see my games history)

Humm, maybe. It's easy enough to set up any format you like, so I don't need to provide an exhaustive list. But that one looks reasonably different and interesting so I might add it as a pre-set.

[Jon Corby]

Not majorly important, but I often think it would be nice to see who's sat there bored waiting to play a game. It might be nice to have a "somebody please play with me" feature, or at least some way of seeing at a glance which players in the list aren't currently playing. At the moment I do it manually by checking who's not in the "currently playing" panel, and then challenging people (which is obviously manageable with current numbers), but then I'll only challenge one person at a time, and give them a few minutes to respond, otherwise it's rude to challenge more than one person and have to blow someone off when they've only taken 10 seconds to respond AND ALL I WANT TO DO IS PLAY A FUCKING GAME!

[Charlie Reams]

That will probably be fixed once I do Open Challenges. Which will be Real Soon Now.

[Jon Corby]

Ugh - I've just realised that you can backspace the first letter on the conundrum. I thought that you had a really ingenious solution to prevent people Hansfording, and you've removed it. Why? Allow backspacing if you must (why can't people just type carefully anyway, you get enough time?), but not the first letter

[Charlie Reams]

Ugh - I've just realised that you can backspace the first letter on the conundrum. I thought that you had a really ingenious solution to prevent people Hansfording, and you've removed it. Why? Allow backspacing if you must (why can't people just type carefully anyway, you get enough time?), but not the first letter

You're not supposed to be able to backspace the first letter. I must've broken something.

[Jon Corby]

Apterous Rex is really mean and insulting. I got two 9s against him today, and he just says stuff like "that's the best you can hope for" rather than "well done".

It's not really me I'm concerned for, but Lee Bailey would have some kind of breakdown should he ever play him.

[Martin Gardner]

Cheers for the new bot, Charlie

[Martin Gardner]

I tried another game in French, a couple of things:

It still allows conjugated verbs, does the text file I sent you work?

The conundrum was actually in a French order (nettesder, two French words) but the answer was TENDEREST which is English.

[Martin Gardner]

Apterous Rex is really mean and insulting. I got two 9s against him today, and he just says stuff like "that's the best you can hope for" rather than "well done".

It's not really me I'm concerned for, but Lee Bailey would have some kind of breakdown should he ever play him.

I thought it was hilarious

[Gavin Chipper]

Perhaps more robots, although I'm not sure how easy this would be. I find the weakest robot is hilariously bad (like not getting 103 from numbers with 100 and 3 in them) while the second lowest one could probably score 800 (or at least 760) on the real show. How about those contestants that don't declare nothing every round, but miss the max virtually every round. This might encourage weaker players to donate.

But the people who haven't donated wouldn't have known that had you not just told them!

Instead of Apterous Plum/Prune/Cunt or whatever, how about using the names of real past contestants of that general skill level, or would that be too slanderous? You could have a tournament option where you can pick the past contestants to play against in a knockout - or is this getting too complicated as well as slanderous?

[Charlie Reams]

Instead of Apterous Plum/Prune/Cunt or whatever, how about using the names of real past contestants of that general skill level, or would that be too slanderous?

I considered that, but I thought it would get confusing if the real people ever signed up.

[Gavin Chipper]

This may have already been suggested (in fact I think I've seen it but couldn't find it in a quick look and it hasn't been implemented) but couldn't you make it so if you're typing in a word when the time runs out you can finish it? You can enter your numbers solution in it's entirety after the time. I was fucked over in the 10-second duel thing, and I'm also convinced that I pressed the first letter of the conundrum before it told me time was up (it was close though).

[Charlie Reams]

This may have already been suggested (in fact I think I've seen it but couldn't find it in a quick look and it hasn't been implemented) but couldn't you make it so if you're typing in a word when the time runs out you can finish it? You can enter your numbers solution in it's entirety after the time.

Yes, I have been meaning to implement this since at least July. I will eventually figure out a nice way of doing it.

[Ben Wilson]

I'm also convinced that I pressed the first letter of the conundrum before it told me time was up (it was close though).

If you were playing against a human (unlikely considering you're, well, you, but you never know) sometimes lag comes into play- I've had half the word typed in the box before only to be told the other person buzzed first.

[Julian Fell]

Instead of Apterous Plum/Prune/Cunt