c4countdown

Mikey Lear wrote:I think dictionary corner should list all the words which are longer than the one you got, not just all the maxima. Probably most people don't care about that because they always get the max or one below, but I quite often get a 5 when there's an 8 available and I kind of want to know if there were any 6s or 7s as well. And I guess that would be an easy tweak, if it's not asking too much?

Gavin Chipper wrote:Maybe an option to type your numbers declaration after the time, with a patience bar thing. I tend to just click on the target right at the start in case I forget later. Then I try and work it out but if I fail I have to change the answer which reduces the amount of time I actually have to do the working out.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:Maybe an option to type your numbers declaration after the time, with a patience bar thing. I tend to just click on the target right at the start in case I forget later. Then I try and work it out but if I fail I have to change the answer which reduces the amount of time I actually have to do the working out.

I got a numbers today but realised I'd forgotten to declare. My own preferred system would be to have a short period after the time to declare so you can't accidentally forget, but alternatively (or as well) you could have the target as the default declaration.

Edit - Also I don't know if it's just me, but sometimes when I change my declaration I accidentally press "end round early" instead of "set declaration".

Ben Wilson wrote:Or, alternatively, it could just derive your declaration from the workings-out in the panel? It would save irritation like this.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Ben Wilson wrote:Or, alternatively, it could just derive your declaration from the workings-out in the panel? It would save irritation like this.

And then when people put brackets in the wrong place and give a method that actually evaluates to something completely different, they'll wonder why they ended up declaring 257 away.

I will probably add something that warns you with 5 seconds to go if you haven't made a declaration.

Joseph Bolas wrote:This is just a suggestion, but why not redesign the high score table in such a way that when you click on More, for each game variation, you can see the best score for every player, instead of just the top 10 scores.

Damian E wrote:15. Why am i credited as being the creator of Goatdown when i have no recollection of it whatsoever?

Ian Volante wrote:Brian Blessed is the greatest man ever!

Kirk Bevins wrote:Could there be a search on apterous? I wanted to search for the last game when UNCREATES came up and I really couldn't be bothered trawling all my games so I left it. If apterous had a search facility this would be awesome! It could be used to throw up how often PILEUS etc comes up and thus would give you an indication of which of the obscure words commonly appear and are worth learning.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:Could there be a search on apterous? I wanted to search for the last game when UNCREATES came up and I really couldn't be bothered trawling all my games so I left it. If apterous had a search facility this would be awesome! It could be used to throw up how often PILEUS etc comes up and thus would give you an indication of which of the obscure words commonly appear and are worth learning.

+Todo

Gavin Chipper wrote:Edit - Also I don't know if it's just me, but sometimes when I change my declaration I accidentally press "end round early" instead of "set declaration".

Damian E wrote:How about soft classical music playing in the background.

Damian E wrote:Better still, the 'end the round early' button should be renamed "end your life early" and those pressing it by accident get an all-expenses paid trip to Dignitas in Switzerland.

Damian E wrote:How about a web cam facility so we can join up visually and play naked against each other.

Damian E wrote:How about soft classical music playing in the background, the option to add studio applause to every winning word, side impact bars, a web cam facility so we can join up visually and play naked against each other, and perhaps a free box of lemon turkish delight to those donating. "I love Apterous" t-shirts should be made available to buy online, as well as Charlie Reams- Eau De Cologne.

Better still, the 'end the round early' button should be renamed "end your life early" and those pressing it by accident get an all-expenses paid trip to Dignitas in Switzerland.

Joseph Bolas wrote:

Damian E wrote:How about soft classical music playing in the background.

I normally listen to music when I am playing on Apterous, but then you have the beeping of the tiles and the pop-ups etc, so could there be an option please to mute Apterous whilst you are playing.

Jon O'Neill wrote: Hahaha, this can't go under the radar. Possibly the biggest ever oversight of blatant sarcasm in the world. Ever. Seriously.

Charlie Reams wrote:I think Joseph was asking for the other sounds to be muteable (a long overdue feature), rather than the classical music.

Charlie Reams wrote:Also it would be pretty cool to have some distinctive 30-second jingle to play behind the rounds, so if anyone has some suggestions (subject to copyright restrictions), I'm all ears.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote: Hahaha, this can't go under the radar. Possibly the biggest ever oversight of blatant sarcasm in the world. Ever. Seriously.

I think Joseph was asking for the other sounds to be muteable (a long overdue feature), rather than the classical music.

Also it would be pretty cool to have some distinctive 30-second jingle to play behind the rounds, so if anyone has some suggestions (subject to copyright restrictions), I'm all ears.

Damian E wrote:Copyright restrictions haven't held you back so far, so why worry now?

Damian E wrote:The game of Countdown

Damian E wrote:the Conundrum

Damian E wrote:the photos of Susie, Alison, Des & Carol........... !!

Charlie Reams wrote:

Damian E wrote:The game of Countdown

Uncopyrightable.

Gavin Chipper wrote:Why do Channel 4 bother to refer to it as an Arm and Hammer (or something) game if there's no need from a copyright point of view? And on a tangent, the French game is different from our one anyway so in what sense is Countdown an Arm and Jam game? Isn't it just based on one?

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:Why do Channel 4 bother to refer to it as an Arm and Hammer (or something) game if there's no need from a copyright point of view? And on a tangent, the French game is different from our one anyway so in what sense is Countdown an Arm and Jam game? Isn't it just based on one?

I dunno, maybe there's some complicated law surrounding television formats, which would also explain why Endemol have worldwide rights to Big Brother even though the idea of "filming people doing stuff" is hardly new. But anyway, it's well known that games cannot be copyrighted, although their elements can be; so, for example, Scrabble is not copyrighted, but the name is trademarked and the board (its colourings, arrangement and so on) is protected by copyright. Countdown as a game is not copyrighted, although the name presumably is (and you'll notice it's not used anywhere on apterous.org except in the disclaimer) and the related artwork is probably copyrighted also (which is why I don't have big Countdown clocks all over the site.)

It's almost like I'd thought about it, isn't it?

Joseph Bolas wrote:I was thinking of an option where you pick your nine letters as normal in the word rounds, but the first 8 are hidden, until you have picked your 9th letter and then all 9 letters are shown together, if that makes sense.

Gavin Chipper wrote:Instructions

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:I was thinking of an option where you pick your nine letters as normal in the word rounds, but the first 8 are hidden, until you have picked your 9th letter and then all 9 letters are shown together, if that makes sense.

You could just have it so the options are 6C 3V, 5C 4V, 4C 5V. There's no point picking one by one if you can't see them, although I suppose people prefer certain orderings of their consonants and vowels.

The producers are in discussion over a possible new format for the numbers game. The existing features will remain, but there will be a small addition. As well as the current number cards, there will be seven balls. The balls will represent the numbers 15, 35, 45, 55, 65, 85 and 95. So when a contestant chooses their selection, they might ask for one from the top, three small numbers and two balls. It will be possible for someone to go for six big numbers using some combination of the top row and the balls. Someone could go for six balls.

But why balls? The catch with the balls is that the numbers aren't actually written on the balls but they are colour coded. The other problem is that all the balls are red (they are a bit like red snooker balls). Each number is represented by a slightly different shade of red and the contestants are shown the balls before the show so they know which is which. When viewed all together, the balls are very easy to tell apart, but when you see them in isolation and not right in front of you, it is not always so easy to see which ball had been picked.

The balls not selected will be out of sight so contestants will not be able to compare them with the selected balls. Carol selects them at random of course.

If a contestant is confident that they can discriminate the colours well, then they might go for a selection with one or more balls in. Otherwise they can still go for an ordinary selection. It's possible that someone might think that they have reached the target using the 45, only to find out that it is a 55 so they get no points.

The identity of the balls will not be revealed until the contestants have given their solutions. If someone says that they have used the 45 and multiplied it by 9 when there is no 45, Carol will just say that there is no 45 in the selection and Richard will act as if they have made a stupid careless mistake like he would normally. Carol won't say what the number is until the round is over with (this won't be necessary if someone has successfully used it in their solution). But she won't say it like an announcement. It will either be said in her solution or if she didn't use it, then she might say "I didn't use the 55" or if she couldn't do it she might say "It was very tricky with the 55". She will never say anything that might suggest that she thinks it isn't obvious what all the numbers are.

The balls will slot in in the same place as the ordinary card numbers. There will be a hemispherical section cut out of the back of the board where the numbers go. The card numbers will still fit as normal (the circular cross-section of the balls is smaller than the number cards so the the cards can't fall through) and the balls will be able to slot in nicely (they won't fall out because the surroundings will be made of rubber which will stretch slightly when the balls slot in). When putting the numbers up, Carol will still say what the ordinary numbers are but when there is a ball she will just say "A ball". So she might say "So we have 3, 10, 6, 2, 1 and a ball."

Gavin Chipper wrote:Charlie, you included Hyperecountdown, which is basically the same as Countdown Advanced originally invented back in 2002 on the Channel 4 forum, so I suggest a variant number format, which also emerged on the same forum in 2002.

The producers are in discussion over a possible new format for the numbers game. The existing features will remain, but there will be a small addition. As well as the current number cards, there will be seven balls. The balls will represent the numbers 15, 35, 45, 55, 65, 85 and 95. So when a contestant chooses their selection, they might ask for one from the top, three small numbers and two balls. It will be possible for someone to go for six big numbers using some combination of the top row and the balls. Someone could go for six balls.

But why balls? The catch with the balls is that the numbers aren't actually written on the balls but they are colour coded. The other problem is that all the balls are red (they are a bit like red snooker balls). Each number is represented by a slightly different shade of red and the contestants are shown the balls before the show so they know which is which. When viewed all together, the balls are very easy to tell apart, but when you see them in isolation and not right in front of you, it is not always so easy to see which ball had been picked.

The balls not selected will be out of sight so contestants will not be able to compare them with the selected balls. Carol selects them at random of course.

If a contestant is confident that they can discriminate the colours well, then they might go for a selection with one or more balls in. Otherwise they can still go for an ordinary selection. It's possible that someone might think that they have reached the target using the 45, only to find out that it is a 55 so they get no points.

The identity of the balls will not be revealed until the contestants have given their solutions. If someone says that they have used the 45 and multiplied it by 9 when there is no 45, Carol will just say that there is no 45 in the selection and Richard will act as if they have made a stupid careless mistake like he would normally. Carol won't say what the number is until the round is over with (this won't be necessary if someone has successfully used it in their solution). But she won't say it like an announcement. It will either be said in her solution or if she didn't use it, then she might say "I didn't use the 55" or if she couldn't do it she might say "It was very tricky with the 55". She will never say anything that might suggest that she thinks it isn't obvious what all the numbers are.

The balls will slot in in the same place as the ordinary card numbers. There will be a hemispherical section cut out of the back of the board where the numbers go. The card numbers will still fit as normal (the circular cross-section of the balls is smaller than the number cards so the the cards can't fall through) and the balls will be able to slot in nicely (they won't fall out because the surroundings will be made of rubber which will stretch slightly when the balls slot in). When putting the numbers up, Carol will still say what the ordinary numbers are but when there is a ball she will just say "A ball". So she might say "So we have 3, 10, 6, 2, 1 and a ball."

I think this could work quite well. When you are about to pick your selection (one ball and from the top or whatever), the seven red balls could be on the screen in numercial order, and then once you've made your selection they would just appear as a solid red circle in the selection and you have to remember which shade of red it is.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:This is just a suggestion, but why not redesign the high score table in such a way that when you click on More, for each game variation, you can see the best score for every player, instead of just the top 10 scores.

Because of a table of 300 or so not-very-high scores would be dull and no one would read it. Maybe it could show you your own high score in a given category, since people might conceivably care about that.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:This is just a suggestion, but why not redesign the high score table in such a way that when you click on More, for each game variation, you can see the best score for every player, instead of just the top 10 scores.

Because of a table of 300 or so not-very-high scores would be dull and no one would read it. Maybe it could show you your own high score in a given category, since people might conceivably care about that.

I finally did this. The user pages on the website now show high scores for each of the major formats.

Gavin Chipper wrote:Is there any way it could be changed so that if you get a conundrum wrong in the duel it could just end the round without the time running out?

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:Is there any way it could be changed so that if you get a conundrum wrong in the duel it could just end the round without the time running out?

+Todo

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:Is there any way it could be changed so that if you get a conundrum wrong in the duel it could just end the round without the time running out?

+Todo

Cheers

Ben Wilson wrote:Seconded, that has annoyed me in the past, so cheers Charlie.

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Ben Wilson wrote:Seconded, that has annoyed me in the past, so cheers Charlie.

I never get as far as the conundrum on the duel because my computer is so spassy

Ben Wilson wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Ben Wilson wrote:Seconded, that has annoyed me in the past, so cheers Charlie.

I never get as far as the conundrum on the duel because my computer is so spassy

Not even today? :p

Kirk Bevins wrote:Just thought I'd repeat something that would be extremely useful for me (and I'm sure many others). Could there be a search box on apterous to search through past games? Simon Myers had SEAMFREE come up today in DC and said it was nice and I said I was sure I'd missed that recently but I couldn't be bothered to check. It would have been nice to find when I missed it and the other words in that selection.

What I did notice today is when browsing past games is that I was coming out with words like MIELIES and one other I can't remember now and I had forgotten all about them. A search would be a speedy way to find games from 2 months ago and see words I was missing/spotting that I've either since forgotten or learnt.

Dan Vanniasingham wrote:In my current quest for the perfect speed numbers attack (which I was cruelly denied yesterday on a deceptively tricky 20th round), I have to take on Prune so as to have 20 games of 1 large. As I no longer have the desire to add further scores of 190 to my resumé, it's annoying having to continue the game or lose a ridiculous number of rating points once I've ballsed up (particularly in the first round).

My suggested feature to resolve that would be a "challenge mode", allowing you to face any of the bots on any of the game variations - without rating points at stake. If there's a better solution to my impatience then I'd be in favour of it too.