Variant Ideas - a compendium

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Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Matt Morrison »

As requested by Charlie, here's everything that has been suggested of note in the Good idea for a variant? thread.
Needless to say I have had to use some discretion and personal opinion in choosing what to include - anything that went down worse than an embarrassed virgin hasn't been included.
In some cases I've also expanded on ideas to make them more wholesome and informative, hopefully keeping true in each case to the submitter's intentions.

I have no idea whether Charlie would rather you keep posting your ideas in THAT thread to keep THIS one clear for summarising, but use your common sense I guess.
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Matt Morrison »

PICKING

Pickdown
You get to pick every letter in a round, as well as the numbers rounds. Conundrums remain normal.
Useful only really as a training tool or playing along live with Countdown whilst it's on TV.
Contributed by Ian Dent and added to by Jon Corby

Voweldown
You choose the vowels, apterous fills the gaps with consonants.
A useful training tool for people who have trouble with, for example, a load of Us and Is in the selection.
Contributed by Marc Meakin

Vowelfestdown
Rounds are of 7 letters each, where the vowels can be used as many times as wanted, promoting learning awkward vowel-heavy words.
Contributed by Liam Tiernan

Vowldown
A regular distribution but without any Es in the deck.
Contributed by Mark Dks

Extradown
A "blend of Unlimited and Hyper" whereby there is a regular 9 letter selection along with an additional 2 or 3 letters that can be used as often as you like in your declared word.
These letters could be set for the whole game, or changing each round. In the Goaty variant of Extradown, these (or one of them) could be human-picked, but usually they would presumably be apterous-chosen.
Scoring would have to be flat, no double points.
Contributed by Shaun Hegarty

Choosedown
You choose a max of 5 to 9 letters, and apterous auto-picks a selection where the max word(s) will be the length you have chosen. Only the picking player knows the max, it isn't announced.
One discussed problem was stopping elite players from ruling by picking a 9 round every time. One method would be to have maxes running from 4 to 9 and each player being able to call on each of these lengths only once per game. The non-picking player, would be able to use a process of elimination to say "well, he's picked a 4, 5, 6 and 8 max round - this one has to be a 7 or a 9 max".
OR, maxes could run as originally desired from 5 to 9, but each length can be picked a maximum of twice per game. This is probably the best balance in guessing at your opponent's tactics whilst still involving a level of mystery and still preventing elite players picking 9s all the time.
An extended possibility is that if you manage to find the max you have chosen, you retain control for picking the max for the next round. This would definitely require the max to be announced for each round to the non-picking player, and also perhaps you only retain control if the opponent doesn't find a max, to prevent control bias for good players.
Flat scoring (or at the very least Gevin scoring) would have to be used for the letters rounds to ensure the tactical element of fixed selections comes into play whilst keeping things close-ish.
Equally, in conundrums you can choose your difficulty from 1-10, but to keep things competitive the losing player gets to choose the difficulty.
Contributed by Matt Morrison and added to by Charlie Reams

Fairdown
Rather than the traditional letter distribution, there are an equal number of every single letter in the pack, regardless of how common (E) or uncommon (Q) the letter would usually be.
This would promote finding words in tough selections as well as open up some rare nooks of the dictionary.
For numbers rounds you could just get 6 numbers without choosing a combination of large and small, and there would be 2 of each small and 2 of each large number in the distribution.
Contributed by Steve Balog
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Matt Morrison »

PLAYING

Maxdown
apterous lets you know the available max in the round when the letters have been chosen so you know the longest word that can be made.
Adds a new tactical element to guessing at declarations.
Contributed by Damian Eadie

Startdown
apterous lets you know the first letter of one of, or all of, the max words in a round, to give you a hint as to what you should be looking for.
Adds the same new tactical element to guessing at declarations as Maxdown, above.
Contributed by Charlie Reams

Aimdown
A version of Omelette/Spoilage where you have to find a word using all letters that is as close as possible to a random length, rather than the longest length possible (Spoilage) or the shortest length possible (Omelette).
Stepdown scoring would be used so that if you get it bang on you get 10 points, 1 letter too long or too short = 9 points, 2 away for 8 points and so on.
Difficult part of the scoring would be that if no words of the correct length that use all letters are available, would you be looking for missing out on one letter but still going for the right length, or would you be still having to use all letters but with a word as accurate in length as you can?
Contributed by Shaun Hegarty

Cameradown
Players take turn picking letters so that in each 9-letter round one player picks 5 and the other 4.
Picking would be extremely tactical in that it could be used to help or hinder the chances of longer words.
There is some debate over whether there should be complete free reign over the pickable letters, or if they should still come from the same shared pool regular distribution (so that once all instances of a letter have been used in a game, the button to pick it is greyed out and no longer available).
Additionally, there is the suggestion that to get rounds going and for more variation, the first, say, 5 letters of each round would be apterous-picked, leaving 2 letters for each player to pick themselves.
Stepdown scoring is used so that even when hindering the chances of a longer word by picking Q or X, the max available would still always be 10.
Conundrums to be revealed one letter at a time, in 1/18th of the round time, so that all 9 letters are out at the 15 second mark in a 30 second round game.
The suggestion was that there is no limit to the number of vowels/consonants but I think it should still be restricted like the current game.
No mention of numbers, so this is my own suggestion but I reckon in numbers rounds you'd have to be given a target FIRST, and then the take-turns-picking would still work fine.

Contributed by Matt Bayfield and added to by Simon Myers and Jack Hurst

Continuedown
Your word, in R2 and beyond, has to start with the letter that your opponent's word ENDED with in the previous round.
So each round would automatically start with the two (or one if you both used the same final letter) letters that the two declarations ended with in the previous round.
Could lead to some tactical declarations (like a -BOX word) and enlivening some flat rounds.
If a declaration is invalid, the opponent has no restrictions to the starting letter of their word in the next round.
Contributed by Bob De Caux

Nudgedown
You can (Ryan) or must (Matt B) use a letter immediately before or after the letter in the selection's position in the alphabet.
So, if a T appears in the selection you can use it as a S, T, or U (Ryan) or as an S or a U (Matt B) to create your word. A and Z obviously loop back round to each other.
For numbers rounds the idea is similar - a 4 can nudge to 3 or 5. Depending on whether small/large sets remain separate, a 10 can nudge to 9 or 25, or to 9 or 1, and a 100 can nudge to 75 or 1, or 75 or 25.
Contributed by Ryan Taylor initially and then in proper length by Matt Bayfield

Joindown
Each tile has two letters on it, which must be used together in that order. A tile "ED" has to be used as "ED", not as "DE" or as a separate E and D.
Presumably something like 7 tiles (14 letters) would be about right. Distributions or pairings might also have to be pre-determined so that you don't have a round full of "UU" or "QY" tiles.
Contributed by Charlie Reams

Fusiondown
Of an 11 letter selection, two pairs of letters are fused together and must be used in that order (see Joindown above). So you still have 9 tiles, 7 singles and 2 doubles.
In numbers rounds, you get 7 numbers and the last two small numbers fuse together to create a new one (e.g. a selection of 100 7 9 5 6 4 2 becomes 100 7 9 5 6 42).
Contributed by Ben Wilson

Duckdown
The longest word possible has to be declared that strictly uses NONE of the letters in the selection.
I think something like 10 letters, with a constant ratio of 3 vowels/7 consonants would work well for this.
For conundrums, the vowels are removed leaving only the consonants to construct the answer from.
Contributed by Matt Bayfield

Carrydown
From a 12-letter selection, you can make a word of maximum length 9, and any remaining unused letters continue on to the next round.
This would most likely only work as a one-player (training or high score attack) game because of the issues with the two players declaring different words (i.e. leaving different letters).
My twist, however, is that it would be really interesting if at the start of the game apterous generates a 'list' of 102 letters (enough to cover 11 rounds where a 9 is declared each time), and this same set of letters is used for both players, so that, regardless of which letters they use and how long their words are, the two players end up playing the same game, so the scores ARE comparable and meaningful. The trouble with this is that the in-game results windows and results table would have to not show any words that people declared until the end, otherwise the player who is 'behind' in the list of letters would be able to work out which letters are coming next. It's quite different in this respect in that it's a 1-on-1 individually-played 2-player game, but reviewing the game at the end would be particularly cool.
Contributed by Marc Meakin

Implantdown
apterous-chosen selections make sure that there is always a 9 available in the round. A player can still declare less than 9 if they can't find it.
A good training tool for learning 9-letter words. Flat scoring obviously.
Would probably work better if the only guarantee is that there is always an 9 OR an 8. This would introduce more variation in selections and tactical play.
Contributed by Gavin Chipper

Hydradown
The 11 letters selections in a 15-rounder are one letter longer than the last round, so you start with a 5 letter selection in R1 and finish with 15 letters in R13.
Contributed by Ben Wilson

Hardupdown
A Dogfight-style conundrum game where you start on a level 1 conundrum and each time you get it right the next conundrum will be a more difficult one, up to a maximum (of course) of level 10.
Considering you get 3 lives in a dogfight, getting a conundrum wrong could result in either a) an attempt at the same difficulty conundrum, b) drop down to the previous difficulty level, c) drop down to level 1 and start the rise up again
Contributed by Michael Wallace

Tickdown
You have a limited amount of total time for all rounds. Default could be 4 minutes perhaps (for a 20 round LA that's 12 seconds average per round), with any length settable.
You conserve your time by ending round early. If you run out of time on your total clock, you're locked out of the game and can't answer any more rounds.
Would only really work for LA or CA games, as in numbers rounds you can still work after ending the round by using the method window.
The other way would be a Dogfight-style game, where there isn't a set number of rounds, you can just keep going for as long as you have time left in your total clock.

Contributed by tons of people, but first in the thread by Marc Meakin

Targetdown
Games end when one player reaches a specified number of points.
Works well as it applies to all types of rounds, and short games (50 points) and long games (500 points) can be aimed for, but even with the same target score games wouldn't be the same length of rounds.
Contributed by Ben Wilson

Mentaldown
A new breed of numbers round where instead of finding the solution for a target, you find the target for a solution.
For example, you get presented with (((45x7)+13)/2)-41, and you have to enter the answer (123) in a box and submit it.
Considering you do everything in order, it would be perfectly ok (and probably more simple) to present it as 45 x7 +13 /2 -41.
It has a good range of potential - normal rounds would only use 1- or 2-digit numbers, the Hyper equivalent could introduce 3-digit numbers.
Additionally, there are scoring options too. Either have it timing-based so if you solve it in, for example, the first third of a round you get 10 points, the second third of a round for 7 points, or up to the end of the round for just 5 points. Or have it like a conundrum - whoever gives the correct answer first (only one guess each presumably) gets the points.
Contributed by Dmitry Goretsky

Blankdown
Additional Scrabble-influenced tiles in the box.
These are 'blank' tiles [ * ] which can be substituted for any letter, and 'blank vowels' [ *v ] and 'blank consonants' [ *c ] which can obviously only be substituted for any vowel or any consonant respectively.
You could have perhaps two 'blank vowels' and one 'blank' in the vowels pile, and two 'blank consonants' and one 'blank' in the consonants pile.
Contributed by Dmitry Goretsky

Catchdown
Selections are 2-4 letters and the shortest word needs to be found using the letters in order, like Aegilops. But the first and last letter of the selection must be the first and last letter of the word.
So for CED, CRED would be good, but ICED and CEDE would not be valid. If a word can't be made in this way, only the first letter remains locked in and the last letter restriction is dropped.
Contributed by Ben Wilson

Groupdown
Rather than pick from vowels and consonants you pick from A-M and N-Z piles instead.
Rather than pick from small and large numbers you pick from 1-49 and 50-100 piles instead.
One issue would be how the game would ensure at least 3 vowels still appear in the letters rounds.
Contributed by Ian Volante

Phonedown
Rounds based on the 44 phonetic symbols rather than the 26 letters of the alphabet. Absolutely mental.
Contributed by Simon Le Fort

Shakedown
Boggle-based gameplay, declare as many words as you can from the selection in the allotted time, with more points for longer words.
Boggle's system is 1 point for 3-4 letters, 2 points for 5 letters, 3 points for 6 letters, 5 points for 7 letters, 11 points for 8+ letters, and I think would probably work well.
30 second rounds compared to Boggle's normal 3 minute rounds would be an interesting twist on the tactics, as you'd have to decide to go for reams of smalls or just focus on finding the best long ones, there would likely never be a round where you aren't manically typing words in right to the end.

An invalid word could either nullify your complete score for the round, or cost you a 5 point penalty or something.
Conundrums could be a scramble, of varying length, which has 2 or more solutions and you have to privately enter both into a letters-style notes box, a successful 'buzz' being automated by the first player entering two correct solutions in their own window.
Contributed by Mark James and added to by Jordan F

Scrambledown
A hyper version of Omelette, where you can make multiple words from the selections of 4-7 letters.
So PVVM could be made into SEMPERVIVUM but could be made into PERV & VIM here. SEMPERVIVUM would score 10 points in Omelette's Stepdown system as it is the best option, but here it would only be worth 6 points, as at 11 letters long the solution is 4 letters longer than the optimum double-word solution.
All letters absolutely must be used (since even if you have one letter left it's no problem making a word from it).
You would not note words separately, you'd note them with spaces in between all in one go, meaning at the end of the round you could still choose from your selections in the normal fashion.
Contributed by Ben Wilson

Bluffdown
For each letters round (perhaps with auto-picked letters), only one of the two players declares a word, and additionally clicks a number to declare the length of their word to the other player, which they are free to lie about.
Based on tactical nuances as well as the quality of the selection, the non-declaring player has to specify whether the actual word the first player has gone for is shorter, spot on, or longer than the length declaration they made alongside.
If the guessing player gets it right, they get the points the word is worth (at flat scoring), if not then the declaring player gets the points.
This would work far better for letters than for numbers, so should be a LA-format game.
Contributed by Mark James

Digitdown
More complicated numbers rounds, where you can use one of your numbers as a "to the power of" (if you have a 2 you can square, if you have a 3 you can cube etc.), you can use exponentials (so you could use your 4 as !4 = 24), and also that allows you to use fractional parts out of order, i.e. you can break up something like x3 /4 so you can still use x0.75 temporarily as long as the final result is a valid integer.
Contributed by Lesley Hines

Sequencedown
You pick a number of letters (perhaps 15) in the regular fashion, and have to find the longest word from the selection as the letters appear in order.
So from M A P E D T O R I G E A L O S you could declare MADRIGALS as the max, but GLAMORISED would not be valid as the letters are not in the right order.
Numbers doesn't translate well, but conundrums would - the 9 letter word is hidden, in the correct order of course, in the same number of letters with all the rogue ones added in.
Contributed by Matt Bayfield
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Matt Morrison »

SCORING

Obscuredown
If both players declare a different word of the same length, the points only go to the person whose word is considered 'more obscure', presumably by the obscurity ratings since added to Lexplorer entries.
Alternate possibility is that they both score, but the more obscure-worded player gets a bonus point, or the less obscure-worded player loses a point.
Charlie commented that, for now at least, the obscurity ratings are too dubious to be relied upon for scoring.
Contributed by Niall Seymour

Cleardown
Like many sports and games, you have to be clear of your opponent to win. In this case, you have to be at least 10/11 points ahead.
So if P1 is on 79 and P2 on 83, and P1 gets the conundrum in R15, the game doesn't end at 89-83, and a 16th round conundrum is used. Could lead to epic conundrum battles.
Contributed by Bradley Holland

Raredown
Similar to obscurity scoring, points are instead assigned based on the more-reliable metric of how many times that word has been declared before.
Contributed by Gavin Chipper

Firstdown
If both players declare a word of the same length, only the player who locked theirs in first (by pressing end round early) would get the points.
Alternately, the faster player could receive a bonus point or the slower player be docked a point to keep scores closer together.
Creates an interesting tactical balance between quickly guessing how long the max is or what you think your opponent can max, and spending extra time to find more obscure longer words.
Contributed by Kirk Bevins

Scrabbledown
Scrabble-inspired letters values, so you score many more points for tougher letters.
Would be badly weighted if exact Scrabble scoring was used, but there could be a set of letters worth 3 points (JQXZV), and a set worth 2 points (MCKY, etc) and the most common letters stay as 1.
Contributed by tons of people but first in the thread by Peter Mabey

Efficientdown
Bonus points scored for numbers solutions that use fewer numbers and/or none of the large numbers in a selection, etc.
Contributed by Gavin Chipper

Tidydown
Bonus points scored for numbers solutions that use ALL the numbers in a selection, even when not necessary, a combination of regular and Omelette numbers rounds.
Contributed by Dmitry Goretsky

Multidown
The 9th letter of a letters selection can be used an unlimited number of times, and each extra time it is used, the whole word score is multipled.
If the 9th letter is E, STEEPED would score 7x3 = 21, and PEDERAST would score 8x2 = 16.
Contributed by Oliver Garner

Mohsdown
Conundrums are scored points based on their difficulty rating, 10 for a diamond-rated conundrum down to 1 point for the easiest.
Issues are the unreliable nature of the difficulty ratings (like obscurity scoring for letters) and that this could only really be used for CAs otherwise a crucial conundrum in a 15 rounder might not work out to be crucial if it isn't hard enough. (Hence me not combining it with Obscuredown.)
Contributed by Michael Wallace

Controldown
Only the winner of the previous round can score, so you have to wrest back control before you can score, like winning serve in Badminton.
Would need some ironing out - what happens if one player is in control but both players score the same length in the next round? Presumably the player in control gets the points, and the player not in control merely gets part-control back, i.e. they can both score in the following round.
Contributed by Ian Volante

Pardown
A range of points are scored depending on how far above/below the 'par' declaration a player is, like the Stableford per-hole golf scoring system.
This would involve apterous needing to work out what the par for a round is - in a flat round where there are 20 different 6-long maxes, par is likely to be a 6, but in a round with a monstrous 9 and no 8s, par is still likely to only be 6, maybe 7.
Points are then assigned ranging from 0 (2 letters short of par) to 6 (4 letters longer than the par), with par scoring 2 points. In apterous of course, 6 or even 5 points would be very rare.
Contributed by tons of people, but first in the thread by Ian Volante

Rolldown
1 point goes to the winner of the round, but if there is no clear winner in the round no points are awarded and the point for that round rolls over.
So if both players declare the same length word in R4, then both get the numbers in R5, R6 would be worth a potential 3 points if there is a clear winner.
Contributed by Andy Wilson

Flashdown
Bonus points are awarded for ending a round early depending on how much time is left in it. Letters and conundrums only because of the post-end-early method window in numbers rounds.
My proposal would be for each full block of 5 seconds left in a round you get an additional point. So taking 9 seconds to declare a 6 scores you 6+4 = 10 points, and 24 seconds to find an 8 would be 8+1 = 9.
Contributed by Ben Wilson and added to by Charlie Reams

Jaildown
Time-based Prisoner's Dilemma scoring. If both players declare the same word, only the fastest one gets the points. This would involve either ending round early when you're happy with the word, which involves that classic tactical decision of balancing the likelihood of a word declaration with the chances of longer words you might find later in the round, or for the rounds to always run their length, a preferable option but one that would involve apterous being able to take note of how far through a round a player noted a particular word into their word entries box.
My own twist on the numbers would be a new entry box - you instantly get the method box appear, but instead of a panic timer (like the normal rounds that tries to prevent you bodging) the only timer is the normal 30-second clock for the round. So you instantly start fiddling with methods to get to the target, and the first to reach it would get the points. There would be absolutely no way to bodge, it'd be fucking great! They'd obviously need to be a reset button too so you can start a new method. If you don't think the numbers is possible you can get to a close target and lock it in by ending round early manually (obviously if you reach bang on the round ends automatically). Then you get that same tactical thing of "do I try and enter 900 the quickest in this difficult-looking 903 round, or should I spend longer trying to get it bang on?".
Contributed by Charlie Reams and extended by Steve Balog
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Matt Morrison »

Apologies Charlie, after spending half of today doing that I've only just processed that you meant the Feature Requests thread rather than the Variants thread.
I'll try and get round to doing that one next, though the above still makes for some pretty awesome reading and some genuinely cool ideas.
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Charlie Reams »

Wow, this is somewhere between really cool and totally overwhelming. Good work Matthew.

My preference would be for people only to post in here if they want to clarify an idea above. New ideas or new riffs on the above belong in here still. But I expect the boundary to get blurred a little bit.
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Mark James »

Charlie Reams wrote:Wow, this is somewhere between really cool and totally overwhelming. Good work Matthew.
Yes, quality work. I especially like the names you've come up with for them. If Shakedown is ever implemented I really hope this can replace the clock music.
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Adam Gillard »

I vote for Phonedown.
Mike Brown: "Round 12: T N R S A E I G U

C1: SIGNATURE (18) ["9; not written down"]
C2: SEATING (7)
Score: 108–16 (max 113)

Another niner for Adam and yet another century. Well done, that man."
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Thomas Carey »

Sequencedown was my idea. :( :o :shock: :?
cheers maus
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Thomas Carey »

Moved to old thread.
Last edited by Thomas Carey on Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
cheers maus
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Charlie Reams »

Charlie Reams wrote: My preference would be for people only to post in here if they want to clarify an idea above. New ideas or new riffs on the above belong in here still.
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Charlie Reams wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote: My preference would be for people only to post in here if they want to clarify an idea above. New ideas or new riffs on the above belong in here still.
Your link's not working!
The forum's resident JAILBAKER, who has SPONDERED several times...
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Charlie Reams »

This thread has been superseded by the new ticket system. I'll migrate old variant ideas to the ticket system in the next few days.
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Re: Variant Ideas - a compendium

Post by Charlie Reams »

As a parting shot I'd like to say thanks to MWM, without whose efforts I would never have had the patience to sit and create all the tickets.
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