Fall 2021

Scott Hardie | August 29, 2021
The new scoring system is live. Please share any comments, questions, concerns, bug reports, or other feedback with me any time.

The concept is simple: You earn points for solving each goo, weighted heavier later in the season so that players can catch up if they fall behind. Those points are publicly visible. You also earn a random number of secret points that only you can see, and on the final day of the season, everyone's combined scores will be revealed to determine the winner. Each goo created will be worth the same points that you would have earned by solving it, on the day that it publishes.

I hope that this goes well! Good luck in the new season!

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2021
Question: Even though you can only see your own score, is the ranking correct on the scores page? For example, I am currently listed (on my screen, if everyone sees it differently) as third, but there are 4 folks who have solved all four goos so far. Does that indicate that even though I don't know everyone else's scores, I am third highest total?

Erik Bates | September 1, 2021
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2021
I'm down to 8th! LOL

Erik Bates | September 1, 2021
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2021
At this point, I really am kinda hoping it's just a random order. Not because it would mean I was doing better, but because I like the randomness of it.

And also, from what I can see about my bonus points, I can't believe that I would have been above some people who hadn't solved today's GOO yet.

Scott Hardie | September 1, 2021
My bad. There was a mix-up in the sorting that effectively randomized the display order, and I didn't catch it in my testing because I was testing near the end of the season when scores looked very different than the ten-way tie that it is at the beginning. I have adjusted the page to sub-sort alphabetically.

Erik Bates | September 1, 2021
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | September 2, 2021
I will accept my wholly undeserved ranking!

Aaron Shurtleff | September 5, 2021
Ha! No need to find someone named Aaaron, because Samir is now ahead of me. AS HE SHOULD!

Scott Hardie | September 5, 2021
*annoyed sigh* PHP sorting logic has been kind of dumb forever. Prior to displaying the data, I sort it by player name, then I re-sort it by normal points in descending order, and that's often sufficient, but sometimes PHP just sub-sorts arbitrarily and forgets the original order. This bug wasn't fixed until the recent PHP 8, and Funeratic is still running in PHP 7, so I can't really fix it without either a whole lot of extra coding, or a PHP upgrade which would mean re-testing every page and fixing new bugs. I need to upgrade to PHP 8 eventually, so I'll get around to it, but for now the list is just going to have to be in a weird order sometimes, and you're going to have to take my word for it that the order is not reflective of the bonus points. :-P

Scott Hardie | September 16, 2021
I did not intend to run two goos in a row who look so much alike. The timing is a coincidence. :-)

Scott Hardie | November 26, 2021
The fall season ends tonight at midnight! I look forward to seeing how the first go at this new scoring system turns out. One season alone won't be enough to judge it, but it'll be a start. Good luck, players!

I've already coded one big change for the winter season: Following up on the recent "state of the site" discussion, there is no longer any delay between two goos by the same creator. You might see several in a row in fact, especially at first as the backlog of old creations is unleashed. You can't see the backlog like I can (unless they're your goos), so I'm in a rare position to appreciate how good it's going to feel to finally publish some very old goos that have been waiting for a long time to appear online. Although the enforced delay is gone, there is still a preference for variety in creators (meaning that when the site chooses the next day's goo at midnight, if players Jack and Jill each have a goo waiting to publish, and Jack has had 10 published already this season to Jill's 5, then it's likelier that Jill's will be selected).

Steve West | November 26, 2021
Prediction sure to be wrong:
1. Samir
2. Steve
3. Russ

Pretty much based on hunches & half-assed guesses.

Steve West | November 27, 2021
Got the winner but disrespected LaVonne and Russ. Apologies and congrats to Samir. Nicely done.

Erik Bates | November 27, 2021
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | November 27, 2021
Wow! Great finish! There are lots of congratulations to go around, paired with some early impressions of the new scoring system:

Samir, congrats on your fifth victory! You played a great season, solving all 90 goos. Very impressive! (I'll wait for all goos to expire before announcing the perfect seasons.) You've been a great player for a long time now, and yet this is your first victory in nearly five years, which is exactly the kind of weird statistical imbalance that I hope this scoring system will continue to rectify.

LaVonne, congrats on a great second-place finish! You solved almost every goo and came this close to the win. I heard from multiple people predicting that the winner was certain to be one of Russ/Samir/Steve -- Steve himself just said so above (albeit with less certainty) -- but you were close behind them and your bonus points were enough to take you further than two of them. This is the kind of shake-up and surprise that I want to see. (I wish there was a way to make the reveal more dramatic, like animation or something, I don't know, but it's still neat to see a shake-up at the very end.)

Russ and Steve, congrats on playing a terrific season. You both tied Samir for normal points of course, and it came down to a bit of luck as to who would finish ahead. You both solved every goo possible, and Russ's streak extends beyond the start of the season. I remain impressed, as ever.

Denise, congrats too on a well played season. You solved nearly every goo and were right up there.

LaVonne, Chris, Aaron, congrats on jumping ahead in bonus points from what you earned in normal points. Unpredictability is a virtue of this new system.

I'm pleased with the outcome, and excited to see what this system can do long term. But I want to temper expectations up front: The Winter 2022 season that starts tomorrow is going to be a very weird one, due to the decision to "open the floodgates." Many, and possibly most, of the goos in the next season will be player-created, which could skew the scores in weird ways. It's the right choice anyway, and I'm doing it in spite of the effect on scores. Let's see how it goes. Good luck!

LaVonne Lemler | November 27, 2021
Congratulations, Samir, on win #5! Ninety solves is outstanding --- you're such a consistently great player and it's nice to see you on top again! Keep it up in the new round!

Russ and Steve, congrats to you, as well, on perfect rounds --- quite an accomplishment when three players do this in one season! Keep those streaks going!

Thanks, Scott --- I was totally surprised and pleased with the end result! It was definitely fun watching the scoring throughout , and my curiosity was certainly peaked for 90 days wondering what the outcome would be. I couldn't wait to play every day! LOVE this scoring system!

Samir Mehta | November 28, 2021
[hidden by request]

Chris Lemler | December 1, 2021
Congrats Samir on your 5th victory well deserved. :)

Scott Hardie | December 3, 2021
There were three perfect seasons played this fall: Russ, Samir, and Steve all solved every goo (except his own in Steve's case). Way to play, guys! That's not easy to do. :-)