Spring 2013 Goo Tournament

Steve Dunn | May 15, 2013
Dang, you people are some fast goo solvers.

Scott Hardie | May 15, 2013
I'm impressed too. If I was playing, I'd be out by now.

Scott Hardie | May 22, 2013
Yesterday's solve times surprised me, in a good way. I thought that goo would be harder.

We'll have a winner today or tomorrow. Good luck to the three players and one zombie still in the brackets. :-)

Stay tuned for an announcement about the game after we have a winner, and bonus goos of course.

Chris Lemler | May 23, 2013
This victory was brought to you by Mike!!!! It's a sure sign of a good time there you go Mike :) way to go champ. Well deserved on your 2 victory

Scott Hardie | May 24, 2013
Congrats Mike! What a finish! You and Joanna both played hard these two weeks and it was bound to be close in the end. Kudos on a great end to the season. :-)

We'll have bonus goos tomorrow and next week, then the summer season will begin on June 3. That summer season will become the last in the game's current format. Partly, I'm making some changes just to shake things up and refresh the game: The timed brackets are the fairest system we've ever had, but they're getting stale after several years and it's time for players to flex some other goo-game muscles. And partly, I'm making some changes related to copyright issues. The much smaller pool of lawsuit-avoiding celebrity photos in the future will probably not allow for enough variety that I'll be able to fill themes of five related people with any consistency. I'm still working out the precise details, but I know two things: The game will almost certainly go back to a new unrelated goo every day instead of having weekly themes, and the old goos will continue to factor into your lifetime scores even if the images are removed from Funeratic. I wouldn't normally announce this until the time came to reveal the new format, but I've been persuaded to share my plans earlier and give longtime players a chance to adjust, so here's three months notice.

I have some plans in mind for a new schedule and scoring system, but nothing is set in stone. The floor is yours, here and in private, to tell me anything that you want to see changed about Celebrity Goo Game, or anything that you want to see stay the same. I'm grateful to all of you for continuing to support and play this silly little web game that is now in its 16th year, and I hope that you like the changes to come. :-)

Steve West | May 24, 2013
Hey, congrats to Mike. My only request is to make the game a tad more challenging. 50 goos which were nearly obvious especially when the films they starred in, the songs they're famous for, the things they invented, etc. were part of the clue. I wouldn't go so far as to say the game was boring but when more than 80% of the serious players answer over 90% correctly, one has to question the difficulty level. I don't mind missing a goo (or several) in order to feel challenged by a very difficult goo. For what it's worth, the game is funner for me when it takes me more than 20 seconds daily to guess each goo. Tournament level goos all season!

Mike Rothstein | May 24, 2013
Thanks guys, it was fun. I caught a pretty big break sneaking through with a slow time when Samir guessed incorrectly, and then the last few just came right to me. Thanks for the keeping the game going Scott.

Erik Bates | May 24, 2013
[hidden by request]

Steve Dunn | May 24, 2013
Congratulations Mike!

LaVonne Lemler | May 25, 2013
Congratulations, Mike --- another excellent tournament! You're one tough competitor! :)

Scott Hardie | June 2, 2013
Here's an extra shout-out to Chris, who just played a perfect season, the first time anyone has done that in nearly a year. Chris's current streak of 63 consecutive correct guesses is by far the longest in the game right now.

Scott Hardie | June 2, 2013
Mike: My pleasure. :-)

Erik: Let's go with foreign-language porn stars. Because who cares what they're saying?

Steve West: I hear you. I made a conscious choice to make the game easier in the hopes of lowering the barrier of entry, but I still wanted one or two goos each week to pose a challenge to longtime players, and that doesn't happen often enough. I'll make more of an effort to do that in the summer and beyond. I suspect that a lack of themes starting in the fall will make the game harder all by itself, as themes provide a major hint toward each goo.

Scott Hardie | July 17, 2013
Grrr... I've been working a lot of overtime lately, so I'm behind on some other projects that take precedence over a new format for the goo game, which means that I'll have to debut the new format in December instead of September. I'm sorry for the delay. The risk of this kind of delay is one reason why I don't like to announce things so far in advance, but I am trying to accommodate players' desire to know when these things are coming up. Please bear with me; I'll make it worth the wait. :-)

The floor remains open for suggestions about the new format: Scoring system, publication schedule, information shown for each goo, everything.