Summer 2022

Scott Hardie | June 23, 2022
It's been eleven years since this happened, and I was so skeptical that it would happen again that I wrote certain code as if it would always stay the same. But this week, the goo game has a new lifetime longest streak: Steve West overtook Russ Wilhelm's streak with his 257th consecutive solve, which is now the longest streak in goo game history. *WOW*, Steve! Congrats!

I don't know what I'm more certain of, that you're going to feel even more pressure not to miss a single goo now, or that Russ is going to be coming for you to reclaim the record! :-D

Scott Hardie | June 23, 2022
This page lists the history of who had the longest streak in the game. It's a little weird in that it lists the point at which player X overtook player Y, from which you have to deduce the size of player Y's streak, but I think it's still neat.

Russ Wilhelm | June 24, 2022
Steve, I bow to you. I know how difficult it can be to keep on top of it for so long. For certain a part of me is sad, but another part of me is happy that it shows anything is possible.

CONGRAT"s on your achievement. Well earned, keep it going.

Steve West | June 24, 2022
Thanks. I have little doubt that someone else (ahem, rhymes with bus still elm) will surpass it eventually. There are some pretty good players here. And I won't regret it when it happens, but marvel at the skill displayed. Good luck to all!

Scott Hardie | June 30, 2022
Congrats, too, Steve, on another solo solution. That was a great goo, Russ!

Steve West | June 30, 2022
I agree, great! And damned hard to find.

LaVonne Lemler | June 30, 2022
Steve, Wow! What a solve for you! Thought it would be unsolvable...great job!
Russ, how do you come up with clues like that? I took one look at it and decided it was useless to try! Keep it up! :-)

Russ Wilhelm | July 2, 2022
Thanks,

The 70's probably had a lot to do with it.

Seriously though, I mostly let them come to me. I come across something that I find interesting, humorous, or that makes me curious to look further into it and see where it takes me. This one started off completely unrelated, and spawned ideas for two more potential entries, in addition to the original thought. I have around two dozen more waiting for the clues to be completed, some are just the name and a weak comment to provide a direction. Once in a while, I swing back through them to see if I can develop a more complete clue. I don't delve too deeply with them, else I may lose that initial interest. This one sat around for about 7 months, held up by a single word needing changed to make it complete in my mind ("wine" if you can believe it. Before that it was "alcohol", which I didn't like. They also had a small hit song called "wine, wine, wine" which I finally realized was still considered a nightcap, and was more definitive). Usually the brain starts working, and a few more clues come together, hence the submitting of a few at a time.

Scott Hardie | July 14, 2022
Russ, congrats on another solo solution! Well done.

Chris, good goo! I guessed wrong when reviewing it, and I expected more incorrect guesses. It's the kind of goo that seems like it could be anybody, and then you discover the answer and realize that it could only be one answer (particularly with the hint hidden in plain sight in the photo).

Steve West | July 14, 2022
That was the end of my streak. It shows I'm only human unlike Russ who I suspect is a robotic goo answering Muh-chine!!! In all seriousness, I have nothing but respect for Russ' skills and anticipate his regaining the Streaker lead quite soon. It sure was nice while it lasted, though.

Scott Hardie | July 15, 2022
And another! That's two solo solutions in one week! Damn good playing, Russ.

I didn't expect that goo to stump so many people with Stranger Things being a hit lately. I guess it's like Amy Austin used to say; the "medium" goos are secretly the toughest of all.

Steve West | July 15, 2022
RoboRuss strikes again! Wow!

Russ Wilhelm | July 16, 2022
Alas it is not to be,,,at least not yet. I swung too early and that ball just sailed on by.

As for the solo's. I didn't expect either of them with the caliber of players, so I'm as shocked as anybody.

Scott Hardie | July 19, 2022
We have another! Chris has earned a solo solution too. Well done, Chris!

And good goo, Russ. I understood the clue right away, but I couldn't for the life of me find which first lady was the first to be born in a hospital. I wish I had simply guessed Kennedy Onassis from the image.

Chris Lemler | July 19, 2022
Scott have a question that everyone might have an interest in. What is the most solos been in a single round?

Scott Hardie | July 19, 2022
That would be way back in the early days. In Round V, Matthew Preston solved seven goos that no one else could, setting both a record per season and a record per player per season that have not yet been beaten. I don't remember if we even recognized that accomplishment with a virtual prize at the time; the first name for it was a "Golden Imelda" but that term might have come along later.

If you ignore earlier versions of the game and look just at the modern era, where we always play ~90 goos every three months:

• The most solo solutions in one season was 5 in the Fall 2017 season. We've had 4 this summer and we're only halfway through, so maybe we'll break that record!

• The most solo solutions by a single player in one season was 3 by Russ Wilhelm in Spring 2020, which happened to be all 3 solos that happened at all that season.

LaVonne Lemler | July 19, 2022
Russ, congrats on another solo solution --- quite the feat for anyone! Loved reading about the thought processes from your July 2nd post. Interesting for sure! Takes awhile to come up with the "perfect" clue ---- that's why I can't solve any of them! :-) Great work ---- don't stop!

Chris, congratulations to you also on another solo solutiion! Terrific job! Maybe one of these days you'll catch up with Russ on this part of the game! :-) Interesting facts on the solos --- thanks for bringing up the subject! Scott, thanks to you for providing the info!

LaVonne Lemler | July 19, 2022
Steve, congratulations on your top winning streak in the game! 257+ solves is quite an outstanding achievement! Jump back on the horse and ride again! :-)

Scott Hardie | August 4, 2022
Quick clarification: We've talked a lot about the importance of the gooed image still resembling the face in the original image, and not becoming so distorted that it's no longer recognizable as a face. On the rare occasions when there is no face in the original image, such as my Activism goo today or Steve's Stunts goo coming up in the next few days, there obviously cannot be a recognizable face in the gooed image either. I think that's ok in these cases, because 1) the original image still distinctively resembles only that person, 2) there are still enough identifying details visible in the gooed image to help you solve it, and 3) the gooed image is not so distorted that it's just unusable visual static.

Scott Hardie | August 13, 2022
Here's #5: Russ just earned another solo solution. Way to go, Russ! And good goo, Steve.

Scott Hardie | September 3, 2022
Congrats, Steve! You have just won your second season in a row, tying the record for the second-most wins by any player. And this was an extra-long season with some difficult goos (all those solo solutions!), so it took extra effort. Way to play!

Russ, you played an awesome season too. I don't like that a player can play as well as you did and not win because of some randomness. I will have more to say about this shortly...

Steve West | September 3, 2022
Being a member of the "ten win" club is nice. Great perks and the jacket's awesome.

LaVonne Lemler | September 3, 2022
Steve, congratulations on win #10! That's quite an achievement, especially in a longer-than-usual season with some really tough goos . You're an awesome player, and I see more wins for you in seasons ahead! Same for you, Russ -- I expected to see your name as the winner this time around. Both of you are fun to watch and keep the game interesting. Good luck to everyone in the next round!

Steve West | September 3, 2022
Thank you. I also expected a Russ victory but pulled ahead on the very last goo.

Scott Hardie | September 3, 2022
I am very likely to revise the scoring system for next season to avoid this. However, I cannot do it tonight, so it'll have to be tomorrow or Monday, which if so, means the fall season will begin with inaccurate rules text. I think that will be ok for one day. :-)

More comments to come...

Russ Wilhelm | September 4, 2022
Way to go Steve! Win #10 for a #1 player. Awesome round, keep it coming.

Steve West | September 4, 2022
Thanks, Russ. Our play really wasn't that far apart. I believe you missed only one (two when counting the last one for scoring points) and I missed four. It was (again) the final goo, rated very hard, that we had only the last day to solve for points that pushed me to the top. That's a lot of points (factoring in the number assigned to it) and I got some pretty good bonus points for that one, as well. You played well but the point of this scoring system (I thought) was to give players who don't solve them all a decent chance to still win. Thanks, again.

Scott Hardie | September 4, 2022
I wish that my thoughts weren't scattered right now and my attention not so divided between different obligations, because I'd really like to approach this moment with complete clarity -- both the change that I'm about to make and these comments about it. But we're all long-timers here, except Rafik I suppose, and I think you'll all understand where I'm coming from.

I'm tired of fighting this aspect of the game. I still enjoy Celebrity Goo Game overall, from the challenging and interesting subjects for the goos, to the silly themed weeks ("people who are not in Aerosmith" cracked me up as soon as the thought popped into my head), to the banter and sportsmanship in our conversations. But the search for a balanced, fun, fair, and workable scoring system has gone on for the entirety of the game's now 24 (!!!) years, and we have yet to find a good one. The lucky cats worked best in my opinion, and the towers and the timed-solve tournaments had their fans too, but we've had a lot of failed systems over the years, and I think it's about time to declare the bonus-points system another failure.

The idea was inspired by Euro-style board games like "Ticket to Ride" that conceal the winner until the end: Everyone earns points by playing, and because you don't know precisely how many points everyone has earned because some are secret, everyone is potentially still in the running until the very end. But that only works because you know that the secret points were earned. The winner did something strategic that made the winning difference. In our game, they're just bullshit random points -- two players might solve the same goo and get wildly divergent rewards for no reason. The system is not fair at all, nor does it manage to feel fair. Plus, as Steve mentioned, it flattens out goo difficulty so that they're all worth the same points regardless of the challenge involved.

At the same time, our ongoing decline in participation has left us with very few regular players. (An unfair scoring system could contribute even more to this exodus if left in place!) I'm not interested in building a complicated scoring system for so few regular players, nor do I think one is warranted, nor do I currently have the time anyway. I think back to the goo game's very first scoring system, back when a new goo appeared weekly instead of daily, which only worked because there were so few players at the time: Each goo belonged to one of five colored categories (Movies & TV, Music, Government & Politics, Sports, and Miscellaneous), each player had a chart of 10 slots (2 per category), and each solve would fill in one slot on that player's chart until someone filled all 10 to win. There's a reason that the very first round of the game only had 12 goos before it was over.

I got rid of that system in part because it had too much of a possibility of ties. Much like Tom Selleck, I prefer the neatness of a single winner in a competition, with as much overtime as necessary to determine one. And I prefer to avoid players feeling like they've already lost before the season is over or nearly over. Someone (Mike Eberhart?) once told me how frustrating it was to see someone earn what we today call a Solo Solution early in the season, because it meant that they were almost certain to win and there was no point in continuing to compete. I never forgot that message, and I think I've let it guide me too much over the years. It feels like every scoring system we've tried has gone out of its way to avoid letting someone take an insurmountable lead, and to avoid letting multiple players tie at the end, in ways that were ultimately detrimental to the game. This secret-bonus-point system is a particularly glaring example.

I'm ready to break some old rules and try something new. And I think I can come up with something that's ideal for today's game conditions. We don't even need to stick to the four-season schedule any more; it's ok to cut the round short if someone pulls too far ahead. Anything's on the table! I'm not 100% sure that I'm ok with the future ramifications of allowing multiple winners per season -- basically, I'd be stuck with supporting that outcome forever in the code if it happened even once, and that makes a mess of things -- but I'm willing to try if it seems like the right idea.

What I don't know is how fast I can do it. A new season just started automatically today! The clock is already ticking! It's one thing to change the rules today or tomorrow as we're just getting started on a new season, but it would be another thing to change them in a few weeks after people have already been playing and earning real points. I don't know whether to let another season play out while i continue to gather my thoughts so that I don't rush it, or to switch quickly now to avoid another three-month slog through a system that we know doesn't work, or to split the difference with a quick abbreviated one-month round with the secret bonus points as we prepare to adjust.

I'd like to know how you feel about the game these days, and I'd appreciate any feedback that you has about any aspect of this. Thanks in advance! I'll make a decision asap.

LaVonne Lemler | September 4, 2022
Scott, I'm in favor of a new scoring system, not because the current system is a problem, but because you've had some really creative and fun systems in the past --- just time for a change. The 90+ goos for a season is long, but here's an idea for you and others to consider. I haven't really given it a lot of thought, but it could be an easier way to handle a 90-goo round, especially since the season just started.

What about splitting the season in half --- 45 days each half, with a one day "playoff" of some sort (maybe a timed goo) between the #1 and #2 players in each half, resulting in 1 top player for each half after a 90-day round. Those #1 players from each half would be in a "final playoff" to determine the goo round winner.

Scott, just not sure this is feasible with so few players. I'm glad to see Samir back in the game but wish others from the past would rejoin as well. Anyway, this is just an idea for the current season and an opportunity to give you time to be innovative once again! Thanks again for all you do to keep us coming back! :-)

Scott Hardie | September 5, 2022
That's a good idea, LaVonne! At least that way, two players would get a shot at victory, and they'd earn it instead of random points earning it for them. Thanks! :-)

I think it's clear that my thoughts are still very scattered about this, and that I shouldn't go changing any fundamentals about the game until I'm sure. Let's play the Fall 2022 season like normal, and I'll plan to implement changes in December when it's over. This is an ongoing conversation, so please continue to share your feedback. I really appreciate it.