Too Late for Naked Week

Scott Hardie | June 30, 2007
After a long absence, the ever-popular "streak" count has been restored to the goo game. Scroll down to the bottom of the Player Awards page to see who now has the longest streak – it was Amy last we looked – and other counts.

It should be noted, to avoid confusion, that streaks are now counted differently. In the past, a streak was the number of consecutive correct guesses regardless of the order of the goos, but now a streak is the number of consecutive goos guessed correctly regardless of the order of the guesses. I did this to simplify my programming and avoid errors, but for players, there is no inherent advantage nor disadvantage to the switch. Guessing goo 1000 right then 1001 right then 1003 right then 1002 wrong used to get you a streak of 3 and now it gets you a streak of 2 – however, guessing goo 1000 right then 1001 right then 1003 wrong then 1002 right used to get you a streak of 2 and now it gets you a streak of 3. It's possible that the numbers might shake out a little differently this way because of the arbitrary order in which players guessed, but in principle, one method is no more fair than the other.

For the record, I should also point out that current goos don't count no matter how the player guessed them, right or wrong. I started to program this into the calculations and it got very complicated with a higher chance of error, and I'd rather go back to no streak-recording at all than the error-prone system we used to have. Besides, it would be weird to see a player's streak suddenly decrease when a goo expired without that player attempting a guess after they had already guessed several other current goos, and eliminating current goos from the formula seemed like the simplest solution.

As before, streaks are not broken when a player does not guess at her or his own request, since the game doesn't permit such a guess.

If you want to see your own streak, click on your name at the top of this page (in the nav) and then GOO Record in the right sidebar. If it doesn't mention your current streak, you don't have one, but it will always mention your longest streak.

Feedback? Other things you'd like to see added to the site?

Scott Hardie | June 30, 2007
I was incorrect; the old system did have one advantage for players. If a player realized that he could not get a certain goo, he could ignore it and guess the other current goos after it until it expired, thus extending his streak by up to 6 before its forced conclusion. Under the new system, there's no such leeway. I think the above scenario probably occurred to players often, and rarely (if ever) had an actual influence on the top streak totals, but I thought I should mention it.

Scott Hardie | July 3, 2007
Also new to the site: You can now break down any of the four Userranks by year, as if only points earned during that year mattered for the count. For example, what each player's GOO Userrank is so far for 2007, ignoring other years.

If you don't want to be bummed out, don't compare TC Userrank in 2004 versus today. Not that I don't enjoy what we have today; it's just a huge difference.

Lori Lancaster | July 3, 2007
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