Turning Japanese

Scott Hardie | May 26, 2014
Starting on June 1, Celebrity Goo Game will head to the Far East for an entirely new way to play!

Earn points by solving goos, and you'll climb higher on a pagoda that stacks the players vertically. Whoever occupies the highest level of the pagoda on the final day of the season will win the game, and receive a much bigger prize than before: A $100 Amazon gift card! Here's a preview of where you'll compete:



If the game were that simple, missing even a single goo could make it hard to catch up and win. But as fortune would have it, there are some lucky cats who can come to your aid: They can give you bonus points to catch up, or let you guess again on goos that you missed, or even let you take control of the game by choosing what categories will come up next! The further down the pagoda that you are, the more likely it is that one of the nine cats will choose to help you. Here are three of them: Kuro the thief, Momoiro the romantic, and Ao the psychic.



Several earlier elements of the game are back in the new format:

- A new goo will appear on all seven days of the week, and stay active for a full seven days, giving you plenty of time to guess. Rather than goos being scheduled to appear in order, a randomized program will serve up goos in a way that keeps the game fresh and varied.

- Difficulty ratings are back: Medium goos are worth more points than easy goos, and hard goos are worth the most points of all. Expect an ever-shifting blend of difficulty, rather than the weekly cycle of easy-to-hard from recent years.

- Players are invited to create their own goos, with a reward paid in the form of points. Creating a goo can earn you more points than solving it, but each creation is subject to a vetting process that favors quality over quantity.

There will be no tournament at the end of the season: Winning the game really will be as simple as having the highest score at midnight on the last day, although you can expect a flurry of players using cats in the final week in attempts to seize the lead. After a single day off, the game will start right back up again with the next season.

As the game administrator, I'm really looking forward to this new format! The lucky cats should give every player a reasonable chance to stay competitive, keeping the game fun and unpredictable, And the daily scheduler should serve up a well-balanced variety of goos that keeps the game feeling more fresh each day than it felt with the weekly cycle of themes. Here's looking forward to having a great time playing in the months and years to come. Ganbatte kudasai! In honor of the Japanese culture that influenced this new format, here's one of my favorite songs, a love letter to Japan:

Samir Mehta | May 26, 2014
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Erik Bates | May 27, 2014
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Scott Hardie | May 27, 2014
Me too! :-)

I hope it's clear that I'm going for a kind of rubber-banding effect with the cats. The further behind that you are, the more frequently that the cats will come to your aid, to help you catch up to the lead and/or take over the lead. The reason for this is because the game already had a point-based system around a decade ago (first person to rack up 1000 points wins), and we ran into problems in which the lead score became impossible to catch. For example, imagine that a very difficult goo comes along in week two that stumps everybody else, but Russ solves it because he specializes in finishing off every last goo, and so Russ has more points than other players, and even if everybody would solve every goo from then on, Russ would still win and the remaining eleven weeks would be pointless to play. We can't have that scenario: I don't want anybody's chances to be ruined just because they miss a goo now and then. With the cats providing boosts to your score, you should have lots of opportunities to reach the top of the pagoda.

And before anybody gets the wrong idea about "Kuro the thief," let me assure you that he doesn't let you steal points from a specific player. There's nothing so personal or mean-spirited in the new format.

Chris Lemler | May 27, 2014
Scott what if there is a tie at the end?

Scott Hardie | May 27, 2014
A tie should be unlikely, but if it does happen, whichever tied player solved more goos during the season will be declared the winner and get the big prize. The other players tied for top score will receive half prizes.

Matthew Preston | May 27, 2014
Excited here too. Should be fun!

LaVonne Lemler | May 27, 2014
Love the changes! Can't wait to start!

Scott Hardie | May 29, 2014
Thanks! I'm almost done with the programming changes, and I look forward to playing this weekend.

Here's another of the cats, Aka the drunk:

Scott Hardie | June 1, 2014
It's half past midnight and the new format is live! So far so good! There were a couple of slight hiccups with the "unsolved goos" subscription, but that's cleaned up. If you notice any other issues, please let me know.

Here are some new pages:

How to Play - This is revised with all of the new rules.

Current Goos - Here's where you'll play each day. If you have the old "Play Now" page bookmarked, it redirects here. This only shows the goos that you haven't solved yet, to de-clutter the page, but if any are hidden, there's a link at the top to see them all.

The Pagoda - This is the scoreboard. It's not much to look at yet, but it should start growing throughout the day today. Click on any player's name to see a record of how they arrived at their current score.

Lucky Cats - All nine cats and their abilities are now revealed. I wonder who will be the first lucky player to get their help?

Create a Goo - This is a major new interface for requesting goos. I now offer specific guidance when I reject a goo, so that you can edit it and re-submit it if you'd like to try again. You can keep your suggestion simple with just a name, or you can go all the way by creating a gooed image and clue; the more that you contribute, the more points you'll get. I really want to encourage you to help me come up with goos, so I've offered plenty of points, and I'm open to suggestions if there's something holding you back from submitting your own goo creations. On that note, I want to revise what I said above in this discussion: In the unlikely event of a tie, created goos and solved goos will be added up to create a tiebreaker, so that players who request a lot of goos won't be penalized in that scenario.

Please let me know what you think of the new format now that it's out in the open. Constructive criticism is just as welcome as flattery. :-) I'm thrilled to see this project finally launch (it's long overdue), and I can't wait to see what twists and turns the new season takes. This should be a blast!

Scott Hardie | June 1, 2014
A note about sorting: Within the pagoda, players are sorted by current season score (descending), then by number of previous victories (descending), then by lifetime score (descending). That's why the current list is Justin-Samir-Chris even though the solve order this morning was Samir-Justin-Chris. This really only matters during the first few days of the game, because scores should begin to differ after that, and become much more different as the season goes on.

The pagoda looks good with square thumbnails, but try it out with circular thumbnails. I think it looks even better that way, and so do a lot of other elements around the site.

Samir Mehta | June 3, 2014
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Scott Hardie | June 4, 2014
I originally posted a long answer, but I hestitate to say too much about the system. (Kudos to anyone who saw it in the two minutes that it was online.) Let me think on this some more and reply tonight.

Scott Hardie | June 5, 2014
First, to reveal one thing that will become obvious soon anyway: Cats are distributed every night at midnight, at the same time that a new goo is published. (I have no idea why a goo failed to publish last night on schedule. Was the site offline for a few minutes? It was fine at 11:22pm when I last looked. Anyway...)

Here are some of the factors, both major and minor, that influence whether you get a cat:
- how long it has been since you last used a cat (longer is better)
- how many goos you have solved recently (more is better)
- your place on the pagoda, regardless of your score or anyone else's (higher is better)
- how many cats are available (more is better)
- pure random chance (do you feel lucky?)

Because of that last factor, it's going to be tricky to gauge with any accuracy whether dragging your feet or solving goos promptly will be more helpful in acquiring cats. This is a competition and people naturally seek advantages, so of course you're welcome to try to game the system by playing slowly and see if that works out for you. It might, or it might not, or it might just be plain luck either way.

I hope I'm not being annoying by being vague. I really am trying to be more open in general about what's happening on the site and not having hidden competitive elements (especially since the "Like a Rolling Stone" disaster in RB). But the precise mechanic by which cats are distributed feels to me like something that's best left to the imagination. Every player should be free to develop his or her own style, and evolve it over time.

My advice is to keep playing the game at whatever rate is most comfortable to you anyway, and let the system do its work for you.

I wouldn't worry too much about tied scores. The cats will begin shaking those up soon. I predict that we'll see at least one cat go to a player tomorrow.

Chris Lemler | June 6, 2014
Scott I was just wondering at the end of the round is there still gonna be perfect rounds given out in this round?

Scott Hardie | June 7, 2014
Yes. Perfect seasons and solo solutions and streaks all work as before. Player-created goos do not count against these.

I seem to have underestimated the difficulty of today's goo when I rated it. I could apologize, but I have always been lousy at predicting goo difficulty, and I'd have to continue apologizing a lot more times if I started now.

Scott Hardie | June 9, 2014
Just curious: Why are some of you not using your lucky cats? I get it in the case of Ao and Aka, since you need to wait for an opportunity based on the goos. And I would expect a few players to hold back for an opportune moment to use a cat whose benefit may vary, like Daidaiiro or Kuro. But mostly it seems like the cats just aren't being bothered with. Only two cats' abilities have been activated, Chairo by Chris and Shiro by Denise, and those were both several days ago. Are the cats just not considered worth it? I hope that the page isn't broken, and that everyone who has a cat is aware of it.

Justin Woods | June 9, 2014
I would if I had been given one!!! :)

Scott Hardie | June 9, 2014
Hang in there. You will soon, I'm sure. :-)

Samir Mehta | June 9, 2014
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Erik Bates | June 9, 2014
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Scott Hardie | June 11, 2014
Good idea! I am relieved to learn that the answer is so simple. I have added a yellow alert to the top of Current Goos and The Pagoda that appears when you have a cat. Hopefully it won't be annoying to keep seeing it on those occasions when you don't want to activate your cat's ability right away. Thanks for the advice.

Scott Hardie | June 21, 2014
After a lot of turmoil in the scores when the cats first came into use, Steve seized the lead and has held on to it for a while now. I wonder how long he can keep it. This is neat to watch unfold. :-)

The game got stuck in a rut this week of medium-hard-medium-hard-medium-hard. I have tweaked the random selector to prevent this kind of situation from occurring again, except under rare conditions like Beju letting someone pick four hard goos in a row or me not creating enough variety of goos in advance.

Scott Hardie | June 23, 2014
Some behind-the-scenes info about the new format: The lucky cats came about by accident. I originally planned for the point bonuses to come in the form of lucky charm items, like rabbit's feet and four-leaf clovers and shiny pennies and so on. I struggled to find a set of charm images that would work for the game, but while searching, I stumbled upon a set of nine maneki-neko cats in different colors, and decided to go with that set instead. This weird Japanese element in the game felt out of place until I decided to pair it with something else Japanese by adding a pagoda image to the scores page, which is just as well because otherwise that page would just be a boring list of names and numbers.

Do you have a favorite lucky cat yet? Or a cat that you'd really like to try out?

LaVonne Lemler | June 25, 2014
Scott, your new game format is totally awesome! The Japanese element in the game, with the Pagoda and Lucky Cats, was cleverly done. I love the randomness of the cats, and some of the variables involved may very likely play a major part in determining the outcome of the round. The game overall is intriguing to watch on a day-to-day basis; it's fun observing how players are strategically playing --- or not playing; will this help or hinder them? Can't wait to see how it plays out!

I have no favorite lucky cat yet, but am curious about a couple of them and how they work; however, I'm patient enough to wait and see. In the meantime, some of these hard goos are driving me crazy! Running out of time on another one tonight! :)

Scott Hardie | June 25, 2014
Thanks, LaVonne! I'm pleased with it too, and glad that you're enjoying it. :-)

The goos were too easy in the first week and now they seem too hard, ever since that run of medium-hard-medium-hard that we got stuck in. Then again, some players prefer the harder goos, so I'm glad some of us like it. :-) In the interest of variety, I started coming up with goos in little-used categories like Education and Aviation, but they're just not as much fun as movie stars and popular singers, so I'm going to do that more sparingly in the future.

So far, Kiiro seems to have been the most influential by helping Steve, and Chairo by helping Chris, although Chris's goo requests most likely helped too. I would expect Shiro to be the most influential of all if she's acquired early and often. If I were a player, the cat I'd most want would probably be Beju, but I wouldn't expect her to make much difference in the score; it would be more about increasing my enjoyment of the game by choosing my favorite categories.

Ao seems mostly to be useless, since her power is available so rarely. I'm considering changing her next season. I can be swayed by player comments if anyone has a preference.

Scott Hardie | June 25, 2014
Someone asked me in private whether I could go back to showing a preview of upcoming goos in the sidebar like I used to do.

That's not really feasible because of the randomizer that debuted this season. How it works is: I create a batch of goos in advance and upload them in no particular order. Every night, the randomizer chooses one of those future goos based on whichever will support the most variety in the game and publishes it. Thus, there is no goo designated for tomorrow: Whichever one pops up next is a surprise even to me.

There are a few exceptions. I built a mechanism that lets me override the randomizer and schedule a certain goo for a certain day, like for instance if I wanted to put up a goo of a founding father on July 4th. Any player who uses Beju piggybacks on that same mechanism, by scheduling their four choices to happen tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, and the next day after that. But I think in both of those cases, it would be more fun to let the scheduled goo be a surprise like any other.

I could also publicize which categories are in the queue waiting to be published someday (a list that is partially exposed to the player who uses Beju), but I don't know if that information would enhance the game. Your pleasure upon seeing that your favorite category is coming up could turn into frustration if a few weeks pass and the randomizer keeps failing to choose it. Or, conversely, you could become discouraged if you don't even see your favorite category on the horizon; at least this way, you're blissfully unaware that it's not coming up. But maybe I'm mistaken. What do you think?

I mentioned that certain goos are pre-scheduled. One of them is coming up on August 23. I will give 10,000 awesomeness points* to whoever figures out what the occasion is.

*not worth game credit

Chris Lemler | June 26, 2014
If anybody knows it do you want a private message or mention on here?

Scott Hardie | June 26, 2014
Here unless you prefer otherwise. It's all just for fun. :-)

Samir Mehta | August 7, 2014
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Erik Bates | August 7, 2014
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Scott Hardie | August 8, 2014
Good points. Someone else just asked me the same question this morning in private, so there must be something about reaching this point in the season that inspires this kinds of wondering. I have clarified the wording on both the Current Goos and Lucky Cats pages.

Now that we've had two months to play it, what do you think of the new format? Are you enjoying the change in scoring? Do you miss themes? Are there particular cats that you like or dislike?

I already intend to make small change next season, tweaking Ao's power so that it can be used almost always instead of almost never, but I'm open to other possibilities.

Chris Lemler | August 8, 2014
I really like the new format it's really fun to see how people jump back and forth back in forth on the pagoda. Maybe you could fix Ao's power to see other players guesses on medium and hard goo's and not have him see other player's guess on easy goo's.

Steve West | August 8, 2014
Shiro is possibly the strongest Lucky Cat to obtain. Extra points for every correct goo and cumulative rewards seems like the greatest advantage. It'll be interesting to see if the winner received this cat's reward most often (if earned early enough). Themes were good but not critical to game play and the Cats are interesting except for Beju for me.

Aaron Shurtleff | August 14, 2014
If I catch up and win this season, the cats are too strong. Otherwise, it's all good in the neighborhood!

Scott Hardie | August 27, 2014
Since this is the first time we've played in this format, here's a reminder of how the end of the season will play out.

Goos will continue publishing through Friday. There will be nothing particularly different or special about Friday's goo, but it will be your last chance to score points, so use any cats you still have and solve every goo that you can.

On Friday night at midnight est, the site will automatically announce a winner based on whose score is highest at that moment in time. I'll be online at that late hour just to make sure that everything goes smoothly.

There will be no new goo on Saturday. Take the day to congratulate the winner instead.

The fall season will begin on Sunday (technically, Saturday night at midnight) with a new goo, of easy difficulty. All scores will be reset to zero, all lucky cats will be taken away from their owners, and all previously activated cat powers will be reset.

Even after a winner is declared, you can continue to guess the last few goos from this final week of the summer season until they expire, but they won't be worth any points or help you earn another cat after Friday night at midnight.

Good luck! There's a big prize on the line for whoever can seize the lead in time! I hope to see a flurry of last-minute activity on Friday. :-)

Erik Bates | August 27, 2014
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Scott Hardie | August 27, 2014
Me too, for other reasons.

We've been banned somewhere? I like the idea of a network admin somewhere pulling up this site and wondering what the hell it is.

Congrats on nabbing the top level on the pagoda, Erik, for as long as it lasts. This could be a crazy finish.

Erik Bates | August 29, 2014
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Chris Lemler | August 29, 2014
Erik, I'm innocent I tell ya......lol the cats made me do it

Scott Hardie | August 30, 2014
Congratulations, Chris! It's been four years since your last victory and I bet this one feels just as sweet! You played a great season of the game and deserved to come out on top. Well done! :-)

This was a topsy-turvy and unpredictable season, but dedication and skill played big roles in the outcome too. I'm satisfied with the "Japanese" format after its debut season, and I look forward to seeing how its second season plays out. Ao's psychic power has been changed to be available much more often, but otherwise there are no rule changes or programming changes leading into the fall. I continue to entertain suggestions for more changes, publicly and privately, and I'm mulling some particular ideas for the next season change.

Part of Chris's success was no doubt due to creating his own goos, and he has a lot more coming up in the future. (He and Lori both had a big backlog of requests from over the years that I ported into the new system, giving them both a head-start.) Here's reminding all players that you're welcome to create your own goos and earn some extra points, up to 200 points per goo depending on how much information you provide. It's fun and often easy, and it lets you take control of the game for a day, so I hope more players will give it a shot.

Here's looking forward to the Fall 2014 season that starts on Sunday. Have a great Labor Day weekend, everybody!

LaVonne Lemler | August 30, 2014
Chris, congratulations on winning the summer round! What a fun and wild season it was, all the way to the final day --- and definitely sweet finishing on top. Nice going! :) I'm ready for the next round!

Lori Lancaster | August 30, 2014
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Scott Hardie | August 30, 2014
More recognition for Chris:

This is Chris's second perfect season. He solved every goo this summer except for the ones that he created. That's no easy feat, as the few players who have pulled it off can attest.

Chris thus has the longest current streak in the game with 85 goos in a row and counting.

Chris is now nearly tied with Lori for the most goos created by a player: He has 51 to her 53. They both have more coming up in the queue, but he has a lot more than her. Should I mention creations to the Top Ten sidebar, or maybe start awarding a virtual prize for it on the Player Achievements page? I'd like to do whatever I can to spur more creations by more players. :-)

Beyond Chris:

A lot of you players fought hard this season, and you deserve praise too. I was impressed by the dedication shown to some goos with guesses trickling in all week long, and clever uses of lucky cats at just the right moment (especially Steve West's snagging of second place -- briefly first place -- with Daidaiiro on Thursday night). The amount of turnover at the top of the list, with a lot of players within a couple thousand points of the top, shows how dedicated you all are to this game. I hope that you enjoyed it, and I wish us all a fun fall season.

Erik Bates | August 30, 2014
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Chris Lemler | August 31, 2014
Thanks guys!!!!! I really enjoyed this season. This round was an interesting and challenging one and competitive all the way to the end. I was holding my breathe at the end and didn't know how the last goo would play out. Steve, Erik, Russ, Justin and others played one competitive game and kept it interesting all the way to the finish. We have great players on this site and that is what makes it fun and interesting. Everyone played this round well and I want to wish everyone good luck in the next round.

Chris Lemler | August 31, 2014
Scott I would add creations to the top ten sidebar if it's possible. I really like that idea

Aaron Shurtleff | September 6, 2014
I made the top of the Pagoda!! End the season right now!! ;)

I must be super rusty, because I found a lot of the recent GOOs to be kinda hard (or tricky). Not a complaint, just trying to make this post about more than my using a Lucky Cat to temporarily take the top of the Pagoda. Still looking forward to how the whole season plays out! I have vague hopes of winning one these things one day, if I can stay focused. Good luck everyone!!

Scott Hardie | September 6, 2014
Yeah, we're off to a rocky start. Monday's Terrorism goo turned out to be much harder than I thought, and it was immediately followed by perhaps the hardest of all of Chris's old requests. Friday's Sports goo is not exactly a gimme either. I intend to make a new batch of goos today now that RB is done, and I'll try to lean towards easy goos, just to balance things out a little.

Fyi for anybody wondering: Chris and Lori's old requests from years ago are being subjected to the same scrutiny as any new request coming in today. If I think a player-submitted goo is not solvable as it is, I reject it and ask for additional information in the hint, or a less-distorted image, or clearer phrasing, sometimes offering specific suggestions. In a few instances, I've gone back and forth multiple times on the same goo trying to make it playable. While I worry a little bit that this has a homogenizing effect on the goos (they shouldn't all sound like my voice), I think it's important that they meet a certain minimum standard of solvability. For future seasons, I'm considering adding a fourth difficulty level of "insane" or "extreme" or something that might come along more rarely, such as once a month, because some goos seem harder than hard.

Steve West | September 6, 2014
Less distortion would be preferable. Some of these pictures (a lot) are no longer recognizable as even being a person. They're just a mixed bowl of jello as far as I can see. And the hints provided in the clue only make sense to me only after the goo is revealed. I need some kind of mind-sharpening drug to help me think outside the box, perhaps.

Justin Woods | September 6, 2014
I agree with Steve, I can almost make 5 people fit a goo but have no way of picking the right one with the picture being so distorted.

Scott Hardie | September 6, 2014
Now I'm tempted to substitute this photo for tomorrow's goo just to see what happens. :-)

Good points. I'll take that into consideration when creating and approving goos in the future.

Scott Hardie | September 6, 2014
Goo Vision Test (or is it Rorschach test?):

Can you tell what this is a picture of?

Aaron Shurtleff | September 6, 2014
I think I can. I will pm.

Samir Mehta | September 8, 2014
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Steve West | September 9, 2014
I think that's a lamp and it's the same person duplicated and overlapped. He's (I think it's a male) wearing a blue T-shirt with the letters NWA? I'm guessing it's Chris, too.

Lori Lancaster | September 9, 2014
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Scott Hardie | September 11, 2014
You're right that it's Chris. After the comments about distortion above, he sent me his own profile photo distorted like one of the harder recent goos, and we made a guessing game out of it on TC. Call it a psychological experiment, or just call it goo practice if you want. :-)

Samir Mehta | December 23, 2014
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Scott Hardie | February 28, 2015
Just following up: Samir's idea was discussed in Variable Values and ultimately decided against.

I'm tempted to give a point bonus for a solo solution, since it's such a feat to pull off, but being the only player to get those 150 points over the other players IS a bonus.

Scott Hardie | January 7, 2016
I hesitate to say anything even remotely critical of Russ's Philosophy goo today, since I'm glad to have it and it's a harbinger of what I hope will be many goos from Russ in the future. But after our public conversation above about images being so warped and distorted that they no longer resemble human beings, I need to be clear: I was too quick to approve this goo for publication, because it's too distorted to recognize the source image. I have rejected goos by Chris and Justin that were this distorted, and I will continue to reject more like this by all players, but I mistakenly let Russ's through without remembering that policy. My apologies to all parties. The goo is otherwise fine (in fact, it's pretty good imho) and I hope that everybody still enjoys solving it.

Scott Hardie | January 13, 2016
Perhaps more apologies are in order. I have heard from four people now (two who reached out on their own, and two who I asked) that Russ's goo is in fact fair and not quite as distorted as I said last week. Upon further review of it, I can see that the objectors have a point. This distortion pattern appears to be done by an algorithm, because I've seen it turn up in submissions by other players, and perhaps the similarity misled me. In an effort to be extra fair to previous goo creators whose goos I had rejected, I may have been unfair to Russ. I just want to be fair to everybody, so here's a blanket atonement for anyone whose goo creation I may have misjudged at any time, past present or future. :-)

The consensus that I'm getting from these private messages seems to be both that a heavily distorted image is ok as long as the clue is not also oblique, and that a really hard goo is ok as long as it is fair and solvable, not impossible. There are no fixed rules about how distorted is "too distorted" because such a measurement is effectively impossible to make, but I will keep these two points in mind in the future as I approve more goos. For what it's worth, my interest in keeping gooed images from being "too distorted" came mostly from player comments in this very TC discussion. Let's all keep talking about this sort of thing in general to make sure that the game stays on the right track. Thanks for the private feedback, everybody, and thank you again for the goo, Russ. Everybody that I heard from liked it, and I do too. :-)

Scott Hardie | January 13, 2016
I just received word from a fifth person saying that Russ's goo was not too distorted. This goo has more supporters than Jim Gilmore's presidential campaign.

LaVonne Lemler | January 14, 2016
Great goo, Russ --- quite the learning experience for me! Read lots about philosophy/philosophers, but just wasn't able to come up with the right combination of words to solve it. Nice job....keep it up!

Samir Mehta | January 14, 2016
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LaVonne Lemler | February 27, 2016
My oh my, Chris.....you certainly have been generous today! :-)

Chris Lemler | February 27, 2016
Well I had to bring the joy to players faces :)

Scott Hardie | February 27, 2016
What a finish! I really like the way that the current cats & pagoda system can produce nail-biter finishes like that.

Russ, you played a hell of a season from start to end, and worked hard to earn your victory. You have now tied Justin for a very impressive eight victories. I have a feeling that Matthew's longtime record of nine victories from the early years of the game is soon to be equaled and perhaps even surpassed. Your prize has just been sent via email.

Justin, you played a perfect season by solving all ninety goos, the ninth time you've done that, breaking your own record. Well done! Impressive in its own right.

Chris, LaVonne, Samir, Joanna, and everyone else who racked up a high score: Well played. You are all top players in my book.

The spring season commences tomorrow. Good luck!

Chris Lemler | February 27, 2016
Well done on your victory Russ.

Steve West | February 27, 2016
Incredible. I think that's eight. Well done.

LaVonne Lemler | February 28, 2016
Yay, Russ! Congratulations on another notch in your "goo" belt! Better keep it tightened.....you'll need room for more! :-)

Russ Wilhelm | February 29, 2016
Thanks again everyone. I had my reservations for most of the last day that I could pull off a victory. Hard victory, but the Cats played in my favor.

Scott Hardie | April 3, 2016
More praise for Russ, long overdue: Russ scored two perfect seasons that he was not credited for, back in Winter 2012 and Spring 2012. I just audited the history of perfect seasons to see if anyone was overlooked, and those two came up. My apologies for missing them earlier, Russ. There's now code in place that will run when the last goo of a season expires that will automatically declare someone's season perfect, so that it doesn't get missed again.