CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

It happened to my opponent again. S/he probably didn't realize it happened.

Ah well, ignorance is bliss...

Nice post, CM! Welcome to the party.

That's true, but I have a feeling you'll eventually find penny games dull-- especially if you ever go up to dime games (10X what you were playing before!). It's a strange feeling, because it's all still pennies. There's been a lot of talk around here before about the "valuable penny" phenomenon-- a real difference from casinos, which make you think nothing of throwing down a piece of plastic worth $25.

The role of money in this game is still not something I totally understand. Yes, betting money can make anything more exciting (from a cockfight to a coin toss), but some CM hands can be really exciting-- even when it's only pennies on the line.

Me too, but when I join the chat room, it's usually after a game, to say gg, to ask if someone was indeed bluffing, to tell them they played me like a violin... Jason's idea of tarot cards, or something like coloured stones or buttons, just to communicate something would be nice. But there's something about the simple, minimalist aesthetic of the game that is nice, too...

Ah yes, possibly CM's most famous player.

Jason has mentioned that, post-launch, he plans to run some more tournaments, like he did when the game was first opened to private testing. If he chooses a tournament that involves knock-outs and a figure structure, it would be cool to watch the later rounds between the best players. Perhaps a client that displays both players' screens, after a board is completed. Then again, some players may not want to be watched, as it would give away their strategies.

That's another interesting idea we've previously discussed: what "success" means. There have been games I fought back from almost losing, get back to just over 100, and leave, considering breaking even a success over losing everything. But is that victory? "Yay, I won 3/100ths of my buy-in..."

So is success reducing your opponent to zero? Winning at least half your buy-in? Or is it (like many people who gamble at casinos say) breaking even: essentially getting your entertainment for free?

Cordial Minuet is nothing if not strange and mysterious.

Ah, I was wondering what happened to my opponent in that game...

I have the same worries, but I was thinking the same thing as jere (right down to the "rodeo" idiom!).

I know originally Jason was thinking of having two amulets up for grabs per day, but now it's going to be one per day, stretching out to 12 days. That is a long time. The Steal Real Money TCD contest ran for a week, if I'm not mistaken. That was a long time both to defend your house and keep stealing and adding to your vault. Here, you can play for as many or as few days as you want, but your score only counts for that day.

I'm sure there's a good reason he's gone for 12, not 6.

In any case, I've tried to start promoting the game itself through Facebook. As I expected, "that weird gambling game Dan's been playing" is a tough sell (sandwiched between photos of my friends' lunches, which get far more attention: the 'ancient dreams of the Internet being squandered' indeed).

EXCITED.

And yes, if those are indeed the final dates, then wow, talk about your SUDDEN CONTESTS. But it works out for me, because I've got some unexpected time off around then...

The amulets look great, of course. Strange-looking, but also desirable.

Feedback on the actual contest page...

-- I laughed out loud while reading it. I know the Cordial Minuet page style is supposed to be a parody of sorts, so I hope that's the sort of reaction you wanted.

-- I think the way the cabal is presented is pretty good, but it still omits the fact that Jason Rohrer will be a member of the cabal. So unless you've decided that you will step back and not play games as a cabal member during the contest, it should probably have something about how THE CREATOR will be playing, too. While the whole REAL GOLD and $MONEY$ stuff is eye-catching, I still think the whole "play against Jason Rohrer" thing is marketable (even though I suppose you'll never know that you've played against Jason, only against a cabal member...).

-- I think the beginning is engaging enough (especially since most people who see the page will already have heard about the contest through some other channel), so it's not a big deal that the details come later, lower on the page. Still, you could consider putting some picture near the top (be it a cryptic amulet-like drawing or a scan of one of the gold amulets).

-- I know you're looking at tweaks for the page, not the contest itself, but... I can't help wondering about the disparity between the cash prizes that accompany the amulets and the second, third, and fourth-place cash prizes. Only $10 for third and fourth place, but $100 and $200 for silver and gold amulets, which are already pretty amazing prizes in themselves?

-- Would someone be allowed to pull a CLEVER TRICK to win more than one cash prize during the contest? (And even if not colluding or using multiple accounts, but rather legitimately coming in 2nd-4th place more than once during the contest.)

-- Near the bottom: "Who MADE THE AMULETS? Who MADE THE GAME?" I think we all know the answer to that... Maybe... I kept trying to click on it, thinking it was a hyperlink.

Answer one: Yep. It's in line with the risk/reward nature of CM. Play well near the beginning, win a copper. Bide your time and only play near the end, maybe you'll win a gold. Or nothing.

Answer two: No. Another incentive for multiple account play. Reward people like Cobblestone suggested (though I suppose one person behind multiple accounts could still walk away with multiple amulets... But there's really no way around that, is there?).

Suggestion: Choose the top 36 scorers at the end of the contest, OR ~6 people per day who are the top scorers. At the end of the contest, draw 12 people randomly. Those 12 win amulets, the others win cash prizes.

Of course, that doesn't account for the higher value attached to silver and gold. And it also might be too close to a chance-based sweepstakes, legally speaking.

Some good ideas here, I think. It's important that everyone feels they have a chance, so we don't have the "flurry of activity at the beginning, quickly dying out" phenomenon. Ideally, of course, people would find the game so enticing they'd continue playing anyway!

I go away for a vacation for a week and THIS is what you come up with? HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD?!

I love it.

I'm on (almost) computer-less holiday for one more week. Don't do anything crazy while I'm away.

I'll be back for the real thing.

And I'll stop losing. Maybe.

Oh, and congratulations to the winners of the latest test contest. Claspa: your strategy of always picking higher numbers than your opponent seems to be working.

I'm not going to comment on Storeroom's suggested fixes, because my poor non-math non-programming brain simply cannot do a proper assessment of them.

But, I think his suggestion from the line I quoted has grabbed onto something that nagged at me during the first test contest. Normal behaviour in CM involves putting X amount of money at stake in order to make X (minus tribute) amount of money. You can never win more than what you stand to lose.

But during the amulet contest, that was not the case. You could win $100 by investing pennies! That would explain the behaviour we saw during both contests, when people started penny games and bet and accepted crazy all-ins on the first pick.

With Storeroom's suggestion, amulet games could be set at a more meaningful stake, say one or two dollars. Those games would probably be hard-fought, using more conventional strategies, without insane, arbitrary all-ins.

Granted, you're still investing only a small fraction of what you could potentially win (e.g. $2 to win a $36 amulet, not that you'd know what type of amulet you could potentially receive), but I still think the play in amulet matches would tilt more towards the conventional rather than the insane. The question is: would normal matches still involve reckless play at very low stakes, as players try to be the last person standing as often as possible (and thus get "Amulet Challenger" status)?

Of course, to some players, this fixed stake (be it $1 or $5) might still be seen as pennies, and to new players, it might seem like the game is strong-arming them into putting more money at stake than they're comfortable with. But it might go towards breaking the "valuable penny mentality" phenomenon that has been discussed previously. I know that in the future, the game will need more players willing to play at $1+ stakes.

Finally, there's the issue that the core game might change too much with this "Amulet Challenger" idea. This will be most people's first experience with the game, and Jason has said he doesn't want the game to look that much different during the contest. The whole amulet thing should just be "floating beneath the surface," as I recall.

Congratulations again to all the winners! I'd like to think that I contributed to your victory by losing some games to you.

I'm glad to hear that the bugs were worked out during the contest and that the tweaks are in place for the next (probable) test contest (which will probably take place while I'm on holiday, but anyway... As long as I'm in for the real thing!).

I agree with a lot of the feedback already given. Here are a couple of observations I had while participating in the contest:

1) I think this will be fixed by the new "when a floating amulet is dropped" criteria, but getting an amulet was not exciting. In the original discussion on the contest, the idea behind the amulets is it's something unexpected that might happen while you're playing the game normally. The recipient will get excited and hopefully go on to play more amulet games. During the test contest, it was routine. More of a grind than anything. However, I suppose this isn't an issue anymore, due to the tweaks already discussed. Just hoping we get enough players to keep the amulets rare and exciting enough. (Though personally, I'm really hoping to win a physical amulet, so I suppose I don't mind having a lot of them in circulation!)

2) Something that hasn't really been discussed: What was the difference between Thursday and Sunday? On Thursday, when the contest initially launched, there were lots of active players, including ones I hadn't seen before. By Sunday, it was mostly familiar names trying to rack up points. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but seeing as how the launch contest is supposed to attract and retain new players... what happened? Perhaps some of the newer players, who may have only played a couple of games in the last four weeks, were intimidated by the level of play they encountered. I'm not sure why exactly they left, but it's something I really noticed.

Anyway, as others have already said, thank you Jason for letting us participate in this test contest. I'm glad that we provided enough data and feedback to allow you to create an even better launch contest!

Sounds like a fun weekend ahead!