tubechallenge.com

Denmark

Kingsbury

I think this game needs some structure. Would anyone mind if I drafted some BASIC rules up? Nothing as complicated as Tumbleweed, I promise you!

tubeguru wrote:I think this game needs some structure. Would anyone mind if I drafted some BASIC rules up? Nothing as complicated as Tumbleweed, I promise you!

I fully agree.

tubeguru wrote:I think this game needs some structure. Would anyone mind if I drafted some BASIC rules up? Nothing as complicated as Tumbleweed, I promise you!

This isn't by any means a full set of rules, as I think it needs tweaking, but it was just an idea I had. I hope it contributes something.

Countries are worth 10 points
Capital cities are worth 5 points
States (needs a clear definition) are worth a 2 points
Other cities (perhaps with a minimum population or minimum ranking within their country, to make the list finite) are worth 1 point
Repetitions lose the equivalent number of points, and the letter that the next person must start with does not change

For every hour after a valid play is made (in other words, before the next valid play), you get another lot of points, according to which category your move fell into. For example, if you play a capital city and no-one else posts in the next two hours, you get 5 points from the first post, plus 10 points from the elapsed time, for 15 in total.

Whenever any category is exhausted, or after an agreed period of time, the scores are added up and a new round begins.

It's pretty simple, but there is a tactical element to it: you don't want to make any move which gives the next person an easy country to play, if at all possible, because they are worth so many extra points. But on the other hand, you don't want to spend all day searching for the best move, because the person before you will accrue points in the meantime. Let's say you log on to the forum and see that someone played a country 58 minutes ago - do you make whatever move you can to stop their bonus points, or do you go to Wikipedia to find the optimal move?

Wow, that's even more complicated that my idea, which was:

Choose a set of "things" (countries, cities etc.) and each person has to follow on with the last letter of the previous answer played. The ideas is simply to not play a repetition. The game continues until no one else can make a move, making the person who played the un-followable answer the winner. No person is allowed to make two consecutive posts in a row, all that sort of thing.

Of course, one could extend the game to other things apart from geographical stuff, which would make it not Around-The-World at all, but you get the idea.

Ta da.

I would be delighted if a set of rules was drawn up and we start afresh, it does seem good fun and quite popular

Should we have a vote? It appears we have a "complex" set of rules and a "simple" set of rules so far.

I like simplicity. I didn't think my set of rules was overly complicated, though I'm sure it could be made simpler.

One other idea I had was that whoever "wins" a particular round - which would be short, say one month at a time - gets to choose the rules for the next round. Then the game would change often enough to keep things interesting.

Anyway. Your set of rules were good, Neil, but I'm not sure we need a vote. Personally, I'd be happy for Kev to choose the rules he wants, as he started the game.

Root's suggestion sounds supreme!

+1 for a tube map location?

Yukon

Northumberland

Dagenham

Michigan

New York