TBD
| Designer(s): elara | Match Type: MM (for 4 players) |
| Featured in: The Genius Puzzler | |
| See Also: Half-Hearted Step | |
Main Match 11: Predictions / Chaos
In Predictions / Chaos, players earn points off what's going on in a guest game, either via making predictions or via causing chaos.
OVERVIEWThis game features four guests, and lasts for one pre-game round, plus eight normal gameplay rounds. The players and guests have separate roles in this game.
Each pair of guests plays a psychological game on a grid, earning points by landing on favorable cells. On the other hand, players earn points by two methods: First, they predict which rounds guests will do well or poorly in, and second, they cause chaos in the guest game.
The game takes place on a 7x7 grid. The grid wraps, so for instance, going left from the top left cell (R1C1) will land you on the top right cell (R1C7). Each cell initially contains a number between -4 and 4 on it. This grid is revealed at the start of the pre-game phase.
GUEST RULESThe guest rules are inspired by Half-Hearted Step, a DM from DM Colosseum, but the rules are heavily changed.
Each pair of guests plays the same game with each other over the course of the Main Match, so as a guest you will submit three times, one for each opposing guest. Below, the rules are described for the interaction between a single pair of guests. For the most part, guest pairs do not interact with each other (the two exceptions are the starting rand and the fact that they all use the same board).
For a single pair, each guest is assigned an axis; either vertical (up/down) or horizontal (left/right), and one guest starts as the active guest. These are decided randomly and independently from other decisions at the start of the Main Match, with the added restriction that each guest will receive directions in a 1/2 split, and be the starting player either 1 or 2 times. (This is to ensure that a guest does not have too skewed of a randomization.)
Each pair of guests has a token that is placed somewhere on the grid. The pre-game phase is a placement phase, in which they determine where the token is. The vertical guest submits one row, and the horizontal guest submits one column; the combined location is the starting location. It is perfectly fine for multiple tokens to share the same location.
For the eight main rounds, the gameplay is as follows: both guests submit a movement along their axis, up to two steps in either direction. (So, a vertical guest can move between down 2 and up 2, and a horizontal player can move between left 2 and right 2, and both guests have five actions to choose from.) In total, this will cause one of 25 possible moves that form a 5x5 square centered around the current location, and the token will move to the resulting cell.
On each round, the active guest for that round earns points equal to the number on the cell that is landed on. The active guest alternates every round, so Round 3's active guest is the same as for Round 1.
Furthermore, at the end of the round after scoring, all cells that are occupied by at least one token have their value changed. This change is as follows: The value will be subtracted by 2, but there is wrap-around, so -4 goes to 3 and -3 goes to 4.
There is a second way that guests can gain points; they can receive Garnets from players. One Garnet held by a guest corresponds to one point in the final scoring. Players may gift Garnets to guests any time in the Main Match (and the guest will be told that they received it immediately), but Garnet points are not cashed in until the end of the Main Match.
At the end of the Main Match, the guest with the most points is the winning guest.
PLAYER RULESPlayers have two ways they can earn points: Predictions and Chaos.
Predictions
During the pre-game phase, players predict who will do well or poorly in each round. For each round, a player predicts one guest to receive positive points and one guest to receive negative points. Players must assign each guest to each role twice.
During the round, if a player is right, then they earn points equal to the amount of points won or lost by that guest during the round. If they are wrong, they neither win or lose points.
For instance, if jkitty (a player) selected Reds (a guest) as positive points and chao (another guest) as negative points in Round 1, and Reds in total earned 3 points while chao lost 5 points, then jkitty gains 8 points. On the other hand, if jkitty assigned chao to positive and Reds to negative, then he gains 0 points for the round.
Note that these predictions refer to the net points that the guest earns over all three of their games during that round.
Chaos
Each round, players perform an action that affects the guest game. There are four actions, and each one will be used twice by each player throughout the Main Match:
Off by One: Choose a 2x2 square in the grid (wrapping is okay, so the four corners is a square), and for each cell in the square, either +1 or -1. The values of those cells are modified this way, permanently. A number cannot go above 4 or below -4.
Point Swap: Choose two cells. Prior to scoring this round, their point values are swapped permanently, but not any tokens on them. If multiple players attempt to Point Swap the same location, then all such swaps have no effect.
The Wall: Choose either a vertical or horizontal border on the grid (e.g. the vertical border between the 2nd and 3rd columns). If a token were to have crossed that border in this round, then it will be stopped short in that direction. For instance, if the token attempted to move from R4C4 to R2C2 with the above wall, it will stop at R2C3.
Double Movement: Choose a token. It moves twice as far as it would have moved without this action. If this action is used twice on the same token, it corresponds to a 4x movement, and so on.
Actions are processed in this order; in particular, Off by One actions are processed prior to Point Swap actions.
Players earn points from Chaos as follows: First, we calculate what would have happened if no player actions occurred. Then, for each token affected by a player's action, the player earns points equal to the absolute difference of the number the token actually landed on and the number it would have without any player interference.
For instance, due at least in part to jkitty's The Wall, the chao-Reds piece lands on a -3 instead of a 4. jkitty earns 7 points.
Tokens are considered affected as follows:
OBO: The token must ultimately land on a cell in the chosen 2x2 square.
PS: The token must ultimately land on one of the two chosen cells.
TW: The token would have crossed the chosen border without any player interference.
DM: The chosen token is the only affected one.
At the end of eight rounds, the player who has earned the most combined points from Predictions and Chaos is the winner of the Main Match and advances to the Final 3. The loser is the player with the fewest points.
Two players may tie for first and both will receive ToLs, but if three players tie for first, then all tokens are nullified. In the case of a four-way tie for first, the EC is the player with the fewest Garnets (randomized if still tied), and no player is immune.
Players receive 1 Garnet for every 8 points they earn, rounded down.
ADMINISTRATIONTiming
This game contains one pre-game phase, lasting for 24 hours, followed by 8 normal rounds, which each also last for 24 hours.
Submissions
Guests, in the pregame phase:
Guests, in normal rounds:
Players, in the pregame phase:
Players, in normal rounds:
Information
Publicly announced, at the start of pre-game:
Publicly announced, at the end of every normal round:
Told to players at the end of each normal round:
Never explicitly revealed:
Revealed at the end of the MM:
Garnets
Garnets may be spent in the following way:
Garnets may be earned in the following way: