IMPROVING THE STEEM-POCALYPSE EXPERIENCE - PLUS YOU NEVER HAVE TO MISS A SIGNUP AGAIN!
This game is an absolute beast to run!
In fact, it is almost a complete disaster. First off, although everyone who plays usually ends up dead in the end, I don't want to restrict the gameplay. This means that I will always do my best to allow as many players to sign up as want to. At the beginning of this season, we started out with 286 players. Of course not everyone makes it past the first few days, but still!
Trying to keep track of that many players is almost as horrifying as trying to herd cats (to borrow a phrase form @bluerthangreen.) For that reason, only players who actually reply to the sing up post will get to play. Also, to keep the gameplay moving along, each player must reply within 24 hours to the post.
NEW THIS SEASON
In Season 5, I increased the responsibility of the players. For me, if the players may win hundreds of dollars just for playing a game for a few minutes online each day, I think it is alright to require a little more from them. In this season players now have to reply with their inventory in order to not lose their supplies.
Additionally, players are now required to reply to an Option Comment posted by me on the post. This helps keep track of who chose what option and streamlines the process a little bit.
HELP!
Since @papa-pepper has always kept track of the gameplay, players, and choices manually, running this game can take hours out of my life on a daily basis. Tracking the gameplay only adds additional work to the already demanding task of creating scenarios, typing the posts, and providing my own original photos and images to match the scenarios.
Prior to the beginning of this season, @novaatebatman approached me and offered to help. Since I already have a family of seven to take care of, a house to build, a homestead to run, and some travelling to do, I welcomed the assistance. This is why you will see comments from @novaatebatman on my posts trying to help run this game.
ENTER THE SPREADSHEET!
A STEEM-Pocalypse spreadsheet is also now available for you to check out thanks to @novaatebatman. Check out the link below to see for yourself.
Of course it is the players responsibility to keep track of their own gameplay, but we need a way to prevent fraud when so much SBD is on the line. @novaatebatman has both created this spreadsheet and been keeping it up to date. For anyone who is curious about the data relating to the game, this is an excellent resource.
Obviously, this has taken a lot of effort to create this spreadsheet and keep it accurate, so please consider checking out the post from @novaatebatman and upvoting it too.
TIRED OF MISSING THE SIGNUP FOR STEEM-POCALYPSE?
Not only is @novaatebatman helping keep track of this game by creating and editing the spreadsheet, but now @novaatebatman has created this email notification service that is available for all to sign up on. By filling out a short form that includes a valid email address and your steemit username, you can automatically get an email sent to you when the signup for the next season starts! Now that is convenient!
To Register For Email Notification, Click on the Link Below
OTHER STEEM-POCALYPSE RELATED HAPPENINGS
For those of you who really enjoy the STEEM-Pocalypse game, there are a few other interesting and related things that you may want to be aware of. Here are just three.
@dwells & @essentialoilmom
This couple thought that it would be good to do a vlog of them discussing the STEEM-Pocalypse options. It has been interesting and entertaining, to say the least. Plus, sometimes, they are even correct about the outcome of certain options. Check out their latest STEEM-Pocalypse Round Table Discussion and Tribute to the Fallen by following this link: https://steemit.com/steem-pocalypse/@dwells/epidsode-5-steem-pocalypse-season-05-round-table-discussion-and-tribute-to-the-fallen
@simplewriter
@asimplewriter has been making a post each day documenting the choices that his player has been making. For those who enjoy a good read, check out this series from @asimplewriter. The latest one can be found here: https://steemit.com/steem-pocalypse/@asimplewriter/steem-pocalypse-day-4-round-1
@keepdoodling
@keepdoodling almost won the STEEM-Pocalypse last season, and certainly spiced things up with the drawings. This season, @keepdoodling has chosen to, well, keep doodling, not only adding the doodles to the STEEM-Pocalypse replies but also making posts out the doodles. Personally, I love them and am always impressed. To check out the latest one, follow this link: https://steemit.com/art/@keepdoodling/fear-of-the-bushes-my-doodle
CLOSER
Hopefully you are all still enjoying the STEEM-Pocalypse game. I know that it is not fun to die, but I hope that you all still have fun while it lasts. Please sign up to get the email notifications for the next season sign up from @novaatebatman too if you want to. The subject line of the email will mention STEEM-Pocalypse, so hopefully that will help.
I'm trying to make this game as interesting, educational, and fun as I can, so I appreciate the extra effort this season from the players and the help of @novaatebatman too. Thanks everyone and STEEM ON!
Until next time…
Don’t waste your time online, invest it with steemit.com
This is a really great improvement on the game! Thanks for doing this :D
I really appreciate this game and I look forward to seeing more in the future. Hoping we can connect and continue to evolve and learn from each other! Remember, be yourself, because nobody else does it better -- Full #Steem ahead @papa-pepper :)
Much ❤
@Tayken
What @pbock said, can be easy done. When we have 1,000+ players in few seasons (my wife joined steemit just for the game) some kind of automation will be needed if just for double checking, second opinion, quality control.
Python is simple answer. I'm only doing my first baby steps in learning Python programming, so I can't be of help, but if anyone with moderate Python knowledge join, it would be a piece of cake.
You could have (for now) parallel system in place, as it is, players do the work, @novaatebatman do the data and Python script is in parallel double checking. Only big change would be some kind of unified posting with keywords. Keywords would be defined like this:
backupfood1 = can of beans
backupfood2 = beef jerky
bullets = 11 rounds
pills = water purification tablets
Then players would need to follow certain posting rules like this for example
@@@veleje, backupfood2, option3
This is just an example of course, double "@@" would differentiate from any other post that player @veleje would make, it would mean, this is answer, Python script would look up for them and parse them, everything that follows after @@@someplayer would be keywords that every one should use the same as per legend posted at each scenario.
Script would then easy, very easy parse data and act as second opinion, quality control for the spreadsheet.
Also it would be a breeze keeping up score about 'dead' players. Script would maintain the list and it would ignore any post from already perished player.
It is worth a try, genie is out of the bottle, this game will have much much players in the future :-)
True, Python would suit this fine, being a general language.
If we want to go into optimized territory, I think Perl, being specialized in data manipulation, could also be used.
If I could just get all those annoying projects Im working on right now done, instead of procrastinating, I'd even do this myself !
As a developer, I've given some thought as to how an interface could be built to make running games like this one easier. A bot with an external database that stores things like the player state (or maybe there's a way that could be stored directly on the blockchain?) which gets updated based on how a user replies to a gameplay thread, and could automatically reply to invalid player moves and tell them to try again. Unfortunately, I don't have much blockchain experience and what I've looked into so far left me a bit cross-eyed, so it's probably out of my league for now… would be a great experiment if I had the time/motivation to learn all that stuff, though. At least for now, I'm sure that spreadsheet is better than nothing!
Too many are involved to do this. Also steemit is about people caring for people when they do it this way the ensure no fraud is happening as computers won't catch or tell them that say Dark and Dark2 and Dark 3 are all very similair usernames things like this can ruin a game. That spreadsheet is the key to everything and keeps it running streamlined.
I enjoy playing the game, good work papa-pepper and novaatebatman!
What an interesting game to earn money. I loved it. Upvoted
Yeah, come people made some serious cash already just by playing it!
Thanks for cleaning
@novaatebatman is awesome for doing this
Man you are doing a fantastic job. WTG @novaatebatman. Props!
No kidding! Great job @novaatebatman!
@Novaatebatman's is the bomb. He's sending us a list of the fallen each day after he finishes updating the sheet. He is making it easier for us to pay tribute to the fallen.
Have to keep track of the dead anyways. Might as well make your jobs easier!
Thank you!
If you ever think you see a mistake in my record-keeping, please let me know so I can fix it. I can be reached at the email address in the upper right corner of the spreadsheet screenshot. (Not typing it out to void the data crawlers because I hate those things.)
Good luck players...