Well here’s some fun, Daniel Peake of the parish has just starting releasing weekly episodes of his new quiz Codebreaker (one word? Two words? Not sure). Contestants compete to crack a four-digit code, answering themed questions to earn clues and the right to have a guess. Interesting tactics from Jonathan, here:
Look out for episode three in two week’s time when I’m a contestant and get really into it. Also top marks for #hostholdingaquestioncard. Follow @codebreakerquiz on Twitter.
Edit: One word, I’m informed.
Look I know it was quite fun last year and you might have played it at Christmas, but here’s CPL pretending that Pieface is still A Thing:
http://deadline.com/2017/04/pie-face-game-show-44-blue-uk-cpl-productions-video-1202060261/
As we used to say, “Round of a show!” Ellen plays a sized-up version of it from time to time on her mostly-talk-show, and it fills a gap. A roughly two-and-a-half-minute gap, at a guess. I don’t see how there can be an hour of it, even if they play repeatedly using pies with all manner of creative and colourful fillings.
Oh, I liked this. The production values are very fine for something homemade – I particularly liked the robot voices! – Dan is always a lot of fun to spend time with, the questions were easily interesting enough, and there is a game there.
If you were the only player, you could guarantee that you’d know the code within seven question-and-higher/lower pairs. The maths to show this is quite fun; well done to Jonathan for working it out independently and putting it into practice. I don’t know if it would be terribly rude to explain it in such an early post. The fact that this technique exists doesn’t mean that the game is broken at all.
However, the fact that you’re not the only player and you don’t hear your opponent’s question results means that that’s pretty irrelevant, and this theoretically perfect way to play is probably not actually the best way to play in practice. If you and your opponent both know the technique, even though you don’t hear all the answers, you can have a good chance at deducing them from observing what your opponent guesses… and this is where bluffing comes in, just a little bit.
If you know the answer is even, why would you ever guess an odd number, knowing that it couldn’t be right? The way that gives you the fastest route to guessing the code number is not to guess numbers that you know it cannot be – but if you’re only going to guess numbers that could be right, then you’re implying the results of your questions to your opponent, who can use them just as easily in their deductions!
One technique you could use is to repeatedly ask the same question as your opponent. (Ideally you would use your “reveal” the first time they ask a question, then this gives you the initiative thereafter… at least, until they “reveal” back.) This then turns the race into a simple matter of who answers more questions correctly. That’s not a bad property to have at all.
The endgame is very nicely calibrated, as well. Looking forward to future episodes!
Workshop with me here.
The start player has an advantage; on average, they will get half an extra guess per game. How about secretly telling the start player the third digit and secretly telling the second player the fourth digit in advance? (The higher-or-lower sequence would reveal the third digit at least as early as the fourth digit, so this compensates for the starting advantage.) This throws some asymmetry into the mix, gives some information with which to bluff (or not) straight away, speeds the guessing up, and also means that the viewers at home will know both the third and fourth digits and can enjoy knowing more than the viewer.
If that makes it too quick, you could go to five digits, or increase the value of answering questions correctly by either featuring harder questions or less brilliantly knowledgeable contestants!
I’ve changed my mind. While the start player has an expected half a question advantage, the second player has the advantage of hearing the first question in each round and thus having the gimmick of the round explained to them if it is at all unclear, which is a reasonable sort of compensation.
I have a suspicion that it’s not possible to play the game better than Jonathan Cairns did in the first episode, but it may be possible to play the game as well, which keeps it of interest.
I’m quite impressed that of the ten contestants pretty much everyone had their own style of question to ask.
I don’t want to spoil anything, because episodes are still being recorded, but the point about bluffing is something I picked up on about five minutes before we started playing.
Find out how successful myself and TV’s Alex McMillan are at the game in two weeks!
I won’t spoil Nick’s episode, but it’s possibly the best episode yet simply for the use of the word “oeuvre”.
I’m very glad you enjoyed it Chris, and it seems to be going down well based on the comments I’ve been reading on Twitter too!
I have wondered whether going first is too much an advantage, we will have to see how it plays out. Fundamentally, even if you go first, if you don’t answer questions correctly you won’t win though.
And working out what you think the opponent knows is always fun.
I do feel my hosting is a little rough and ready at the moment, it’s been *so* long since I last hosted anything proper, but I think over the next couple of episodes you’ll see me slip back in to it, or slip up, or something.
I do feel that this show couldn’t easily be put on TV, maybe BBC FOUR, as it’s quite “fiddly”. But YouTube is perfect for this. And there isn’t much original quiz work on YouTube, so spread the word far and wide! Especially for Nick’s episode (number 3, 19th April!)…
Nothing to do with CodeBreaker, but here is the Taskmaster series 4 promo picturedata:
Edit: Brig here, I’ve cut this because it was just gibberish that made the page look tiny on my iPad.
Thanks for that, I meant to do a fancy copy and paste but it really didn’t go to plan. The picture can easily be found using Google and can be posted by somebody with an iPad that doesn’t act like an idiot every FIVE MINUTES.
Sorry again.
I found it a bit dull tbh.
3:36 to first question is far too long, and the code guessing isn’t riveting enough to keep me listening and interesting. Sorry.
Sorry Jon š
The script gets a bit tighter over the next couple of episodes, but if it’s not your thing it’s not your thing!
Debatable returns on April 17th at 6:30pm.
That’s a bit of a demotion isn’t it? The last series went out at 6pm, ejecting Eggheads (well, Make Me an Egghead) to 6:30.
New promo for Taskmaster is a new task unto itself:
https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/taskmaster-shorts/watch-online/?video=5377551314001
Story:
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/04/06/uktv-hands-over-advertising-the-stars-taskmaster-launch-new-series-dave
Interesting that that has a ‘Taskmaster Shorts’ category in the UKTV Player. I wonder if that means short tasks (or cut down versions of filmed tasks?) will be filler for Dave in the future?
Actually, also… is that the first time we’ve actually seen Greg at the Taskmaster Cottage?
No; in the last series there was a VT sting where Alex and Greg look out of the windows.
Well done on this Dan! It was a great game and a lot of fun to watch. Can’t wait for the next one!
Woo! Thanks!
I liked it. Good pace, nice to follow along, really liked the end game.
The only kind-of issues I had were question-difficulty-evenness, which is kind of inherent in assigned-question games, and as a viewer, the “Is the remainder after divisible by ___” questions, while I’m assuming is good strategy, is a bit difficult to follow along as a viewer. Though not sure how that could be fixed, really.
Difficult to follow for the host, too! No division in the next two episodes, I promise! There are a few different strategies coming up.
I liked the main game and I’m really looking forward to seeing the different strategies play out over the series to see what other methods people have come up with.
I” not really sure about the endgame. The first 90 seconds is great and exciting as the numbers whittle down. However, once the clock stops, it’s all just down to luck on your remaining range. You would be stupid not to take the value right in the middle so then it just comes down to chance whether you score 50 or 25 or even 12.5 (12?) based on the random number generated.
Could the points be dropped to 60 and then one removed for each second further used instead? Then the leaderboard may look a little more interesting as well.
I finally found time for this yesterday; and I really enjoyed it. It’s a simple enough game to understand, but lends itself to many different tactics; and the graphics make it super easy to follow along with. I get the impression it was rather fun to play too š
I like the production quality in general. Contestants were fun. Layouts work well; I unreasonably fixated on head size difference. I’m not sure how amenable contestant mikes’ recordings were to cleaning up and homogenising. The whisper effect is adorable. The bombastic, corporate intro feels antithetical to the gameplay and title.
I couldn’t quite figure out if I should listen or watch; quiz being all audio, and codebreaking all video meant the tab went in and out of focus a lot. Twas fun anyway.
I did look for optimal strategies, and my findings were disconcerting, so I’m kind of anxious about how remaining recordings will go. It should be fun to dissect when the run is done though.
I totally get why scoring is as it is in the final round, but I had a strong averse gut reaction anyway. It felt crushingly random, which I suspect had a lot to do with the halving points presentation. Amusingly, most of it seemed to go away when I framed it as par, and over 1/2/3. The guessing seems superfluous in the final, as the problem’s optimal solution is commonly known; still, I wonder how many contestants will attempt meta-optimisation.
I guess one final round question that springs to mind here is: Does Dan actively reject any ‘easy’ codes? There’s a 1-in-10k chance that 5000 will be the code, and that feels a bit… unfairly biased in favour of the player who gets it!