ValiantComics.com - The GAME!

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:30 pm

Ok guys... I've created what I hope will be an addicting (but Valiant-educational) game.

Guess The Valiant Cover!

You start with 500 points... and a comic cover hidden by 126 "tiles".
You "spend" a few points (your choice) and reveal some of the tiles at random.

Once you've decided what cover is being hidden, you choose it from the drop down,
and see if you're right!

The goal is to get as many covers right as you can before you run out of points.

That's it! Give it a try... then come back and read the rest of this post.

I'm serious... go play it now.

(For your bookmarking pleasure, here is the URL:)
http://www.valiantcomics.com/valiant/guesscover.asp

Ok, now that you've played for a little while...

I'm interested in hearing about errors, since I wrote the code myself,
I expect you guys to have some problems out there...
For technical reasons, the game may react slowly from time to time,
especially when it is randomly generating a new cover.

Yes, I know that's it's possible to cheat... probably in a variety of ways...
but since there's no record of scores, you are only cheating yourself.

I will probably "spruce up" the ending at some point, maybe giving some
"great job" or "time to brush up on your books" notes...
but I wanted you guys to play for a while to see what you think.
It's possible that players on slower connections may get a "longer peek"
at the cover before the tiles are loaded... but there's nothing I can do about that.

I hope it's fun, though... let me know what you think!

cjv · Post by **cjv** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:38 pm

Looks cool.

I just got an error when I tried a "just a little bit more" for 25 points. Page can not be found error.

Some suggestions (if you are looking for them, and I don't know how possible it would be)

1) When some of the cover appears, and you click on more for another hint, the previously uncovered spots are still uncovered.

2) Perhaps a bonus if you guess with NOTHING appearing. 50000 bonus points.

3) Can covers appear more than once?

mrwoogieman · Post by **mrwoogieman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:55 pm

I played it a few times, the best I did was ID 5 covers before my points ran out.

Having the VVSS Psi-Lords killed me since I picked the regular 1 and then the gold 1 and ran out of points because they were both wrong!!

Fun though!

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:58 pm

cjv wrote:I just got an error when I tried a "just a little bit more" for 25 points. Page can not be found error.

I was making some changes to the code, you might have gotten the error
while I was updating those changes. Sorry about that!

cjv wrote:1) When some of the cover appears, and you click on more for another hint, the previously uncovered spots are still uncovered.

The code is constantly randomizing the tiles, so you will have different
tiles uncovered each time, and possibly even different numbers of tiles...
sometimes "just a little bit" might uncover 3, other times... 5.

cjv wrote:2) Perhaps a bonus if you guess with NOTHING appearing. 50000 bonus points.

Well, there's no storage of "high scores"... and since cheating is kind of easy,
I don't know who would benefit from 50000 bonus points.

cjv wrote:3) Can covers appear more than once?

Covers might appear back-to-back... there's about an 800-to-1 chance of it...
But it might happen!

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:59 pm

mrwoogieman wrote:I played it a few times, the best I did was ID 5 covers before my points ran out.

Having the VVSS Psi-Lords killed me since I picked the regular 1 and then the gold 1 and ran out of points because they were both wrong!!

Fun though!

Alas, thou dreaded variants... killer of yon point stores.

riftt · Post by **riftt** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:15 pm

having to tell between armorines 0, 0 gold and 0 stand alone is pretty shiesty

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:18 pm

riftt wrote:having to tell between armorines 0, 0 gold and 0 stand alone is pretty shiesty

Yeah, sorry about that... the program is picking the books totally at random,
so Armorines 0 vs. Armorines 0 Stand Alone is a killer.

In that case, you should declare a mulligan and start over with a new 500.

::EDIT - I've removed variants - woo hoo! ::

myron · Post by **myron** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:26 pm

sweet!

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:32 pm

greg wrote:Alas, thou dreaded variants... killer of yon point stores.

Well, at least X-O 0 Gold is different from X-O Gold, as only the left half of the whole cover is shown for the normal version.

And for Chris' question, I have had the same cover twice.

Weird thing, I have 75 points, and I've had it for the last three covers I've solved.

Another thing I wonder about is how much you see. I always take 10 points, and I've gotten everything from 3 to 11 squares.

Magnus

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:36 pm

magnusr wrote:Weird thing, I have 75 points, and I've had it for the last three covers I've solved.

That might be a bug... I "refund" the 75 points whenever you guess correctly
because every guess costs 75 to begin with.
Do you mean that you had 75 points and you couldn't "spend" any of it?

::edit - That's definitely a bug... I'll see if I can take care of it. ::

magnusr wrote:Another thing I wonder about is how much you see. I always take 10 points, and I've gotten everything from 3 to 11 squares.

I just made a change to the code to give a few more squares per option...
but there is also a random number generator in there that controls each square.
Basically, each square has a "chance" to be uncovered every time.
When you "spend more points" then the chance is greater.

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:39 pm

greg wrote:That might be a bug... I "refund" the 75 points whenever you guess correctly because every guess costs 75 to begin with.
Do you mean that you had 75 points and you couldn't "spend" any of it?

I had 80 and spent 10. Then I guessed correctly. On the next screen I have 75 points. I spend some and guess correctly. Then I have 75 again.

Basically, each square has a "chance" to be uncovered every time.
When you "spend more points" then the chance is greater.

Okidoki.

It's too fun btw, I really should go to sleep...

/Magnus

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:42 pm

magnusr wrote:
greg wrote:That might be a bug... I "refund" the 75 points whenever you guess correctly because every guess costs 75 to begin with.
Do you mean that you had 75 points and you couldn't "spend" any of it?
I had 80 and spent 10. Then I guessed correctly. On the next screen I have 75 points. I spend some and guess correctly. Then I have 75 again.

That's what I was afraid of... and that's the bug I've now fixed!
Now, if you have less than 75 when you guess correctly,
you keep the old number... no more "upping to 75".

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:46 pm

greg wrote:That's what I was afraid of... and that's the bug I've now fixed!
Now, if you have less than 75 when you guess correctly,
you keep the old number... no more "upping to 75".

I just noticed. Now I have 60 points left and an obvious Unity 1 on screen. Maybe I should spend some more points and hope to see which of the three variants it is...

/Magnus

PS, shouldn't it be possible to make one last guess when you've used all points?

Brother J · Post by **Brother J** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:48 pm

what happens if Valiant Free View 2nd print comes up? I don't believe there's any difference between the covers for the two printings.

Valiant OCD · Post by **Valiant OCD** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:50 pm

Pretty cool Greg.

When I tried to use 10 points I once got a "page cannot be found" message. Error #404. (if that helps.)

I aggree with the previous post that if I shell out 25 points I should at least know how many tiles I'll have moved. I mean, as opposed to 10 points. The number of exposed tiles should be proportional to points spent.

Great job though. I teach a class on computer literacy, and there are still some people who do not know how to work a mouse. You, Greg are like a savant .

jordan silo · Post by **jordan silo** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:58 pm

riftt wrote:having to tell between armorines 0, 0 gold and 0 stand alone is pretty shiesty

Wouldn't that be the same problem for Bloodshot #0's Regular, Gold and Platinum editions as well!

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:02 pm

Brother J wrote:what happens if Valiant Free View 2nd print comes up? I don't believe there's any difference between the covers for the two printings.

Ok... I've had Unity 1 come up, and Eternal Warrior 1... bah! :x

So... I'VE NOW REMOVED ALL VARIANTS

Enjoy!

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:06 pm

greg wrote:Enjoy!

I am!

Just tried another thing, just for fun. Refreshing the page after "betting" 5 points will reveal new parts of the cover without using up more points...

/Magnus

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:09 pm

magnusr wrote:Just tried another thing, just for fun. Refreshing the page after "betting" 5 points will reveal new parts of the cover without using up more points...

/Magnus

Just because I said there are multiple ways to cheat doesn't mean
we need to spell them out.

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:16 pm

Valiant OCD wrote:I aggree with the previous post that if I shell out 25 points I should at least know how many tiles I'll have moved. I mean, as opposed to 10 points. The number of exposed tiles should be proportional to points spent.

It is proportional, but it's also still a bit of a gamble... that's part of the fun, right?

If you pay 25 points, you will get about 2.5 times as many tiles
as if you had paid 10 points.

Just think of it this way, if you only get 9 or 10 tiles for 25points,
you would have only gotten 4 if you had paid 10 points that time.

When the odds are against you, they're proportionally against you.

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:33 pm

How about removing one tile at a time, via the cursor, instead of the 'just a bit' option?

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:47 pm

Another suggestion...in the drag down list, have the first one default to blank, instead of A&A #0, because I went to drag down the menu, and hit 'that's my guess' instead....and it certainly wasn't A&A #0.

Orrrrr...move the 'that's my guess' button somewhere away from the drag down.

greg · Post by **greg** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:54 pm

ZephyrWasHOT!! wrote:Another suggestion...in the drag down list, have the first one default to blank, instead of A&A #0, because I went to drag down the menu, and hit 'that's my guess' instead....and it certainly wasn't A&A #0.

Orrrrr...move the 'that's my guess' button somewhere away from the drag down.

::cough, cough:: Just hit the back arrow on your browser for a do-over ::cough, cough::
(..but don't just start cheating, guys!)

Valiant OCD · Post by **Valiant OCD** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 6:08 pm

greg wrote: Just because I said there are multiple ways to cheat doesn't mean
we need to spell them out.

ahem......

mrwoogieman · Post by **mrwoogieman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 7:01 pm

C'mon! Was showing just the back cover to Geomancer #1 really fair?