LittleWyvern.com

Do you watch Survivor or American Idol?
Do you like competing against your friends?
Do you like playing with new technology?

If so, then you should join in the fun and play with us on Google Wave using one of the gadgets that I have written.

What it is

A full breakdown of Google Wave would take way too long – and is available elsewhere – but the ultra-short version is to say that Google Wave is “modern email.” Rather than the conventional email method of passing individual messages between people, Google’s vision of the future involves a single email message (or ‘wave’) with multiple people attached to it. Each person can add to or edit any part of the message at any time and the changes are broadcast to all other users instantly. Basically think of it as a hybrid of traditional email, instant messaging, and a wiki all rolled into one.

Google Wave is not yet publicly available, but a “preview” version exists on an invitation-only basis. You can apply for access here, or else simply let me know and I will get you an invite.

In order to play with us you will need an account.

How my game works

All of us who will be playing all join the same wave, which is basically a single ongoing conversation that will last all season. For instance, all of my friends who watch Survivor join the “Survivor wave” while those who watch American Idol will join an “Idol wave.” Embedded into each wave is a gadget that I have written which allows each of the wave participants to rank each contestant on that show based on the position they think they will finish. Because of the unique capabilities of Google Wave, each of us can update our own rankings at any time, and those changes are instantly viewable by everyone else.

Each week, as one or more contestants are eliminated from the particular show, the gadget is updated and each person scores points based on the accuracy of their projections. At the end of the season, obviously, the person with the most points wins.

Rules and scoring

Eliminations are considered in the order of when they get voted off the show. If multiple people are eliminated in the same episode, finishing order will be the order they are announced. (This may mean some luck/guesswork for early eps of Idol where they eliminate both boys + girls in random order).

Each participant can adjust their own rankings order as much or as often as they like. However, the gadget will automatically lock all rankings at the start of the east coast broadcast of the relevant episode each week. Every episode of Survivor is considered “relevant” whereas only the results episodes of American Idol are important. Basically, the gadget locks for any episode where somebody might get eliminated. I will unlock and update the gadget whenever I watch the episode (almost always that same night, but I am on the west coast so there is a delay).

Whenever a contestant is eliminated from the show they “die” in whichever projected rankings slot each player had them. That slot is then unavailable for the rest of the season. This means that if your projected winner gets eliminated in Week 1, then you will not be able to move anyone else into your First Place slot. Worst case scenario, when it gets down to the finals for American Idol you may only be able to put the two finalists in your 23rd and 24th place slots… which sucks for you because you will only get the minimum number of points for those two contestants. Consequently, at any point during the season two people may have identical scores but one player may have a much higher potential score because he still has his top slots open whereas the other player’s may already have been used up.

For each show contestant that gets eliminated, each player is awarded a variable number of points based on where the player had projected them to finish. Naturally, players are awarded more points the closer their predictions are to the actual results.

Specifically, the formula for assigning points per elimination is as follows:

score = (T – abs(Projected Finish – Actual Finish)) * weight

where T is the total number of contestants on the show (on Survivor T=20, on Idol T=24). The “abs” means absolute value so you take the same penalty for being too high as for being too low in your projection.

The weight is calculated as follows:

weight = (T – Actual Finish + 1)

This means that you earn a lot more points for correctly predicting the overall winner than for predicting last place. We tried to make the scaling fair, though. Unlike your March Madness bracket you don’t need to correctly pick the top spot in order to win (although it definitely helps).

The easy way to think of this is that, assuming there are 20 contestants, correctly picking 20th place is worth 20 points. Correctly picking 19th place is worth 40 points (20 x 2). 18th is worth 60 points (20 x 3)… and so on. The first place projection is worth a maximum of 400 points (20 x 20).

Credit to Lukas for helping me determine this scoring system.

Want to play with us?

It’s all for fun (prizes anyone?), but you need a Wave account to join in the party. Fortunately, getting an account is free and relatively easy.

If you already have a Wave account just send me a message at littlewyvern@googlewave.com and I will add you to our waves.

If you need an invite to Google Wave either leave a comment here with your email address, or send me an email at littlewyvern@gmail.com