Test of the Pulse of the People

Amunet

Pulse of the People

Discipline
Thought
Requirements
Level 22 Principles of Thought
Principles
Build a Pulse of the People Write the Survey Mode Introduction Write the Play Mode Introduction Write Seven Surveys, Review and Open Answer Surveys at three Pulse of the People (Not your own) Have Fourty-Nine people answer each of your Surveys Have Seven Judges play and rate your Pulse of the People Design rated Good by most judges All of the above, OR score 21+ on three recent winning Pulse
Demonstrated by Rabble in Saqqarah on 2009-05-17.

Overview

This test requires that one build a structure called a "Pulse of the People", at which you design a survey. There are two phases to the game: the survey mode, then the actual game. During the survey phase, people give answers to the survey question and receive a Pulse of the People Token as reward. Once the survey phase is complete, the designer examines the responses, consolidates the answers and opens the game phase. Playing the game costs one Pulse Token and people have to attempt to guess the most popular answer to each question (getting more points for more popular answers).

Once someone has played through the game phase, they can judge the Pulse as with other Thought Tests. Once the minimum number of judges is reached (21?), the Pulse will be eligible for passing. Passing occurs once a week, with the highest scoring Pulse passing.

Building Cost

Building cost (compound based, 35x203):

• 300 White pliable boards
• 1000 White raeli tiles
• 1000 Black raeli tiles
• 150 Green paint
• 100 Blue paint
• 50 Purple paint
• 100 Gold Wire
• 2 Silk Cloth
• 300 Papyrus Paper
• 200 Ink

How It Works

The designer first enters 7 questions, then reviews and opens the survey. Teppy stated that a good example of a question would be "What is the hardest mushroom to eat fresh from the earth?" whereas a bad question would be "How many points does one start tug with?" He means that questions where an answer that can be simply looked up on the wiki are less interesting than ones that involves some knowledge of the world or an opinion of the player. In other words, questions that don't have definitive, factual answers.

The questions will appear in a random order to every player, keep that in mind when designing your survey. Also, the game box does not display questions longer than the length of the input box, and is not likely to. Teppy said it would take several days to code, and he doesn't want people to use long questions anyway. Keep your questions short.

At least 50 people must then fill out the survey before the game becomes playable. The designer is able to link answers that refer to the same thing e.g. "DP" and "demi pharaoh" and "demi-pharaoh", would be linked so that the survey records 3 answers for "demi pharaoh", or whichever version the designer chooses. These are known as synonyms, which can be matched during the game. The designer can also delete questions which are not 'going well' and add new ones. In order to open the game, all active questions must have 50 answers.

The player doesn't judge when answering the survey, but does get a "Pulse of the People Token," which is used to play other Pulses of the People later. The tokens are portable items and you can use any token to play any pulse.

The game itself will be a bit like "Family Fortunes" (UK), or "Family Feud" (US). The idea is to try and guess the most popular answers to each question. The more popular the answer, the more points you get. After a certain number of wrong guesses, you go onto the next question.

Design Interface

A designer has access to the following options on the Pulse of the People:

• Enter the Intro Text (Play Mode)
• Enter the Intro Text (Survey Mode)
• Set Allowed Misses...
• Surveys...

The first two options are self-explanatory; they set the initial message that players or survey respondents will see.

Allowed misses may be set to none, one, two, or three. If the setting is none, players get only one chance to answer each question--after that answer, right or wrong, they go on to the next question. If the setting is one, two, or three, players may continue to make guesses until they make that number of incorrect guesses.

Warning: If you set the number to 2, the pulse will move to the next question as soon as the player has made 2 incorrect guesses. Many pulse designers get this one wrong.

The "Surveys" menu has one entry for each of the seven survey questions. Initially, these options will allow you to create survey questions. Once created, each entry has the following options:

• Delete this whole survey
• Delete Responses...
• Add Synonym...
• Review Synonyms
• Format Master Answer...
• Fuse Responses...

A survey consists of a set of "master response" each containing a set of "synonyms". The master response is the name for a given response, and the synonyms are the words that a player can type in to select that response. Consider the following example "review synonyms" report:

Synonyms report for What are you wearing?:

Master Response: hat(28)
   hat
Master Response: haat(1)
   haat
Master Response: kilt(10)
   kilt
Master Response: skirt(10)
   skirt
Master response: sheep(1)
   sheep

Whenever someone gives a new answer to a survey, a new master response is created and assigned a single synonym (itself).

Delete this whole survey will remove that survey question from the pulse entirely.

Delete responses... may be used to remove a master response. For example, you could delete the "sheep" response from the above example, on the grounds that it's too random for anyone to guess.

Add synonym... will add a new synonym to a master response. For example, you could add "cap" as a synonym for the "hat" master response above, meaning that a player may type either "cap" or "hat" to select that response.

Format master answer... changes how the master answer appears to players.

Fuse responses... combines two master responses into one. First select the master response you want to keep from the sub-menu. A pop-up window will ask you to pick the response you want to fuse to the selected one. The fused response's synonyms and vote total will be added to the first response. Remember, pick the response you want to keep first.

Note that once a Pulse has been opened, the design cannot be modified without developer intervention. Make absolutely certain you have your design in the state you want before you open the game!

Demonstrating the Principle

• 1 White Pliable Boards (Missing)
• 1 White Raeli Tiles (Missing)
• 1 Black Raeli Tiles (Missing)
• 1 Green Paint (Missing)
• 1 Blue Paint (Missing)
• 1 Purple Paint (Missing)
• 1 Silk Cloth (Missing)
• 1 Gold Wire (Missing)
• 1 Papyrus Paper (Missing)
• 1 Ink (Missing)

Pulse of the People Locations

Please add your Pulse to the map and the table below. For clarity, please use a (RdS) symbol for a Pulse in Survey mode, a (GrP) symbol for a Pulse in Play mode, and a (BlP) symbol for a Pulse that has passed.

Region	Coordinates	Designer	Survey/Play/Passed	Remarks	RL Date opened
Taygete	876, 6106	Krae	Play	Thought Complex, North of CS	27 Oct.
Taygete	876, 6107	Skyfeather	Play	Thought Complex, North of CS	28 Oct.
Celaeno	-1709, 816	dyant	Survey	GRAMMATICA SMASH	October 30.
Celaeno	-1709, 818	Nchanter	Survey	Trees!	Nov. 2nd.

Passes

See Test Pass History.