New: The Numbers Game (free, open-ended, www, computer, modern, abstract)

From: donotreply@pbm.com (PBM List Autoposter)

Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:24:33 +0000

Name:		The Numbers Game
Costs:		Free!
EEmail:		webmaster zat menconi.com
Frequency:		every day (midnight)
URL:		http://www.meissen.org/redwall
Type:		number guessing game
Last-Update:		2007Mar11
Keywords: free, open-ended, www, computer, modern, abstract

Description:

Your goal in The Numbers Game is to guess a number that will be, at the
end of the round, closest to the average* guess of all the players for
that round. You may enter any number between 0 and 999.999. Each player
may only have one guess per round; you may change your guess as often as
you like but only the last guess counts.
*average: the sum of all guesses divided by the number of players who guessed.

Every day at midnight the game calculates the average of all the guesses,
figures out who's guess is closest to that value and awards them the win
for the round.

It probably seems too simple to be worthwhile but, it turns out, there are
trends. If you can predict the trends you can win more often. If several
people figure out the trends then they are all trying to predict how the
fact that other players know the trends will affect the trendes
themselves. Deceptively deep. Yet very simple. (Trip Hawkins used to say
"A game should simple, hot and deep." Two out of three ain't bad... )

The game runs from a web page (http://www.meissen.org/redwall); you need
to register but registration is free.

More information at http://www.meissen.org/redwall/numbersgamerules.html

[ This is a new entry for the PBM List. You can find the list
itself, and instructions for adding games or comments, at
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/ -- greg ]