

Ask HN:  How to build an app/service that makes all users feel equally smart? - amichail

This is a particularly important issue with games since games of skill generally reward people with higher IQ.  This is even true with games where reaction time is important.<p>But a game would sell more if everyone were to feel equally smart playing it.<p>I've been thinking of building a game that tests how random you are.  I think this game of skill might be one where smarter people don't have an advantage.<p>Any other ideas (not necessarily games) in this regard?
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_pius
Family Feud specifically tries to reward regression to the mean. But smart
people still have an advantage, I'd imagine.

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icey
What about dynamic handicapping? In other words, the better you do, the harder
the game gets / the worse you do, the easier it gets.

I'll paypal you five dollars if you name your protagonist Harrison Bergeron.

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inerte
How do you reward random difficulty?

People play games because it reward them. The learning process, the
milestones, the journey.

Let's take your idea of randomness and apply to a genre, space combat. Let's
say most people are conditioned to think, if they see ShipA bigger than ShipB,
that ShipA is slower, and it's harder to kill. Now let's apply "randomness",
and now the size of the ship isn't related to its speed, offensive, or
defensive power.

How do you think a player would react if he can't make a choice to overcome
the problem? Does he approach the ship as if it had a lot of hitpoints, does
he circle-strafe, does he shoot and roll?

What I am trying to say is that a random set of conditions doesn't allow the
player to feel more prepared for the next problem. If you can't reward the
player, you don't have a game.

Also, Wikipedia and the dictionary mention many times the necessity of having
rules for a "game".

So let's scrap the idea of removing skills in games.

What rewards skilled and non-skilled, smart and dumb players in the same
amount? Gambling. More specifically, gambling where the outcome is truly (at
least more) random, like Lottery, as opposed to blackjack (where at least
there's some strategy involved in not-losing everything so fast).

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radu_floricica
So and so. At least part of some game's appeal is an element of random - too
lazy to look for the source, but it creates an amount of addiction.

Take WoW. Yes, there is a lot of skill involved, but in a way it's exactly
what the OP wants: no matter if your skill improves or not, the game makes
sure you'll go ahead. All it matters is you put in the hours, and there will
be progress.

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brk
So, does being "more random" equate to winning or, losing? What would be the
point of playing such a game? It seems that most games ARE geared towards
people with more thinking/reasoning ability in some portion of their brain.
They appeal to our competitive instincts.

A simple game as you describe, setup just so that everyone can feel equal,
sounds like it would be very boring and unengaging to me.

This board game was designed so that it was fair and engaging overall across
players of different ages and abilities. I still think that someone who was
particularly daft would not find themselves any more successful at this game
though...
[http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/magazine/17-04/mf_...](http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/magazine/17-04/mf_settlers)

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TallGuyShort
>> I've been thinking of building a game that tests how random you are. I
think this game of skill might be one where smarter people don't have an
advantage.

How do you plan on testing how random someone is? What if they randomly choose
to give you the Fibonacci series? Or are you going to reward the complete lack
of patterns and structure? In which case, I think the only people who enjoy
that are people who are already familiar with a number of types of numerical
patterns.

Honestly, I don't see this being any different than a game of complete chance,
or rewarding various IQs equally.

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khafra
The main problem is that rational agents should win. People with higher IQs
are more likely to know the ways humans typically fail in attempting to
generate random sequences. Testing for randomness would be a simple matter of
computing the kolmogorov complexity of the total input, each time the score is
recalculated.

Game speed may suffer.

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synnik
Your logic is flawed.

Games based on reaction time do not reward higher IQ. Both reaction time and
higher IQ are a product of faster brain chemistry.

What you are really asking is for a way to take biology out of the equation,
and just let people be completely random.

I think you are trying to virtualize rolling dice. Issues with random number
generators aside, the question isn't how to write the game... the question is
why would someone play it?

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chaosprophet
I would agree with that. As an avid gamer, I don't see the point why anyone
would play a game where everyone is equal. You get to progress in the game
only because you are better than the others. A game where everyone is equal
and reaction time and skill doesnt matter, results in everybody progressing at
the same speed which makes it boring. This is sort of reminiscent of the good
ol' MUDs. The only people interested in such a game would be casual gamers,
and even they would tend to get bored quickly.

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10ren
A bit tangential, but there's the idea of aiming at average - as in the
"Family Feud" TV game-show, where you have to predict the most popular
responses to a survey.

Another approach is to reward the user at every possible moment: the casual
game "Peggle" has been immensely popular (because of this, I think). There's
still the same information feedback, but presented in an upbeat way. I'm
charmed by it despite myself.

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olefoo
You could defuse the competitive aspects of the game. Or minimize them.

I actually think you are approaching the question from the wrong (and
inherently patronizing :-/ direction).

What you should be asking is "How do I maximise fun regardless of skill
level?".

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noodle
doesn't sound dissimilar to my favorite MZORPG

<http://www.progressquest.com/>

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_pius
What does it mean to be "random?"

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amichail
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_randomness>

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_pius
Um, no.

It has no meaning whatsoever for me to point at you, a number, a tree, a book
and say "You are random." What trait are you measuring? What's the context?

Or, if you want to be pedantic, what relation would you use to order a group
of people by their respective "randomness?"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_order>

~~~
amichail
As an example, such a game might ask you to tap an iPhone screen 100 times in
a minute and then use statistical tests to determine how random those 100
locations are.

