I Looked there but did not see it listed there but will look again THANK YOU.

I've gone over that list about 15 times now that badge for 100 mini-games is just not there.

The badge just is not there.

It's called Challenge Mastery and it's in the 'Level Specific' Section. However, I've just noticed that you are on Level 144 and you need to be on Level 150 to claim the badge, so that's probably why you can't access it yet.

Well I Guess 6 levels left to go Thanks for the help I looked but never found it have a good day.

Wowie zowie, what the heck are all these badges?

I come back from being absent and I got a mailbox full of badges, badges, and more badges. And tiers! This is great! I am so delighted! Thank you Terry and Wes and whoever else is responsible! You folks are the best!


EDIT: Obviously I need to go back and read this thread as it all looks very complicated, and I have no idea what is going on, but I am still ecstatic!

Is it feasible to add tiers to the mini-challenge "Master Masher?"

Most likely it is, although I'd have to carefully check the numbers on that one since increased competition from people who are looking for tiers (which would then require higher win counts than 30) would most likely make this a lot harder to get.

With tiers, this might have to be something like 15-25-35-45-55-65-75: a lower number to start on but harder on the high end.

We would also have to think about how to process the reset between tiers so that you can't just waltz through the entire pyramid at once. That might require a change on how scores are stored (an award would have to remove the old scores from consideration, but not prevent you from regaining the category with a new game.)

Thanks, Wes. I was wondering because it started so high (at 30). Hadn't even thought of resets to keep old scores from going forward. Maybe something like the 24 Hours Of __ where a new tier wipes out the current count. Sounds like it might be more complicated though.

The problem is that this badgelet doesn't just work off an individual's record. It looks at all categories and checks which mashes you are currently leading for (you might gain a category credit if another player's higher score falls off).

A clean way of making sure those older scores don't count isn't straightforward.

By the way - whether a particular badge or badgelet already has upgrades is no indication of plans. The long term plan is that EVERYTHING that has a sensible upgrade path gets one. The order in which they are being done is mostly determined by balance - each main wave wants to have something for every style of play.

Got it, thanks, Wes.

Meanwhile, looks like we have a lot of goodies to look forward to over the long term. Yay!

I don't know how easy it would be to program, but what if there was something in place so that whenever someone won the Mash badge or an upgrade, the username for all of their current mash scores is changed to MASHWINNER. Then, any new ones, including ones already won previously, can go under their own name.

Good idea but slight problem with that (apart from it messing with the lists) - they would then have to beat their previous win to reclaim the category, not merely everyone else. Which is not the intention - if the strongest opponent is 878, you shouldn't have to beat your own, older, 993. An 879 should put you back in the lead as long as it was played after tiering up. Of course that 993 still needs to stay for everyone else until it naturally falls off.

Essentially the check would have to be "You have posted a score since your last upgrade and it does beat every other score except your own older ones". Which is a bit convoluted.

An idea for a trivia game:

Since Terry is wanting to increase the appeal of the site to kids in school, I noticed we really don't have any math quiz games.

What about an arithmetic fill in the blank game? (Multiple choice is not ideal for mathematics)

Keep it all whole numbers.
Only addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
All answers should be solvable without a calculator.
Divisions could be set up like other games so faster players get grouped together and slower players have a chance against other slower players.

Alternative games could be done with algebra, geometry or calculus but I suspect the coding would be much tougher for those.

Just an idea.

On the lighter side, that had me thinking that there should be another crystal ball type of game: "I'm thinking of a number in my head!"

Math FITB could actually be an interesting concept, especially if the divisions also determine the difficulty of the tasks. Low divisions could be just basic arithmetic with a limited number space while higher ones could expand the number space (multiplication up to 99x99 and addition/subtraction with 3-4 digits) and include a few other tasks such as square roots and easy factorizations.

The question is - would this be something people would actually play for fun in sufficient numbers? It does have some overlap with trivia in being a mental exercise, but it's also very different in skill set and tone.

I think there would definitely be interest from those who enjoy using their mathematical abilities. No doubt it would also be nauseating for those who have their strength firmly in the humanities. Not all games are for everyone here.

Many of the FT players use the site to test their mental acuity. Math is a great way to keep the brain nimble. As for "trivia", two of our biggest games revolve around vocabulary which is not really trivia but they are definitely fun. Sites like Luminocity use quick math to sharpen the brain.

As tempting as it would be to make math questions more difficult like 99X99 for the more skilled players, I think you would want to not have questions that would be quicker for an expert to answer with a calculator. So an expert should be able to answer a question within 2 seconds.

There is a sweet spot between 3 + 2 and 94 X 86.

Such as...

31 X 11
153 + 22
62 - 39

Many here could answer the above equations quicker by mind than by typing it into a calculator.

I would think this should be a quick game for the fastest. In grade school, we used to have to answer 100 in 5 minutes. So it seems reasonable that a quick player could answer 30 questions in under a minute or 50 in 2 minutes.

It could be called "Go Figure!" with the "Human Calculator" badge!

Agree, it has to be at a level which is quicker for someone who is good at mental arithmetic rather than using a calculator. Otherwise there doesn't seem to be much point in doing it.

I think it could be fun. Are there enough suitable questions, or will we need to create some more?

Regarding this discussion of mental math, since I was a kid (here in Texas), there have been spring academic competitions for junior high and high school students both in the public schools with UIL (University Interscholastic League) and private schools with TAPPS (Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools) involving a wide variety of academic areas, but, to focus on mental math, both leagues had a competion called "Number Sense". Now, in its original form it would not be translatable to FunTrivia, but with some modifications, it might be interesting. Let me describe it in its original form. It was a test that had 80 questions and was timed over a 10 minute period. The scoring was +5 points for correct answers, and -4 points for incorrect answers. Now the interesting thing was, up to the last attempted question, any question skipped was counted as *wrong* (-4 points). All questions after the last attempted question were ignored in the scoring. Furthermore, no calculator was allowed, no scrap paper could be used, and nothing could be written on the answer sheet *except* the answer. In fact, you were forced to write answers in blue pen and any attempt to erase, scratch out, or change your answer or write any stray marks resulted in the question being counted *wrong*. Now what this did is:

A) it forced people to use mental math, and
B) it put a premium on doing the questions in order because skipped questions were counted wrong, so you basically wouldn't skip a question unless the very next question could be solved and you certainly didn't skip multiple questions looking for the easy ones.

As a result, very few people (true math geniuses) did all 80 questions. I advanced to the state UIL Number Sense competition my senior year in high school and, even then, only did a little less than 30 of the 80 questions.

Now, obviously, in the form described, this format wouldn't work for FT. But, let me describe the *nature* of the math questions on the test: they were in different branches of mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, precalculus, probability, and calculus) but they all emphasized knowing a few "tricks of the trade". Let me give a few examples to illustrate:

55×55

Two digit squares ending with 5 always end with 25. The first digits can be found by using n(n+1). In this case n is 5, so we have 5×6=30, so the answer is 3025, easy to do if you know the trick

47×53

Here if you remember the formula a^2 - b^2 = (a+b)(a-b) and recognize that this problem is of this type, then you see a=50 and b=3, so the answer is 50^2 - 3^2 or 2500-9 or 2491, which is easy enough to do in your head

Derivative of 5x^2 + 7x - 4

Basic calculus knowledge gives a quick and easy 10x + 7


Now all the questions were chosen so that if you knew the "trick", you could do the problem mentally fairly quickly.

I think this sort of thing could be adapted to FT. You would have to make the questions multiple choice rather than fill in the blank, and adjust the scoring to something timed, and dramatically reduce the number of questions, but by carefully choosing the questions, I think you definitely could have a very interesting contest of mental mathematics. I only listed three examples, but I know hundreds of different types of problems that utilize mental math "tricks".

I can't think of anything that I would enjoy less than what has just been described. My head hurts just reading that last post I know others might well love it though, just thought I'd add my two cents worth.

Then be grateful it isn't compulsory ! I've always enjoyed that first trick of the trade and it came in very handy once in my career.

Some Thanksgiving Changes & Bug Fixes:

- Who's the Expert now determines divisions based on the number of topics you have won in previous games. We are always looking to make sure that our games are competitive, fun for newer players, and a challenge for the stronger players. This change should help us on all counts, as "player level" was not the best determinant of ability for this game. The Championship division (players who have already won the current topic) remains unchanged.

- Smartest, TFA, and Intro game badges that require "at least 80 players" to win now count "guest" plays in that 80 number.

- A few challenges which were labelled "granted instantly" have been changed to "awarded every 12 hours" to reflect their reality.

- Verification step added to the deletion of replies on team boards by team leaders. The same is coming shortly to chat boards.

- "Biggest Fan" players-with-200-quizzes-online list now refreshes automatically every 30 days.

Thank you for all of these tweaks.
I'm especially grateful for the verification step for deletion of posts.

Terry -

Thanks for these important fixes to the Expert Game, including the Gold Member ability to see whether one has won the game in the past. (It would be nice if that status were displayed on the front page with an icon like a crown if you're an expert, two crowns if you've won in champion, similar to the reminder for KO that you have a game to play.)

There is a bug with the available topics for Expert Game. Nearly 150 of the 620+ topics in play are not available to be chosen through the perk "Change the Future", making them much less likely to be seen (only the system can choose them). Ideally each topic should have an equal chance of appearing/being chosen. Worse, some important broad topics such as Rock and Roll, Art, Europe [Geography], and Baseball are never chosen by the system, and I've been tracking for over a year now. Feel free to contact me privately if you want the gory details.