FOTB Ash The Bash is doing a charity stream of 500 Questions on Saturday, starting from midday UK, and finally gives us the answer to the question “does slightly rubbish format 500 Questions become better if it actually asks 500 questions?” Needless to say, I’m hoping to become the contestant around Q498.

You’ll be able to catch the action on Ash’s Twitch stream.

The community is hoping to raise money for Save the Children, and you can donate here.

Also of note is that the second series of The Wall starts on Saturday night at 9:15pm, which feels quite late. We discussed series one here.

Alright, some final words on Weakest Link US for now. We’ve already written quite a lot about the theory.

Pros:

• Jane Lynch is good.
• The set’s quite nice.
• Paul Farrer’s updated music is grand.
• I like having the questions on the screen.
• I like that there are picture questions.
• They didn’t “do” immunity. Phew.
• I see what they did with adding the top money from the previous round to the chain for the next round.

Cons:

• The quizzing needs to be speedier. If Anne Robinson was able to get through 25-27 questions in three minutes, you should be doing more than 16 in 2:30.
• The final vote is silly silly silly. The point of having the final round worth more money is to create the incentive to keep strong players on to build the bank, now there is… no incentive. I know they did this on the George Gray one as well, but at least it had the mitigating circumstance of having to wrap up in 22 minutes.
• But this is irrelevant, because Weakest Link where the top prize of a round is $500,000 is absolutely insane. There is no possible route to a chain that doesn’t feel stupid – either your early stages are worth so much you’ll rake it in banking after each question, or worth so little compared to the top prize nobody wins anything because you need to get more right than people probably will to be worth anything. Consider the rule of four, if they did a round like that in the UK, the fourth rung on the ladder would be £100,000, from a £10,000 start. For answering a question!

I think they could absolutely afford to be a bit more generous in the early rounds if they’re going to be a bit less generous in the later rounds. The first two, maybe four rounds should absolutely be played to the Rule of Four (with the reminder that in all versions of UK Link (except the Comic Relief special), by accident or design four questions = 20% of the target), multiples of:

$500 – $1,000 – $2,500 – $5,000 – $7,500 – $12,500 – $17,500 – $25,000

If they must play stupid money than I can accept a slower chain with more interesting gambling opportunities, although I’m still not sure how much I love it:

$5,000 – $10,000 – $25,000 – $50,000 – $100,000 – $200,000 – $350,000 – $500000

We know with the Rule of Four, and on a set chain with a double or triple round at the end, and with a 3:00 starting time, players usually won between 20-30% of the top prize – whatever it might be. With this extremely top heavy game, you’ll probably end up giving away a little bit more (but unlikely to be several hundred thousand dollars more, certainly closer to $100k than $300k) and have a more satisfied, happier audience. Most of the game will still be played on the lower rungs (because as we’ve previously suggested, basic probability suggests getting a large chain is extremely unlikely), at least the decisions are more interesting there.

It’s the hit zeitgeisty game that’s exploded into popularity recently (although it’s actually been out for two years), a crew of people try and fix a spaceship, but one (or two) (or three) people are imposters and must try and kill the crew members without being detected, whether face to face or by politicking their way out of lynch mob ejection votes. Wie is… De Mol?

This was great fun and we’ll probably do more sessions in future – I was thrilled that we had almost a full house. In this video you’ll get everything from my perspective, and my commentary – during the game you’re on mute except for voting discussions so whilst you’re going about your business or are dead you can’t communicate with the others, so they won’t have heard anything I was saying.

The video comes from the perspective of someone who has seen a few vids but hadn’t actually played before. It’s clear that 1 vs 8 is a really difficult situation for the imposter, but 2 vs 7 is much less clear cut. We play five or six games as each one is quite quick, enjoy.

Right, hopefully you’ll see a padlock in the address bar now – I’m due to pay my biennial server fee so thought I’d take the time to sort security and stuff out. Let me know if you have any issues.

Right then Gang, free Sunday night from 9pm UK? I’m hoping to be recording a Bother’s Bar Plays Badly of hit zeitgeist hidden betrayal game Among Us.

We can take up to ten players, we need at least four. You will need:

• A copy of the game – either on Steam (£3.99) or mobile (free).
• Discord, as that’s where we’ll be chatting. Join the Bother’s Bar Group – link on the right.
• A microphone.

This will be open to anyone who turns up, as I always say it’s a privilege not a right so I’ll just kick you if you’re being a nuisance/beating me. As games seem to be quite short we might get a couple in – plan for a 60-90 minute sesh – drop in and out as you please, if more than ten turn up it’ll be fastest finger with the room code. I will mute the server during gameplay and turn it on again for eviction discussion/post game grumbling/whatever. The video will go up the next day.

You don’t need to book a place, just turn up in the Bother’s Bar Among Us Discord voice chat.

If it goes well we’ll probably do a Town of Salem night in the near future (which is literally Werewolf), although probably not until after Bother’s Bar Game Night 20 on Saturday 17th October.

Well THIS might be fun. Requires 8+ people, perhaps we’ll “do” a virtual Bar trip.