Bloup!

August 23, 2015 11:36 AM

A new mini-game from Tigrounette (Area801). The objective is to get to the flag. The Master will help some of you or kill you.
posted by what's her name (23 comments total)

So far I have learned

- life is cruel
- that's not a wall on the left
posted by cardioid at 11:56 AM on August 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

Players rotate through being able to make lines. All blobs try to reach the flag, the "master" tries to make half of them (shown to the master as red blobs) fail.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 12:01 PM on August 23, 2015

This seems to be a lot like Transformice.
posted by neckro23 at 12:03 PM on August 23, 2015

It's made by the same person.
posted by dilaudid at 12:07 PM on August 23, 2015

I think about half the people I'm playing with had the same idea about strategic suicide within moments of each other.
posted by box at 12:28 PM on August 23, 2015

I became A Master and truly understood. To help is to kill, to kill is to help. And now I can only tally as I send countless Blues and Reds to their deaths for I am Master and my justice terrible and blind. Stay forever together.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:42 PM on August 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

I only noticed I was A Master after I had wreaked rather thorough destruction by doing Nothing At All.
posted by nat at 12:52 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

Uh, I learnt to pay super attention to the tiny pale writing because I became master on my second go, didn't realise it had happened, and totally wasted my opportunity. How frustrating.
posted by AFII at 12:53 PM on August 23, 2015

well, that was no fun.
posted by sutt at 12:56 PM on August 23, 2015

Nope. No fun.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:35 PM on August 23, 2015

But who takes care of the place while the Master's away?
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:33 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just keep your knees in your pants there, Torgo.
posted by Reverend John at 7:27 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

Transformice 2: Transforacist.
posted by BiggerJ at 7:57 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did we all play the same game? I thought that was great!
posted by books for weapons at 8:36 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

The game goes much quicker when you realize that if you're part of the set that is red to the master, kill yourself and help everyone.

There's a message in here about rebelling but I'm not gonna read too much into it.

Also my group of 3 just now started scribbling quick messages with the lines to the others when we're the master and I felt immediate kinship to Yang and mrg
posted by numaner at 9:54 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is super, super fun and multi-layered!

I also didn't fully appreciate that the scoring total is for everyone and not just the Master, and so there is no point (at least, none rewarded by the game) in rebelling if you realize you're on the "doomed" team, sooooo, sorry about being a dick, guys. I actually think a version with competing objectives would be fun also because there is definitely some strategy there too, but anyway, I'll try to be more sporting in the future.

Also surprisingly few people drew dicks on their turn!
posted by en forme de poire at 10:38 PM on August 23, 2015

In what sense is the scoring total "for everyone and not just the Master"?

Did I miss some feature where your score accumulates, or otherwise has any effect whatsoever after a single round, whether you're the master or not?

As far as I can tell the score is strictly for the Master, and there's every point in rebelling by trying to make the flag even if you're on the "doomed" team.
posted by Reverend John at 10:57 PM on August 23, 2015

That's what I thought initially, but to turn that around, the only reward you get for not complying is seeing the score ticker go down -- there's also no feature where you get points for getting to the flag regardless of which team you're on. Since there's only one score shown, it's at least as natural to view the game as collaborative.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:07 PM on August 23, 2015

I suppose there is no clear "meaning" for the score. However, by that same token you might well ask what meaning there is in any of the roles, master, favored block, or doomed block.

Personally I find it most "fun" as a "doomed" block to try to make for the flag against the master's efforts, and also to further frustrate the master (and help my goals) by shadowing a favored block, forcing the master to try to separate us.

Furthermore, as a couple of upstream commenters have suggested, this game has some overtones of bigotry built into its mechanics. It seems fun to me to play against that, seeking to "win" as a doomed block, playing with solidarity to the others when I'm a favored block by lagging near to prevent separation but slightly "behind" them so that the master has to leave a pathway for them if he wants there to be a pathway for me, and giving a clear and easy pathway for all blocks when my turn to be master comes.

A few times as master I've also set up the situation where no blocks can make the goal, but have to be content to bounce around, which I also consider part of the fun of the game when I'm a block.
posted by Reverend John at 11:30 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think you can also think of the Master and the blocks as members of a single team that requires that some to sacrifice themselves in order to achieve a certain goal -- sort of like Lemmings if the lemmings were player characters. Of course the fact that the Lemmings are PCs makes the game more layered and interesting because you don't necessarily have to play along, so a lot of different dynamics are possible. The analogy to bigotry is interesting but I think it's also sort of undermined by the fact that the roles are so plastic from round to round -- I think that parallel would be stronger if for example, being disfavored in one round meant that you were less likely to become favored or to become the Master.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:58 PM on August 23, 2015

I guess you're all getting into better groups than me. There's basically three camps: not paying attention so nothing gets drawn, scribbling random crap furiously all over the place, or silly drawings of boats or smiling faces. Sometimes these doodles accidentally permit some players to reach the flag, but it's entirely been random.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:16 AM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

This game would be a lot of fun if you could set up closed sessions and curate who you played with.

As it stands...
posted by rollbiz at 12:31 PM on August 24, 2015

I ended up in a room with only me -- I was the only player and I was the master. Instruction: kill red players, save others. I was red.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
posted by cubby at 7:25 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]