There were 22 lyrics in the game, each of which was potentially answered by each of 29 players, 18 of whom used the LiveJournal poll, 10 of whom used the Dreamwidth poll and one of whom used neither. The average lyric was solved correctly slightly under 36% of the time, despite my drive towards easy lyrics. Remember, you earnt points for solving lyrics correctly, points for submitting a lyric that was solved by as close to two-thirds of players as possible (in this case, 2/3 of 29 players, so ideally 19 players) and points for having other players name your lyric as their favourite. In order:
1. that lightning storm, that tidal wave, this avalanche, I'm not afraid was "Imitation of Life" by R.E.M. submitted by
2. Nobody's gonna go to school today/she's gonna make them stay at home was I Don't Like Mondays submitted by
3. He's a liar and I'm not sure about you. was Kirsty MacColl - There's A Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis submitted by
4. Waiting for the moon to come and light me up inside // I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alive was "Daylight Fading" from Recovering the Satellites by Counting Crows submitted by
5. But then she went to Cleveland with some guy named Leland that she met at the bank. was Bowling for Soup, "Ohio (Come Back To Texas)" submitted by
6. I was born to love her / And I will never be free / You'll always be a part of me was "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes submitted by
7. Faith has been broken, tears must be cried, Lets do some living after we die was Wild Horses, The Rolling Stones. submitted by
8. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality. was Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) (and, indeed, pretty much everyone else in the world) submitted by
There now follows an obligatory pause for some headbanging. It's a good poll that has reason to make you headbang.
9. The image has gone, only you and I, it mean's nothing to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! was Ultravox - Vienna submitted by
10. Let's play Twister, let's play Risk. was 'Man On The Moon' - R.E.M. submitted by
11. It took time to understand the man was I Know Him So Well - Elaine Paige and Barbara Dixon submitted by
12. He'll be the man who's already working, spreading a memory all through the sky was In Liverpool - Suzanne vega submitted by
13. Why do birds suddenly appear / Every time you are near was Close to You submitted by
14. Ever since I can remember you've been hanging round this joint was "Dead Ringer for Love" (Meat Loaf) (he supports Hartlepool United, you know) submitted by
15. You better hang on tooth and nail was "New York Minute," Don Henley submitted by
16. Said she, "Able am I, son." was I Palindrome I submitted by
17. You’ve got your career, spent the best part of last year apart. was Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) submitted by
18. guardian angels sang this strain was Rule Britannia submitted by
19. Last night I dreamt of San Pedro, Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song. was La Isla Bonita - Madonna submitted by
20. When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me was Let It Be (The Beatles) submitted by
21. Time goes by so slowly / And time can do so much was "Unchained Melody", The Righteous Brothers submitted by
22. I'm not gonna spend my life being a color was Black or White submitted by me as my own little Michael Jackson tribute. 9 players solved it correctly, 20 players did not. No players named it as their favourite, though it's my favourite of his work.
And that concludes the scoring from the Friends list jury. One interesting conclusion we can draw is a list of (some of) the most famous songs in the world, at least among the self-selecting audience who played in this music quiz:
27/29 - Bohemian Rhapsody
25/29 - Let It Be
24/29 - Close To You
19/29 - Unchained Melody
18/29 - Man On The Moon
17/29 - I Don't Like Mondays
15/29 - La Isla Bonita
13/29 - Vienna
though whether any other audiences would react the same way is another matter. It's also worth noting that, en masse, we like R.E.M., being the only band represented twice and their two songs tying for "most frequently nominated as favourite". And so to the final scores. Here are the top half of finishers:
36 pts. -
30 pts. -
29 pts. -
28 pts. -
24 pts. -
22 pts. -
19 pts. -
16 pts. -
14 pts. -
14 pts. -
14 pts. -
13 pts. -
13 pts. -
12 pts. -
12 pts. -
11 pts. -
11 pts. -
with the remaining seventeen players scoring as follows: 10, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7 (low score among those both setting and solving), 6, 6 ,4, 3, 3 (low score among those setting but not solving), 2, 2 (low score among those solving but not setting) and -991. If you wish to know where you finished among the bottom half of the field, drop me either a comment or an e-mail and I shall reply in kind.
The last-place finisher was me; I scored 0/22 for solving, 9 for setting and -1,000 for running the game. I have deducted an appropriate points from my score for taking so long to produce the results but also for managing to completely lose one lyric submitted by e-mail altogether. Sorry about that, Iain. There are other games I'd like to run on Dreamwidth (and I have free invite codes available if you'd like them!) but should probably wait until I would be capable of providing a somewhat more capable and less shoddy refereeing service.
Many congratulations to
Players' comments on the game would be highly welcome. The level of difficulty of the lyrics was still rather higher than I would like. There are a number of tweaks that could easily be implemented in order to add some easier lyrics to the quiz, but I was deliberately trying to keep the complexity very low in an attempt to try to boost participation. One possible tweak, as someone else has suggested, would be to invite players to submit more than one lyric and adjust the target percentages to incentivise some really easy lyrics. However, 22 lyrics is quite a few already, and may be sufficiently many to turn some would-be solvers off from participation. It may well be that a second game would see players calibrate the difficulty of their lyrics rather closer to the mark.
There are plenty of possible tweaks on the scoring side: one concept I like would be to give each player three Little Helpers, who will automatically answer the lyric they set either correctly or incorrectly in an attempt to push the proportion of correct answers as close to 2/3 as possible. In this case, any lyric answered correctly by 19/29 would get three bonus correct answers and end up at 22/32, which would lead to the best setting score possible; any lyric answered correctly by 20/29 would get two bonus correct answers and one bonus wrong answer to also end up at 22/32; any lyric answered correctly by 21/29 would get one bonus correct answer and two bonus wrong answers to also end up at 22/32; any lyric answered correctly by 22/29 or more would get three bonus wrong answers to push them in the direction of the perfect 22/32. Is this so complicated as to be off-putting, though?
If anyone enjoyed the game sufficiently that they want to run it themselves, feel free. Share, adapt, improve and enjoy.
I hope you enjoyed the game, apologise for the late results and thank you all for playing!
Please redirect any comments here, using OpenID or (identified, ideally) anonymous posting; there are