HAPPT 4TH OF JULY! And a game for us.

[Mark Wagner]

Way back in TAC's early days we played a game by e-mail that seemed quite popular. One person ran the game and would give a clue, then anyone on the mailing list could participate by pick a square from a grid hosted on a web-page. Each square hid part of a deep sky image/object,  The person who picked the square, and seeing what was behind it could then guess. The guesser would be the first person to reply (time stamped email). If wrong it would be announced as such and we'd continue until someone got it right.  It was long ago, so maybe this description is not 100%, but you get the idea.

It was one a one person management game - which became to much work. But it was mostly fun.

I'd like to suggest another game variant:

1. A person would be the "picker" (I'd start it) tasked with posting The Game Clue to the mailing list. ("The Game Clue" is the subject line, allowing filtering out anyone uninterested).
2. The picker thinks up and posts The Game Clue (but does not reveal) an astronomy related item, IE: astronomical object, constellation or tool (just as examples). And can also state the item's category.
3. People can start guessing, or asking questions, like the well known game "20 questions" (not limiting the number of questions though) those choosing to play can mail in a question to help identify the answer.
4. Anyone subscribed to TAC's mailing list can play/question/guess.
5. The individual who guesses correctly is the next "picker".  This alleviates the task being given to one individual and easier to continue weekly.

One aspect of this game is it provides topics of conversation for the mailing list - something like DeepSky Forum's Object Of The Week could.  It also varies what we read and discuss.  In other words, even after guessing correctly the thing can be explored/discussed on-list.

Here's an example of a picker's item clue:

This is 4th of July.  What astronomical object might be most appropriate to view tonight?  Someone surely would guess NGC 6946 - some discussion/facts like "why?" afterwards could be interesting.

This is a quick thought idea and could require refining first. Simple enough? Interested? Ideas? Rules - maybe a picker can't win the next game?  That spreads the wealth - keeping astro animals from winning them all ;-)

Maybe we set a weekly starting day/time like weekends Saturday morning?

Think I'll send another email so we can try this, with The Game Clue for a very simple constellation.

-- 
Mark