Psychic Ball

Welcome to the Psychic Ball blog. Psychic Ball is currently under development, but will be hosted at http://www.psychicballgame.com/. This week so far, I've set up the web server, created some proof of concept graphics, and got my domain name up and running. You can see the domain linked up to my web server at the link above. Woooh. *wave hands*

We're looking for contributors from many disciplines. We need programmers, writers, character designers, story writers, game layout and graphic designers. In addition I still want to talk to someone (I'm thinking any psychology student who's done a study) about relevant data to track, what kind of p-value is a good target, stuff like that. Although I can always set it up later, I know I need to decide before hand how much data I'm going to look at.

The reason I'm interested in tracking data so much is, I've seen multiple references which I'd like to site, though I don't know them off hand, (I think there are some in Amit Gaswami's The Self Aware Universe). So, I guess I'll need to offer a one player/one team mode, that you play by yourself, or with multiple people on the same team, and track the results of those random number generators. Then in the versus mode, which is the game I'm really interested, I want to track data to try to show that some players definitely have a stronger ability than other. Unfortunately there is no way to tell whether it is because they always play with two psychics focusing on them winning at a time, or what have you, but it would still be interesting.

The way I want to award points is one thousand random ones and zeros generated. If it is in your favor (more ones for red team, more zeros for blue team) then you get the point. Get four points by two to win a game, and six games by two to win a set. Two out of three sets wins a match. (Sound familiar? It should if you know how to play tennis.)

If a player can consistently get even about .1% in their favor, they would be able to sweep the game, getting almost every point. Particularly in a one team game, when they don't have psychic opposition, if I understand what I have read about some experiments done, and their repeatability, a player should be able to consistently beat the computer. Any player who tries. So, I guess a one player game would be a good place to start experimentation, because it is closer to the reference point I'm coming from.

I guess only time will tell if this is going to be a fun game that also helps people develop their psychic abilities or not. I think I'm going to have fun playing, and that's really the most important thing. I'm so excited to play. Let's see how fast I can get a prototype one player proof of concept up and running, shall we? Oh, and anyone who wants to contribute, comment and let me know how to contact you. I'd love all the help I can get.