We’re gearing up for another office game of NP. So that we can set up password-protected games which are only open to members of our team, my account’s got a Premium membership.
We all play using cryptic nicknames, so last time, in order to hide this membership from everyone else (so I didn’t give myself away immediately!), I set the game to Extra Anonymity. But that meant nobody got to see who was who at the end of it.
Thought I’d put in a feature request for a setting in the middle, where during the game this kind of information’s hidden, but once it’s finished, everything (including memberships, real names, etc.) becomes available to see as usual.
Sorry to bump an older thread, but I actually really like this idea. It would promote betrayals and new relationships in game, but you still get to reward with renown points and badges at the end.
Suddenly remembered: now that we’ve finished the office game I mentioned above (24 players, Extra Anonymity, cryptic nicknames all round, played about once a year), I’ve got two more suggestions to help preserve everyone’s anonymity, during games like ours where everyone knows each other in real life.
Premium avatars
We had 12 Neptune’s Pride newbies and 12 who’ve played it before - and out of those, a handful who’ve paid for a Premium membership. One of those players chose a Premium avatar, which for those of us who spotted it, narrowed down their identity to a small shortlist within the first minutes of the game.
Perhaps in password-protected games, there could be an alert when you choose a Premium avatar warning that it might be a clue as to your identity? Or an option to allow everyone access to the same avatars, i.e. either everyone has access to the Premium ones, or nobody does.
Web inspector
Also, we work for a tech company, which means that most times we play NP, at least one player who’s a developer will try giving the game a bit of a poke. This time round, I found out after we finished that a group of devs had worked out my identity on Day 1, by examining their browser web inspector to see that (I’m paraphrasing) my player ID had an admin tag, or something like that.
Admittedly, I’m sure playing with a bunch of people you know, some of whom have the know-how to get around Extra Anonymity for the game’s admin, is a real niche case! But thought I’d flag it, too.
I think that admin tag might refer to the “Premium custom game creator” who also has administrator powers on the OPTIONS screen, shortcut key “O”. That could be an interesting problem for Jay to work on.
