The following aspects of gameplay can be modified via Advanced Options when starting a game. Note that any subsequent games you start will inherit the options of the previous game unless you change them.
- Win Condition
- The number of cards a player must have guessed correctly in order to win a game. You may select “None (Owner Decides)” to manually end the game when desired.
- Card Limit per Turn
- By default, players are allowed to guess as many cards as they’d like until they get one wrong or end their turn. This is called “streak” play; it’s entirely up to the player how many cards they want to go for, but they lose all the cards they guessed correctly that turn the moment they get one wrong. If you choose a specific card limit, a player’s turn will end if and when they reach that number of cards for that turn. This may be helpful in cases where you want to level the playing field for players of differing abilities so that one player can’t win the game in very few turns, thereby not really allowing any other players to have many turns before the game is over.
- Player Turn Order
- Players appear in the players list in the order in which they joined the room. Sequential turn order is where players take turns in the order in which they are on the players list. Snake turn order is where players take turns sequentially the first round, then in reverse order the second round, and so on. Players take their turns in a randomized order each round when the Random turn order option is selected.
- Clue Difficulty
- Chrologony determines the difficulty of a clue by calculating the historical average correct guesses for the clue. If the clue is guessed correctly 2/3 or more of the time, it’s considered easy. If a clue is guessed correctly only 1/3 or less of the time, it’s considered hard. If the clue is guessed correctly between 1/3 and 2/3 of the time, it’s medium difficulty. You may restrict the difficulty of cards drawn in a game to only the difficulty levels you choose.
- Clue Score Threshold
- A clue’s score is the sum of all its upvotes and downvotes. During the course of gameplay, all players may upvote or downvote a clue once it’s been guessed. Therefore, the overall quality score of a clue is crowd-sourced by the community. You may change the minimum score threshold for a game so that only high quality clues are used. Just be careful not to set it to high, or there may not be enough clues to guess!
- Card Guess Time Limit
- For an added challenge, you can limit the time a player can take to submit their guess. The timer will start again once a new card is drawn. If a player doesn’t submit their guess before the timer expires, the player forfeits their turn, and all cards guessed correctly are lost.
- Player Limit
- The maximum number of players that can join the game. Games that are full will not appear in the lobby. The default limit is 8, but you can set it to 1 (solo), 2, 4, 16, 24, or unlimited.
- Guess Datetime Precision
- Guess precision refers to the specificity by which clues dates and times are compared with one another. When a player submits their guess, the system will determine whether the guess is correct based on whether it is in the correct spot on their timeline. Cards that have equivalent dates can be placed on either side of one another and still be considered correct. The greater the timespan the clues in a category encompass, the less accurate the dates for events that occurred in the distant past, the less precise you should make the date and time comparisons. This option can also be used to adjust the difficulty level of the game based on the abilities of the players. For example, you could play a game using an American history category where players only need to know the correct decade. Note that this option is automatically set to the precision setting of the category selected, but it can be subsequently changed.
- Display Datetime Precision
- Display precision refers only to how the event date and time is displayed on a card that has already been guessed. This has no gameplay consequence other than this formatting. Note that this option is automatically set to the precision setting of the category selected, but it can be subsequently changed.
- Equal # Turns per Player
- Toggling this on will force the game not to end until all players have had an equal number of turns. When enabled this creates an interesting dynamic toward the end of the game. Even if a player satisfies the win condition first, other players may still win the game by guessing more cards than the player who first achieved the win condition if they do so during the last round of the game.
- Prevent Joins After Start
- Toggling this will disallow players from joining the game after it has started. Chrologony automatically enforces players to have an equal number of turns (except for the last round, unless the Equal # Turns per Player option is enabled) — so it’s really not a problem for players to join after the game starts. Still, you may not want a lot of new players joining after the game starts and prolonging it. This option prevents that from happening.
- Show Hints
- Hints may be added to clues by the clue owner. You may toggle this option on to present the player with hints, where available. Just remember that hints must have been entered for the clue in order for them to be seen by a player. It probably only makes sense to use this option if you know that all the clues in the category have a hint.
- Auto-Proceed on Correct Guess
- Check this to automatically draw a new card each time a player guesses correctly. This option will also automatically end the player’s turn if the player has reached the turn card limit. This option is especially useful in single player games, or when you want to keep the game moving quickly. It also forces each player to draw the maximum allowed cards per turn, so playing it safe is not possible.
- Automatically Show More Info
- Chrologony supports adding additional background information that can be displayed after a card has been guessed. Enabling this option automatically pops up a modal with this information (where available) after a card has been guessed instead of players having to manually click to see it.
- Recycle Incorrect Cards
- By default, any card that is drawn will not appear again in a given game. However, toggling this option will allow any incorrectly guessed card to be placed back into the pool of possible cards that could be drawn.