agonistics: a language game

w a r r e n   s a c k   <wsack@media.mit.edu>

• If you want to play Agonistics by participating in the Usenet newsgroup alt.politics.bush, click here and then click on the [post] button to send a message to the discussion.
• The interface works in IE, but not very well. If you can, try it using Mozilla, Safari, or some other browser.
• If no one is in the middle of the circle, then no one has exchanged messages with anyone else and everyone has zero points. Players need to reciprocally reply to or cite each other to win points.
• Sentences from the current leaders are displayed to the left of the screen. Sentences referring to the three most frequent themes of discussion are displayed.
• Running your mouse over a face will highlight the name of the player who has been assigned the face and will show you how many points the player has scored.
• Players and their scores are listed on the right hand side. If you run your mouse over a player's name on this list, you will jiggle the face assigned to the player in the circle of faces.
• To see all of the messages posted by a player, click on either their face or on their name in the "current leaders" list.
• The time of the last posted message is shown in the lower right.
• If you want to rewind the interface and watch the action in fast forward (one message posted per several seconds), click on the rewind button.