How to play Chatbotched
You are the chatbot. Every day there are five real questions. You answer each one by building a reply one block at a time, and the better your answer, the more it's worth a month.
Build an answer
- Each answer is 8 blocks. For each block you get 3 choices and pick one.
- Usually one choice is right, one is safe but vague, and one is a popular misconception said with total confidence.
- There's no undo. Your pick goes straight into the reply.
- The clock is the white line above the choices. It gets shorter as the answer goes on: 10 seconds for the first block, down to 3 seconds for the last.
What the colours mean
Every block takes a colour the moment you say it, and the meter at the top shows what the answer is worth so far.
- Green: right. This is what people pay for.
- Red: wrong. It costs you money.
- Yellow: pure chatbot ("Great question!"). A small markup.
- White: vague. Neither helps nor hurts much.
- Magenta: hallucinated. The clock ran out.
Don't run out of time
If the clock runs out, you don't skip the block. You hallucinate: a block you didn't choose goes into your answer, it costs you money, and each one in a day is stranger than the last.
What an answer is worth
When an answer is finished, a receipt prints with its price in dollars a month. The price is HELP × BOT × SAID:
- HELP: being right. This is worth the most, and wrong blocks take it below zero.
- BOT: sounding like a chatbot ("Great question!", "It's important to note that"). A small markup that can't rescue a wrong answer.
- SAID: knowing what few other players knew. Right blocks that under a quarter of players picked earn a markup, and rarer ones earn more. It never applies to an answer that lost money.
The receipt also lists combos, patterns that change the price, like PEER REVIEWED (four or more right blocks, none wrong) or FLIP-FLOP (right and wrong in one answer), with a note on each. Under the total it shows the one block that would have earned you the most.
Wrong answers cost you money. A confidently wrong answer can price below zero.
Plans
Your price puts you on a plan. Your day's plan is the average of your five answers. On a wide screen, the ladder on the left shows where this answer and your day are as you play.
| Plan | Price a month |
|---|---|
| Superintelligence | $360 and up |
| Enterprise | $260 |
| Max | $180 |
| Pro | $120 |
| Plus | $60 |
| Basic | $25 |
| Free Tier | $0 |
| Refund | below $0 |
| Class Action | below -$30 |
Your day
- You get one go a day. New questions arrive at midnight, your local time.
- At the end you see how you compare with other players, and an answer key with the best and worst answer to each question.
- Share your result as text or as an image card. The text version shows your plan, your price for each question and how many times you hallucinated, without giving any answers away.
- Finishing a day, whatever you score, keeps your streak going.
Options and controls
- Clock: double time gives you twice as long for every block.
- Results: instant prints the whole receipt at once. You can also tap at any time while it prints to skip ahead.
- Motion: reduced stops shakes, flashes and scrolling, on top of your system setting.
- Wrong blocks: marked draws wrong blocks reversed and shows symbols on the meter, so colour is never the only signal.
- On a keyboard, press 1, 2 or 3 to pick a block, Space or Enter to continue, and M to mute.
- The game works with screen readers: every choice is a real button and results are read out.