Game Design

Games Designed for the Tournament Economy

TallyUP minigames are proprietary and uniquely designed for the tournament model and game economy.

Games of Skill

Most popular and/or casual games (e.g. Tetris, Flappy Birds) are too skillful for average players to enjoy or win competitively, especially when valuable rewards are on the line. In competition, such games tend to attract a small set of especially skilled players who consistently outplay the large majority of casual players.

Once average players discover they cannot win, they tend to give up and churn. Such skill (or 'twitch-based') games can also be cheated by computer scripts, bots or AI that can consistently outplay humans. A tournament seeking to fairly distribute large sums of free cash and crypto must be impervious to gaming or cheating through bots or otherwise.

Games of Chance

While most online games are too skillful for global competition, others, for example involving slot machines or wheel spin mechanics, are too random. Such games deprive players of any agency whatsoever, since no amount of play or practice can produce measurable improvements in outcomes. As in games of skill, this leads to player abandonment.

Trivia Games

Trivia is a core aspect of many popular TV game shows and some attempted internet game shows. While popular, it is ill suited for global, inentivized competition. On one hand, trivia is a game of skill. When something compelling is on the line, a small number of disproportionately skilled players can consistently outplay ordinary folks. Trivia can also be cheated, especially with widely available AI.

On the other hand, trivia is too random for many, since winning highly depends on whether a player has knowledge about a randomly selected topic. It is also expensive to produce, with new questions/content continually having to be funded and produced.

Finally, Trivia is also poorly suited for broad competition, since languages and subject matter change from region to region, and thus it is quite challenging to create a unified global competition that puts all players on an identical playing field.

TallyUP Game Attributes

In comparison, TallyUP minigames are simple, fun challenges of basic human intuition or game theory. Akin to the game ‘Rock Paper Scissors’, any person of any age or background can easily learn, play and win without being limited by language barriers or knowledge levels. And importantly, no-one can cheat or gain unfair advantage (even in the age of ChatGPT).

TallyUP games are also:

• Uniquely Social: The Player-to-Player aspect of gameplay creates a unique feeling real social community and connection as players strive to get into one another's heads.

• Highly Intuitive: The skills needed are already possessed by most players, making them enjoyable to a wide audience, regardless of age, gender, language, or gaming experience.

• Uncheatable: Simultaneous-reveal, game-theory mechanics ensure that players have perfect information to cheat or bot (as in other casual / skill games).

• High Agency: The carefully calibrated mix of skill, intuition, strategy and luck provides the player with a high sense of agency in each game. They are always in control of their fate.

• Evergreen: While many casual games lose their novelty once the core mechanic or storyline is learned, TallyUP! games are continually interesting. Every new opponent constitutes a new test of strategy and intuition. This is a similar phenomenon to that of poker, however TallyUP! games are much simpler, faster and more intuitive for a mass audience. TallyUP! games are, in essence, designed to be the greatest distillation possible in competitive game theory. Anyone can play and every new opponent becomes the game. Thus, TallyUP! forever maintains its novelty, no matter how long someone has played.

Market Validation (by the numbers)

As of this writing, TallyUP has released 4 minigames and will develop and release many more innovative games and mechanics. The first 4 titles have been collectively played over 15M times. Many top players have played tens of thousands of games and return daily. Such adoption trends provide an early but definitive signal that TallyUP's minigames are functioning effectively in the tournament model and provide evergreen engagement, even when played extensively. Such games can be built once and played endlessly.

Specific gameplay rules on each minigame can be found here.