Hi,

We are pleased to announce the public availability of Europop, a fun game where you play against your opponents to see who can identify Eurovision songs in the fastest time.

It’s a multiple choice guess that tune game in a similar style to SongPop but consisting entirely of Eurovision songs from 1956 to the present day.

Primarily, it’s a turn based multiplayer game. It’s more fun when you challenge an opponent! But you can play a single player version too. To do that, select the option to play a practice game. Be aware that because it’s a practice, your scores aren’t saved and you can’t be awarded with any achievements based on scores attained in this solo mode.

How do I play?

When you first enter the game, you’ll be presented with a panel showing any opponents who you are already playing against, as well as any new ones who have just challenged you.

New challengers will appear at the top of the list in blue, followed by existing opponents who have sent you a challenge to complete in green. Other opponents you’re playing against but haven’t sent you a new challenge yet follow in silver. Lastly, opponents who have ended your challenge are presented at the end in red, so you can see the final score before removing it from your list.

Starting a new game

If you don’t have any challenges or you’d like to play against a new opponent (or by yourself), click the orange “Start New Game” button on the homepage. You’ll be presented with a list of options.

If you want to choose a player from a list, click ‘View Player List’ and from there you can see all the active players (those who have played a game within the last week), new players (those who started playing for the first time within the last week) and all other players. There is also a search option where you can enter the name of any escChat.com member (whether they have previously played the game or not) to send a challenge to them.

If you know the person’s e-mail address, click ‘Select By E-Mail’ and enter their e-mail address in the box. If they have already joined escChat.com, a challenge will begin against that person. If not, you are presented with the option of sending an e-mail message to invite them to join and play. Be aware that the challenge cannot proceed further until the person has joined the website.

If you don’t mind who you play against, click ‘Random Choice’ and a random opponent will be selected for you automatically. The opponent may or may not have previously played the game, but they will have logged onto the main escChat.com website within the last 3 days.

If you want to play in single player mode, click ‘Practice Mode’ and confirm that you understand the scores attained won’t count towards any statistics.

At this stage, you will be presented with a list of 3 categories to choose from. If you don’t like any of them, you may shuffle the categories once. There is an element of risk involved, however, because you won’t know what the replacement categories will be until you’ve shuffled, and you can’t go back to the original choices if you find the shuffled categories to be even worse.

Note: The first time you play the game, you will be allocated 9 random categories that you can play, which you can check via the Your Scores page. This will always include the country you were first connected from (e.g. if you were in the UK when you first played the game, the United Kingdom category will always be available to you). You can unlock additional categories throughout the course of playing the game.

Now you can choose whether you want to play an easy, medium or hard game. An easy game consists of 15-second clips with 3 possible answers to each question. A medium game (the default) consists of 10-second clips with 4 possible answers. A hard game features 5-second clips with 6 possible answers.

Hard games carry more points than medium games, which carry more points than easy games. This applies not only to the overall score, but the amount of XP you can gain after each challenge.

You can also specify how many songs to listen to in the challenge. The options are 5, 10, 15 or 20 if you’re playing against an opponent. If you’re playing a practice game, you can also choose either 50 or 100 if you’re really bored.

You finally have the option of enabling or disabling the hide facility. If enabled, you may use it once per challenge to remove 2 incorrect options (or 1 incorrect option in easy mode).

After confirming the settings, the game will start.

Responding to a challenge

Click an item in the list to play against the person if appropriate (i.e. if it’s blue or green). If you click it when there is no new game to play (e.g. you’re waiting for an opponent to respond to your challenge), you’ll be presented with a popup information screen with details relating to the challenge.

After each game

When each game has been completed, you will see a summary of the songs along with the answers you and your opponent gave, and your scores. The person with the highest score wins. Proportional XP is allocated depending on the difficulty and whether you won or lost the challenge. If you picked the last category, your opponent will pick the subsequent one, and vice versa.

Once you’ve gained sufficient XP, you will move onto the next level. This allows you to unlock one extra category from a choice of up to 3 hidden boxes. If you don’t want to wait to unlock an extra category, you can donate €2 or more and be given the free choice of unlocking any single category you like. A second donation will allow you to pick another category, and so on.

Ending a challenge

If you no longer wish to play against an opponent, click and hold your mouse button over the challenge in the box on the homepage. A popup information screen will appear. Click the red button and confirm that you wish to end the challenge. Be aware that this is irreversible and the only way you can play against that opponent again is by starting a new challenge, resetting the scores back to 0-0.

Reviewing your progress

Click ‘Your Scores’ to see the maximum score you achieved for each category you have played. It’s filtered by difficulty, so you can observe the maximum score you achieved per category in the easy, medium and hard modes. Padlocked categories are those that you’ve not yet unlocked.

On this page, you can also see the current challenge scores for each opponent you’re playing against. You can see this by clicking ‘Challenges’. Again, it is filtered by difficulty level, so you can see how many games against a specific opponent you’ve won and lost in each difficulty mode.

Lastly, you can observe the trophies you’ve unlocked, and those you’ve yet to achieve. That is available by clicking the Trophies button.

Comparing your progress against others

Click ‘Leaderboard’ to see how your maximum score compares to your rivals over a time period of a week, a month, or forever. Once again, this is filtered by difficulty, but the biggest points are usually achieved in the hard mode.

Your weekly summary

At midnight UK time each Monday morning, challenge scores reset back to 0-0 to make it a level playing field for all players. Before this happens though, you will see an overall summary page showing the final scores against each opponent for the week, as well as your weekly leaderboard standing in each difficulty mode. You’ll be given bonus XP based on how many people you beat and your position on the leaderboard.

Miscellaneous Questions

Why can’t I challenge someone to a 50 or 100 round match?

50 or 100 round matches take a considerable amount of time to complete. It’s not appropriate to force your opponent to endure such a lengthy and repetitious match. Rounds of these lengths often include repeated songs (for example, Eurovision 2003 had 26 participants, so in a 50 round match, most songs would be included twice).

What is XP?

XP stands for experience points. It is a metric to reward your success in order to determine your current level. When you reach a new level, you’re awarded a new category that you can pick from a choice of up to 3 hidden boxes.

Which categories are available?

You can see which categories are currently available in the ‘Your Scores’ page. You cannot initiate a challenge in a category that you have not yet unlocked (i.e. there is a padlock), but you can play such a category if your opponent has challenged you in it.

How can I see which categories I’ve unlocked?

Any category shown on the ‘Your Scores’ page without a padlock has been unlocked.

Why do scores reset? What happens to the trophies and categories I’ve unlocked?

Every Monday morning at midnight UK time, challenge scores reset so that players are not disadvantaged by a streak of bad luck. It also removes the advantage an experienced player has over a new opponent who might be slower in the beginning.

Note that only the challenge scores (i.e. the 0-0, 1-0, etc.) are reset. The high scores, XP, levels, categories unlocked and trophies achieved remain intact.

Is this game legal?

Yes, it is licensed with the required authorities for royalty payments, so it is legal. That is why we politely ask for donations from those who enjoy the game and who are able to do so in order to help cover our costs. As a token of our appreciation for this, donors are given the opportunity to unlock any single category of their choice after donating. Multiple donations award multiple categories.

How many levels are there?

There are currently 100 levels.

An opponent hasn’t responded to my challenge. What can I do?

If a challenge was sent more than 12 hours ago and your opponent has not disabled nudges, you may send a nudge. This will trigger an alert to remind your opponent that you’re waiting for him or her to respond to your game.

To do this, click and hold your mouse button over the challenge in the box on the homepage. A popup information screen will appear. Click the orange ‘Nudge’ button below the player’s avatar to send them a nudge. If the button is grey, you cannot send a nudge.

Why can’t I nudge my opponent?

Nudging is only available once per 12 hours elapsed for a challenge. The opponent may have opted out of receiving nudges, in which case you will not be able to send that player a nudge, regardless of time elapsed.

Why don’t practice scores count?

Scores can be disproportionately high by playing rounds of 50 or 100, so they would skew the results. The game is meant for duels against opponents, so single player scores don’t count.

I keep getting alerts or e-mails relating to the game and I want to opt out.

You can modify your alert or e-mail preferences here and here, respectively.

A song is wrong or sung in the wrong language or sung by the wrong singer or is very bad quality.

Please post as much information about the problematic song as a reply to this thread and it will be checked. Several songs are poor quality and it is hoped that they will be replaced by better versions in due course. This is a laborious process as there are over 1200 songs, the oldest of which are over 50 years old, so high quality versions may be difficult or impossible to find in some cases.

Feedback, questions and suggestions

If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or any feedback regarding the game, please reply to this thread.

It is fixed now.

IF you open your eyes and read the message, you'll know why it doesn't.

p.s. Hi Janet

Turn the monitor on first.

THERE has been a change to the rules regarding XP.

If you lose, you no longer receive any XP unless:

You play in medium or hard mode and

1. Your losing score is >=80% of your opponent's score and your score is at least 5000

or

2. You achieve 3 stars in the game.

If you meet either point 1 or 2, or both, you will receive a complementary 1 XP credit.

If you win or draw, you will receive an additional 1 XP top-up point if:

You play in medium or hard mode and

1. You achieve 3 stars in the game.

For information, to achieve 3 stars in a competitive game, you must answer no less than:

• 5 out of 5 correctly or
• 9 out of 10 correctly or
• 14 out of 15 correctly or
• 18 out of 20 correctly
• and
• each round must be answered before the song stops playing
• and
• you must not use the hide facility.

This will still reward people for playing fairly even if they don't win, but will not reward people for randomly clicking answers in an attempt to pick up free XP when they lose.

Note these rewards do not apply to games played in easy mode.

exc.

IF you have found that some challenges have been unplayable in the last couple of days (i.e. freezing before the game starts), please end those challenges and send new ones, which should then work fine. This was caused by an issue arising from data being imported for the upcoming contest in Stockholm.