Major changes are coming to Shiritori (the multiplayer game, not Shiritori Cat) is going to have some major changes in March 2021! Here's what's coming up:
Limited games
There will be a hard limit of 10 kana and 10 kanji shiritori games at any given time. All previous games will be archived. Because most themed games are REALLY hard to stick to the themes, the majority of the games will not be themed. There will still be one themed game in each category that rotates monthly.
* Kanji will still have a few "structured" themes: 2/3/4 character words only
* Unfortunately, it is very difficult logistically to create games based on JLPT levels (especially N5/N4)
Auto resets
Each round of shiritori will automatically reset and begin anew after a certain threshold is met. There will be two types:
Time based: there will be only 1 of these. Like the ones that appear now, these will be reset monthly
Word count based: Once a round reaches a certain number of words, it will automatically reset. It will most likely be around 1000-1500 words for vocabulary, 400 words for kanji. However, there will be a few "long" games that will not reset until a few thousand words.
** There will be a failsafe option built in. If the speed of a game (# of words per day) drops below a certain level for an extended period, it will automatically reset.
Beginner only rounds
There will be 2-3 (I'm still thinking about the number) rounds in each category (kana and kanji) that will be restricted to "beginners"
I am still thinking about how to determine this, but I'm currently going with:
"A person is a beginner from when they play their first word in a shiritori game until 30 days have passed."
As always, nothing here is finalized until it is released, so comments are welcome.
