Games Big Brother 12: Beach

Hello yall. Congratulations on F2, you both deserve it. I do have questions for each of you though.

To Flour: What drove you to eliminate Brave early on? You knew I had a strong connection with Jabber, and that Jabber wanted him to stay in the game. To be honest, that was the main reason I became distrustful of you, and you ended up needing to backdoor me.

To Jabber: While I understand wanting to remain under the radar, why did you leave your connections other than me so frail after Chaos Blossom fell apart?
 
Hoi hoi!

I'm the juror who spent the least time in the house so I'm gonna need a lot of catching up :p

Anyhow - to both of you, what in your opinion was the strongest part of your gameplay?

I'd appreciate it if you talked about your game both in the general sense and also naming specific moments in the game you think were strong.
Hey Ephe! Shame we didn't get too much time to talk while you were in the house; in another world I could easily have seen us teaming up. Ah well.

I reckon the strongest part of my overall gameplay was being able to form so many connections in the earlygame, and then keep them in harmony with each other without any fights erupting later on that would have forced me to betray someone. Between Brave, scattered, Anna, Draskk, and to at least some extent Hermes and Flour, I had a pretty strong core that propelled me through most of the game, even without winning any competitions until the latter half of Week 8. Some of them targeted each other down, like Draskk to scattered and Flour to most of my first alliance, but even here I was able to minimize losses, regroup, and retain enough allies for most of the rest of the game.

For specific moments, I think the defining moment of my game came when I was essentially out of allies — I spared Flour in Week 8 to form a new connection, one that I believe helped me survive the subsequent week when I probably otherwise would've lost. (I addressed my reasoning for that decision above, in response to Hermes's question about it.) Flour wasn't contractually beholden to me or anything in Week 9, but like with anything built on alliances and trust, this is a pathos game. I appealed to his better nature, and I believe that carried me through when virtually any other play probably wouldn't have.

Other moments include rallying Hermes (and by extension Flour and Sen) to save Draskk in Week 5, as well as the formation of Chaos Blossoms to begin with. Each of those moves only helped secure me for a few weeks at most, but they were extremely valuable each time.

Hello yall. Congratulations on F2, you both deserve it. I do have questions for each of you though.

To Flour: What drove you to eliminate Brave early on? You knew I had a strong connection with Jabber, and that Jabber wanted him to stay in the game. To be honest, that was the main reason I became distrustful of you, and you ended up needing to backdoor me.

To Jabber: While I understand wanting to remain under the radar, why did you leave your connections other than me so frail after Chaos Blossom fell apart?
I wouldn't say my other connections at that point were frail, only that they were less strong than my alliance with you — and that wasn't a bad thing here. Even after Chaos Blossoms fell apart around Week 4, I still had connections to Anna, scattered, Hermes, and, through you, Flour. With you as a fifth and me as a sixth, that was two thirds of the remaining players in the game at that point. I wasn't in any huge danger, and the options were open to develop whatever alliances needed to be developed down the line, like when I asked Hermes for help saving you in Week 5.

Basically, it was a matter of quantity over quality — if I invest really hard in a few strong alliances, then I'm just one or two blindsides away from losing. But if I remain on casually good terms with a majority of players, I'm in a much better position no matter what happens next.

Of course, things fell apart by Week 8, when my remaining connections were too tenuous for me to be confident. But that was when I made a move to strengthen one of them by saving Flour. More on that in my answers to Hermes's and Ephe's questions above. :p

(And hey, unrelatedly, I don't think I got a chance to mention it between your eviction vote and your leaving the house, but it was a blast playing this game with you! I'm sorry your plans for all those game-changing plays didn't work out, but it was fun while it lasted, and I hope I have another chance to see them in action sometime in the future. :D )
 
Hey yall sorry for the late question, homegirl has covid ?anyways...

Congrats on the the final! Yall did wonderful!!! My question for both of you is: What do you think was your best move in the entire competition? It can be gameplay related, challenge related, alliance related etc etc. Looking forward to hear from both of u!
 
Hoi hoi!

I'm the juror who spent the least time in the house so I'm gonna need a lot of catching up :p

Anyhow - to both of you, what in your opinion was the strongest part of your gameplay?

I'd appreciate it if you talked about your game both in the general sense and also naming specific moments in the game you think were strong.
Gonna need to answer this question separately because it's on a different page and I'm still super clueless when it comes to the functions of this forum :D... Anyway, thanks for the question!!!

I think this is such a good question because it lets me genuinely reflect on how I think my performance was this season. Anyway, I'm going to brush up on a few things!

I believe one of my strongest moments in the game was when I was able to convince Jabber to use the POV on me in the double eviction. I went into that double with the intent of targeting Anna, and although I lost the POV, I was not giving up hope. Had I stayed on the block, the vote most likely would have tied, and I have no clue as to what Jabber would have done if it were to tie. So, once I lost the POV, I knew it was go time. I had one goal in mind at that point, and it was to not stay on the block, because I knew my odds were extremely slim. I immediately went to chat with Jabber, and I'd like to think I convinced him to use the POV on me. In return, he asked me an interesting question. He asked me who he should renominate, and I obviously wanted to answer with Anna. However, in the off chance they happened to be working together for whatever reason, I made sure not to name her specifically, but I did talk about things that could have applied to her. It always struck me as odd that he didn't nominate the two biggest threats right off the bat in the double, so that's why my gears started turning and I got paranoid. I happened to slide my way out of that situation and get the POV used on me, and once Hermes and I saw that the renomination was Anna, we seized the opportunity and took our shot.

Another strong point in my gameplay was another example of me managing to fight my way out of an unideal position in the game. At the final three, Jabber was extremely undecided with what he was going to do. An extension to his decision was even requested, and he mentioned publicly that he was trying to "tally stuff up" in his DR, which was most likely jury votes and where they would fall. He also mentioned to me privately that he was trying to count up jury votes and said he was trying to decide where the jury would stand.

I knew my campaign had to hit it out of the ballpark, and I had to make it ten times better than any campaign I have ever written. When I tell you I was sending messages upon messages, I was doing exactly that. I was mentioning any point I felt was needed to save myself. I brought up Hermes' amazing resume (good job Hermes! By the way, that is an amazing record!) and I also started saying anything I could think of in order to be brought to the final two. I counted jury votes in my own head and started spilling it to Jabber in order to stay. I don't know how true they were, but I knew that I needed to overdramatize it as much as possible, because I knew Hermes wouldn't go down without a fight, and that's something I can extremely respect in a game player. And in the end, I do think that my scrambling skills was what was able to keep me in the game, because it seemed as though Jabber was extremely undecided (to me, at least).

I don't want to keep you here reading for what would feel like a lifetime, so here comes my closing point! One of the other strongest points in my gameplay was how easy it was for me to adapt to any situation that was thrown at me. Whether it be a difficult or ideal situation, I could say that I was able to adapt. This was really on display when I was forced to sit out of multiple competitions. I had to change around a few things during that short time period, and my pre-existing connections prior to the punishments were enough to keep me out of hot waters when I was most vulnerable in the game. It was easy to take a shot at me, but that shot wasn't taken, mainly due to the fact that my closest ally was able to win out the following HOH and POV competitions. But even then, he didn't see the benefit in taking me out considering we were both aligned and a tight duo. Although Jabber did nominate me, I was able to get out of that sticky situation, as I mentioned above. I can say that I pride myself on my ability to talk my way out of situations, because it came in handy when I was in a tricky spot.

Thanks so much for the question!
 
Hello yall. Congratulations on F2, you both deserve it. I do have questions for each of you though.

To Flour: What drove you to eliminate Brave early on? You knew I had a strong connection with Jabber, and that Jabber wanted him to stay in the game. To be honest, that was the main reason I became distrustful of you, and you ended up needing to backdoor me.

To Jabber: While I understand wanting to remain under the radar, why did you leave your connections other than me so frail after Chaos Blossom fell apart?
Hey Draskk, thanks for the question!

I did understand that Jabber had a solid connection with Brave, and you had a connection with Jabber. However, I wasn't playing this game for Jabber, I was playing for myself. I wasn't going to keep Brave in the game because I ultimately had no connection with them. I wasn't going to ignore that keeping Brave would potentially damage my game further down the line, so I knew I had to take the shot. I didn't want to play for other people, I just wanted to play for myself, as I've stated.

Although I did have to risk you being upset with me, it was something I saw as more beneficial to my own personal game than keeping in Brave, someone I did not trust as much as you and Jabber did. However, once the move was enacted and everything was said and done, I saw it as an opportunity to keep you around, because I did not want you gone. At the time, it seemed like you were on the bottom of the house, and I figured you really had no alliances. Mars was playing a dangerous game, and he wanted you out... badly. However, it just wasn't beneficial to take a shot at you because I would be giving Mars what he wanted, and I'd put myself at a vulnerable position in the house.

Once Brave left, our relationship was fractured. I was hoping that by keeping you the following week, we'd be able to rekindle it and work together again. It somewhat worked, considering you, Hermes, and I were able to connect and talk about keeping you in the game, and all of the shady things Mars has been doing behind our backs.

So... yeah! Hopefully, this covers why I evicted Brave, and what my strategy was while dealing with the aftermath of that move. Was it a risky move? For sure. But I can say that I think it worked to my benefit, seeing as I took out someone I had no particular trust with, and was able to land myself a spot in the finale.

Good question, and no hard feelings, hopefully? I'm sorry if things turned out sour on your end. D:
Hey yall sorry for the late question, homegirl has covid ?anyways...

Congrats on the the final! Yall did wonderful!!! My question for both of you is: What do you think was your best move in the entire competition? It can be gameplay related, challenge related, alliance related etc etc. Looking forward to hear from both of u!
Girllllll I had COVID too, I feel your pain ?. Hope you have a smooth and speedy recovery! (I got it like in April and still have not gotten my taste 100% back yet... ?.) Anyway- as usual, thank you for the question, and thank you for your compliment!

I feel like one of the best moves I made this season was honestly what I did with my instant eviction HOH. It's going to suck royally to talk about how I evicted you from the game in a tiebreaker vote, and I'm sorry for how I'm going to blabber on about this... so... warning... haha...

I went into the instant eviction not knowing what to expect. I mean, I didn't even know it was going to be an instant eviction. When I saw that, I knew that I needed to win. The HOH competition, of course, was not my first choice, but I needed that win regardless. I didn't feel secure, nor did I feel safe. I was extremely paranoid, and for good reason. I don't know how much I could trust Draskk, and you were in the competition, and I know I'd be nominated had you have won it. If I'm wrong, then that was an error on my end!

I quite literally risked it all just to win that HOH, and I was able to singlehandedly take you out of the game, especially when the vote tied, and I had to break that tie. You did happen to re-enter the house (good job, by the way!) so that hard work went down the drain quickly... but I could still consider it one of my greatest game moves. The votes fell in place how they should have, and in the end, I was able to pull off a plan that beforehand I did not think was going to be possible. And keep in mind, I didn't trust a single person and had like no allies, because of the twist that sent my closest ally into solitary confinement throughout the duration of the instant eviction. So, it's safe to say that the instant eviction HOH was mine to win, and I stopped at nothing to get that win. In the end, I think this worked out perfectly because not only was I taking out a huge threat to my game, but I was also ensuring myself an extra few weeks in this game. Even when you did return, things didn't get too complicated as you were sent back out shortly after.

I for sure went a little overkill with that POV punishment, but hey, I was desperate, and the HOH win was super close! I was not letting anything stop me. Before I end this answer, I just want to say that I really, REALLY wish that we could've gotten the chance to work together! I noted in my DR that I wanted to work with you, and I hope to see you on more PBB seasons to come!!! <3

(sorry i had to send all of my responses in two messages... but anyway, like always, i am up till ungodly hours and am tired... sooooooooo i mayyyyy or may not have made like 200 grammatical errors, kthx byeee!)
 
Hey yall sorry for the late question, homegirl has covid ?anyways...

Congrats on the the final! Yall did wonderful!!! My question for both of you is: What do you think was your best move in the entire competition? It can be gameplay related, challenge related, alliance related etc etc. Looking forward to hear from both of u!
Oshit that's terrible! Feel better Anna! Dx

That's an interesting question, cos I think I'd draw a distinction between "strongest move" (i.e. Ephe's question) and "best move" (i.e. yours). The "best move" has to be about more than just gameplay strength or even overall consequentiality — it's gotta be the move you're happiest with, the one where you look back on the whole game and you're like, "Yeah. That was the best thing I did."

There were a bunch of moves I was happy with, largely because they felt like the strongest move I could have made: saving Draskk in Week 5, for example; or saving Flour in Week 8. I was also proud of my HOH wins toward the end of the game, as well as the effort I put into some of the earlier ones. I think these moves showed that I can be competitive in all parts of the game, which, as you know, valuable thing for a new player to show.

But I think my best move, the one I'm happiest with as I look back on the game, was the first move I made — forming Chaos Blossoms with you, scattered, and Brave. For me, it was a great way to kick off my first game: forming a solid alliance; gaining an early win in your Week 2 HOH; talking to other players and sharing information; and all around feeling like I could get a good grasp of the game while I collected my bearings. It was also super cool to start the game by reconnecting with a couple of old PB friends in Brave and scattered, and also getting to ally with you in our mutual first game of PBB. Chaos Blossoms may not have lasted for long beyond Week 4, but it was hugely valuable for me to have the alliance as support while I got used to the game. For that, I think it was the best move I made.
 
Hiya! Sorry for walking but I had a reason.

My question is for both finalists. What one move did you make that you feel deserves you the crown?
 
Hiya! Sorry for walking but I had a reason.

My question is for both finalists. What one move did you make that you feel deserves you the crown?
Hey Mars, welcome back!

I'd have to say Week 8, the choice to spare Flour with the POV after my own HOH, was the move that should earn me the crown. It was the strongest play I could have made in that position, and I firmly believe it's the reason I'm here now.

I've discussed it a bit above, but to go into a bit more detail — it was late in the game, and I had only a couple of connections left: Hermes and Anna, both of whom I was a little wary of. I nominated Flour and Sen at first, thinking it was a good opportunity to evict one of the two players I had less of a connection with. But then I won the POV, and I thought I saw an opportunity to use it and advance my game state a little further.

I knew Hermes and Flour were on pretty good terms with each other. There was no way I could break up that alliance. But if I made a move that appealed to each of them, I might be able to make each of them a strong enough ally that I could survive the following week if one of them had the power to evict me. Since Flour came to me to plead for the veto anyway, it made sense to spare him.

Fortunately, the power of eviction fell to Flour the following week. I went to plead with him in turn — cashing in my favor, as it were — and, as I'd hoped, it turned out to be enough to save me that week. I went on to win the final HOH, and that's why I'm here now. :)

===

I gotta head off now and I'm not sure I'll make it back before the voting deadline, so in case I don't, I just wanted to say thanks for the opportunity to answer these questions, y'all. Like I said, it's been a wild ride this game, and a truly excellent introduction to PokeBeach Big Brother. Y'all rock, and it's been a pleasure playing with you. :D
 
Hiya! Sorry for walking but I had a reason.

My question is for both finalists. What one move did you make that you feel deserves you the crown?
Hey, hey! Thanks for the question, and I hope all is well!

One move that I made that I think is worthy of the crown is sparing Jabber in the final four. I didn't spare him because he spared me in the final five, I simply spared him because I saw it as an opportunity to get myself a spot in the final two in the event I lose the final HOH competition. I knew that Hermes was going after Jabber, and I figured Jabber would want to get his revenge and take a shot at Hermes. That left me sitting pretty securely in the final three, in the event I lose final HOH, which I did.

I knew that Sen and Hermes were pretty close, so I knew I wouldn't get Sen's jury vote if it were Hermes and I in the final two. That's why I needed to evict Sen, not only to split those two up, but to also let Jabber and Hermes clash, because I assumed they would go after each other. This move allowed myself to strengthen my chances of making it to the final two, and here I am, in the final two! If Sen were to win the final HOH, I had no clue what he would have done, I'm going to be honest. I was worried that Sen may take me out over Hermes, even if it wouldn't be the best move for him game-wise. I'd rather take Jabber to the final three so he and Hermes could continue to clash and I could slip through the cracks and make a break for the final two.

I went in to the final four already thinking about saving Jabber, because I needed to do what I thought was best for my game. I let both Sen and Jabber plead to me, and I decided to just make the move and that's when I casted my vote to evict Sen. I did lie to Sen, because I was going to plan on keeping him, but I saw more benefit in keeping Jabber because I saw a window of opportunity, and I wanted to leap right through that window. And here I am!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall, I think I deserve the win because I made risky moves that I managed to make work. I had to strategize and formulate a new plan practically every week to ensure my safety unless someone I trusted had won power. I was able to help dominate competition-wise this season, and I used each and every competition to my benefit. I managed to give myself a facade and allowed people to perceive me as a non-threatening player, but that wasn't the case at all. I was thinking of the nest best move to make, and when to make it.

As I said, I came into this game not wanting to play for anyone but myself. This was shown when I targeted Brave and then cut Sen at the final four, because to me, those were moves that I needed to make in order to advance my game further. I would say that those two moves landed me a spot in the final four, because who knows what would have happened had those evictions not have been played out the way they did. It could be a completely different final two situation.

Additionally, I played this game with Hermes, and was in the strongest duo this season. When we had a target, we set our sights on them, and soon enough, they found themselves going home. For example: Brave, Ephe, Mars, and Anna were just a few of our targets (I know Mars walked, so I don't want to say we took him out when in actuality we really didn't).

Overall, I think I played this season pretty well. I'm not going to say I played it to the best of my ability, because there's always room for improvement. I won the competitions when I needed to, I scrambled extremely well when I was at risk, and I strategized and concocted plans that worked (most of the time). I always found myself in a somewhat good position in the game, just let my record speak for itself! Tied for second with the most competition wins this season, zero votes cast against me all season, and I was vetoed off of the block twice. I did not mess around when it came to my safety in this game, and that can be seen in multiple situations. Take the instant eviction, for example. I fought so hard for that HOH, just to risk everything the following week(s).

I played a game, took opportunities, made risks, scrambled, socialized, and ultimately I did all of that to propel myself to the end. It worked. I made big moves, and each move worked properly to my benefit. It got me this far, so I hope that you can see through the entirety of my gameplay when casting your vote to win. Thank you! And good luck, Jabber!
 
Conclusion:


Finalists, jury, audience. It’s time to reveal our winner. 10 weeks of some of the most entertaining, surprising, and cutthroat gameplay this franchise has ever seen has all led up to this. As is the tradition, I’ll start by doing everyone’s favorite thing… evaluating our finalists!

Flour, the Seasoned Finalist: Walking into this season Flour had a reputation for going deep into the game, and had more game experience in the house than anyone else. Though he established early relationships with Draskk and Hermes, he made it through the game week-by-week otherwise, winning the first Safety Suite competition and schmoozing the next couple of HOHs to keep himself safe, but his longevity was still limited. That all changed with his first HOH on week 4, which catalyzed Flour’s impressive resumé and kicked off the long list of ties he broke with his HOHs, being the nail in the coffin for Brave, Anna, and Draskk, all while winning a POV to ensure his safety one week and being bold enough to sacrifice his ability to compete for weeks to come just to take a shot at his rivals. Flour’s game didn’t stop there though, as once he reached the endgame, he formed a last-minute partnership with Jabber, and used that relationship to take charge of the endgame, ending his ally Hermes’s season-long streak of domination, and ultimately earning him a spot in the Final 2. Flour’s game was both impressive and messy, but could his big moves have left big wounds in their wake?

Jabber, the Overlooked Rookie: In direct contrast to Flour, Jabber was 1 of 2 new players to enter the house this season. His game started strong, as he helped to form the Chaos Blossoms alliance with himself, Anna, Brave and Scattered, and it looked like they would be the social center of the game. However, with inactivity comes ineffectiveness, and this alliance’s inability to communicate well led both to Jabber’s game falling apart, as well as the alliance crumbling. By the time Jabber reached week 6, Brave and Scattered were gone and Anna had flipped on him, leaving him stranded with his only notable ally being Draskk. Jabber’s public image of being harmless and unthreatening led to him spending much of the latter half of the season on the block, sitting next to and surviving votes next to players the house deemed more threatening. Jabber’s game seemed bleak going into the endgame, but him winning full power and a new friend in Flour flipped the trajectory of his game on its head, landing him a spot in the Final 2 with little blood on his hands. Jabber has been an underdog for much of this season, but could his lack of a strong resumé prevent him from taking the crown?



Alrighty everyone. It’s time. Finalists, one of you has just won this game. For one of you, 10 weeks of survival, betrayal, highs and lows is about to be rewarded with the taste of victory. For the other, the sting of defeat. The winner of Big Brother is…

Congratulations @EurekaTingz, you are the winner of Big Brother 12: Beach! After 5 seasons of narrowly missing the win, you have finally closed the deal! For the record, the vote was 5-2. Here are the full votes:

America: Flour
Scattered: Flour
Ephemera: Jabber
Draskk: Jabber
Anna: Flour
Senkun: Flour
Hermes: Flour

Thank you so much for playing guys! This was the comeback season after a months-long break, and I have to say this was one of the most insane, unashamedly crazy seasons I’ve ever watched here. Cel and/or I (yes we might both do one ooooh) will be posting our post-game thoughts in this thread to comment on everything that happened this time around, as well as our thoughts for the future. In addition, expect full rankings to go up for the cast in the PBB server very soon! Stick around for those, but for now, we hope you enjoyed playing/watching this season of PokéBeach Big Brother!

- Lorde
 
Yo, so all in all I honestly think this season is one of PBB's best and I had a huge amount of fun hosting it! The vast majority of this cast were really fun to watch and interact with over the course of the season, and ultimately Lorde and I have agreed that this is probably our second-favourite season ever, behind BB7 (which coincidentally was the game I got robbed smh smh). So a huge thank you to the cast for being awesome! Even though everyone (besides Hermes rofl) made significant mistakes in their gameplay this season, that's honestly a lot of the charm of Big Brother. People weren't afraid to take risks, and almost no week ended how we thought it was going to end at the start of the week, which is the sign of some cool gameplay!

So Lorde is giving more general overviews of the season. This season was one of her many drafts, and so the overall structure and most of the twists are hers, so they're up to her to discuss. I made minor edits here and there and just discussed her ideas with her, but my responsibilities this season above all else were the competitions and I threw in the pinata as a twist too. Lorde had influence over comps too, of course -- she chose most of the flash games and some of the returning forum comps like Web of Lies and Stormwatch -- but most of the rest were mine. So I'll discuss them:

Competitions
I think this season was important with its competition structure for a few reasons. First, we had a roughly 50/50 split between flash and forum comps. This is fairly groundbreaking compared with earlier seasons, where we have had seasons with solely flash comps, and others with about 80% of them. I think looking toward the future, this move toward diversity in comp selection is very important. Partly, just from a gameplay perspective, it's way more interesting for players who aren't as adept at flash games to occasionally win power. A wider diversity of comps does encourage this, though with comp beasts like Anna, Flour, and Hermes, with a wide skillsets, it didn't end up panning out as much as it should have! However, it did lead to some exciting wins, like Jabber being a quizmaster and Sen winning power in W3, and these are ultimately great for the wider gameplay. In the past we have had alliance stomps where the best flash game players just group up and win every comp, giving no one else a chance. Diversity in comps prevents this from happening, or at least if an alliance does stomp it's more deserved as they've had to prove their adeptitude at a variety of skills.

Even more than that, is that I made a real attempt to have as few grindable comps as possible. Rewarding whoever has the most time is, in my view, a flaw of online Big Brother that is important to try and overcome. PokéBeach Big Brother has a long tradition of flash comps, but I'm a fan of having more and more flash comps hosted semi-live (meaning the host sends the comp and starts a timer, and houseguests have to do as well as possible within the given time limit). You'll notice that the later in the game that things got, the more semi-live comps appeared -- that's intentional, as I find them fairer, and comps generally become more important to win the later in the season that things get. And this might sound intimidating for hosts, but think of comps like Counting Sheep. That was essentially a bit of fun that still tested skill, but is very brief for both the players and hosts to participate in. My philosophy on this is primarily based on personal experience; I loved the social side and cast of BB7, but I was atrophied immensely by only ever being handed flash comps to grind. Granted, this was backed up by the reputation twist that meant I usually had to do 1.5x better than anyone else to win, but it meant that if I really needed a comp win that I would need to spend all evening grinding it, and it made the game overly serious and honestly less fun. Diversity in comps is better for everyone because, every now and then, being able to play a board game or throw your fellow houseguests into funny categories for half an hour to an hour keeps the game feeling more fresh and enjoyable. I wouldn't say we should eradicate flash games completely, since many of them are fun too, but the less dependent on flash games we become, the better the quality of flash games we get to choose; there are only so many good ones out there, after all.

My personal favourite comp from this season is the Scavenger Hunt. It was a lot of fun to host and for the people who took it seriously a lot of fun for them too, and I straight up think it should return every season. I understand one or two people were intimidated by their parents being like why tf are you taking a picture of a fork, but I played in a Scavenger Hunt in a different ORG about 2 years ago and it ended up not being an issue once you break the seal. And that was while I was digging through the shed to find an iron bar to put a clothes iron on top of. Scavenger Hunts will always be fun because you can change what people need to take a picture of every time, and particularly the more abstract items that I had required some great creativity. Besides Scavenger Hunt, I think boardgamearena is an amazing site and should be used more. Previously, we have had these duel-style boardgame comps through things like Ultimate Tic Tac Toe, and personally I just feel like having board games with actually deep mechanics is an evolution of the idea.

I genuinely think every comp this season was a smash besides How Bad Do You Want It? and NP's frog documentary lol. A punishment comp is something I'm glad we tried here, and wish I had thought of earlier into the season; it's extremely interesting in concept and features in quite a lot of real Big Brother seasons. It was a last-minute comp decision due to a necessary change to the draft, and if it ever returns it should absolutely be early in the season and edited to be like the actual show, which is that only the person who submits the highest score has to deal with the punishment while the lowest is still eliminated, so the strategy comes from trying to land yourself in the middle of the pack. I thought that would be worthless with it being so late in the game with so few players, so in the future if it's hosted earlier, that's a good addendum to make to the comp.

Pinata
Since the pinata was something I added to the season, and is marked down as a twist, Lorde asked me to discuss it. This is naturally something that cannot return every season, but I think it was a fun addition to the season. It's designed around rewarding dynamic gameplay and a risk vs reward element, since houseguests were not told what was inside the pinata and it could have been something negative too. It fulfilled its purpose this season thanks to Anna, as she mailed the pinata out of Chaos Blossoms into Hermes' pocket, where it stayed for the rest of the season. It had more potential than this, as Anna could have asked Hermes what his plans are for the pinata, or anyone from Blossoms could have asked Anna where it ended up, but I'm still content with its effect on the game. It was another thing that ended up benefitting Hermes' stellar social gameplay as he managed to acquire it just through having a long and fun casual conversation with Anna. I'm down for it to return at some point, but ideally in between then and now a pinata-like twist would feature something actually negative so that people don't just remember this and go "oh it's HOH". Perhaps even have 2 floating about, one positive and one negative.

Timezones, Comebacks, and Finding Allies
So this isn't that deep of a point at all, but something notable about this season is that 5/12 of the players this season were not American and... only Sen is not one of the first 5 boots LOL. Hell, Ephe was evicted twice within the first 5 boots. This isn't unique to this season or anything -- we have, in 12 seasons, had 2 non-American winners, with me being the only European winner and Ephe the only Asian one -- but I feel like I should bring up some game theory surrounding this. If someone is at a timezone disadvantage it means that it's probable that they are a little less connected than Americans. So if you're an American, it's in your best interest to sweep them up and ally with them! This is similar with Comebacks, where the last comeback not to be revolving doored was our new winner Flour in BB7 (OK Lorde told me BB9 Almonds fits this too)!! If someone was evicted, it means that they're unlikely to be returning to a bunch of allies, and so it's good gameplay to approach them and see if they want to relinquish their free agent status and ally with you instead. Ephe was evicted in a 6-2 vote on Week 2, so you know that there were 6 people in the game willing to throw them out the door that early into the season. When they returned, that's a great opportunity to forge a connection and add a number to your own side of the game. Anna was a little dicier, as it was later in the season and she had already betrayed every ally she had besides #WOATMars lmaoaoao but even still, Anna had also had 2 people hijack her HOHs at this point and is a proven comp beast, so I was shocked to see almost no one approach her upon her return. Every player in the game is potentially an ally of yours, and looking for these signs that someone may be in need of allies themself is a key part of the game. Furthermore, I think this applies to Ephe and not Anna this season, but let's not forget that I won BB2 after a comeback. Being evicted doesn't spell the end of your game, and that I'm the only player to win after winning a comeback 10 seasons later is somewhat shocking, but then again the only players to really have in-game success after coming back are me and Flour. My point is is that, from a hosting perspective, comebacks are basically intended to shake up the game and keep things dynamic. But the players need to use the twist to do that too, and revolving dooring the comeback is basically only the right move if you're solidly on top of the game and already have a route to the end; if not, work with them!

I think back to my BB7 game, where I developed strong alliances over the season with (I mean almost everyone but in particular) Ephe, Jade, Al, mirdo, Lily, and Nick. Of these, Ephe, Al and mirdo aren't American, and Lily and Nick were pretty inactive so I knew they didn't have many other connections. And then Jade betrayed me so lmao. It was only during this season that I noted how timezones may have helped this, as my entire inner circle (Ephe before they betrayed me too LOL and Al and mirdo for the whole game) was non-American and so the Americans didn't develop as powerful connections with us as we could each other. So basically what I'm saying is, inter-timezone alliances and connections will make for even more exciting seasons and higher level gameplay, and they can totally happen despite the difference! Ephe is still hours away from me, and it was common for me to message them a bunch before going to sleep, and then responding to their long response to me on the way into college the next day which is when we had mutual hours. I also think we need more #AntiAmerica sentiment as international members of the community LOL. We don't need to purge them or anything, but BB7 is considered the best season ever and 4/6 of the Top 6 were international!

Similarly, something that I think should be reiterated is that there are multiple types of relationship you can have in this game. PBB tends to default to very all-or-nothing relationships and bridges are burned pretty easily, and that's just not the best way to play the game! Enemies are dangerous, and a big part of why watching Hermes, Drask, and to a lesser extent Mars (since he just relied on veto wins he was acc bad at this) playing around each other this season was so fun is because at various points they were friends or allies or enemies but they would put differences or friendships aside for game reasons. This is also a significant part of why BB7 is considered the best season, because almost everyone in the game had frenemy relationships with everyone else. Strong alliances and friendships are of course the ideal, but in order to take control of your own game and eventually win you need to betray others at some point, and the right move when you're betrayed is to try and maintain the relationship anyway. There were really bad moves this season like Mars working to evict Ephe once he caught any type of wind that Ephe told the HOH to target Mars instead of themself, for example, which was just Mars deleting a number from his side for no reason. Flour and Anna is another relationship this season that I think was perfect frenemy potential, because they were never going to trust each other but at the end of the day were 2/3 of the comp beasts this season. Creating a temporary truce to go far with each other and have more firepower against Hermes was, in my view, the right play for both of them. But don't get me wrong, I'm just as bad at this and am known for being an emotional player lmaoooo I'm so bad at betraying people, y'all if you ever play with me I'll be frenemies if you betray me first but will not do it myself.

Closing Thoughts
Once again, thank you everyone for this amazing game! It was loads of fun to watch, and it was so cool to see such exciting and dynamic gameplay this time around! Older folks will know, but this is the second game I've hosted and the first was kind of a snoozefest. Literally everyone added a different spice to the season, and I love complex spice mixes so it worked great for me haha! Both newbies were awesome and did great for their first season in a cast full of vets, and I hope to see both of you return soon! I will scream #BraveRobbed into the void for the rest of the time, I adored seeing them step up to the plate and actually lead their alliance, since that is just not what precedent said that they would do. Hermes of course gave a masterclass, I loved seeing Flour's strategy finally work out too, and I also enjoyed Drask working from the bottom in action. Even earlier outs had learned from prior seasons and really tried to evolve their gameplay from the past, such as scattered wanting protection from two sides -- in the past he's been someone who has remained relatively contained within one alliance. So basically thanks for the great season y'all, if this season had been bad I might not have found the motivation to host again but you might see me hosting again soon! (Not during term time though and with a co-host more active than me so then again maybe not lol).
 
Last edited:
Post-Game Thoughts (Lorde):


Hey guys! As is tradition around here, I figured it made sense to give you guys a post-game update with all of my thoughts on this game, some looks behind-the-scenes, and more fun stuff you may or may not have known. Rankings have already been published in the server, so you all know how we feel about you guys as individual players. This post is not about individuals anymore, this is about the broad. I didn’t have one of these prepared in advance, since I think it’s best to write all about it after everything’s fully wrapped up. Cel’s already written his, it’s right up above, so following that here’s mine, for the first time ever you guys get two of these! Without bloating this anymore, here are my thoughts. Enjoy!

General Thoughts
Before I get into anything else, I want to thank you guys as a cast for being so so so entertaining! There were a couple dull weeks as the midgame became the endgame, but overall, you guys were one of the most hectic casts I think we’ve ever had here, and because of that this cast was absolutely incredible to watch, and this instantly became one of my top all-time seasons of PBB! I know people think I complain a lot about recent seasons, but BB10 and BB11 being recent had nothing to do with why I disliked them, I didn’t like them because the gameplay was stagnant and/or there was simply not enough activity to enjoy the season. This season had neither of those problems, and if for nothing else, I want to thank you all for being great TV!

Now, let’s talk about the overall gameplay. Honestly you guys came to play, and that’s honestly more important when it comes to enjoying a season, and I don’t think you guys are as bad at the game as some of your moves seemed this season. But man, some of the moves you guys made were ridiculous. I said this a lot in the audience (and I doubt any of you reading this will get why I draw this parallel), but this season felt a lot like Big Brother Canada 9 in that everyone except like 2 people were playing the game very suboptimally, but it was still crazy entertaining. Anyways, the earlygame made this the season of bad HOHs. Ephe’s week 1 HOH with the game was terrible: the gimmicky nature of it alienated potential allies and gave reason for enemies to target them, both of Anna’s HOHs were hijacked by stronger strategists (Draskk and Mars), Sen didn’t use his HOH to build a single new connection, and though Flour’s first HOH was pretty solid he damaged his relationship with Draskk, and even in the lategame Jabber’s first HOH was very questionable. This season had a lot of hilariously flawed HOHs in the early and middle portions of the game, and so we in the audience both laughed and cringed at it. Either way, it was funny, and I enjoyed watching it all.

Next, I’m going to do the signature reminder I always do: USE YOUR DRs!!! PLEASE!!! There were definitely people who I wish spoke more in their DRs! I think rankings were pretty justified this season and I don’t even think I’ve seen anyone say they got shafted in the ranks, but if you feel like you played better than the numbers reflect, chances are you didn’t talk enough in your DR! It’s no surprise that Hermes excelled in the ranks, and part of that is definitely because we saw his process moving through the game! Using your DR as an idea board to just blab your thoughts on the game is the best use there is for it, and I will keep screaming at people to update it until I stop caring about this series (never)!

I guess then there’s just how I felt about the season as a whole. As I said earlier, this season was awesome in my opinion, and definitely shot right into my top 3 PBB seasons of all time. The season was fun to watch, there were plenty of fun things happening socially and strategically, and I still like the majority of the twists we did this season, which I’ll talk about more in the next section. This season was, largely, the comeback season I had been waiting for after the hiatus BB11 and the Turbo series kicked off, and I’m so happy PBB came back roaring with some of its strongest!

Competitions & Twists
Competition-planning was mostly Cel’s wheelhouse this season, so read his postgame up above for more on that. As I’m sure plenty of you know by now, planning competitions is by far my least favorite part of designing a new season, and so having Cel do the bulk of this was great, because I’m pretty sure the comp side of things is his favorite part! See guys! This is why we work well together! Even if we’re both crazy! Cel was busy for the earlygame and so I mapped out most of pre-jury, but after that he took the wheel, and I would say he did a great job with it.

Twists were almost entirely mine. With the exception of the piñata which I credit Cel for creating and that’s why he talked about it, most of these twists came from one of the many Big Brother drafts I’d filed away for future use months ago. Though I think the room twist was poorly executed in Big Brother 22 (US), I think the concept is really cool. If there’s anything to gather from how I ran BB9 with the Play Tokens, I like having a bunch of things going on through 1 central twist. Play Tokens spawned a bunch of other things, and so did the rooms. The Safety Suite, Comeback Chamber, Veiled Vault, Quiet Quarters, and Twisted Sandcastle all added very different elements to the season and I enjoyed what they all did. That said, let’s go into what I had planned to happen and then what actually happened.

So the Safety Suite, Comeback Chamber, and Veiled Vault ran as normal. I think Safety Suite and Veiled Vault were both a bit underwhelming, though I think there were moments to both that had effects on gameplay or were just hilarious to watch (Draskk getting a zero in Family Feud? I will hold that over his head until the end of time). However, because the week 6 live double eviction was cancelled, we had to change the plan from what we had to the Instant Eviction you guys saw. The idea was for the rooms to work as they did, but Mars and Hermes would only be in the Quiet Quarters for the duration of a live session (about an hour), and the rest of you would only be blocked off from each other for that same amount of time. We had both an HOH and POV competition planned. Though I think the Quiet Quarters were fine with the Instant Eviction change, keeping the Twisted Sandcastle as it was in a non-live situation damaged the gamestate because it encouraged staying tight-lipped for an extended period of time, and I wish we had decided to drop that room. The game did recover, probably due to this cast’s resiliency, but if we didn’t have such an engaging group of people this could have killed the season’s momentum for good.

The punishment competition was also nowhere in the original draft, and though I think punishment competitions are a cool idea, the rules this one used and how late in the game it was were definitely poor planning choices on our part, as once again they reduced endgame possibilities. Though it’s not why we ended the twist at the start of week 9, I’m glad we cut it off there, because within a couple days of seeing what was happening I already began to regret this comp. I mean hey, the person I thought was screwed over the most by this won the game anyways, so maybe it wasn’t as destructive as I’m saying it is. Either way, if punishment comps ever return they should happen earlier in the season and with different rules from the ones we used.

Lastly, there was one final twist that would have been huge if it saw play, and that was the week 8 Fake Double Eviction. The plan was to have the 2 evicted players on the week 8 double eviction compete in a competition afterwards, and the winner would re-enter the game as a regular houseguest (without immunity like the Comeback Chamber winners, it was too late in the game to give that away too). Mars walked from the game during the first round of the double eviction, and not having that first person to compete in the comeback, we were forced to scrap the twist. I think it would have been a fun thing to see, but it would have given this season 3 comebacks, which is insane and would have been a record. This season was already crazy for doing 2 comebacks, something we haven’t seen since BB3, but if you couldn’t tell, I put a lot of crazy stuff into this season just because I saw it as my last hurrah (I SWEAR I’m done after this season).

There was a lot I wanted to do this season that I didn’t get to, and there were a few things like the Instant Eviction, the punishment comp, and America’s Winner (again) that were never in my initial plans that I ended up going with. Overall, the season I had mapped out in my head didn’t look exactly like what you guys got, and though I’m sad I didn’t get to do things like the Fake Double, I’m still very happy with what I put out.

Oh! Before I forget, let’s address Have-Nots! Have-Nots are something I’ve wanted to try out here for a long time now, and why not a time like right now? It made sense to me to test the waters after a long hiatus, so I went and included Have-Nots in the season. They weren’t meant to be gamechanging or anything, just some fun for us as viewers to taunt you all with stupid gimmicky things. The only thing that actually made gameplay a bit interesting was the POV punishment, which took off 10% from a final score in the POV. For the entire game, this never actually lost anyone a competition, not until Anna lost the Final 5 POV during the live double eviction, and her score went from the winning one to third place. I’ll be honest, even though you guys as houseguests were not a fan of the twists (or the spam pings), I really had a lot of fun with this one. I don’t think it’s built for you guys to enjoy it in the moment. Where my plans differ after seeing this executed is I don’t think I want to make Have-Nots a series staple like we did with live doubles and Special Evictions, because this requires some brainstorming on tasks, punishments, and would eventually take away the novelty of the twist. I do think I enjoy keeping things like small punishments around though. Throwback to BB9’s prize/punishment comp. Though I think it was flawed because the comp I used was Count to Ten, I wouldn’t mind seeing punishments for the future show up through avenues like that one.

That’s pretty much my thoughts on twists. The ones that ran as scheduled were great, though besides maybe Have-Nots I don’t see there being a need to recycle anything we did this season. The only thing I would like to see is a Fake Double, but that’s more because we had to cancel it.

Closing Thoughts
Good god I really can just talk and talk and talk huh? Anyways, time to wrap this up. Y’all know I love this game, and the fact that I’ve been able to host this game that I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving 6 times now is amazing. But unlike the last time I wrote up a postgame… I’m burnt out. Don’t get me wrong, I love this game and this community and have no desire to leave you guys, but I hosted BB9 like it was my last season. I was prepared to never do this again from then. Then Cel disappeared halfway through BB10 and I did so much on the season he basically forced me to credit myself as a co-host on the wiki. Neither of us were supposed to host BB12 either, but because the hiatus was going on longer than either of us wanted, we ended up taking charge of this too almost out of obligation. I was not supposed to host season 10 or 12, and combine that with the fact that that’s 3 of the last 4 seasons I’m just… tired. Maybe I’ll want to host again eventually, but right now I do not want that and realistically, probably won’t have the time to do so anyways now that I’ve started college.

I should also say I’m so glad that this season there seemed to be next to no bad blood once you all left the house. Ending seasons is something that excites me because I almost always want it to be over by the time it’s done, but it’s also usually a time where houseguests are butthurt with each other, with the way the audience perceived them, etc. and it becomes awkward and no fun for anyone. I saw none of that either during the reunion, when I let you guys out of the house yesterday, and I’m so glad you guys were civil enough to let the game just be the game this time around, and nothing further. As someone who has been there for countless postgame theatrics, thank you all for not making me suffer through any of that through the last couple days.

I want to give thanks to a few people before wrapping this up, because I like to be nice. Thank you to my co-host @Celever, obviously. Honestly even though we have creative differences, working on 2 seasons now together I am convinced we just mesh well while doing this. You brought your ideas with competitions, and then some with twists (admittedly, most I didn’t like), and I like that you brought your creative energy to everything we did this season. Even if I think you’re crazy, that makes you an amazing partner and I’m so glad I had you by my side this season. I also want to thank @NinjaPenguin, just because he was not supposed to do anything this season, but he did more than enough! He helped with data sheets (recording that first HOH competition because we knew it would be a logistical nightmare), comp planning, and when I had to mention I would get busy by the endgame he took on the third host role and did more than his fair share of helping host semi-live competitions (which he also did throughout the season), and though he never asked to be involved, I’m glad he was able to volunteer the time he had to help us get this done. Love you penguin! <3

I know I’ve said it already, but I had a ton of fun hosting this season, and though I’m certain that this time is my last, I’m glad to leave hosting behind on a high note. With both of our postgames now up, I will announce as usual that BB12 is officially over, and I look forward to what happens with BB13, wherever that ends up going!

- Lorde
 
Last edited:
Back
Top