Release notes

9upper-online.com began serving the game publicly. A room could be created in a browser with no download and no account, and the other players joined by entering the room code and a nickname on their own phones.

That first public build already ran the three core roles, drew from an original topic library written for this website, and kept the answer on the Truth-Knower device only.

Ruleset v0.3.0 introduced the three room timers for reading the answer, for discussion, and for the guess. All three are off when a room is created and the host turns each one on separately.

The reveal was also separated from the scoreboard. Each player can finish reading the answer before moving on, while the host starts the next round when the table is ready.

Hong Kong Traditional Chinese, Taiwan Traditional Chinese, and English became complete editions of both the interface and the topic library, each on its own address.

Hong Kong Traditional Chinese is the edition served when a visitor has not asked for a language. A room uses one language for the whole game.

Ruleset v0.4.0 raised the room to between 3 and 9 players. A room created before that date keeps the player range it started with.

The host also gained a card swap for the case where someone at the table already knows the topic. The round redraws with the same roles, the timers restart, and nothing is scored for the discarded card.

The website became installable from the browser, so it can be opened from a home screen and started without going through a store first.

Nothing about the game changed with the install. An installed copy and a browser tab join the same rooms.

The topic library was rebuilt around facts most players are unlikely to already know, and topics that turned out to be common knowledge were removed rather than kept for volume. The collection grew past 500 and later past 1,000 concepts in each language.

This is the change players notice most at the table. A topic that everyone can already explain gives the Bluffers nothing to invent and gives the Thinker nothing to read.

Ruleset v0.5.0 gave every card a full answer and a short answer, and the host chooses the edition before the game starts.

The short edition is written, not truncated. It leaves the Truth-Knower less verifiable detail to spend during discussion, which makes a room harder without changing the topics it draws.

Ruleset v0.6.0 scaled points by the difficulty of the card, from 1 to 3. The first Thinker of a new room is drawn at random and later turns follow the order in which players joined at the start.

The callout became usable once per played card, and its points are settled together with the round result. Older room snapshots keep the rules they started under.

The Android app was released on Google Play. Browser play was kept exactly as it was, so the app is an additional way in rather than a replacement.

A public sample collection was published the same week so visitors can read complete original cards outside a game. Those 24 concepts show the question, both answer editions, the directions, and the difficulty, and they are excluded from room draws because their answers are already public.

The optional 9UP King joined the room settings with a private challenge word. Four more optional roles followed: Hype Hound, Accomplice, Hindered Truth-Knower, and Dream Teller.

All five are off by default and the host enables them separately. Their private tasks stay with the assigned player until the ordinary reveal, and the room keeps the same core Thinker, Truth-Knower, and Bluffer flow.

The guest session now expires after one day. A device that has not played for longer than that starts as a new guest and rejoins with the room code as usual.

When an idle room is deleted, an anonymous count is kept to improve the rules, the topics, and the interface: rounds played, cards drawn, duration, difficulty, and the room and interface languages. Nicknames, session identifiers, and card text are not kept.

Ruleset v0.9.0 set the number of rounds equal to the number of players present when the game started, so each of them takes exactly one turn as the Thinker.

A room created before this change finishes under the round count it was created with.

The library was audited against two admitted shapes: tagged opaque topics and tag-free open topics. The pass removed 210 concepts and kept 1,790, including 1,700 tagged topics and 90 open topics at that point.

The audit also repaired several answer editions and retained the aggregate direction balance. At that point the collection held 1,700 tagged topics and 90 open topics. It clarified that a recognisable subject can be playable when the question asks for a less familiar property rather than a common definition.

Open-topic fronts were read against their full and short answers. Bare subjects that did not tell players what kind of explanation to offer were reframed around their answer axis without revealing the answer itself.

The family remains aligned at 1,790 concepts in all three locales, now measured as 1,699 tagged topics and 91 open topics. This update changes question framing and a small number of short answers; it does not change the room draw protocol.

The public reference section grew to ten pages covering the topic library, question design, the review process, aggregate statistics, the published samples, the optional roles, hosting a room, and this record.

These pages describe the service and the library. They do not publish the playable cards, which stay with the room.

A room stores the ruleset snapshot selected when it was created. A new release can therefore add a rule while an older room continues under its frozen version until it finishes. If a room behaves differently from what this page describes, check when it was created.

The entries above describe the active v0.9 room flow. A dated entry is added whenever the library or the rules change in a way that a player would notice.