Introducing NihontoWatch's Great Kantei Games Season 1

[Hoshi]

Dear NMB community, 

 

Tomorrow is the big day, NihontoWatch will be officially out of BETA. I promised a surprise, so it is time for the reveal. I have cooked. 

 

What we've been missing in the field is the ability to learn from kantei. Kantei is the practice of guessing the maker or school of a blade, either with the real sword in hand, or through oshigata and descriptive information. The later is the model that has been used in the Token Bijutsu magazine for decades, and it has been a wonderful way for people to engage with the field and learn more. Today it's a bit frozen in time, with bids sent through paper mail, and feedback being exceedingly slow as a result. 

 

NihontoWatch brings this ancient practice to the digital age. 

 

Tomorrow everyone will be able to play the Daily Kantei, where you will be presented with the same five swords with carefully selected clues, and attempt to guess the maker from a calibrated multiple choice in under 90 seconds. The daily kantei is a learning tool, where you can improve your skills at differentiating makers, study key traits of different smiths, and refine your connoisseurship. On any given day, if you reach 4 out of 5 Atari, you will unlock the Dojo Access Achievement. Once you earn the achievement as an NW member, it will unlock the doors of the the Dojo for you. There, you can train as much as you want, and the difficulty will gently adjust to your level to keep things challenging while not impossible. It will find your sweet spot for you to learn and prepare you for what comes next. 

 

Once you've muster the courage, true competition begins on the public leaderboard. You can compete in Ranked Kantei. 

 

Ranked Kantei uses the same formal rating system as chess: the ELO rating. After 50 trials, you are assigned an ELO rating based on your performance and you will be qualified on the ladder. The game's difficulty is self-adjusting, it gets harder and harder as you climb up the ladder, and your ELO rating will keep evolving as long as you keep playing. After a few months (TBD), the season will come to an end and champions will be announced, and a new season will begin with rule adjustments. Each season have a maximum number of trials (TBD, between 250 and 500). As more players play the game, the self-adjusting difficulty will become more accurate and throw less wild swings and the next season will benefit from better calibration. Until then, we all must endure the unforgiving swings of the Kantei Arena. 

 

During the course of internal testing, our current champion was revealed to be no other than...

 

THE DISTINGUISHED, THE AWESOME, THE ERUDITE MARKUS SESKO

 

WHO WILL RISE TO THE CHALLENGE AND CONFRONT OUR CHAMPION? 

 

WHO WILL HAVE THE GUSTO AND THE ERUDITION TO DISPLACE HIM AND EARN GREAT GLORY? 

 

GREAT PRIZES ARE TO BE WON IN THE FUTURE, IF THE ARENA MASTER'S RUMORS ARE TRUE... 

 

And will the Indecisive Ninja reveal who he truly is? will he make a secret bid for the top under his mysterious moniker? 

 

Will yours truly, Hoshi, the evident try-hard challenger with a whooping 134 trials under his belt, finally learn to differentiate the various Ukai smiths and study his Shinto? 

 

Stay tuned. All will be revealed during the course of the GREAT KANTEI GAMES, season 1. 

 

 

In the future, there be exclusive perks to unlock by playing and competing in the Dojo, and you can trust that they will be nothing short of awesome. First, it needs to be tested for a months or two, ensuring everything works well, that there are no gaps, and that it is resistant to shenanigans. 

 

This link will be live tomorrow: https://nihontowatch.com/kantei/

 

Or simply access it via the app here: 

 

 

If you're enjoying NihontoWatch, support the project by getting your membership here: https://nihontowatch.com/join 

 

As usual, please keep all Kantei game related feedback (bugs, issues, areas of improvements...) in this thread. 

 

Brace for the Great Kantei Games. 

 

It begins tomorrow. 

 

Hoshi

 

[Brian]

[NotANinja]

Holy crap this looks great what a fantastic idea I'm terrible at kantei 

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

Great game! Is there any chance for a Japanese version of the description in the future...?

 

Also, and this is only my wild fantasy, but wouldn't it be awesome if there were a post where people could discuss this Kantei game (the day after, so it's not spoiling anything), like a crowdsourced Kantei comment explaining the thought process!

[Hoshi]

Hi Baby Joe, 

 

Yes, I am working on a Japanese version. It's on the roadmap. 

 

Quote

Also, and this is only my wild fantasy, but wouldn't it be awesome if there were a post where people could discuss this Kantei game (the day after, so it's not spoiling anything), like a crowdsourced Kantei comment explaining the thought process!

 

Yes I think these are great learning conversation to be had, perhaps it's own NMB section in the future, as long as we manage spoilers in a gentlemanly manner. 

 

Today's board, so far

 

A mysterious Kagemusha managed to get all five Atari. 

 

Welcome to our NMB residents who are making a strong showing for the first game, which I am sure is confusing and requires adjustments to get used to! 

 

Welcome to Frugal Tengu, Dramatic Onmyoji, Lost Ronin, and all the other magical animals and folkloric figures. 

 

 

 

 

I hope you all enjoy it, please don't hesitate to give me feedback on how I can make it better for you. 

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

 

 

 

 

[nulldevice]

Nihonto Wordle

 

My new addiction. Great work!

[Hoshi]

 

Congratulations @YourBabyBjornBorg for rising to second place. 

 

Our @Jussi Ekholm has overtaken first place this morning

 

Will Chatty Tanuki made a bid for first place? Surely this new leaderboard cannot remain so for long! 

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

Thank you, Hoshi San! I was briefly in 1st place, then Mr. Ekholm took over. At least we finally know who the Indecisive Ninja was! 

 

I must say that this system of offering 5 potential options is even more helpful than the usual Nyusatsu Kantei "hints". If they were in the classic Nyusatsu Kantei system, where I myself have to give a precise answer, then most of the Kantei quizzes I did today would be impossible for a very green dum-dum like me (who only knows the biggest names in Nihonto, and throwing the answer "Kotetsu" to any Edo Shinto with a suddenly wide Yaki under the Yokote I see in Kantei. ←True story when I was reading 刀剣鑑定のきめ手), like 小反義次 or 綾小路宗延 (I was like, "Huh? Who dis?"), or even just all the different and countless smiths from the school of Sa.

 

I am still passionately waiting for a dedicated Kantei Q&A post so we can finally discuss how to tell a Sa Yukihiro from a Sa Hiroyasu, a Jitsua from Sairen, or just rant about that one signed Hoki Sadatsuna without Kuromi/Shirake, Yakiotoshi, or most of other Hoki traits, and looking absolutely like a Ko-Bizen. 50 questions in Ranked in one day is too much......

[Jussi Ekholm]

This is amazing and fun, I can't figure out how @Hoshi has been able to make this. This plays out very similarily to NBTHK monthly kantei with the description. Well this of course has very tight timer, and it makes you decide answer within 90 seconds.

 

I admit I might have bit "unfair" advantage in having done NBTHK monthly magazine kantei for several years, so I know some words that NBTHK often uses as clues to some smiths/schools. And the bigger thing is that I've probably spent massive amounts of hours with Jūyō books over the years. There are items I know from memory after seeing the picture and measurements.

 

However the system can be very tricky and throw in slight curve balls. In one session I automatically threw out Sōshū Akiyoshi as option as I thought I remember there weren't any items remaining by him. Well it turns out there are 1 signed and 1 attributed that I completely forgot about... Sometimes the options are very close to each other and occasionally you can immidiately exclude some of the 5 options. It is addictive and cool system, some quiz are very hard and some bit easier.

[Hoshi]

Hello, 

 

Thank you @Jussi Ekholm, and congratulations for taking the top spot, years any years of study are showing

 

Heads up on daily kantei:

 

it's easy to cheat by creating a second account and using it to leak the answers to your primary account.

 

There is really no point though, it's easy for me to detect and I will erase your score for the day. 

 

Ladder play are randomized blades, it won't work where it counts. 

 

Please respect the spirit of the game, daily kantei is designed with the same blades for everyone as a way to collectively learn and discuss the same five swords. 

 

For bragging rights, play ranked. 

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

[Hoshi]

Hear ye, Hear ye, 

 

 

@YourBabyBjornBorg what do you say to this great upset of the arena?

 

Will you make a bold attempt at reclaiming your seat? 

 

WHO ELSE HAS THE GALL TO CHALLENGE JUSSI THE GREAT. 

 

HE WHO STANDS SEVENTY ONE ELO POINTS AHEAD OF ALL.

 

The great Kantei game Season 1 goes on...

 

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

1330 points, eh? I bet I can...... 174 ROUNDS?! 

 

 

Really even 1325 is way too high for me, because I'm currently at 1263 points in Practice mode  

[sabiji]

I'm really struggling in training mode right now.

 

When you only get 5 points for an Atari, but lose 2 for a Dozen. And with “The Same Tradition,” things really go downhill...

[Hoshi]

Hi, 

 

You are all doing great, and I'm really happy that this game is so popular. 

 

The "competitive" aspect is really tongue-in-cheek and the primary goal is just to learn and have fun. 

 

Professional chess ELO ratings is brutal but it's also funny to some extant to see it in a kantei game. Don't take it too seriously. People that have been doing the Kantei in Token Bijutsu Mag for years and studying Juyo blades will naturally have a big advantage. 

 

In general It's a great way to train pattern recognition and to become knowledgeable in this field. I wish I had this when I started out. And with practice you will improve a lot, but it takes time. Especially it's not so easy if you're really starting out to understand why you are wrong sometimes. I think I will add a comment section on the daily kantei for participants to explain their reasoning. 

 

If people would be interested, I can also do a more approachable mode where the goal is simply to match to one of the five traditions. What do you think?

 

Keep learning,

 

Hoshi

 

[Lexvdjagt]

2 hours ago, Hoshi said:

If people would be interested, I can also do a more approachable mode where the goal is simply to match to one of the five traditions. What do you think?

I think this would be a great idea. I have been loving the Kantei game to learn and improve, but for some beginners, all the different smiths will be hard to grasp. It would be ideal to have a segment that consists only of the 5 traditions. Our token society runs a beginner's course, and having a tool like this will keep the "students" busy with learning. This way, nihontowatch (and the premium subscription) won't just be for commercial benefit but also for the learning aspect. I think quite a few people would be willing to pay the membership just to be able to train in the dojo.

[Natichu]

5 hours ago, Hoshi said:

 

If people would be interested, I can also do a more approachable mode where the goal is simply to match to one of the five traditions. What do you think?

I had actually been thinking it would be great to have an option to be able to match to just school as well, with a more detailed write up on the schools. Often if the Atari is just a school, no information is given as to what features, etc., are associated, as compared to the other options presented. For example, what indicated Osafune vs. Yoshii or Omiya, etc. 

 

An option for just tradition would be good too for those struggling at the school level. 

 

As I'm quite new to all of it, I find what I'm doing is mentally picking a school before clicking "place your bid". I then use that to pick between the options, and while I'm learning to distinguish some of the smiths themselves often I'm guessing between two smiths from the same school. If that is the school I identified, I take that mentally as an Atari even if I end up picking the wrong smith from that school. 

 

Overall, however, the experience has been excellent. I find I'm learning quite a lot while very much enjoying myself. 

Edited August 28 by Natichu
Typo corrected.

[NotANinja]

I think this is brilliant personally, I've been having a lot of fun doing it and get quite the rush when I get it right.  As a new person (well, not new new, but to kantei new) I find it's particularly difficult when you don't know the names of the various schools and only know the names and basic styles of the Gokaden, and the options rarely have those traditions named in them. I've learnt a lot by playing, but my knowledge is still very limited. Some days I can get 2-3 Atari (by educated guesses, I've yet to come across one where I actually know the answer) and other days I get "Same Tradition" on 2 and off the mark for the rest. A real mixed bag. 

 

Anyway I think it's fantastic and I enjoy playing while having my coffee at work long may it continue!

 

I got 32 points today, huzzah! 

[Hoshi]

Hi, 

 

Great feedback guys! And it's built. I've added the two new modes.

 

Try it out and let me know what you think. 

 

Keep giving me ideas and wishes, and I'll do my best to make them come true. 

 

• 

I think the next step is to provide a more unified learning journey, including weak spot analysis for focus learning, and deep study material in the artisan library about specific styles, phases of an artist's work, and better orientation overall. 

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

[Scogg]

Finally gave it a go, and it’s a lot of fun!
 

Love the daily game. Also, the traditions and schools kantei is a bit more my speed, so I’m very happy that is now available. Well done on this site, it is really impressive! Happy to now be a member 

[Hoshi]

Wonderful! 

 

I have added a Kantei journey section where you can identify your strong and weak spots and study accordingly. 

 

 

 

I hope this helps, 

 

Hoshi