Higher or Lower

Put the classic Higher or Lower game on your website. You make a deck of things with a number each - prices, years, heights, populations, percentages - and visitors see one card with its number and the next card without. Is the next one higher or lower? Every right guess grows their streak, and the longest streaks top the leaderboard. Higher or Lower is a Pro Tool, and can be gifted to a site.

What it does

• You make the deck. Each item is a name and a number, with a picture and a source note if you like. Up to 1,000 items.
• Any kind of number, shown the way it should be:
  • Price in pounds - £1,250 or £4.99
  • Year - 1969, and a minus year is BC (500 BC)
  • Count - 7,900,000
  • Percent - 45.5%
  • Plain number - as typed
  • and optional words after the number for counts and plain numbers: "8,849 metres", "300 calories".
• Type numbers however you like. £, commas and % are fine; 2.1m is 2,100,000, 3bn is 3,000,000,000, 12k is 12,000, and "500 BC" is a year.
• Fill it quickly: paste a list ("Mars bar, £0.85" a line), paste from a spreadsheet, or open a CSV file.
• Fill it from your shop: if your site has Shopping Cart (selling in pounds), one button adds every product on sale with its price - a "guess the price" game in seconds.
• Each go deals cards at random from the deck, so people can play again and again.
• The numbers stay on the server. A player's browser only learns a number once they have guessed. Pictures are sent without their file names (so "kettle-34.99.jpg" gives nothing away), and a source note only arrives with its number.
• Lives: one (the first wrong guess ends it - the classic game) or up to five.
• Equal numbers: never deal two the same one after the other, or deal them and count either guess as right.
• A time limit for each guess if you want one: a bar runs down, and no guess in time counts as wrong.
• Leaderboards: the longest streak first, then the fastest. Today, this week, this month and all time, best go per name.
• Animations - the number counts up as it is revealed, and cards slide in. Visitors who asked for less motion never see them.
• Keyboard and touch: H or the Up arrow for higher, L or the Down arrow for lower; big Higher and Lower buttons on phones and tablets.
• Personal best, the whole run of cards on the finished screen, and a Share button that never gives a number away.

Getting started

1. Switch Higher or Lower on in Tools.
2. Open Tools > Games > Higher or Lower and choose New game.
3. Give it a title, and choose how the numbers are shown (for example Price in pounds).
4. Fill the deck: Add an item, Paste lines…, Open a CSV file… or Fill from the shop….
5. Press Test and play it yourself (see below).
6. Set the status to Open and save.
7. Put it on any page:

[higher-lower id="prices" /]

Filling the deck

Add an item adds an empty row: type the name and the number. The number is shown beside it as players will see it, and a row that cannot be played (no name, not a number, the same name twice) is marked in red until it is fixed.

Each row also has:

• + Picture - choose a picture from Media (JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP). The small × removes it. Describe the picture for players who use a screen reader.
• Shown as - "As the deck", or a different format for this one item.
• Source note - where the number comes from ("ONS 2021"). Players see it only once the number is revealed, so it may mention the number.

Paste lines… opens a box. Paste one item a line, its name, a comma, then its number:

Mars bar, £0.85
Eiffel Tower, 1889
Paris, 2,100,000
"London, UK", 8900000

A name may have commas in it if the number is last; put the name in double quotes if it ends in digits. A paste from a spreadsheet (a name column and a number column) works too. Add to the deck adds them (a name already in the deck gets the new number); Replace the deck swaps the whole deck for them. Lines that cannot be read are listed.

Open a CSV file… reads a CSV file the same way. A file with a header row is read by its column names: name, and number (or value, price, year, count), and optionally format (plain, gbp, year, count or percent), image (a /media/ address), alt and source.

Download as CSV saves the deck in that same layout, to edit in a spreadsheet and open again.

Fill from the shop… (shown when your site has Shopping Cart selling in pounds) adds every product on sale with its price and its first picture from Media. A product already in the deck gets the shop's price. Prices are copied when you press it: if you change a price in the shop later, press it again.

Every setting

The game

• Title - shown to players.
• Short name - used in the shortcode. Made from the title when left empty.
• Status - Draft (not shown anywhere), Open (playable, needs at least 3 items), Closed (the leaderboard still shows, no new goes).
• The question - shown above the cards, e.g. "Which costs more?" or "Older or newer?". Empty: "Is the next one higher or lower?".
• Introduction - shown before a player starts.

The deck

• Numbers are shown as - the format for the whole deck (see above).
• Words after the number - optional, for counts and plain numbers.

How it is played

• Cards a go - 3 to 200 (20 unless you change it). The best possible streak is one fewer. A smaller deck deals all of its cards.
• Lives - 1 to 5. With more than one, a wrong guess costs a life and the streak carries on; the score is the number of right guesses.
• Equal numbers - Never deal two equal numbers in a row (a card with the same number as the one before is skipped for the next that differs), or Equal numbers count as right.
• Seconds for each guess - 0 is no limit. With a limit, no guess in time counts as wrong. The server keeps the clock, with a few seconds of grace for slow connections.

Rules and leaderboard

• Goes each (per name) - 0 is as many as they like.
• Leaderboard size and Leaderboard opens on - how many names, and which period shows first.
• Opens and Closes - optional dates and times.
• Show a leaderboard and Animations - on unless you switch them off.

Settings (the cog at the top of Higher or Lower) - the starting values of a new game on this site: cards a go, lives, equal numbers, seconds for each guess, how numbers are shown, animations. Each game keeps its own once saved.

Testing a game

Test (in the editor, on each game in the list, and on its Plays screen) opens the game right there in the admin, exactly as your players will see it.

• It plays the version you last saved. With unsaved changes the button says Save and test, and saves first.
• It works whatever the status, so you can try a draft before anyone can see it.
• A test go is never saved to the leaderboard, is not in the Plays list, does not count towards anyone's goes and raises no notification. When you finish, it tells you where you would have come.

Shortcodes

The game, with its leaderboard below it:

[higher-lower id="prices" /]

The game without its leaderboard, or the leaderboard alone where the game would be:

[higher-lower id="prices" board="hide" /]
[higher-lower id="prices" board="only" /]

The leaderboard anywhere else, for a period of your choice (today, week, month or all), with an optional limit and title:

[higher-lower-leaderboard id="prices" period="week" limit="5" title="This week's best streaks" /]

Leaderboards on the same page refresh when someone finishes a go.

Plays and leaderboards

Plays (on each game) lists every go: the name, how it ended ("out on card 7" or "cleared the deck"), the streak and the time. Hide takes a play off the leaderboard without deleting it (a rude name, a known cheat); Show puts it back. Reset the leaderboard… deletes every play of that game.

Moving games between sites

Export a game from its menu in the list (right-click it, or ⋮), or from the download button at the top of its editor. Export all puts every game in one file. The file holds the items and settings, never who played them. Pictures travel as their Media addresses: copy the pictures to the other site's Media too.

Import… at the top of the list adds the games in such a file to this site. Each arrives as a draft, every item is checked again, and a game whose short name is taken gets one of its own (prices-2). Up to 50 games at a time.

Notifications

• Higher or Lower new best streak - someone has beaten the best streak in a game.

The sidebar shows how many goes were finished today.

Gifting

Higher or Lower can be gifted to a site by Domma, for good or for a number of days, like the other Games.