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Nani PixNani Pix guide

HARD MODE

Every round Nani Pix starts by herself is a HARD MODE round (see How a round ends). Rounds that players start are never HARD MODE.

The rules

Section titled “The rules”
  • Two turns instead of five stages.
  • Two screenshots at once. Each turn shows two different screenshots of the same anime, posted together as an album.
  • Turn 1 isn’t blurrier than usual. It’s as blocky as stage 1 of a normal round with the default settings; turn 2 is noticeably clearer. What makes HARD MODE hard is the guess limit.
  • One wrong guess per turn. One miss on turn 1 moves to turn 2, where both screenshots are clearer. One miss on turn 2 ends the round.
  • Double reward. Cracking it counts as +2 wins on the leaderboard, and the pixel reward is doubled too.
  • Clues are on sale. Every clue in the shop is discounted, starting at 20%. The discount grows by 20 points after each HARD MODE round nobody cracks, up to 80%, and drops back to 20% once one is solved. The round’s first post states the discount, and the shop shows it under your balance: 🏷 HARD MODE sale: −20% on every clue.
  • The shop is a link. An album can’t carry buttons, so instead of the 🛒 Clues button, a HARD MODE post ends with a link that opens the shop in a private chat with Nani Pix.
  • No /correct and no /sharpen. Nobody hosts the round, so the vote below replaces /correct.

Everything else is the same as a normal round: how guesses are matched, the two-day limit, and the winner getting the next turn.

The vote

Section titled “The vote”

Nani Pix’s matching is strict, and with one guess per turn a correct answer under an unusual name can slip through. So when a HARD MODE round ends without a correct guess, but somebody did guess, the group votes on whether one of the guessers was actually right.

  • Nani Pix posts the answer (the video of one screenshot, then the clue album with the other one and every clue screenshot bought), then a ballot with one button per guesser, showing what each of them guessed and how many votes they have so far, and a last 🙅 Nobody button for when no guess was right. The counts update as people vote.
  • Any group member can vote, once, and can change their vote by tapping another button. You can’t vote for yourself, but anyone can vote 🙅 Nobody.
  • A clear lead closes the vote at once. As soon as one button has the most votes, with no tie, and at least as many as half the people who played in the last day (never fewer than 3, the same bar as /pass), the vote ends on that tap: a guesser in the lead wins, 🙅 Nobody in the lead means the round stays unsolved.
  • Otherwise the vote closes after 15 minutes, and the buttons disappear. If the group has quiet hours, they push the close back like any other timer.
  • At the close, a guesser wins if they get the most votes, at least 3, with no tie; 🙅 Nobody counts like a guesser here, so its lead means no winner. A winner gets a normal HARD MODE win, +30 💠 for the wait (by default), and the next turn.
  • Otherwise the round stays unsolved.

“✅ Vote counted.” is the short pop-up you see when you tap a button; it isn’t posted to the topic.

While a vote is open, no new round can start, and /guess only points you to the ballot. An admin can also settle it directly (see Fixing a round), and an admin’s /stop cancels it and refunds every clue and the bounty.

Clue cashback

Section titled “Clue cashback”

When a HARD MODE round finally ends unsolved, everyone who bought clues for it gets half of what they spent back (admins can change the share). That’s true however it ends unsolved: after a vote that picks nobody, or with no vote at all because nobody guessed. Any bounty is refunded in full, as in a normal round. You keep the cashback even if an admin later names you the winner.

A winner chosen by the vote or by an admin also gets +30 💠 (by default) on top of the normal HARD MODE win, for having had to wait for it.