Welcome to BlogNomic, a self-modifying game where changing the rules is a move. Players make blog posts proposing alterations to the ruleset, discussing and casting votes in the comments: if enough vote in favour, the rules are changed and play continues.

The game has been running since 2003 and resets every month or so. Have a look around the wiki for more information and history, or join our Discord. New players are always welcome to join the game at any time.

Friday, August 08, 2025

Proposal: Britian’s Favo(u)rite Pastime

Add the following to “Trading Day”

A Shutdown Action may only be performed by Closed Trucks and only during the Serve Phase. Immediately after performing a Shutdown Action, a Truck’s Operating Status is set to Dark.

Each Truck optionally has a Queued Action, which is privately tracked by the Yard. A Truck may change (or clear) their Queued Action by informing the Yard of a Shutdown Action they wish to perform or that they are clearing their Queued Action, as well as any necessary information needed to perform that action.

Whenever the Game enters the Serve Phase, the Yard must immediately attempt to perform all Queued Actions by Closed Trucks on behalf of that Truck (being sure to set their Operating Status to Dark if the action was successfully performed). If for whatever reason a given Queued Action could not be performed, the Yard should instead privately inform that Truck that their Queued Action could not be preformed.

Whenever the Game enters the Prep Phase, all Queued Actions are cleared.

In “Hot Topic” replace

As a Serve Action, a Closed Truck may increase the Trendiness of one Ingredient of their choice by 2, and set their Operating Status to Dark

with

As Shutdown Action, a Closed Truck may increase the Trendiness of one Ingredient of their choice by 2

In “Fittings” replace

As a Serve Action, a Closed Truck may add a Fitting that they don’t currently have to their Fittings, and set their Operating Status to Dark

with

As a Shutdown Action, a Closed Truck may add a Fitting that they don’t currently have to their Fittings

Giving closed Trucks the option to tell Kevan what action they want to perform rather than waiting to do it when the serve phase starts.

Proposal: Pitch Shift

In “Pitches”, add “(Today Only:)” to the start of the first three bullet points.

Then add these new bullet points after the third:-

* (From Tomorrow:) Consider the Old Pitches to be a list of the Pitches of all Trucks at this point, ordered from highest Pitch to lowest
* (From Tomorrow:) Set the Pitch of all Trucks to empty
* (From Tomorrow:) For each Truck which has a Desired Pitch that no other Truck desires, set the Pitch of that Truck to their Desired Pitch
* (From Tomorrow:) For each Truck which has no Desired Pitch (in they order they appear in the Old Pitches), set their Pitch to highest Pitch that no Truck is Occupying
* (From Tomorrow:) For each Truck which has a Desired Pitch (in they order they appear in the Old Pitches), set their Pitch to highest Pitch that no Truck is Occupying

Attempting to shake the randomness out of Pitch allocation: a single Truck aiming for a new space gets it (with other Trucks being shuffled down to make room), but two or more Trucks fighting for the same new space means that none of them get it - and they all go to the back of the line, behind the trucks who weren’t trying to move at all.

Proposal: First Impressions

In “The Night”, replace the “They look around” step of the Sale action with:-

* (Today Only:) They look around: If any Dishes with identical ingredients as the Choice are available with a lower price on another Open Truck’s Menu, the Yard selects one of those other Dishes at random and this becomes the Active Customer’s Choice instead
* (From Tomorrow:) They look around: If any Dishes with identical ingredients as the Choice are available with a lower price on another Open Truck’s Menu, the Yard selects the Dish on whichever of those Trucks has the lowest Pitch number, and this becomes the Active Customer’s Choice instead

Also replace “For each Open Truck (in a random order)” with:-

For each Open Truck (in increasing order of Pitch)

Using lower Pitch positions to resolve the currently random choice when multiple, cheaper equivalent Dishes are on offer.

(Also using the Pitch sequence for choosing an order in which to process Sales, although I don’t think this will currently change anything in practice.)

Call for Judgment: Sign Here

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Aug 2025 16:40:04 UTC

In the first paragraph of “Food Trucks”, replace both instances of the word “Name” with “Sign”.

Consider all past actions since that rule’s enactment (except for the previous replacement action) to have been taken as if that rule had always said “Sign” instead of “Name”.

To address the issue of it being unclear what three new players’ names were set to.

Call for Judgment: A Dish By Any Other Name

Failed due to having no effect on the ruleset or gamestate. Josh

Adminned at 08 Aug 2025 18:18:11 UTC

In the rule Food Truck, change each instance of the word ‘Name’ to ‘Trading Name’, and set each Truck’s Trading Name to the value that was tracked for its Name at the time that this CfJ was posted.

Uphold that all dynastic actions that have referred to a Truck by their listed Name / Trading Name prior to the posting of this CfJ have correctly referred to the specified Truck.

Thursday, August 07, 2025

Your names are broken

So, there’s very nearly a dictatorship scam that would allow a complete takeover of BlogNomic, but fortunately we were saved by one somewhat buggy sentence in the Appendix. In any case, things are somewhat broken and we probably need some rule changes and some upholds.

The issue is that the dynastic ruleset attempts to define “Name” as a variable that applies to Trucks – but the core rules also have an (untracked) “name” variable for Trucks, and I can’t see any ruleset-based reason for that to be treated as a different variable (the only way to tell which “name” variable is meant would be context or capitalisation, and I don’t think the capitalisation counts). This means that as soon as a Truck changes their name, they automatically become idle (because “A Truck is only Active if their name is on the list of currently active Trucks in the Sidebar; otherwise they are Idle.” – I don’t see names like “Bat Snacks” or “Finest Grill” on the list in question). As such, if the attempts by Trucks to change their name had succeeded, this would immediately allow an idle admin + idle player to take over the game, via posting and immediately passing a CFJ (because everyone would be Idle other than the Yard, meaning that 2 votes would be enough to make the CFJ quorate).

I was considering looking for an idle admin to help perform the scam (which would not be a core rules scam because it exists because of a dynastic rule), but fortunately there is a sentence in the Appendix which makes most attempts to change names impossible: “A Truck’s name may only be changed as a result of a Proposal approving the change.” Being in the appendix, this overrides most other rules, including the dynastic rule that lets Trucks change their names and the core rule that resets players’ variables when they unidle. This means that the gamestate tracker is wrong, but fortunately this prevents players being automatically idled due to their name not being in the sidebar – the appendix has a very high level of protection for name changes, not even a CFJ works (and the DoV auto-uphold doesn’t work either). I think I’ve noted before that it’s very strange that we have a portion of the gamestate that CFJs can’t change, but the protection came in useful here.

However, things may be slightly broken with respect to the new players, as it’s unclear whether they had a name variable before they joined. It is possible that it was automatically set to the default (which as far as I can tell is AAA – the appendix defines names as a minimum of three characters long, so that’s the alphabetically earliest option), given that the Appendix doesn’t specify a way to set it when joining and it’s actually defined as a tracked variable now. (If players could set their name when joining, the same logic would probably also allow them to set their dollars when joining, which would be broken).

I’m not actively playing this dynasty at the moment, so I’ll leave the fix proposals and CFJs to the rest of you, but wanted to alert you to the problem (and especially to alert you to the fact that the ruleset is very close to completely broken and that you should probably avoid actions that push it over the edge).

Call for Judgment: Imperfect Pitch

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Aug 2025 15:29:43 UTC

Consider all open “Request a Pitch” virtual actions to be cancelled.

In “Pitches”, remove “As a Virtual Prep action, an Open Truck may Request a Pitch.” and add a paragraph after the first:-

Each Truck has a Desired Pitch, which is either empty or a number between 1 and 20 inclusive, defaulting to empty. As a Virtual Prep action, an Open Truck may set their Desired Pitch to any valid value.

Replace:-

* Collect the set of Trucks that made a Request for a Pitch, known as the Requesting Trucks.
* For each Requesting Truck (in a random order), resolve that Truck’s “Request a Pitch” as follows: if that Pitch is not Occupied by any other Truck, assign that Pitch to that Truck, otherwise remove that Truck from the Requesting Trucks.
* For each Truck not in the Requesting Trucks (in a random order), randomly select from all Pitches not Occupied by any Truck and assign the selected Pitch to that Truck.

with:-

* For each Truck which has a Desired Pitch (in a random order): if that Pitch is not Occupied by any other Truck, assign that Pitch to that Truck, otherwise blank that Truck’s Desired Pitch.
* For each Truck with no Desired Pitch (in a random order), randomly select from all Pitches not Occupied by any Truck and assign the selected Pitch to that Truck.
* Set all Desired Pitches to blank.

I missed this during voting, but the new virtual action of “request a pitch, and then several days later resolve that pitch as follows” seems like it locks the game for me. It means that I halt at the “Determine whether the Virtual Action fails” step of the virtual action as soon as the first Pitch Request has been made (which it just has) and I can’t perform further dynastic actions until I’ve finished it (which I cannot).

Proposal: The Daily News

If “Half-Time Bell” was not enacted, enact it.

In the rule “Reminders”, replace the text “The first time that at least half of the Open Trucks have non-empty Menus during a Prep phase, the Yard (or any Truck) may post a notice to the blog and/or Discord informing all Trucks that this has happened.” with the following:

While the Slate count plus Closed Trucks is equal to or greater than half the Trucks during a Prep phase, as a Daily Action called Getting Ready the Yard should post a notice to the blog and/or Discord with the following information:
* The number of Open Trucks that have changed their Menu since the last Getting Ready, or since the Prep Phase began instead if there hasn’t been a Getting Ready since the Prep Phase began
* The number of Open Trucks that became Closed Trucks since the last Getting Ready, or since the Prep Phase began instead if there hasn’t been a Getting Ready since the Prep Phase began

An improvement to Kevan’s halfway notice that not only lets everyone know when at least half the Trucks have made moves during the Prep Phase, but how many, and continues to let everyone know the pace on a daily basis from that point on.

Proposal: Inflation [Today]

Add the following at the end of the first paragraph of rule “Signatures”:

A Truck is allowed to change the Price of its Signature Dish.

Wednesday Night

Sales

The Lost Tourist stops at Shish-Kababa for directions, and after a loud and friendly conversation about the city’s burgeoning street food scene, is happy to buy the signature Pork Chicken Wrap straight out. Trapdoorspyder takes $20.

The Food Blogger, seeming a little underwhelmed by how few trucks are parked up tonight, visits the Finest Grill for a Falafel Wrap, and takes a few photos of it. Applebane takes $5.

The Cellist stares thoughtfully at the menu of Edible Things for some time before ordering Algae Rates are Reaching Paranormal Extents, which seems to be some kind of nori. Desertfrog takes $15.

The Bike Thief parks up at Pokes’ Noodle Hut for a signature Oyster Trap, oblivious to the rest of the menu as they seem to be in a hurry. Clucky takes $10.

The Vaper walks up to Pokes’ Bite Me for A Picanha and some Pickles in a Paratha. They fold it away into their bag for later, and depart in a cloud of unidentifiable-smelling vapour. Josh takes $17.

The Security Guard stops at Melody’s Dine and Wine for a sit-down meal before their shift, ordering the Lamb Set Dish. Chiiika takes $20.

The Punk stops at The Good Food and considers the Orange Chicken, but the loud conversation at a nearby truck reveals that they can get the same meal as Just the Chicken for three dollars less from Shish-Kababa. By the time they’ve finished queueing there, they decide to upgrade to the signature Pork Chicken Wrap after all. Trapdoorspyder takes $20.

The Bodybuilder puts down their extremely heavy sports bag at The Constellation and orders the truck’s signature Lamb Pita, no decision required. They scarf it down in two bites, pick their bag back up, and pace away into the night. Arthexis takes $8.

Menus

Finest Grill (Applebane)

Chicken Shawarma Wrap - Chicken, Salad, Wrap - $6
Falafel Wrap - Falafel, Salad, Wrap - $5
Halloumi Wrap - Cheese, Salad, Wrap - $5
Mixed Grill - Falafel, Chicken, Cheese - $8
The Constellation (arthexis)

| Lamb Pita*            | Lamb, Wrap, Salad      | $8   |

* Signature dish
Melody's Dine and Wine (Chiiika)

Lamb Set Dish: Lamb, Falafel, Salad ($20)
Pokes' Noodle Hut (Clucky)

Oyster Trap*: Beef, lamb and Cheese ($10)
Cheesy Oysters: Cheese, Oysters ($8)
Saucy Oysters: Sauce, Oysters ($8)
Saucy, Cheesy Oysters: Cheese, Sauce, Oysters ($8)
Just Oysters: Oysters ($8)

* Signature dish
Edible Things (Desertfrog)

Knitted vehicles are clustering at a
  distant oasis — Sauce, Wrap — $15
Wallpaper has never been a sustainable
  building material — Salad, Wrap — $15
Algae rates are reaching paranormal
  extents — Salad, Sauce — $15
Pokes' Bite Me (Josh)

Mostly Meat: Beef - $13
A Slab and a Salad: Beef Salad - $15
Brisket in a Bun: Beef Wrap - $15
A Picanha and some Pickles
  in a Paratha: Beef Salad Wrap - $17
The Slop Bucket II - Beef Oyster - $12
Shish-Kababa (Trapdoorspyder)

Pork Wrap: Pork, Wrap, Sauce $15
Chicken Wrap: Chicken, Wrap, Sauce, $15
Pork Chicken Wrap*: Pork, Chicken, Wrap, $20
Just the Chicken: Chicken, Sauce, $15
Just the Pork: Pork, Sauce, $15

* Signature dish
The Good Food (Vovix)

Orange Chicken (Chicken, Sauce) - $18

Serve Phase begins

With every Truck now having finalised their Menu or Closed for the night, the game has entered the Serve Phase.

The Night will begin when all Closed Trucks have gone Dark.

Proposal: Half-Time Bell

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Aug 2025 09:13:07 UTC

To “Reminders”, add a paragraph:-

The first time that at least half of the Open Trucks have non-empty Menus during a Prep phase, the Yard (or any Truck) may post a notice to the blog and/or Discord informing all Trucks that this has happened.

No need for this to be a rule since it’s already public information, but maybe worth trying and recording as an approach. The wiki progress bar is useful game speed feedback, but only to those watching it: this round, the slowest two players were only notified that the third-slowest player had taken four days, with no context for whether four days was a long time.

Announcing the midpoint of a Prep phase should give the group more of a sense of how quickly each round is progressing. Anyone who hasn’t submitted by that point is playing at below average speed for the group.

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

Proposal: Hungry Customers

Timed out 3 votes to 7. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 07 Aug 2025 15:20:25 UTC

If “Late Fees” was enacted, the rest of this Proposal has no effect.

In the rule “Menus” add the following text:

(From Tomorrow:) An Open Truck is Ready if its menu has at least three Dishes

In the rule “Fittings”, add the following to the Fittings table:

|-
! Negative Social Media Post
| During the “Refresh” step of the Night action, set this Truck’s Operating Status to Closed instead of Open. (Negative Social Media Post is a Temporary Fitting.)
|-
! Coming Soon Sign
| During the “Refresh” step of the Night action, set this Truck’s Operating Status to Dark instead of Open. (Coming Soon Sign is a Temporary Fitting.)

In the rule “Trading Day”, add a subrule named “Deadlines” with the following text:

(From Tomorrow:) 48 hours after the most recent Prep Phase has started, every Open Truck that is not Ready gains a Negative Social Media Post to their Fittings if they don’t already have it.

(From Tomorrow:) 48 hours after the most recent Serve Phase has started, every Closed Truck gains a Coming Soon Sign to their Fittings if they don’t already have it.

An alternative to the idea proposed in “Late Fees”.

Trucks that don’t perform actions within 48 hours of a Phase will be force-opted out of the next Trading Day. Closed isn’t the end of the world since a Closed Truck could add a beneficial Fitting or perform some other Serve action, but they’ll still need to do so within 48 hours of the Serve phase starting or risk losing out on both phases the next Trading Day.

This is all still easily overcome because Trucks can still set their Operating Status during the Prep phase, so none of this is a huge penalty if a player simply loses track of time, as long as they catch up the next Trading Day.

Proposal: Musical Chairs

Timed out 6 votes to 3. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 07 Aug 2025 14:42:44 UTC

In the rule “Pitches”, insert the text “(Today Only:)” at the beginning of the first paragraph of that rule, and then add the following as new paragraphs to that rule:

(From Tomorrow:) Each Truck has a publicly tracked Pitch, which is either empty or a number between 1 and 20 inclusive, defaulting to empty. A Truck who has a non-empty Pitch is said to Occupy that Pitch. A Pitch’s Multiplier is a number rounded down to two decimal places and is calculated as follows: Pitch Multiplier = 0.84 + (Pitch / 64). As a Virtual Prep action, an Open Truck may Request a Pitch.

(From Tomorrow:) Pitch Assignment is an atomic action with the following steps, in which every random selection made by the Yard is performed in a secretly random manner:
* Set the Pitch of all Trucks to empty.
* Collect the set of Trucks that made a Request for a Pitch, known as the Requesting Trucks.
* For each Requesting Truck (in a random order), resolve that Truck’s “Request a Pitch” as follows: if that Pitch is not Occupied by any other Truck, assign that Pitch to that Truck, otherwise remove that Truck from the Requesting Trucks.
* For each Truck not in the Requesting Trucks (in a random order), randomly select from all Pitches not Occupied by any Truck and assign the selected Pitch to that Truck.

In the rule “The Night”, insert the following as the first step in the Night action:

* (From Tomorrow:) Set up: Perform a Pitch Assignment.

and in the same rule, insert the text “(Today Only:)” in front of the text “Go home: Set the Occupants of all Pitches to blank.”

 

Similar to my other Proposal, only this time using the suggestions made in the comments to allow all Open trucks to request Pitches and to make the Multipliers fixed based on Pitch number.

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

Proposal: Dining Partners

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 2 votes to 7 by Kevan.

Adminned at 06 Aug 2025 18:27:04 UTC

Add a rule called “Shared Tables” with the following text:

A Shared Table is a publicly tracked public amenity with the following properties:
* A Name (flavor-text string)
* A list of 2-3 Trucks
* A list of Table Fittings. Each Table Fitting has a Name and an Effect. The effects of a Table Fitting only apply to the Open Trucks in the list of a Shared Table’s Trucks.

The Cost of a Shared Table is $300.


Between the Queue Up step and the Wash Up step of the Night action insert the following step:

(From Tomorrow) * Second Round: For each Shared Table perform a Sale for each Open Truck on that Shared Table’s list of Trucks.

Add the following text at the end of the last paragraph in the rule “Customers”:

Then add one Customer to the Customers list for each Truck at each Shared Table.

 

Proposal: Broke Down

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 06 Aug 2025 08:15:19 UTC

In “Food Trucks” replace “and number of Dollars, defaulting to $100; both of these are publicly tracked.” with “; a possibly negative number of Dollars, defaulting to $100; and a number of Loans defaulting to 0. All of these are publicly tracked.”

Add “At any time, if a Food Truck has at least $105 Dollars they may reduce their Dollars by $105 and reduce their Loans by 1. A Food Truck with at least one Loan may not achieve victory” to “Food Trucks”

Add the following step after “Review trends” in the “Night” action

Check Debts: For any Food Truck that has negative dollars, increase their Dollars by $100 and their Loans by 1, repeating this process until they no longer have negative Dollars

Is it likely people will run out of money? No. Is it good to have some way of handling if people run out of money? Yes.

Proposal: Late Fees

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 4 votes to 8 by Kevan.

Adminned at 06 Aug 2025 08:08:44 UTC

Add the following to Menus

(From Tomorrow:) An Open Truck is Ready if its menu has at least three Dishes

In “Trading Day” add “(Today Only:)” in front of “If at any time every Open Truck has a non-empty Menu then the Yard should make a post announcing that the game has entered the Serve Phase; as soon as they have done so, the game ceases to be in the Prep Phase and starts to be in the Serve phase.”

Add the following To Trading Day

(From Tomorrow:) If at any time every Open Truck is Ready then the Yard should make a post announcing that the game has entered the Serve Phase; as soon as they have done so, the game ceases to be in the Prep Phase and starts to be in the Serve phase.

(From Tomorrow:) As a daily prep action which cannot be performed with the first 48 hours of a Trading Day, the Yard may reduce the Dollars of each Open Truck which is not Ready by 1

(From Tomorrow:) As a daily serve action which cannot be performed if it has been less than 48 hours since the latest Serve Phase began, the Yard may reduce the Dollars of each Closed Truck by 1

Proposal: Do You Have a Reservation?

Withdrawn. Failed by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 05 Aug 2025 15:15:28 UTC

In the rule “Pitches”, insert the text “(Today Only:)” at the beginning of the first paragraph of that rule, and then add the following as new paragraphs to that rule:

(From Tomorrow:) The Yard has exactly twenty Pitches, numbered from 1 to 20. Each Pitch has a Multiplier, privately tracked by the Yard, which can be any number (to two decimal places) between 0.85 and 1.15; the Multiplier for each Pitch is set once (secretly-randomly) by the Yard and may not then be changed. Each Truck has a publicly tracked Spot, which is either blank or the number of a Pitch. A Truck who has a Spot of a specific Pitch is said to Occupy that Pitch.

(From Tomorrow:) Each Truck has a Reservation, which is either empty or a list of 1 to 3 Pitches inclusive that is privately tracked by the Yard, defaulting to empty. As a Virtual Serve Action, a Closed Truck may set their Reservation, in order of preference from most preferred Pitch to least preferred Pitch, and set their Operating Status to Dark as part of that action.

(From Tomorrow:) Pitch Assignment is an atomic action with the following steps, in which every random selection made by the Yard is performed in a secretly random manner:
* Set the Spot of all Trucks to empty.
* Collect the set of Trucks with a non-empty Reservation, called the Reserved Trucks.
* For each Reserved Truck (in a random order), find the first Pitch in that Truck’s Reservation list, from beginning to end of that list in order, that is not assigned to any other Truck’s Spot, and assign that Pitch to that Truck’s Spot. If there is no such Pitch, remove that Truck from the Reserved Trucks.
* For each Truck not in the Reserved Trucks (in a random order), randomly select from all Pitches not assigned to any Truck’s Spot and assign the selected Pitch to that Truck’s Spot.

In the rule “The Night”, insert the following as the first step in the Night action:

* (From Tomorrow:) Set up: Perform a Pitch Assignment.

and in the same rule, insert the text “(Today Only:)” in front of the text “Go home: Set the Occupants of all Pitches to blank.”

Trying a version of Pitch assignments, without yet proposing what the Multipliers will do, so that we can see if we like the method of assignment first. You get a random Pitch assignment every Trading Day, but you can improve your odds of getting the Pitch(es) you want by being Closed for a round and setting your Reservation.

Proposal: Dish of the Day

Popular, 10-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 05 Aug 2025 14:01:54 UTC

To “Day Clauses”, add a paragraph:-

The Yard may add or remove the [Today] tag to and from the title of any pending proposal, if they feel or have been persuaded that its outcome could significantly affect any Truck’s choice of Prep action during the current Prep phase. Trucks are also encouraged to use the tag themselves if they can see that their proposal would have such an effect.

It might help to sidebar-highlight if any proposals in the queue would apply to the current Prep phase, meaning that some players could be waiting to see their outcomes before setting a Menu or deciding to Close. Tagging these proposals would make the situation clearer to waiting players (if there are none in the queue then it’s probably fine to set your Menu right now; if some have appeared then you might want to reassess), would encourage players to vote on the proposals that are potentially delaying actions, and would emphasise it as something to think about when phrasing a proposal.

(Right now Parking and Validation, Prime Real Estate, Ice Ice Baby and Deep Clean would all take the tag.)

Sunday, August 03, 2025

Proposal: Looser diets

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 1 vote to 8, by Kevan.

Adminned at 05 Aug 2025 08:03:07 UTC

If the proposal “Picky Eaters” didn’t pass, this proposal has no effect.

In the rule Customers, replace all instances of “will not select any Dish which” with

will not select any non-Signature Dish which

Proposal: Deep Clean

Reached quorum 9 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:50:22 UTC

Add a fitting called “Rebrand” with effect “During the Wash up step, Signature Dishes are also removed from this Trucks Menu. Then immediately remove this fitting from this Truck”

Proposal: Ice Ice Baby

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:49:13 UTC

Replace

gains a bonus of 2 Dollars

with

gains a bonus of 3 Dollars

for the Drinks Fridge in the Fittings rule.

Losing a Night’s earnings to gain 2 dollars per Sale doesn’t seem very appealing. It’d take several in game Nights to break even and already it was 6 irl days between the first and second in game Nights. An extra dollar might not make much of a difference but I think its a step in the right direction in line with the balancing done by Sponsored by the Algorithm and Dive Bars.

Proposal: Squared Pegs

Reached quorum 9 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:48:21 UTC

In the Sale action, replace “A Customer arrives” with “A patron arrives”, and “The Active Customer reads the menu” with “They read the menu”.

If a bullet point in “The Night” begins “Set the Trending Ingredient” or “Reduce the current Trending Ingredient’s”, prefix it with “Review trends:”.

Minor aesthetic tidying of some action step names to bring them all in line with each other, and add a missing one. They’re lightly descriptive rather than operational ruletext, so don’t need to refer to “the Active Customer”.

Proposal: Viral Marketing

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:47:02 UTC

To the subrule “Hot Topic”, append

Each Ingredient has a publicly tracked Trendiness value, which is a non-negative integer defaulting to 5. As a Serve Action, a Closed Truck may increase the Trendiness of one Ingredient of their choice by 2, and set their Operating Status to Dark.

In the rule “The Night”, replace

Set the Trending Ingredient to a random Ingredient that has not been the Trending Ingredient in the last 4 rounds.

with

Reduce the current Trending Ingredient’s Trendiness by 3 (if one exists), increase a random Ingredient’s Trendiness by 1, then set the Trending Ingredient to a random Ingredient from among those with the highest Trendiness.

Adding a way to influence the Trending Ingredient, while maintaining the randomness and non-repeating nature of the trends if left to their own devices.

Sunday, August 03, 2025

Proposal: Prime Real Estate

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:40:15 UTC

Add the following text to the rule “Food Trucks”:

Each Truck has a Pitch Preference that is privately tracked by the Yard. A Pitch Preference is the Number of the Pitch that the Truck wishes to occupy on the next Trading Day. As a Virtual Action a Truck may change its own Pitch Preference at any time during the Prep Phase or the Serve Phase.

Add the following text to the end of the “They buy their meal” step of a Sale:

multiplied by the Pitch Multiplier of the Pitch that the Truck Occupies, (rounded down).

Add the following text to the end of the “Refresh” step of a Night:

. Perform the Allocate action.

Add the following text to the rule “Pitches”:

As a Virtual Prep Action a Truck may ask the Yard to randomly assign it to an unoccupied Pitch for the current Trading Day. The Yard will privately tell the Truck the Number of the Pitch that they have been assigned to. This may only be done once per Trading Day.

Allocate is an atomic action with the following steps:
* For each Pitch, if multiple Trucks have their Pitch Preference set to the Number of that Pitch the one with the lowest amount of Dollars becomes its Occupant (breaking ties randomly). If only one Truck has its Pitch Preference set to the Number of this Pitch that Truck becomes its Occupant.
* For each Truck that is not an Occupant of a Pitch, choose an unoccupied Pitch at random and set this Truck as its Occupant.
* The Yard will privately notify each Truck of the Number of the Pitch that they will Occupy the next day.

Immediately assign each Truck randomly to a different Pitch as an Occupant of that Pitch.

Proposal: Parking and Validation

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:39:35 UTC

Create a new rule “Parking” that reads:

Whenever a Truck gains $25 or more from a single Customer, that Customer gets their parking ticket validated. If a Customer can get their parking ticket validated for only $4 more by changing their choice to another valid choice from the same Menu, they will do so by choosing the least expensive Dish that allows them to get parking validation.

Append a new item to the list in rule “Fittings”:

Free Parking: Customers that eat their Meal at this Truck pay $0 to get their parking tickets validated.

 

Proposal: Picky Eaters

Timed out 5 votes to 5. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 20:38:59 UTC

Add the following to the list of things a customer consists of

Diet

A Customer’s Diet effects what items they might order. It can be Standard, Vegetarian, Carnivore, or Gluten Free, defaulting to a value privately randomly selected by the Yard when creating the Customer

Customers with a Diet of Standard make no changes to how they select a Dish
Customers with a Diet of Vegetarian will not select any Dish which contains Oysters, Beef, Lamb, Chicken or Pork
Customers with a Diet of Carnivore will not select any Dish which does not contain Oysters, Beef, Lamb, Chicken or Pork
Customers with a Diet of Gluten Free will not select any Dish which contains Wrap

In “The Night” after “The Yard selects a random item on that Truck’s Menu to be the Active Customer’s Choice” add ” in accordance to the Active Customer’s diet. If there are no items on that Truck’s menu available due to the customer’s diet, skip to the “They leave the plaza” step”

Set the Diet of all Customers to be Standard

Proposal: Dive Bars

Reached quorum, 8-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 04 Aug 2025 01:17:52 UTC

In the rule “Menus”, replace the text “As a virtual Prep action, a Truck may change its Menu to any list of Dishes.” with the text

(Today Only:) As a virtual Prep action, a Truck may change its Menu to any list of Dishes.
(From Tomorrow:) As a virtual Prep action, an Open Truck may change its Menu to a list of at least three Dishes. No two Dishes on the same menu may have an identical list of ingredients.

Call for Judgment: Signature Moment

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 07:25:58 UTC

In “Signatures” replace “If so marked, this Dish must continue to be included and marked as Signature in every subsequent Menu from the same Truck” with

Signature Dishes are not removed even when a Menu is Blanked. They also cannot be changed or removed from the menu when the Truck which has that Signature Dish on their Menu submits a new menu.

Uphold the “Wash up: Blank all Trucks’ Menus” step from the Tuesday Night Night Action

If “Lamb Pita” with ingredients of Lamb, Wrap, Salad and cost of $8 is not already on Arthexis’s menu, add it as a signature dish
If “Pork Chicken Wrap” with ingredients of Pork, Chicken, Wrap and cost of $20 is not already on Trapdoorspyder’s menu, add it as a signature dish

I think the atomic action couldn’t technically have been performed, as signature items must be included on all subsequent menus but the atomic action requires blanking menus.

Proposal: Full Bars

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 1 vote to 8 by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 15:19:19 UTC

In “Menus” replace “As a virtual Prep action, a Truck may change its Menu to any list of Dishes.” with

(Today Only:) As a virtual Prep action, a Truck may change its Menu to any list of Dishes.
(From Tomorrow:) As a virtual Prep action, an Open Truck may change its Menu to a list of at least five Dishes. No two Dishes on the same menu may have identical ingredients.

The meta appears to have shifted to people just having one highly priced menu item, knowing that’ll sell, and figuring its a pretty low chance that someone collides with it. Which yeah, if most people do that you’ve got reasonably good odds that will work. To me, that is pretty degenerative game play (especially because if you start fishing, either you get into the oyster business yourself or you help everyone else out in the oyster business by having more menu items without oysters) so lets force everyone to have a full menu.

Happy Hour $2

Happy Hour Round 2! We’re celebrating our rebranding as Grill Noir. Put on your fedoras, bring your magnifying glasses, and prepare for a flavor packed menu as we debut four new Oyster dishes that are guaranteed to please!

Proposal: Sponsored by the Algorithm

Reached quorum 11 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 15:16:57 UTC

Add the following subrule titled “Hot Topic” to the rule “Menus”:

There is a publicly tracked Trending Ingredient, which may be up to 1 Ingredient and defaults to none.

In the rule “The Night”, replace “The Truck whose Menu has the Active Customer’s Choice gains Dollars equal to the Price of that Choice” with the following:

The Truck whose Menu has the Active Customer’s Choice gains Dollars equal to the Price of that Choice, plus a tip of an additional $3 if that Choice contained the Trending Ingredient.

In the rule “The Night” directly preceding the atomic action step “Update clauses: Remove all Today Clauses from the ruleset. Remove “(From Tomorrow:)” from the start of all Tomorrow Clauses.” add the following step:

Set the Trending Ingredient to a random Ingredient that has not been the Trending Ingredient in the last 4 rounds.

Creating incentive to have dynamic menus other than direct option limitation.

Proposal: Fit For Purpose

Reached quorum 10 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 14:14:27 UTC

Reword the “Tear down” step of the Night action from “For each of a Truck’s Fittings that wasn’t put there during the current Trading Day, remove it” to:-

For each of a Truck’s Temporary Fittings that wasn’t put there during the current Trading Day, remove it

To the end of the definition of Hazard Tape, if it exists, add:-

(Hazard Tape is a Temporary Fitting.)

To the end of the definition of Printed Review, if it exists, add:-

(A Printed Review is a Temporary Fitting.)

Taking a swing at making Fittings permanent, since narratively that makes more sense.

The current three (+$2 per Sale, -$2 lower price illusion, +2 menu dishes) don’t seem that overpowered to just switch to being permanent, when you’re potentially giving up a full Night’s takings to get one, so maybe they’re fine as is?

Call for Judgment: Special Offer Asterisk

Reached quorum 10 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 07:23:51 UTC

In “Signatures”, replace “if the Signature Dish is less than 25% cheaper or 25% more expensive” with:-

if the Signature Dish is more expensive (but no more than 25% more expensive)

Uphold the “reads the menu” step of the Sale action for the Lamb Pita and Pork Chicken Wrap, in the Tuesday Night Night Action.

There are a couple of ambiguities with how Signature Dish prices are compared:

  • Does “less than 25% cheaper” mean “less than 75% of the price”, “between 75-100% of the price” or (at a stretch) “anywhere above 75% of the price” (“this $20 kebab is less than 25% cheaper than the $7 kebab, because it is not cheaper at all”)
  • Does “less than 25% cheaper or 25% more expensive” mean “less than 25% cheaper (whatever that means) or less than 25% more expensive”, or “less than 25% cheaper (whatever that means), or exactly 25% more expensive”?

Tuesday Night sales had one Truck’s Signature Dish priced at 33% more than the selected one ($8 vs $6 for the Lamb Pita), and another 25% more expensive ($20 vs $16 for the Pork Chicken Wrap). I chose to interpret the rule as meaning “between 75-100% of the price, or exactly 25% more expensive” when applying it - the Wrap had the effect applied and the Pita did not.

This CfJ upholds that reading, and applies a simpler rewording of the rule that fits within that interpretation. (I think we can just skip the case where a Truck deliberately prices a regular item slightly above their Signature Dish, rather than slightly below it.)

Was I right to read it that way?

Proposal: A Fitting Legacy

Reached quorum 10 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 11:14:32 UTC

In “The Night”, replace “The Active Customer shares their story on social media. During the next Night, that Truck does not perform a Sale.” with:-

The Truck’s kitchen has to be shut down for a deep clean. The Truck gains a Hazard Tape Fitting.

Replace “The Active Customer shares their story on social media. During the next Night, that Truck gains an additional $5 from any Sales that they perform (on top of the Price of the Choice and any Tips).” with:-

The Active Customer shares their story on social media. The Truck gains a Printed Review Fitting.

Add two Fittings to the list in “Fittings”:-

* Hazard Tape: Trucks with Hazard Tape are considered to be Closed during the “Queue up” step of the Night, and during Sale actions.
* Printed Review: A Truck with a Printed Review gains an extra $5 whenever a Customer buys a meal from them. Trucks may only gain Printed Reviews through Sale actions.

Tracking the delayed rare Oyster effects more visibly, as Fittings, so that players don’t have to reread the full Night report to know what the situation is. (All Fittings currently disappear after one round.)

Proposal: No Unauthorized Fittings

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Aug 2025 11:10:43 UTC

In Fittings; change “As a Serve Action, a Closed Truck may add a Fitting to their Fittings, and set their Operating Status to Dark.” into

As a Serve Action, a Closed Truck may add a Fitting that they don’t currently have to their Fittings, and set their Operating Status to Dark.

Tuesday Night

Sales

The Food Safety Inspector consults her clipboard and strides up to The Constellation, ordering a Falafel Wrap. She considers the signature dish Lamb Pita, which is 33% more expensive, but sticks with the choice on the paperwork. Arthexis takes $6.

The Delivery Driver walks briskly to Melody’s Dine and Wine, exchanges some details and picks up a heavy paper bag containing a Chicken Wrap served with Pinot Noir, to be delivered uptown. Chiiika takes $19.

The Goth waits patiently at Aria’s Aromatics for some Bacon Not-chos. There’s a similar dish on offer at Bat Snacks, but it’s more expensive, and they’d feel too self-conscious about eating somewhere bat-themed. Aria takes $10.

The Construction Worker stops at Pokes’ Chris Stake Truck after his shift, and orders a simple but hearty falafel Stake for the journey home. Clucky takes $7.

The Placard Protestor sets down their signboard to choose something from the menu at Shish-Kababa. They initially consider the expertly-cooked Pork Wrap, but are upsold to the signature dish Pork Chicken Wrap, which is only 25% more. Trapdoorspyder takes $20.

The Graffiti Artist eyes up Bat Snacks and considers their Joker’s Smiling Swine, but when a goth walks past picking at a carton of Bacon Not-chos, they realise they can get the same thing elsewhere a little cheaper. Aria takes $10.

The Dog Walker stops at Pokes’ Rice and Beans for some EternalServer oysters. With only four oyster dishes among the 44 options at the yard tonight, they’re a particularly fine batch. The dog doesn’t get any. DoomedIdeas takes $20 and a $5 tip.

The Geocacher clicks a small magnetic box back onto a streetlight next to The Good Food, and, feeling that it would be polite to buy something, orders a Grilled Cheese. Vovix takes $19.

The Balloon Seller heads to Pokes’ Rice and Beans for something they can eat with one hand that’s not too messy. They order a plain That’s A Wrap, and JonathanDark takes $19.

The Pickpocket skulks around Grill Noir, aware that ordering the elaborate Half Shell Salad will give them time to pace up and down near the other customers. They’re having a good night and feeling generous, given how good these oysters are and that it’s happy hour here. Eternalservererror takes $19 and a $5 tip.

The Scooter Kid rolls to a halt at Pokes’ Bite Me to pick up the French Onion Soup that their friend wanted. But wait, did they mean the Jasmine Rice at Pokes’ Rice and Beans? It’s certainly cheaper. DoomedIdeas takes $17.

The Religious Leafletter stops at Edible Things to pick up Tomorrow’s Leftovers and to talk about how our lives are as much defined by the negative space of our decisions, as their tangible outcomes. Desertfrog takes $19.

The Tech Bro asks Ye Olde Lemon for a Cure for Hiccups, his AI assistant having told him that he could find one here. There’s a similar dish a few trucks down, but it’s more expensive and it’s not what the algorithm said. Nolemeldo takes $19.

The Window Cleaner heads to the Finest Grill for a Chicken Shawarma Wrap, and offers some tips on serving hatch maintenance. Applebane takes $5.

Menus

Finest Grill (Applebane)

Lamb Shawarma Wrap - Lamb, Salad, Wrap - $6
Chicken Shawarma Wrap - Chicken, Salad, Wrap - $5
Falafel Wrap - Falafel, Salad, Wrap - $4
Halloumi Wrap - Cheese, Salad, Wrap - $4
Mixed Grill - Lamb, Chicken, Cheese - $8
Aria's Aromatics (Aria)

Oyster Salad / Oyster, Salad, Sauce ($18)
Bacon Not-chos / Pork, Cheese, Sauce ($10)
the N.O.R.M.A.L.™ / Pork, Wrap, Sauce ($7)
I'm Doing This For TikTok / Cheese, Sauce ($20)
The Constellation (arthexis)

| Dish Name             | Ingredients            | Price |
| --------------------- | ---------------------- | ----- |
| Falafel Wrap          | Falafel, Wrap, Sauce   | $6   |
| Lamb Pita*            | Lamb, Wrap, Salad      | $8   |
| Chicken Mezze Platter | Chicken, Salad, Cheese | $7   |
| Beef Souvlaki         | Beef, Sauce, Cheese    | $7   |
| Vegetarian Mezze      | Falafel, Salad, Cheese | $5   |

* Signature dish
Melody's Dine and Wine (Chiiika)

Chicken Wrap served with Pinot Noir: Chicken, Wrap, Cheese; $19
Pokes' Chris Stake Truck (Clucky)

Stake: Falafel ($7)
Staych: Falafel and Cheese ($9)
Staque: Falafel and Sauce ($9)
Stehkk: Falafel and Sauce and Cheese ($12)
Bat Snacks (Darknight)

Dark Knight Bite: beef, wrap, cheese $12
Batwing Salad: chicken, cheese, salad $6
The Gotham: lamb, sauce, salad $8
Riddle Roll: falafel, wrap, cheese $8
Joker’s Smiling Swine: pork, sauce, cheese $13
Edible Things (Desertfrog)

Yesterday's leftovers — Lamb, Beef — $14
Tomorrow's leftovers — Lamb, Beef — $19
Pokes' Rice and Beans (DoomedIdeas)

Jasmine Rice - Cheese and Sauce - 17
Pinto Beans - Falafel and Wrap - 17
Beans and Rice - Falafel and Salad - 17
EternalServer - Oyster - 20
ErrorBait - Oyster - 20
Grill Noir (eternalservererror)

Half Shell Salad - Oyster, Cheese, Salad $20

Happy Hour: -$1
Pokes' Rice and Beans (JonathanDark)

That's A Wrap: Wrap - $18
Pokes' Bite Me (Josh)

The Slop Bucket: Sauce - $20
The Wet Mess: Lamb, Sauce - $20
Baa Baa Wet Sheep: Lamb, Cheese, Sauce - $20
French Onion Soup: Cheese, Sauce - $20
Ye Olde Lemon (Nolemeldo)

Cure for hiccups: sauce 19$
Shish-Kababa (Trapdoorspyder)

Pork Wrap: Pork, Wrap, $16
Chicken Wrap: Chicken, Wrap, $16
Pork Chicken Wrap*: Pork, Chicken, Wrap, $20
Just the Chicken: Chicken, $16
Just the Pork: Pork, $16

* Signature dish
The Good Food (Vovix)

Grilled Cheese (Wrap, Cheese) - $19

Serve Phase begins

The game has now entered the Serve Phase. Shutters roll up, A-boards are set out, and a growing crowd makes its way towards the trucks.

Friday, August 01, 2025

Proposal: The Final Countdown

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 3 votes to 7 by Kevan.

Adminned at 02 Aug 2025 21:53:12 UTC

Replace the following text in the rule “Customers”:


There are at least as many Customers as Trucks.


With:


There are at least as many Customers as the number of Trucks, plus one.

Insert the following step into the Serve Atomic Action after “Queue Up” and before “Wash Up”:

* (From Tomorrow:) Last Call: Perform the Final Sale action

Add the following text to the rule The Night:

The Final Sale is an atomic action, with the following ordered steps:
1. Select the Dish that was purchased the most during the Queue up step in the Night action as the Dish of the Day. If there is a tie then choose one of these Dishes at random to be the Dish of the Day.
2. Perform a Sale for the Truck whose Menu contained the Dish of the Day by overriding the steps of the Sale for this Sale only:
  * The Active Customer reads the menu: The Yard selects the Dish of the Day to be the Active Customer’s Choice.
  * They look around: Nothing happens
  * They buy their meal: The Truck gains Dollars equal to the Price of the Active Customer’s Choice

Proposal: The Lamb is Kosher

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 02 Aug 2025 16:46:39 UTC

Create a new rule “Cleavers”“

The verb to cleave means: to remove all square brackets and all text between them.
The verb to uncleave means: to remove all square brackets but not any text between them.

For example: “This is [not] good” becomes “This is good” when cleaved.

The above rule retroactively applies to the admin resolving this proposal.

In step “They eat their meal” of action “Sale” in rule “The Night”, replace this cleaved text with its uncleaved version:

contains the Ingredient “Oyster” [or “Lamb”], then the Yard

Add the following condition at the end of the same list:

If the Non-Oyster Dishes contained Lamb, the customer becomes a Regular and is not removed from the list of customers in the next step.

 

 

Proposal: No Man is an Island

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 02 Aug 2025 16:46:03 UTC

Add a new rule called Espionage with the following text:

Once per Trading Day, a Truck may take a virtual Prep Action called Snooping. They must name the Truck that they are Snooping on.
When the Serve Phase begins, the Yard shall inform the Snooping Truck of the list of unique Ingredients that the Snooped Truck will be paying for during the “Prepare ingredients” step of this Trading Day’s Night action

Replace the contents of the rule “Happy Hour” with the following text:

Once per Trading Day, a Truck may declare a Happy Hour as either a Prep Action or a Serve Action by making a blog post titled “Happy Hour $X”, where X is an integer greater than 0.
This sets their Happy Hour Discount to X and immediately reduces the Price for each Dish on their Menu by X.
After that Night is completed, the Truck’s Happy Hour Discount becomes 0.

Add a new rule called “Supply Chain Disruption” with the following text:

There is a publicly tracked variable called Unavailable Ingredients which is the list of Ingredients that are unavailable for the current Trading Day. Unavailable Ingredients is empty by default. 
At the beginning of each Trading Day, the Yard shall perform the following atomic action:
1. Clear the Unavailable Ingredients list.
2. Randomly select three Ingredients and add them to the Unavailable Ingredients list.

Append the following text to the rule “Dishes”:

A Truck’s Menu may not contain any Dish that includes an Unavailable Ingredient.

Add the following text to the end of the sentence in the rule “Signatures” that starts with “If so marked”:

if the dish does not contain an Unavailable ingredient.

 

I fully expect that this Proposal will be unpopular because of the number of changes here. But I wanted to start a conversation on the current state of the game. With 10 ingredients the number of dish combinations is pretty high. The possibility of undercutting someone else’s price is very low and so the current meta is very low in competition. Adding a cost to the ingredients potentially improves this by making Trucks focus on different profit margin strategies. But I still think that the potential for competition is too low to be interesting at this point. Its too easy to go for a single high-priced unique Dish and avoid competition altogether. At that point we’re all living on separate islands. Idk, maybe I’m alone in this thinking but I’d like to see some changes that make the current game more competitive and/or have more pull on Customers.


This proposal introduces a little bit of competition by limiting Dish combinations and providing more strategic options for undercutting the competition without being overpowered in my opinion.

Any More Prep Needed?

We’ve got 8/14 truck menus set at the time of this post. There’s a few pending Proposals that will slightly tweak things. Is anyone waiting for anything else to settle out before setting a Menu? Just curious if folks are simply waiting for these last tweaks to go in, or if the remaining players just tuned out due to the scam and ensuing proposal delays.