How To Play

🎮 How to Play — Facemash ELO Voting Game

Welcome to the Blink-182 Arena — a fast, dynamic ranking system where your votes shape the leaderboard in real time. The rules are simple and the rankings are always changing.

⭐ The Basics

1. Two entries appear

You’ll see two songs side by side.. These are chosen at random from the active contest

2. Choose the one you prefer

Click the item you like more.
Your vote immediately records:

  • A win for the chosen item
  • A loss for the other

There’s no limit to how many times you can vote.

3. The rankings update instantly

The game uses an ELO rating system — the same type of ranking used in competitive gaming and chess.

  • If a higher-rated item wins → small score increase
  • If a lower-rated item wins → large score increase
  • Upsets are rewarded
  • Repeated wins stabilize rankings

This system keeps the leaderboard accurate and constantly evolving.

4. A new matchup loads

You can vote continuously.
No repeated pairs appear back-to-back.

🎧 Song Previews (Optional)

The choices include Apple Music previews.
When enabled, during polls you may see:

  • An embedded audio player
  • A short preview you can listen to before voting

🏆 Leaderboards

The game includes multiple leaderboard views that update live as votes come in.

Thumbnail Leaderboard

A visual leaderboard featuring:

  • Rank
  • Thumbnail image
  • Title
  • ELO rating
  • Previous month’s rank
  • Wins/Losses (all-time)
  • Monthly wins/losses
  • Optional Apple Music link

You can also:

  • Filter by category
  • Limit how many entries are shown (e.g., top 5, top 10)
  • View only categories relevant to the selected contest

The thumbnail leaderboard maintains its limit even after voting.

Full Leaderboard

A larger, grid-style ranking that displays:

  • Image
  • Title
  • ELO score
  • All-time wins/losses
  • Previous month’s rank

This version does not show Apple Music buttons — it is designed to focus strictly on the ranking data.

🗂️ Categories

Songs are categorized by Album or Other or Featured Artist in applicable scenarios.

On the leaderboard:

  • Only categories relevant to the selected contest are shown
  • You may filter results instantly by category
  • Category filtering does not affect the actual poll results; it is just for viewing

📅 Monthly Snapshots

At 11:59 PM on the last day of every month, the game automatically creates a snapshot of the leaderboard.

Each snapshot saves:

  • Exact rank order
  • ELO scores
  • All-time wins/losses
  • Monthly wins/losses
  • Category
  • Contest ID

After snapshots are taken:

  • Monthly wins and losses are reset for the new month

You can browse past months using the Archive Viewer, which provides:

  • A year selector
  • A month selector
  • Historical leaderboards exactly as they appeared at that time

⚡ The Goal

There is no final winner — the rankings evolve endlessly as players vote.

Your choices shape:

  • Which entries rise
  • Which entries fall
  • How each contest’s meta shifts over time

Every vote matters. Every matchup changes the board.

Dive in, compare your favorites, and help decide the rankings.