The Finished Phase: Credits-Style Results Without Data Exposure

Published: 2026-03-11 EN
Tags: game-design specification results state-machine

FINISHED Phase — Functional Specification

1. Purpose of FINISHED

The FINISHED phase exists to:

  • Provide closure to the game session
  • Present final results in a shared, passive format
  • Highlight collective and individual achievements without exposing personal data
  • Define clear conditions for session termination

The FINISHED phase is read-only, non-interactive, and time-bounded.

2. Scope & Non-Goals

In scope

  • Common-screen presentation (credits-style)
  • Final player ordering and display
  • Presentation of derived statistical facts
  • Session termination handling

Explicitly out of scope

  • Score calculation or modification
  • Player interaction beyond session exit
  • New game initialization
  • Personal or identifying data exposure

3. Core Concepts (Mental Model)

Final Credits Sequence (FCS)

The FINISHED phase is represented as a Final Credits Sequence, similar to movie credits:

  • Automatically scrolling
  • Same content and order for all players
  • Passive observation only

The sequence may loop until the session terminates.

4. Data Responsibilities

4.1 Final Player Results (Immutable)

Each player has:

  • Final score
  • Rank
  • Accuracy metrics
  • Timing metrics (aggregated)

Rules:

  • Data is finalized before entering FINISHED
  • No values may change during FINISHED
  • No new data may be added

4.2 Derived Statistics Dataset

Derived from game-wide data:

  • Answer correctness
  • Answer timing
  • Answer deltas (distance from correct answer)
  • Consistency metrics

This dataset is input to the FINISHED statistics projection.

5. Statistics & Fact Projection (FINISHED)

Purpose

To generate highlight-style statistical facts that summarize notable outcomes of the game.

Characteristics

  • Deterministic given the same input
  • Non-personal
  • Explainable
  • Generated once and frozen

Example Fact Categories

  • Winner (highest score)
  • Fastest to answer
  • Slowest to answer
  • Most correct answers
  • Smallest average delta
  • Most consistent answers
  • Largest improvement over time

6. Presentation Rules

Ordering

  • Winner always displayed at the top
  • Remaining players ordered by descending score
  • Ties resolved deterministically
  • Ordering must be stable across all clients

Display

  • Credits-style vertical scroll
  • Shared pacing across all clients
  • No user-controlled navigation
  • Optional looping until session termination

7. FINISHED Flow Control

Entry Conditions

  • REVIEWING phase has completed
  • All question reviews are finalized
  • Final scores and statistics are available

Session Termination Conditions

The FINISHED phase ends when any of the following occurs:

  • A player console stops pinging the server beyond a defined timeout
  • A player explicitly selects “Join New Game”
  • A server-defined idle timeout is reached

Exit Behavior

  • Session is marked as terminated
  • No further events are accepted
  • Resources may be released
  • FINISHED data becomes archival

8. State Transitions

REVIEWING → FINISHED

Occurs when:

  • Final question review completes
  • REVIEWING exit criteria are met

FINISHED → SESSION_TERMINATED

Occurs when:

  • Any termination condition is triggered

9. Invariants (Must Always Hold)

  • No score changes during FINISHED
  • No personal or identifying data is displayed
  • All players see the same credits sequence
  • Facts do not change once generated
  • FINISHED contains no interactive gameplay elements

10. Test Strategy

10.1 Static Validation Tests

  • Final results exist for all players
  • All statistics are computable
  • Fact projection produces valid output

10.2 Presentation Tests

  • Correct ordering of players
  • Winner always displayed first
  • Stable ordering across clients
  • Scroll behavior matches specification

10.3 Statistics Tests

  • Each fact is derivable from stored data
  • No fact references raw or personal data
  • Facts remain constant during FINISHED

10.4 Termination Tests

  • Session ends on ping timeout
  • Session ends on join-new-game event
  • Session ends on idle timeout
  • No events accepted after termination

11. Acceptance Criteria

A player can:

  • Clearly see who won
  • Understand how players performed collectively
  • Observe interesting outcomes of the game
  • Exit the session naturally

Without:

  • Being able to infer personal or sensitive information
  • Affecting game state