In each round, you can score points for each correct answer in each of the four fields: artist, title, album, year. Each correct answer will score one point, which is then multiplied by the amount of difficulty associated with that song. The higher the level of difficulty, the more points a correct answer will score.
How is the difficulty level of a song determined?
By my very unscientific, personal judgement.
How are "matches" determined?
Good question. I haven't taken the time to add a sophisticated "fuzzy logic algorithm" into the matching engine. Basically, if you type in all or even part of a correct answer, you'll get a match. Spelling is non-forgiving - you have to spell the words exactly as I have them in the database. You cannot match partial words (for example, "Beatle" will not match the word "Beatles".
The matching engine is case insensitive - "beatles" will match "Beatles".
Do I have to match artists, song titles, and album titles exactly?
No. For example, if the album title is "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" - matching two of the words in the title will suffice (see exception in the next paragraph).
If the artist/title is exactly one OR two words, you will have to match it exactly. If the artist/title is three or more words, you will have to match at least two of the words in the artist/title. There are four specific words will be ignored: a, an, and, the. For example, if you enter "the and" in the album title field for the Ziggy Stardust example above, you will not get a match. Conversely, if you type in "Beatles" - it WILL match "The Beatles".
The Year field must match exactly (this is the year that the song was "released").
Punctuation is a bit tricky. If the punctuation is WITHIN a word, you will have to enter it for the word to match. For example, in order to match the artist P!nk, you will have to enter 'p!nk' and not 'pink'. However, if the punctuation comes at the end of a word, it will be ignored. Examples: use "nothin" to match "nothin'", use "dr" to match "dr.".
What about "naughty words"?
Words have not been censored. For example, you will have to enter "fuckin perfect" in order to match the P!nk song.
What are the rules for changing the Difficulty Level?
By default, the game returns a random song with a random difficulty level. You can change the Difficulty Level only once during a 10 round game. I assume one would change the Difficulty Level to gain more points, or to simply challenge oneself if the lower levels are too easy. But once you change the Difficulty Level during a game, you cannot change it again until you start a new game.
What about songs that are covered by other bands?
I've tried to always list the first/original artist and release of a specific song. I've tried to avoid songs that have been covered by too many artists (such as "You've Got a Friend"). I'm human, and may not always be correct. Feel free to contact me to let me know of any discrepencies in my data.