On a fixed day of the week (for Survivor VIII, that will be Tuesday) – I pose a challenge, such as “Write a complete story in exactly 59 words.”  Everyone has until Sunday afternoon to complete this challenge and send it to Kelly’s email address at foreverunchanged@gmail.com.  Each challenge is ranked or rated by the two judges (who won’t know whose work they’re reading) according to the challenge’s parameters, and the team that scores lowest has two days (so, until the next Tuesday) to vote anonymously to eliminate one of their teammates.  On Tuesday, the elimination is announced, as well as the next challenge.

At some point later in the game, everyone merges into a single “tribe” and individuals, rather than teams, will win Immunity for that week.

One major change for Survivor VIII’s season is that I’ll have a few optional challenges, which I intend to put on whatever holidays or weekends people seem to be the busiest. Nobody will be specifically hurt by not doing these challenges, but anyone who does will win an extra individual Immunity; whenever their team loses next, they can’t be the one eliminated as long as they did the challenge.

Non-submissions will result in negative points for your team, and if a non-submitter’s team loses, he will be forced to vote for himself. Of course, this normally results in the elimination of the person who didn’t make a submission. Once the solo portion starts, non-submitters automatically cast three votes for themselves.

When three people remain, they will all do the final challenge, and the top scorer is declared the winner. There’s no jury like there is on the TV show with a similar name.

A few other odds and ends:

Grammar and spelling aren’t necessarily counted against players since I don’t want this to feel like homework, but entries with huge issues aren’t easy to enjoy.

You will become frustrated with at least one of your scores. Fight the urge to go crazy about it, because the few times this has happened, it’s ended up ruining everyone’s fun. The judges are only two people in the entire world, so who cares what they think?

A lot of players in this game know each other and that could have a large effect on how they play the game and who they eliminate, but if you want to know who knows who, it’s your job to find out.

If you want the email addresses for your team or for anyone else in the game, ask.

Plagiarists, if we catch them, will get negative five for that challenge and unironic abuse from me. Please don’t. And yes, this has happened…twice.

More as I think of it.