The Button: Season 3 Wrap-Up: The Stranded Jedi
Theme: Star Wars · Duration: 25h 39m · Started: 2026-05-04 20:00 UTC · Ended: 2026-05-05 21:39 UTC
🏆 Winner: Purple
A genuine four-way scrap. Every faction crossed 21% of total hold time, and the gap between 1st and 4th was less than 8 percentage points.
| Rank | Faction | Hold % | Hold time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1 | Purple | 29.41% | 7h 32m |
| 🥈 2 | Green | 25.75% | 6h 36m |
| 🥉 3 | Blue | 23.12% | 5h 55m |
| 4 | Red | 21.70% | 5h 34m |
🔘 The Button
- 473 presses from 172 unique players
- 213 active recruits (faction members) across the season
- 30 referrals signed up via referral links
- Median timer at press: 14m 18s (858s)
- Game duration: 25h 39m 38s
Press distribution
| Faction | Presses | Members | Unused presses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purple | 161 | 59 | 213 |
| Green | 148 | 56 | 85 |
| Red | 85 | 45 | 126 |
| Blue | 79 | 53 | 157 |
Purple's win was carried by sheer participation. The most members and the most presses.
🎬 First & last press
- First click: stegodon (stegodon.social, 🟪 purple) - 14m 53s left on the clock at
2026-05-04 20:00:07. Less than a second after the gates opened. - Last click: livligkinkajou (slrpnk.net, 🟩 green) - 14m 49s left at
2026-05-05 21:24:45, with 15 minutes to spare before the timer ran out for good.
The opening flurry (first 8 presses)
| # | Player | Faction | Timer left |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | stegodon | 🟪 | 14:53 |
| 2 | volore | 🟥 | 14:39 |
| 3 | wagnast | 🟩 | 14:36 |
| 4 | elettrona | 🟪 | 14:47 |
| 5 | winged_hussar | 🟥 | 12:57 |
| 6 | roydbt | 🟩 | 14:48 |
| 7 | zloubida | 🟪 | 10:30 |
| 8 | nusm | 🟩 | 14:54 |
🔥 Closest calls
Five players took the timer all the way to a single-digit second count:
| Player | Faction | Hold | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| livligkinkajou | 🟩 | 0:01 | 2026-05-04 23:57 |
| comradepupivy | 🟥 | 0:01 | 2026-05-05 00:51 |
| tigeruppercut | 🟩 | 0:02 | 2026-05-05 03:59 |
| demigodrick | 🟪 | 0:05 | 2026-05-05 03:37 |
| squirrel | 🟪 | 0:08 | 2026-05-05 20:15 |
livligkinkajou got the badge for closest-to-zero overall.
🥇 Most active pressers
| Player | Faction | Presses | Total time held | Longest single hold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| zedstrian | 🟩 | 15 | 3h 15m | 15:00 |
| squirrel | 🟪 | 15 | 2h 15m | 14:59 |
| dunstabzugshaubitze | 🟩 | 12 | 2h 45m | 14:57 |
| netweirdo | 🟪 | 10 | 2h 23m | 14:58 |
| livligkinkajou | 🟩 | 10 | 2h 03m | 15:00 |
| stegodon | 🟪 | 10 | 1h 55m | 15:00 |
| sebas | 🟩 | 10 | 1h 53m | 14:58 |
- The longest holds were by Chancellors!
🏛️ The Galactic Senate
Six elections were held over the course of the game. Five chancellors used their term; the final election ran out the clock with no nominations:
| Term | Chancellor | Faction |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | stegodon | 🟪 Purple |
| 2 | zedstrian | 🟩 Green |
| 3 | havatra | 🟥 Red |
| 4 | corvuscornix | 🟦 Blue |
| 5 | rajtinka | 🟪 Purple |
| 6 | (unfilled) | — |
Notable chancellor moves:
- stegodon opened with a flurry - three royal decrees, two custom badges (⭐ and 🦾), two bonus presses, and a timer bonus
- zedstrian and havatra both leaned hard on Galactic Largesse, twice each
- corvuscornix burned three royal decrees in 20 minutes, a Blue blitz mid-game
- rajtinka wrapped up with two faction bonus presses for Purple, very likely the deciding shove
Senate Voter Turnout
| Election | Faction-vote ballots | Chancellor-vote ballots |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (start of game) | 30 | 20 |
| 2 (overnight) | 9 | 8 ← lowest turnout, the dead-of-night election |
| 3 (early morning) | 20 | 18 |
| 4 (lunchtime) | 20 | 14 |
| 5 (final) | 19 | 22 ← highest turnout, peak engagement |
Engagement climbed steadily into the final hours.
🧩 The Stranded Jedi puzzle
Master Kellin Vos was waiting in the holocron channel for anyone who could hear him.
- 2 players completed all 9 steps:
- 🟦 m_f finished 2026-05-05 12:34 (light/dark final reached first)
- 🥈 w3dd1e finished 2026-05-05 15:33
- 2 more reached step 8 havatra and marauderiic (decoded the Vigenère but didn't speak the mantra)
- 3 reached step 7 zedstrian, shimozu, corvuscornix
- 5 broke past step 1 beyond that
- 246 messages in the hidden #holocron channel
💬 Chat
4,272 messages across all channels:
| Channel | Messages |
|---|---|
| #main | 2,743 |
| #purple | 375 |
| #holocron 🔒 | 246 |
| #senate | 223 |
| #green | 211 |
| #red | 204 |
| #corvid-chat (pop-up) | 144 |
| #blue | 126 |
Top 10 chatters
| # | Player | Faction | Messages |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | w3dd1e | 🔴 Red | 473 |
| 2 | corvuscornix | 🔵 Blue | 424 |
| 3 | squirrel | 🟣 Purple | 228 |
| 4 | rajtinka | 🟣 Purple | 218 |
| 5 | havatra | 🔴 Red | 192 |
| 6 | zedstrian | 🟢 Green | 153 |
| 7 | stegodon | 🟣 Purple | 126 |
| 8 | demigodrick | 🟢 Green | 119 |
| 9 | dmmacniel | 🟢 Green | 112 |
| 10 | comradepupivy | 🔴 Red | 79 |
Top 5 reaction emojis
| Emoji | Count |
|---|---|
| ❤️ | 200 |
| 🐦⬛ | 182 |
| 😂 | 133 |
| 👍 | 131 |
| 💯 | 117 |
The crow emoji, added to the picker only hours before the game ended, landed in second place behind the heart. A late-game phenomenon.
🎖️ Final badges
- 🥇 stegodon - first to press the button
- 🥈 w3dd1e - runner-up Jedi
- 🟦 m_f - light-side Jedi master
- 🛡️ Sentinels - demigodrick, comradepupivy, squirrel, zedstrian, tigeruppercut, havatra
- 🛡️🏁 livligkinkajou - sentinel + closest-to-zero
- ⚡ siv9939 - chancellor's electric custom badge
🔝 Top referrers
Recruitment chain MVPs:
| Player | Faction | Sign-ups brought in |
|---|---|---|
| zedstrian | 🟩 | 8 |
| dunstabzugshaubitze | 🟩 | 7 |
| squirrel | 🟪 | 5 |
| livligkinkajou | 🟩 | 3 |
| snoopy | 🟩 | 2 |
Green ran the strongest referral game (20 sign-ups), but Purple's existing roster was already big enough to translate into wins on the board.
📊 By the numbers
)
- Most presses by one player: 15 (zedstrian and squirrel, tied)
- Average press timer remaining: 14:18
- Unused presses across all factions: 581 (more than were actually used!)
⏰ Hourly Heatmap
Press volume climbed steadily into the final evening (UTC):
Shading legend: 0 · ░ 1–2 · ▒ 3–5 · ▓ 6–9 · █ 10+
| Hour (UTC) | 🟦 Blue | 🟩 Green | 🟪 Purple | 🟥 Red | Total | Bar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 04 20:00 | ▒ 4 | █ 10 | ▓ 9 | ▓ 6 | 29 | ███████████████ |
| May 04 21:00 | ░ 1 | ▒ 4 | ▒ 4 | ▒ 3 | 12 | ██████ |
| May 04 22:00 | ▒ 5 | ▒ 5 | ▒ 3 | ▒ 5 | 18 | █████████ |
| May 04 23:00 | ▒ 3 | ▒ 5 | ░ 2 | ░ 2 | 12 | ██████ |
| May 05 00:00 | ░ 2 | ░ 1 | ░ 2 | ░ 2 | 7 | ███ |
| May 05 01:00 | ▓ 6 | ▒ 3 | ░ 2 | ▒ 3 | 14 | ███████ |
| May 05 02:00 | ░ 2 | ▒ 3 | ░ 2 | ▒ 4 | 11 | █████ |
| May 05 03:00 | 0 | ▒ 4 | ░ 2 | ▒ 3 | 9 | ████ |
| May 05 04:00 | ▒ 3 | ░ 1 | ░ 2 | ▒ 3 | 9 | ████ |
| May 05 05:00 | 0 | ░ 1 | ░ 1 | ░ 1 | 3 | █ |
| May 05 06:00 | ▒ 3 | ▓ 8 | ▒ 3 | ▒ 5 | 19 | █████████ |
| May 05 07:00 | ░ 2 | ░ 2 | ▓ 6 | ▒ 3 | 13 | ██████ |
| May 05 08:00 | 0 | 0 | ▓ 7 | ░ 2 | 9 | ████ |
| May 05 09:00 | ▒ 5 | ▒ 3 | ░ 2 | ░ 2 | 12 | ██████ |
| May 05 10:00 | ░ 1 | ▒ 4 | ▓ 6 | ░ 2 | 13 | ██████ |
| May 05 11:00 | ▒ 3 | ▒ 3 | ▓ 6 | ▒ 3 | 15 | ███████ |
| May 05 12:00 | ▓ 8 | █ 14 | █ 20 | ░ 2 | 44 | ██████████████████████ ← peak |
| May 05 13:00 | ▓ 8 | █ 15 | █ 15 | ▒ 4 | 42 | █████████████████████ |
| May 05 14:00 | ▒ 3 | ▓ 6 | ▒ 5 | ▒ 3 | 17 | ████████ |
| May 05 15:00 | ▒ 3 | ▒ 3 | ▒ 3 | ▓ 6 | 15 | ███████ |
| May 05 16:00 | ░ 1 | ▓ 7 | ▓ 8 | ▒ 4 | 20 | ██████████ |
| May 05 17:00 | ░ 1 | ░ 1 | ▒ 5 | ▒ 3 | 10 | █████ |
| May 05 18:00 | ░ 2 | ▓ 8 | ▓ 9 | █ 10 | 29 | ██████████████ |
| May 05 19:00 | ▒ 5 | █ 20 | █ 21 | ▒ 3 | 49 | ████████████████████████ ← peak |
| May 05 20:00 | ▓ 7 | ▓ 9 | █ 10 | ░ 1 | 27 | █████████████ |
| May 05 21:00 | ░ 1 | ▓ 8 | ▓ 6 | 0 | 15 | ███████ |
| Total | 79 | 148 | 161 | 85 | 473 | |
| Chat volume followed a similar curve, peaking at 323 messages in the 20:00 hour as the season raced toward the finish. |
🌐 The Fediverse Showed Up
Players came from 49 different Fediverse instances. Top contributors:
| Instance | Players |
|---|---|
| lemmy.zip | 65 |
| lemmy.world | 32 |
| feddit.org | 22 |
| sh.itjust.works | 13 |
| piefed.social | 7 |
| lemmy.ml | 7 |
| discuss.tchncs.de | 5 |
| sopuli.xyz | 4 |
| startrek.website | 3 |
| piefed.zip | 3 |
…plus 39 more instances with 1–2 players each. A genuinely cross-platform crowd.
🐦⬛ Honourable Mentions
- Corvid Chat - the first admin pop-up channel ever spawned. 144 messages in roughly an hour. The crow emoji that arrived in the same patch promptly took silver in the reactions chart.
- The 8-vote election - election 2 fired at 02:30 UTC and got 8 chancellor votes. The dead-of-night turnout floor.
- The Light Side Choice - m_f could have hoarded ten bonus presses for themselves. They didn't. Whoever you are: that's a Jedi move. 🟦
Bugs!
There were a couple of bugs in this Season, for which I apologise profusely for. One ended up wiping the database mid game. I managed to recover most things, but fastest press is not correct sadly, just an approximation based on chat timestamps :(
Until next season. 🟪
Closest to zero doesn't belong to me to be honest :)
I don't remember the exact numbers, but mine was something around 0:00:8# while comradepupivy was around 0:00:3#
Otherwise, great game. Can't wait for season 4
Ca-Caw
I had 0.31 seconds away from the end for my best press before the stats reset.
we voted for them because they promised corvid facts, and they ended up using the decrees to broadcast them, resulting in our amzing corvid cult. it was awesome.
It's this kind of stuff that makes me feel like I'm on the internet of old - who could have predicted that a Star Wars themed button pressing game would lead to a corvid cult?
That was very fun, and just the kind of community building that will help bring Fediverse users together, building a sense of community that is benefits from the relatively small scale of these many instances.
I definitely think the Chancellor system (or something akin to it) should be retained for future iterations; it encourages invested players to take an active role in roleplaying, guiding new users, and keeping things interesting. I do think the extra 30 minutes of button protection for Chancellors discouraged community participation by leaving nothing for users to do, so perhaps that feature should be replaced with something else. If the Chancellor feature is kept, perhaps the ways of spending points could become more varied over time as a season progresses to keep things fresh and interesting?
Also, perhaps something to interact with other than just the button could be added as an additional means of user engagement with the game; perhaps not to the extent that an incremental game connects intertwining features over time, but still substantial enough to encourage greater social interaction.
Whatever the theme for Season 4 ends up being, I know it will be great!
Edit: Also, maybe some system should be in place to discourage wasteful button presses, such as not being able to press twice in a row (either generally, or from the same team). It might help the game last a bit longer.
I like a lot of the ideas in this thread. I also think the chat staying open for a bit after the game ends might be kinda cool, too.
+1, the 30-minute lockout discouraged participation. I don't have a great idea for a replacement. Maybe a flat bonus time that persists between presses? Not sure.
I liked the puzzle. Wrong answers showing in chat also discouraged participation a bit.
Answers should definitely have stayed as commands the whole way through to prevent wrong answers from showing up in chat. 👍
There were still some benefits to be had on working on puzzles in a collaborative manner though—without overtly giving each other the answers—so perhaps the next puzzle(s) could be formulated with that in mind.
Spoiler tags and DMs would be a nice QoL
I didn’t mind the lockout. That was when chat started a cult.
I think the lock could be tweaked a bit.
that way teams have a chance to interact with the lock and players can plan to snipe the button just before the lock engages.
Thank you so much, Demigodrick! I really love these games. Anytime I see a new season announcement, I get excited and look forward to playing.
Sometimes, Lemmy can be very angry and political but these breaks from the tension make a big difference.
I made a lot of new friends across instances today!
Thanks for playing and being such a big part of the game too!!
It plays sounds at presses, but I don't think it plays sounds near time out does it? That would encourage participation I think. I know players can set their own timers, but I don't think that's a substitute.
ETA: also keeping the chat going for a couple minutes after the game ends would be cool I think.
This was great (again)! Thanks!
I've never managed to find audio I like that goes well with the countdown, but I will take another look so there's an audio cue too!
Nice. "Stay on target" or R2 screams or a few others would have worked for 30 second warnings here. "Death Star in range in 5 minutes" would have worked at .. the obvious time for this theme even though 5 minutes is too far out. :) Keeping novelty voice lines from getting repetitive is trickier than simple sound effects though imo.
A gentle but noticable beep would probably work in general for a 30 seconds left alarm if there's nothing more theme appropriate. No need for sounds at other points in the countdown.
I'm thinking that special sound effects for low time saves are probably bad. I'd hate to end on accident just because someone was hoping to get a special sound and missed.
The Super Mario Bros low time sound effect also comes to mind even though it's probably too obnoxious.
By the way, were the same sounds played for everyone or were they random? It always puts a smile on my face when everyone gets the same sounds, because then I can talk about them :)
Thanks for the thoughts, i am having a play to see what fits well!
Same sounds for everyone, server picked at random but everyone got the same :)
Love it
Very fun season as always, thank you! I didn't realize I was such a chatterbox... CAW CAW!
🐦⬛
Great fun again, thanks for much for running these. I joined the ever-underperforming red team this time, but the event ended before I woke up and launched my plan of using my stash of presses to swing the result.
I opened the frequency channel, but couldn't figure out what was needed for the "Seven forms. Seven stars. One who fell beneath them remembers" + "Seven stars burning" clues. Seven forms is a reference to lightsabre fighting styles, I assume, but I didn't get much further. Seven stars = a group of seven? The seven dark Jedi?
I'd be interested to see the stats on which platforms joined in... I noticed a few mastodon instances while playing but the ones in your post are all Lemmy/PieFed.
In terms of other instances, in addition to the ones in the list in the OP, i've put them in the tag below.
::: spoiler instances jlai.lu, lemmy.ca, lemmy.dbzer0.com, infosec.pub, lemmy.blahaj.zone, mastodon.uno, feddit.uk, startrek.website, cake.kobel.fyi, slrpnk.net, stegodon.social, lemmy.today, pawb.social, infosec.exchange, lemmy.nz, mander.xyz, mastodon.zip, piefed.world, kbin.earth, hexbear.net, layer8.space, lemmygrad.ml, mastodon.social, peachpie.theatl.social, anarchist.nexus, blahaj.zone, discuss.mschae23.de, dizl.de, dubvee.org, gehirneimer.de, lemmy.radio, lemmy.uhhoh.com, palaver.p3x.de, piefed.ca, reddthat.com, scribe.disroot.org.
:::
Those are running:
Oh yeah, the puzzle, I wonder what they looked like and their solutions. I couldn't get past the first one lol
I think we couldn't even decide which the first one was, which caused some confusion. Was the morse code button there the whole time?
The Morse code button only unlocked after typing /frequency in chat.
The way to use the morse was
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler literally just putting SEVEN STARS BURNING :::
in the chat. I only got it when someone told me that. And I sure felt like I was overthinking it too. I also thought it was a clue on its own.
At some point the holonet message changed to be about morse instead of the lines about Seven
Now I'm hating myself a wee bit — I tried a lot of shit, but not this one. Even if simpler.
Oh, you're kidding! I definitely thought it was another clue, but I suppose I should have realised that for many, recognising and decoding the morse was puzzle enough. I loaded the sound file into audacity so I could just read the dots and dashes.
Sad to see the button died overnight, but it was really fun again, despite me not knowing much about Star wars. Thank you for making this!
Couldn't join the green faction this time because they were so far ahead, so I ended up joining the red team instead (and somehow even got elected as senator). Honestly didn't know you could have multiple button presses at the same time, my extra senator press also locked the main button for some reason (maybe that was a bug?), but at least I got to press the button at some point!
I was still there to see the first crow facts, but it looks like I missed the cult being formed and crow reactions getting added and all that.
But yeah, everyone was nice as always, which made it great to be part of the game even when the button couldn't be pressed. Looking forward to the next iteration, if there will be one :)
Thanks to everyone for being part of this. I had sooo much fun. All the lovely people in chat, no malicious trolls, just friendly banter. One common goal but with a competition twist. We need more of this in the fediverse.
My personal takeaways
One part of me is sad that it's over, I miss the corvid cult a little, another part of me is happy that I can hyperfocus on something else today :)
Thanks demigodrick for organizing this and the continuous development during the game. I've sent 5 moneys to dotzip
Thanks for playing, and that is so kind of you to donate <3
I agree with you, it's crazy the rush from stopping a virtual button running out last second!
Gg. Stayed up to late, slacked of work...
It was an amazing season, with a really cool theme! Loved the engagement this time around, as well as the new mechanics and stats!
I admit that I found the source code for the answers, as I dug a bit too much into the tech to find the clues, but (un)fortunately the last clue did not have its answer there.
The answers should be stored server-side only, naturally, but apart from that, as others mentioned, it should be hiding the answer attempts from the chat, like having a dedicated input field.
The puzzle was what engaged me the most honestly, ending up spending hours looking through the source code and trying different arbitrary URLs to see if I could cheat a bit (I refrained from trying anything that could affect other players). I would love to see even more puzzles, perhaps with multiple entry points with differing difficulties? I volunteer for engineering some for next time, if you feel like delegating some of the work to make this fun event!
Perhaps next time, it would be a cyberpunk theme? 🐦⬛🖲️
Yes, source code was an oversight! Fixed mid-season, when I realised it was visible, so hopefully a bit more mysterious next time!!
If you're up for designing a puzzle (red herrings and side paths most welcome) I'd be glad of the help!!!
As always a great community game where the theme was nicely implemented.
For feedback I think separating the stats for available presses by "overall" and "of connected users" would be helpful to estimate if there are anyone left to press the button.
Also having a counter of own banked presses would be nice.
I did eventually manage to add a counter of own banked presses, but it was much later into the game. That will be in place if/when S4 comes around.
There's some performance considerations around pushes of connected users as it would force the leaderboard to recalculate every time some joined/left - doable, but I'll need to do a lot of testing. Thanks for the ideas :)
Thanks for making this happen, demigodrick, I had fun!
Thanks for playing!! :)
What were the solutions to the clues, btw? I never got the last one...