Overview

The gameplay of The System, while seemingly complicated, is most easily learned through experience. While in The System, contestants are required to manage Prisms, People and Popularity in order to navigate each round and eventually becoming the Winner at the end of the season.

## General Round Format

### Missions

At the beginning of a round, all contestants compete in a challenge (more commonly known as **Missions**). The better the contestants perform, the more Prisms (the currency of the game) the contestants receive to use in the store which can be used to affect a contestants Prisms or Popularity.

### The Store

After the Mission takes place and the Prisms for the round are distributed, contestants will have access to The Store to purchase Modifiers. Modifiers have the ability to raise or lower a contestants Popularity, or affect their Prisms. Since *Cyber*, the store is only open for a limited time, and once the store is closed, no more purchases can be made for the round. All sales that occur in the store are final and cannot be revoked. Once closed, the purchases are tabulated and the 3 contestants with the lowest Popularity for the round will be placed into the Chamber. If there is a tie between multiple contestants for the lowest popularity, a wheel will be spun amongst those involved in the tie and whomever the wheel lands on will be placed into the Chamber.

#### Popularity

There are 2 forms of Popularity that a contestant must worry about in the game, Round Popularity and Overall Popularity. Both Round and Overall Popularity start at 15 at the beginning of the game and are directly affected by Pink and Black Modifiers. At the beginning of a new round, the Round Popularity is reset to 15 while Overall Popularity is not reset.

All forms of Popularity are cyclical and range from 0-28. If a contestant were to have their Popularity go above 28, it would then go to 0 as it continued to increase. This happens in reverse if a contestants Popularity were to drop below 0, it would then go to 28 before continuing to decrease.

(*To see how the Modifiers are used, please proceed to the Modifiers page.*)

### The Chamber

Those who are placed into the Chamber after the Popularity results have been announced are the only ones eligible to be eliminated from the System for the round. Those in the Chamber have until a predetermined deadline to campaign to the rest of the contestants in the Chamber to save them.

In the event of a contestants rule breaking, the format of the Chamber may be affected under the hosts discretion and could result in the following:

* If a contestant were to break the rules before Popularity results, they would immediately be placed into the Chamber no matter what, meaning that instead of 3, the contestants with the 2 lowest Popularity for the round would be placed into the Chamber.
* If a contestant were to break the rules after the Popularity Results, the contestant in question would be placed into the Chamber in addition to the 3 contestants already present in the Chamber, meaning that instead of 3 contestants in the Chamber, there would be 4.

### Voting

The final stage of each round consists of the contestants not in the Chamber voting to save one of the contestants in the Chamber. Each contestant only has 1 vote to cast each round which is final upon it being cast. Once all the votes have been cast, a contestant will be eliminated from The System. In most cases the contestant with the least amount of votes to save will be eliminated from the game, however if there is a tie in the voting, one of 2 situations will take place:

* **System Overload**: If there is a tie between 2 contestants for the least votes to save (For example: 5-1-1, 4-2-2, 3-0-0 etc.), the votes turn into votes to Eliminate, and the contestant who received the most votes is eliminated instead.
* **System Breakdown**: If there is a 3-way tie in the vote to save (For example: 3-3-3, 2-2-2, 1-1-1 etc.), all 3 contestants in the Chamber are declared safe. Instead every contestant who was not in the Chamber are up for elimination instead. Their names are placed onto a wheel, which is spun and whomever the wheel lands on is eliminated.

There is one alteration to this rule. In the event of a **Purge**, which was first seen in *The System: Mini* and then formally in *Ultimate*. If this occurs only the contestant with the most votes will survive, while the other two are eliminated. In the event of a tie of the most votes to save, those two will be eliminated and the one with the least will stay.

## Live Nights

Throughout each season, there are predetermined nights where contestants complete an additional Round of the game over the span of just a couple minutes. Live Nights can vary in format, but all consist of 3 contestants being placed into the Chamber by one of the following ways:

* **Overall Popularity:** First introduced in *Cyber*, the contestants with the 3 lowest Overall Popularity among the remaining contestants were placed into the Chamber. This has become a staple for Live Nights since its initial appearance.
* **Prism Ratio:** First introduced in *Hyrule*, the contestants with the 3 highest Prism Ratios among the remaining contestants were placed into the Chamber. This has become a staple for Live Nights since its initial appearance.
* **Fast Forward:** First introduced in *Hyrule*, this format of Live Nights is the closest to mimicking an actual round of gameplay. Contestants are awarded Prisms or Prism Vouchers either through competition or in a set amount given to all contestants. Contestants then have the ability to spend their prisms in the store for a short time before the store closed. Once closed, the 3 contestants with the lowest popularity would be placed into the Chamber.
* **Competition:** First introduced in *Hope's Peak High*, all contestants would participate in a Mission, the 3 worst performing contestants would be placed into the Chamber as a result.
* **Revenge Night:** First introduced in *Weirdmageddon*, a previously eliminated contestant would have the ability to put any remaining eligible contestant into the Chamber of their choosing.

The remaining contestants not in the Chamber then vote to save one of the contestants in the Chamber. Just like any other round a player with the least amount of votes will be eliminated unless an Overload or a Breakdown takes place.

## The Final Chamber

Once there are only 3 contestants remaining in the game, the voting to save portion of the game is scrapped. Instead the final elimination of the season is determined by the Final Chamber. Separately, each of the 3 contestants compete in a series of Missions that they participated earlier in the season, however each mission is now a harder difficulty.

Once completed the fastest contestant then receives a time penalty (5 minutes for seasons 1-3, 10 minutes for season 4 and 15 minutes from season 5 onwards) that must be given to one of the other 2 contestants. Once the Final Chamber is completed and the penalty is distributed, the 2 fastest proceed onto the finale while the slowest contestant is the final one eliminated.

There are seasons that introduced unique elements to the Final Chamber including:

* The *All-Stars* Final Chamber Missions were pulled from past seasons instead of being exclusively from the current season.
* The *Sixth Night* Final Chamber included ways for contestants to subtract time from their final scores.
* The *Legend Of The Burned Tower* had no Final Chamber, instead eliminated contestants were awarding remaining contestants with Trainer Experience throughout the season, the contestant with the least at the Final 3 was eliminated.
* The *North Moore Street* Final Chamber was done simultaneously, and the contestant who did not finish would immediately be eliminated.
* The *Ultimate* Final Chamber had the biggest departure from the traditional format, the competitions would be done simultaneously, but would instead be done in sections, the winner of each section would receive three points, second would get 1, and third would get 0. This process would go on for seven rounds, the contestant with the least amount of points at the end would be eliminated.

## The Finale

Once the final 2 contestants are determined, they are subjected to the 3 subjects they were told to manage throughout the game. The categories are:

* **Prisms:** For this section, the contestant who has the lowest Prism Ratio is declared the winner of the section. Prism Ratio is determined by taking the amount of Prisms a contestant has spent or transferred and dividing that value by the Prisms that a contestant has earned through Missions, Stealing, Transferring or other means.
* **Popularity:** For this section, the contestant who has the highest Overall Popularity is declared the winner of the section. This Popularity is consistent throughout the season and is not reset to 15 at the start of every round.
* **People:** For this section, the final 2 plead their cases to a jury of their fellow contestants, usually the last 5 or 7 eliminated, on why they deserve to win the season. The contestant who receives the most votes from the jury is declared the winner of the section.

The contestant who bests the other in 2 out of 3 categories is declared the Winner and has defeated The System.

(*To see a more in depth explanation of the Finale, please proceed to the Winners page.*)