Game idea: The Wiki Races
Jan. 24th, 2008 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eclectic_boyCan anybody give me suggestions, and perhaps volunteer for a playtesting session, of a game/pastime/contest that I thought of which I'm calling "The Wiki Races" in honor of a cherished kids TV show?
At its heart, the game is about trying to get from a given starting page on Wikipedia to a target page as fast as possible, solely by clicking links in the body of the article (nothing in the sidebar or footer). I'm thinking that "fast" in the sense of "fewest clicks" is more conducive to a good game than "least elapsed seconds", although there'd have to be some time involved to determine when a round ends, since it's hard to be certain that a shorter path might be found given enough effort. So I'd do the Ricochet Robots mechanic: players all start simultaneously; when one player has found a path they may call out "got it in [n]!" Everyone (that player too) has one minute more to look, and call out "got it in [m]!" Whoever's called out the lowest number proves they have in fact found a path in that many clicks, and if so wins the round.
I like the game because it rewards an interesting ability: to broadly think about ways that various subjects might be linked, and what intermediary connections might exist. For example, I get from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign
to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington
in seven steps, via geography: I start by linking to Spanish, then Spain, then Spanish colonization, then Great Plains, United States, Washington DC, and Washington (going back while writing this email I see there was a much faster shortcut).
I figure first person to 12-divided-by-number-of-players wins.
What do you think?
At its heart, the game is about trying to get from a given starting page on Wikipedia to a target page as fast as possible, solely by clicking links in the body of the article (nothing in the sidebar or footer). I'm thinking that "fast" in the sense of "fewest clicks" is more conducive to a good game than "least elapsed seconds", although there'd have to be some time involved to determine when a round ends, since it's hard to be certain that a shorter path might be found given enough effort. So I'd do the Ricochet Robots mechanic: players all start simultaneously; when one player has found a path they may call out "got it in [n]!" Everyone (that player too) has one minute more to look, and call out "got it in [m]!" Whoever's called out the lowest number proves they have in fact found a path in that many clicks, and if so wins the round.
I like the game because it rewards an interesting ability: to broadly think about ways that various subjects might be linked, and what intermediary connections might exist. For example, I get from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign
to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington
in seven steps, via geography: I start by linking to Spanish, then Spain, then Spanish colonization, then Great Plains, United States, Washington DC, and Washington (going back while writing this email I see there was a much faster shortcut).
I figure first person to 12-divided-by-number-of-players wins.
What do you think?
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Date: 2008-01-24 11:24 pm (UTC)