Re: [SBL 08/09] Wheek 17 Odds-me-do


"Sir Benjamin Nunn" <bennunn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Joe Horowitz" <my_name@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Heh. LMAO, lamo. I fucking rock at Geo Challenge, although I did sort
of cheat a bit. I used the force.


I have to admit, I was wondering how you achieved the scores you have, as
there are lots of people who get very similar scores to me, and you are
way out in front.

If I play it now, I'll usually get a score of something in the region of
27,000. My best scores on each of the three challenges (13000, 11000 and
9000) combined would add up to 33000, though, so at my current level that's
the maximum score I can achieve.

When I was scoring 12000-13000 I kinda thought I can't be that far off the
theoretical maximum, which I surmised to be about 18000, or 6000 per
round, based on getting everything right within the alotted time.

Pfft. The maximum possible, according to the current world rankings, is
95000, although quite how much faster than me you have to get at it I'm not
sure. The scores do increase exponentially though, meaning that if you get
up to 15000, you don't need to do twice as well to get to 30000.

Then you suddenly started scoring 30000'n'***, and I thought 'What the
Cunting ***?!?'

Yes, I used the force that night. I hace teh very addictive personality
when it comes to stuff like this, I was very stoned, and wasn't really
paying attention. Just played lots of times in quick succession, until I
stopped actually watching what I was doing, I think I had the football on
Radio5 and was listening to that instead. My eyes were kinda blurry, just
clicking instinctively without forethought, not actually watching the screen
in any focused of conscious way at all. I know pretty much all the flags
and country shapes and stuff now, with these sort of things it's mostly a
matter of getting to a point when you can play using your subconscious,
which is obviously very quick and powerful, and not your conscious, which is
obviously slower and more sluggish, and more prone to mistakes.

Kind of like how, when playing ProEvo football or whatever, you don't think
'I need to shoot, and that's the red button, so I press that now with my
thumb'. You just shoot. If I play a game of ProEvo on mental 'autopilot',
if you like, I might draw 0-0, or I might smack 11 goals past Man United
without really knowing at the end quite what just happened or who the ***
scored for me. Cannabis helps with this a lot, if I'm stoned I can
definitely 'zone out' on things like this very easily, and yet sometimes
play better than ever whilst thinking about something completely different.
Or play completely fucking rubbish. It can go either way.

Although, I didn't 'suddenly start scoring 30000' on GeoChallenge, I built
up to it gradually and incrementally. The main thing is not to get any
wrong answers at all, because it rewards you exponentially for increasingly
large sequences of correct answers, 3,5,10,15,20,30,40. You also get
5-second time-extentions after 20,30 and 40 correct answers. Therefore, I
set my sights on getting 30 correct in 59 seconds, thus allowing me five
more seconds in which I could get up to 33. But then I got up to 37 this
one time, and realised with a bit more of a push I could get up to 40, which
also allowed me five more seconds so I got up to 43, and have done a few
times since then. But then, I've also noticed that I do actually still
hesitate just a tiny bit on maybe a quarter of those anwers, which leads me
to suppose that 50 correct is actually possible. But at 43 flags correct
you get 13000 points, and that's the first of three rounds.

I'm a little slower on the country shapes, but can score 11000 on that round
with reasonable consistency. I actually think that's potentially the easist
round, as you only ever have a choice of four answers, and reckon I could
get 50 or 60 on there once it's all logged in my brainpipe. It's also the
most fun round for me, I love teh visual aspect and the shapes'n'***. I've
no idea why I get so much enjoyment from correctly identifying countries
from their outlines but I do, it just makes me purr inside.

The fact that despite all this, my best score is still less than one third
of the best scores anyone ever gets on there, makes it very hard for me to
stop playing. I hace teh tenth best score in the Bristol network, but on
all of Facebook that's apparently the equivalent of being third in the
Flanahan's Flans Junior Rubbishcunts Gut League Division 3 Southern Tory
Conference.

Or, to put it another way, Redditch.

I wondered if there was a way to speed up the thing (but not the clock) so
that you can get more answers in?

Yes, there is that as well. Just as you can toggle the sound on and off,
you can toggle the graphics between high-res and low-res (it's the button
next to the sound-toggle button, took me a while to work out what the ***
that did). At low res, it runs a bit quicker, and also the fact that the
thing moves quicker somehow cranks up the tension a bit and makes me
instinctively click quicker.

At high-res, the best score I can get is probably more like 23000 or
something.

Although after you've played it several times, it kinda ceases to be a
geography challenge at all, and becomes more a combination of a
memory/responsiveness test.

AWTWP. But then, what I quite teh like about stuff like this is does
actually increase the memory as well, in that, as a result of playing a lot,
I now know way more flags and country shapes and locations of cities and
countries'n'*** than I knew before.

One thing I've noticed about all the Playfish games, is they strongly
reward the strategy of 'playing the fucking thing lots and lots of times'.

Yes, I've noticed that as well. It's bizarre. Completely unique amongst
games in that respect.


--
Joe

"I am the fat puddin', but a single puddingness" - Vicky Conlan


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