So I am showing off my HTC incredible (like any decent android user) to a girl at the office. I bring out the Akinator and ask her to think of someone famous. She thinks of someone and starts playing. 12 questions in, the picture of Christina Aguilera jumps up and the girl (I kid you not) - screams!!.
The scream leads to a congregation of colleagues, each wanting to stump the Akinator. My history buff colleague tries Jefferson Davis (the only confederate president in US history) and David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister) and much to my surprise, the Akinator gets both of them.
How it works is pretty simple, you think of somebody and the algorithm tries to guess it through a series of questions. Based on the old 20 questions theme. The wonderful thing is that the more people play it - the smarter the algorithm gets.
The layout and design is very uncomplicated. The Akinator genie poses questions with answers ranging from the expected "yes" and "no" to include also "don't know", "probably" and "probably not".
It works really well for both real and imaginary characters. So far today alone it has guessed people from Stringer Bell (the wire) to Ira Glass (this American Life) to John Krasinski (who plays Jim on The Office).
The app can go beyond the usual 20 questions (and to be fair it sometimes needs to do if for the obscurer ones)
If in the end the app doesn?t find the person you?re looking for - it gives you a list of possible options as well. If the person you thought of is not on the list - it also gives you the option of adding them to the database to help it guess correctly the next time someone thinks of that person.
If it does guess correctly though, there's also a neat feature that displays how many other users have thought of the same person as you. I felt rather proud that only 14 people had thought of Gabriel Heinze (Argentinian soccer defense player) before me. Also it allows you to add pictures of the character or edit the existing picture (like I did for the lovely Dr. Melfi from the Sopranos).
The beauty of the app is that it can played by people of any age (my 4 year old niece tried to beat it with Dora the explorer).
It made for a fun road trip game with kids and adults taking turns.
The layout of the app is very uncomplicated and
It does not cost much either - 1.59 Euros (a little under 2 $).
You can also play the game online here for FREE if you want
I am going to end by saying that I am somebody who does NOT like to pay for apps. Yet Akinator is an app that I could pay twice over for. Go get it, NOW.
The scream leads to a congregation of colleagues, each wanting to stump the Akinator. My history buff colleague tries Jefferson Davis (the only confederate president in US history) and David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister) and much to my surprise, the Akinator gets both of them.
How it works is pretty simple, you think of somebody and the algorithm tries to guess it through a series of questions. Based on the old 20 questions theme. The wonderful thing is that the more people play it - the smarter the algorithm gets.
The layout and design is very uncomplicated. The Akinator genie poses questions with answers ranging from the expected "yes" and "no" to include also "don't know", "probably" and "probably not".
It works really well for both real and imaginary characters. So far today alone it has guessed people from Stringer Bell (the wire) to Ira Glass (this American Life) to John Krasinski (who plays Jim on The Office).
The app can go beyond the usual 20 questions (and to be fair it sometimes needs to do if for the obscurer ones)
If in the end the app doesn?t find the person you?re looking for - it gives you a list of possible options as well. If the person you thought of is not on the list - it also gives you the option of adding them to the database to help it guess correctly the next time someone thinks of that person.
If it does guess correctly though, there's also a neat feature that displays how many other users have thought of the same person as you. I felt rather proud that only 14 people had thought of Gabriel Heinze (Argentinian soccer defense player) before me. Also it allows you to add pictures of the character or edit the existing picture (like I did for the lovely Dr. Melfi from the Sopranos).
The beauty of the app is that it can played by people of any age (my 4 year old niece tried to beat it with Dora the explorer).
It made for a fun road trip game with kids and adults taking turns.
The layout of the app is very uncomplicated and
It does not cost much either - 1.59 Euros (a little under 2 $).
You can also play the game online here for FREE if you want
I am going to end by saying that I am somebody who does NOT like to pay for apps. Yet Akinator is an app that I could pay twice over for. Go get it, NOW.
