. . . I’d like you to try an experiment and report the results here:
Think of “hummingbird,” answer the questions accordingly, and tell us what it guesses.
This came up yesterday at our Christmas party, and I’d like to see what happens with more data points.
Thanks!
It’s first guess, after 17 questions, was “hummingbird.”
Please ignore what looks like an apostrophe in the first word. It is, in fact, a fleck of hummingbird poop.
I don’t have the electronic game, but I just played it at 20q.net. I played the “Classic” version. It guessed phoenix, then bald eagle, then woodpecker, fossil, and tattoo. Then it gave up.
Judging by my experience with it, this is about average performance.
Dung Beetle has the handheld game, I know. Maybe she’ll stop by.
I tried it at 20q.net:
Thanks for the replies so far, but (I think) I’m interested only in results from the handheld game, not the online version.
Interesting that so far I’m not seeing the results we got. (Will report later after we get a few more replies here.)
I’ll get mine out of the drawer right now…
…It was somewhere between questions 18 and 20; it guessed hummingbird correctly.
hummingbird, question 17
could you post how you answered it?
Hummingbird, first guess, Q20.
1–animal, mineral, vegetable, other–ANIMAL
2–is it small? YES
3–is it usually colorful? YES
4–does it live in the forest? YES
5–can you buy it at a store? NO
6–does it bring joy to people? YES
7–do you know any songs about it? NO
8–does it stand on two legs? YES
9–is it involved in movies? NO
10–does it have a bill or a beak? YES
11–can it climb? DK
12–does it have a long tail? NO
13–is it heavier than a pound of butter? NO
14–can it fit in an envelope? NO
15–is it something you can purchase? NO
16–is it smaller than a loaf of bread? YES
17–does it have claws? NO
18–does it live in groups? DK
19–does it have a tail? YES
20–can it be stolen? NO
It’s a hummingbird?
Hm, bizarre . . . my friends played it on two different games, and then we played it on two more different games at the party, and all four answered . . .
IS IT A HUMAN HEAD???
We tried all kinds of variations on possible answers (sometimes/unknown for the ones we weren’t 100% positive about) and always the same answer. Never got “hummingbird” as a response. (And at the party it was a group effort, with several nature lovers in attendance, so I’m sure we weren’t very far off in our answers.)
Perhaps just a local programming glitch on machines that were distributed in our area?
Hi! Unfortunately, I don’t have it with me, but I’ll give it a try tonight when I get home. Here’s hoping for "human head!
I think you have to consider the possibility that you’re in a horror movie right now.
If so, it extends to the East Coast. The one my sister gave us also guessed a human head! The second guess was a dodo bird. Smaller than a bread box and lighter than a pound of butter - I don’t think so. :dubious:
What happens if you try human head?
Killer whale, then walrus.
We got one of those yesterday. I don’t have it with me but I’ll try when I get home.
My daughter tried to get it to guess “baby” and after 3 tries, the guesses were zombie, armadillo and cadaver.
Because my friends and I are five years old, we chose “penis” as the object for one of the games.
There were several questions that elicited a few chuckles from us like, “does it bring joy to people?” and “do you use it at night?”
But the one question to make us completely lose it for about five minutes was this: Does it come in a box?
Like I said, we’re five year olds.
(not completely safe for work-uses the word “dick”)