The amazing mind reading game (20Q Game)

Member Name: Linnyg

Product:	20Q Game
Date:	17/07/09 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It will amaze your friends

Disadvantages: Limited playability

We used to own this game and the way the packaging was designed meant it was possible to use the game without cutting it out of its packaging, as the buttons were not encased in the plastic. We anticpated that it would be fun to play with for a while but that it would quickly outlive its interest factor, so kept it in its packaging. This proved to be the case and when we got bored with it we gave it to a charity shop.

The idea is that you think of an object and then answer twenty questions that scroll across the screen by pressing buttons labelled Yes, No or Sometimes. The game then guessed a couple of times before it gives up. It is impressive how it manages to guess diverse objects and I could appreciate how clever the algorithms used must be to generally arrive at the correct answer. However it wouldn't work if you were too specific. For example, it could easily guess 'book' but when you tried 'Pride and Pejudice' that steched it a bit far!

It was good for when friends visited; we could give it to them to have a couple of goes on and they were impressed with how clever it was. However it becomes boring fairly quickly when you play it repeatedly as it keeps asking the same questions, and you get the hang of what it will guess and what it won't.

Summary: Try to borrow rather than buy