"Explore & race through Wikipedia articles"

August 14, 2014 10:32 AM

The Wiki Game is a collection of five browser-based games that challenge you to find things in Wikipedia. Play modes are Speed Race, Least Clicks, Six Degrees of Wikipedia, Five Clicks to Jesus, and No United States. Warning: VERY addictive.
posted by jbickers (17 comments total)

Blocked at work, dangit! These sound fantastic, and fantastically addictive.
posted by Fig at 10:33 AM on August 14, 2014

Woo hoo, from Gears of War to Art in seven clicks. Wrom WZON to Yoko Ono in six!
posted by Naberius at 10:40 AM on August 14, 2014

"I just won The Wiki Game! I connected Wikipedia articles 'Kama Sutra' → 'Jesus' in 4 clicks"

Okay.
posted by sukeban at 10:40 AM on August 14, 2014

Heh. I play this idly myself sometimes. My rules are that I click Random Article and then try to get to Frot in as few clicks as possible.
posted by 256 at 10:42 AM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Heh. I play this idly myself sometimes. My rules are that I click Random Article and then try to get to Frot in as few clicks as possible.

Wish I hadn't clicked that one (for those who didn't know NSFW).
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:44 AM on August 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

five clicks to jesus is awesome.

danica patrick->england->anglican communion->jesus
posted by leotrotsky at 10:47 AM on August 14, 2014

five clicks to jesus is awesome.

Also an excellent potential metafilter user name.
posted by Fizz at 10:50 AM on August 14, 2014 [5 favorites]

"five klicks to jesus" said the roman strike team en route to target.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:56 AM on August 14, 2014 [6 favorites]

The common trend in "five clicks to jesus" seemed to be clicking on a country or state, and then clicking on a Christian tradition, and then clicking on Jesus.
posted by ILuvMath at 11:02 AM on August 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm playing the "No United States" variant as GuestB623C. The restriction comes up surprisingly often.
posted by 256 at 11:05 AM on August 14, 2014

It doesn't seem to recognize redirections as the same page, which is quite frustrating when I've made it to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_III,_Duke_of_Burgundy but it wants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_the_Good.
posted by lozierj at 11:45 AM on August 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

Lozierj, I ran into that too--even though I'd reached "The Grateful Dead", it didn't acknowledge reaching "Grateful Dead" until I clicked out to Jerry Garcia and then back.

My best play thus far is winning Civilization --> Wonder Woman in the speed game, but also having the route with the fewest clicks AND no United States (Civilization → Ancient Greece → Greek mythology → Amazons → Wonder Woman)
posted by kagredon at 12:42 PM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

on the flip side, I thought I was really clever going through nonprofit organizations and vaccination to get from "Doris Day" to "Diphtheria"

(Doris Day → Doris Day Animal League → Humane Society of the United States → Nonprofit organization → Howard Hughes Medical Institute → Immunology → Immune system → Vaccination → MMR Vaccine → Vaccine → Diphtheria)

...until someone else won with Doris Day → Christian Scientist → Diphtheria
posted by kagredon at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

...until someone else won with Doris Day → Christian Scientist → Diphtheria

Heh, I was in that game. I went that route to Christian Scientist, thinking about links to curing illness by prayer alone, but got stuck in the weeds of homeopathy along the way so I only got as far as Respiratory disease and completely missed the direct link along the way. D'oh.

Playing the non united states version seems most fun, as there seem to be a lot of people who use that as the jumping point to win the time and clicks versions, and I just can't compete.
posted by ArkhanJG at 1:01 PM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hmm, I don't like how it yanks me out of the game if I take too long. I was having fun trying to step from the United Kingdom article to Concorde.
posted by crapmatic at 1:37 PM on August 14, 2014

It is addictive! Even though I've ragequit several times because of that stupid redirect thing, I keep coming back.
posted by Lorin at 2:51 PM on August 14, 2014

The best strategy seems to be to get to the article for a large western political entity (United States, EU, Great Britain) as fast as possible.
posted by zixyer at 3:33 PM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]