Brain Games on Facebook

Lately I've been wandering around some of the 'apps' and games available on Facebook and I haven't yet found one that I'm entirely or completely happy with.

I've been playing a few of the word games and my first criticism is that invariably the creators do not have as good a vocabulary as I do. Also extremely annoying about the word games is that though, sometimes a drop down menu is provided for choosing between USA and English english many English english words are rejected and English english is what comes naturally to me. Thankfully before uploading my articles onto AC I can use the F7 button to make sure that I am presenting my article spelled in USA English. That F7 button usually manages also to untangle those words that my fingers tend to type in a dyslexic manner.

Whilst I am talking about language let me mention that recently Facebook advertised the fact that they wanted to make Facebook more linguistically and grammatically correct so when I clicked through their link asking for help in this matter thinking this to be a good thing and possibly a dollar earning gig for myself I was quickly disheartened to find that they were seeking volunteers who could be completely anyone at all. And since that day such things as language used in Facebook has gotten far worse. Ridiculous mistakes of language and grammatical errors now seem to be growing exponentially by the hour.

Yes - I am one of those people who does actually enjoy reading a menu where everything is correctly spelt. Having said that I am also very flexible and capable of understanding the cultural influences that creep into the use of written language and as I am sure many of you have noticed I also like to be idiosyncratic in my own use of grammar.

I was brought up playing so called 'brain games'. The Air Force lifestyle to which I was subjected during my childhood encouraged such activity and at times when families were cloistered together sequestered by curfews enforced in war-zones playing cards and board games was very common. Though I must say that even as a child I preferred games where 'luck' was minimized and mathematical skill heightened. I preferred Whist over Uno, and 500 or Euchre rather than Rummy or Canasta.

Monopoly never kept my attention for long either.

I was competitive and I liked to win; which often I did.

Somewhere in the early 80's or late 70's I stopped playing Bridge and Scrabble. I was rarely beaten at Scrabble and I was pretty good at Bridge too. With training and a certain agility in foreign languages and Latin, plus my medical training and knowledge of medical words always helped in games such as Scrabble and I was rarely beaten. I even once won a national Scrabble competition. Yet during this time I stopped liking competitive games and spent the next decade or so playing non competitive games.

To this day I avoid competitive games.

In the 90's when I first got onto the internet I often played Scrabble or Bridge against the computer alone. I also got into playing FreeCell games sequentially getting up to around game 2500. A couple other members of my family also did this and I found it surprising that the occasional game that I couldn't get out was not the same as the occasional games my other siblings got stuck on.

During the last decade my approach to games also changed completely and I stopped playing the games that took more than around ten minutes to finish. The game that I currently play the most is plain old Spider. And I'm definitely not into so called pseudo reality games that seem to suck away the life force of so many people I know.

It takes only around ten minutes and is a great distraction and rest from what else I am doing. And I don't even do it at the most difficult level either - opting instead for two suits; though I do like to line them up in alternate suits (hearts then spades).

So now I've recently tried a few of the games on Facebook.

Firstly there's Word Challenge which I hate. The vocabulary set that the makers of this game use is extremely limited. It doesn't accept words such as vas, alms, mons, gnu, gnat, roo, rue ...and zillions more I've currently forgotten. I soon got very annoyed with this game after playing it for only around ten minutes. Though having said this there is a major improvement that could be made to it (besides adding a better vocabulary) and this also applies to some of the other games I will mention.

There should be an option to extend the time taken each round. Perhaps a drop down menu that lets you choose how long you want to play for during each round. At the end of each round in Word Challenge there comes up a grid that displays how many possible permutations there are and I could enjoy the game far more if there was an option to display that grid and extend play time in order to give you an extended time or an unlimited time to find all the permutations.

My success at playing the games on Facebook is hampered and limited by technology. For instance I am on a severely limited satellite connection that uploads and downloads very slowly. During one game of Word challenge where I never once paused in writing down words I still only scored around 4.5k points whereas the person atop the ladder has about 112k.

Also I am not a trained typist and cannot look at the screen whilst typing - so many of these types of games favor those who can. Also keyboard speed and agility enters in the equation as does actual physical agility.

Some of the games and applications on Facebook say that they are donating rice to the starving, or offsetting carbon emissions, or saving endangered rainforests as you use them or are play their games. Whether or not this is true I have no idea but if it is true then this is to be commended. I would certainly endorse and encourage such 'Ethical Games'.

One vocabulary game I started playing for a few days called "Donate Rice" claims to give away twenty five grains of rice to the starving for every word you correctly define the meaning of. On Sunday I managed to get up into the lofty heights of Vocabulary level 50 and then became afraid to play any more. Level 50 sounded so impressive that I didn't want to lose ground by getting one word wrong. When you get a word wrong you go down a level and it takes three or four correct answers to regain your ground. So I have chosen, so far to stay on my level 50.

I then started playing a math based game that claims to offset carbon as you get answers correct. That became a bit meaningless when it was apparent that by being able to use a calculator you could easily progress up the ladder. Though having said that I figure it may be honorable to play it for around ten minutes per day to offset the energy used to power my computer and provide those internet services that enable me to play the game.

Yesterday I discovered a game called Scramble. So far this game presents a challenge to me as it is unlike anything I have played before. It is another vocabulary game though it also relies on what I am currently deciding to call 'mind twisting'. It is not logical in the usual sense of the word games and I find I can't rely on straight logic plus vocab' skills in playing it. This game too would benefit from that aforementioned drop down menu for extending the time of each round.

One thing to be said in its favor is that its vocabulary is far better than the lexicon used by Word Challenge. The thing I have come to hate about it though is that it stops letting you enter any words a few seconds before the supposed end of the round and sometimes those flags that serve to distract you by letting you know you are surpassing your friends' scores disables the ability to continue to make words or enter them.

Personally I am also not playing these games in order to be 'quick' or to get an adrenalin rush. I would prefer to play them in a more leisurely way. Many of the games use the word 'fast' as a draw card and these I avoid like the plague. I avoid them for the technology reasons mentioned earlier plus as I said I am not looking for an adrenalin rush.

Also many of the games penalize you if you allow yourself to be distracted by answering the phone or responding to one of your notification. This too I find annoying.

So - if anyone knows of a Facebook game (or even non Facebook) that they think might be right up my alley then please do let me know. Now I'm off to play a game of Scramble - or perhaps I should instead offset some carbon or get the courage to possibly slide down the Donate Rice ladder.

Or perhaps I might instead go watch the chooks and the newly hatched chicki chickies and do some weeding out in the fresh air before the UV reading gets way too high.

Keep posted.