Bitplay.net

Apparently, the internet exists solely to take my time away from me.  Over the weekend, I discovered bitplay.net.  If you haven't checked it out, you should.  It is a game that shows you a still from a movie and you have to guess what movie it's from.  It is right up my alley.

There are a few problems with it, namely that once you run through all the slides, you're done for the day.  There is a finite number of movies displayed.  What's nice about bitplay is that each day brings new slides.  You still see a lot of repetition from the previous day, but you can look forward to some new challenges.

If you decide to attempt all the slides, be sure to stay at your computer until you're done.  The site will time out and reset your score to zero after so long.  I haven't timed it yet, so I'm not sure when the timer actually runs out.

Each slide is worth a certain number of points.  They seem to range from two points up to ten.  I'm not sure how exactly they assign the point value.  Some very obscure or older movies were worth ten, which made sense to me.  On the other hand, there were slides that had an iconic character in them, making them feel like they should have been worth less than they were.  Either way, it's fun to watch your points accrue.

When you finish all the challenges for the day, you can choose to save your score.  You can see other high scores, which is fun.  You can see exactly where you stand in comparison to other people who let the internet siphon away their lives.*

The game is actually a bit forgiving, which can be nice or annoying, depending on how seriously you want to take the game.  If you guess the Godfather when the actual movie is the Godfather II, you still get your points.  You will be told that you were close enough in your guess.  This is nice because it sometimes lets you get around careless typos.  At the same time, I got a movie wrong because I accidentally typed "teh" instead of "the".  I guess it all evens out in the end.

I expect that bitplay.net is really only fun when you first discover it.  Upon revisiting it the next day, I grew bored with the vast majority of stills being ones I had already seen.  Even more frustrating is when you get one wrong, the site doesn't give you the correct answer.  It makes perfect sense, as people would cheat.  Also, you might recognize it the next day, having not earned it.  I'm sure when I'm bored, after I've been away from it for a week, I'll wander back to bitplay.net.  It's a lot of fun, and you should try it out.

*I can say that because I participated.