Have you ever wished the ludicrous volume of video game knowledge you’ve acquired over the years could somehow prove useful? Well, bad news – it won’t. But thanks to this rad little Flash quiz a reader sent in, you can pretend, for a fleeting moment, that it did.
Here’s how Geek Mind works: you are presented with a series of screenshots from games, ranging in genus from mainstream to retro to indie. Your job is to identify them by typing in the title. Each game you identify correctly nets you 10 seconds (you start the game with 60, which is also the maximum amount of time you can get). Good performance will also earn you hints that’ll help you out if you’re stuck on a particular game. You also have the ability to skip screenshots that you have no chance of getting, but beware: when skipping, the timer keeps counting down while you wait for a new game to pop up.
It’s a slick, well-put-together experience, and kind of a huge blast if you’ve ever wished there was a video game game show (and no, Nick Arcade didn’t count). And if you’re anything like me, you’ll be shocked by how much of this stuff you’ve retained over the years – even from games you’ve never played. How the hell did my brain recognize the pet monkey from Black & White? I sure don’t know, but it did, and that’s what counts.
Alright, here’s what we’re thinking: we want you to play Geek Mind exactly once, and post the score you get on your first try (with a screenshot, if possible). Hopefully, we can get a fun little competition going in the comments. You know, for e-bragging-rights and stuff.
So I’m throwing down the gauntlet: I was able to manage 59,300 points in my first play. Let me tell you, that was a LOT of typing. Still, in the 200+ levels I went through, I never saw a single repeated screenshot, which says volumes about the dude’s commitment to making a fun, varied, even fair Flash game. Awesome work, Dom2D!
(Thanks for the tip, Walter!)















Score is shopped!
Only managed to score 8550, game kept not giving me Breath of Fire after I’d put it in, but oh well. Either way, you’ve effectively cost me half an hour of writing, and probably a few more hours in the near future. At least I wasn’t planning on being productive today!
5175 my first play, but there was only 1 that really stumped me. At one point is showed a screen for Yoshi’s Island but the “correct” answer was Super Mario World, which is lame. Also spelling was killer. Day of the “Tenticle”. no.Day of the tentacle. Come on, Tentacle is not a word I spell on a regular basis. I don’t hang around 4chan like that.
One funny one that I only got because of the hint was the WoW login screen. I literally have never seen that before. That’s gotta be worth at least some indie cred.
What this game aught to do is rank you afterward on how fast you nailed the modern, indie, and retro games.
What does 4chan have to do with spelling?
4chan has lots to do with TENTACLES. You know.
If you don’t know you don’t want to know. Trust me.
Dr. Mario, No. Doctor Mario, Yes. Okay, that’s the last straw. Does Dom2D have something against Mario games that he’s rigging it like this?
It also refused Mrs. Pacman with me.
Mr.Pacman or Ms.Pacman?
It accepted “Ms Pacman” for me, but not “Ms Pac Man”. I often forget that “Pacman” is his name and not his title.
Mrs (UK) or Mrs. (UK, USA, Canada) is an English honorific used for women, usually for those who are married and who do not instead use another title, such as “Dr”, “Lady” or “Dame”. In most Commonwealth countries, a full stop (period) is not used with the title. In the United States a period is used (see Abbreviation).
I tried Mrs and Mrs., then Miss, which worked.
34175 on the first try. I was very pleased by the variety, I saw Mario’s Picross, Electroplankton, Ben There Dan That, VVVVVV and The Addams Family Values amongst all the Mass Effect and Halo. Also, discerning screens from Halo 2 from those of Halo 1, tricky (and yes, it did count which was which).
There were a lot of weird context issues. “Dr Mario” worked for me when I didn’t include the period. And yet, “Kirbys Adventure” fails while “Kirby’s Adventure” succeeds. “LittleBigPlanet” no, “Little Big Planet” yes (even though it’s usually written without spaces). The one that I hated most, though, it REFUSED to accept “Mega Man X”. It was blatantly a shot of the guy you can’t kill in the intro stage, and the hint was even that it’s not the tenth game in the series despite the letter X. I hated having to skip an easy one like “Mega Man X” just because the game wouldn’t accept it for whatever reason.
Hmm, the comment didn’t feel like including the screenshot. Weird. Ah well, here it is (I hope): http://yfrog.com/2ogameoverug
Thanks for the article! ^_^
As for the typos and various ways to write a title, I have a bunch of options in there, just not all of them. I’ll go back in the code to add as many as I can, so please write in all the errors you find! I’ll definitely fix Dr Mario, LittleBigPlanet and the Mega Man games (but maybe not Day of the Tenticle)! Thanks for the comments! :)
Made it to level 440 and then the screenshots started to repeat themselves so I stopped playing. Final score was 131125. Overall it was awesome to relive old memories (the screenshots of Flashback were the highlight of my day). Only question was with the Warcraft screenshot. The game only accepted “Warcraft 2″ where I believe the screenshot was from the original Warcraft. I could be wrong as the monitor on my old 486DX was HORRIFIC and I was lucky to see any detail at all.
Great job and was lots of fun!
Wow, great score :D
Flashback is easily one of my favorite games of all time, so I think I put 2 FB screenshots in Geek Mind!
131125?! Insane, duder. I bow to your prowess, but especially your patience. Nice work, man!
Yeah, it took a little over an hour (another reason I stopped). I did have to skip a bunch though. It was funny to answer games like “Rogue” and “Secret of the Stars” but anytime a modern FPS showed up I either hit skip or typed “Halo” (it usually worked). Reminds me of how old I am. . .
I “only” got 9300 on my first try, it kept giving me a bunch of games I didn’t know and I sometimes pressed skip before realizing I knew the title.
And then it gave my Advance Wars and I had to browse my hard drive to find the name, ugh.
50900 on the first try
forgot my pic
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c271/InfinityTomorrow1987/Untitled.png
Passed 100,000, still playing. Will post video when done.
Finished playing quite a while ago, but a friend wanted to play SC2. I’ve decided it’s not really worth all the editing for the video. If I really wanted to make one I’d start from the beginning again anyway.
http://a.imageshack.us/img801/5479/geekmind.jpg
Star Control 2?! Awesome!
3875..I’m ashamed. I did get 3x mario, 3x zelda and 3x kirby. And my favorite nes game (well I love part 3) DOUBLE DRAGON!!!