09.02.09 By: Peter Hall
Computer guessing games are not new by any means, but they often involve easily quantifiable variables like numbers or playing cards. Akinator, on the other hand, will guess (most) any character from film, TV, book or anime within a series of 20 questions. Oh, robots, is there nothing you can do? I started off with an obvious choice inspired by Inglourious Basterds. Akinator may not have the gift behind the pen Tarantino does, but he can still correctly guess King Kong. So I tried something a little harder, the titular monster from John Carpenter's The Thing. An amorphous shapeshifter should throw it off course, right? Wrong, Akinator still got it. Same goes for Chev Chelios, John Connor, Stephen Hawking, Steven Spielberg, and even The Blob.
Obviously it'd be easy to stump the bot with something obscure like the baby from Eraserhead, but you'd be surprised at how intuitive the questioning can become and even more surprised when vague questions yield the right answer. Sure, I have no idea why Akinator thought Torrance Shipman from Bring It On when I was thinking the killer boygirl from Sleepaway Camp, but hey, can't win 'em all.
So if you're looking for a laugh and have some time to kill, give Akinator a shot with something tough. Oh, and I don't know how it works, but I'm confident the answer involves virgin blood, the horn of a unicorn and HAL 9000.
Filed under: Fan Made
Tags: Akinator, Film Games, FilmGames, Games, Time Waster, TimeWaster
Davidat 9-02-2009
Is this only for sci-fi and fantasy films? I entered Trudy Kockenlocker from Preston Sturges' "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" and the bot kept asking me about anime and other cartoons.
Peter Hallat 9-02-2009
No, it covers a wide spectrum of genres/mediums. But considering most of the backbone comes from nerds, it's fairly heavy on the sci-fi/fantasy questioning.
It'll almost always ask about anime/cartoons, even if you're thinking of a real human being (like Bill Gates). Still tends to get it right in the end.
Stunbunnyat 9-02-2009
Fah! I defeated Akinator with Torgo from Manos, The Hands of Fate. If you don't know Torgo you are NOTHING!
Maria Stahlat 9-02-2009
I stumped it too, with Richard Langly from X-Files/Lone Gunmen fame (it guessed Giles from Buffy) - and it still claimed that it beat me. Stupid machine.
Paulat 9-02-2009
Though they are in his database, Akinator really sucks at guessing characters from Brick.
Chelseaat 9-02-2009
It guessed some character from Full Metal Alchemist when I was thinking of The Spleen from Mystery Men.
I've seen something like this before where it guessed what movie/show you were thinking of. Though it didn't guess within 20 questions, it always got the right answer, unless you purposely misled it.