Fugdale’s Funhouse

Guess what? Nope, guess again. That’s right, you got it! The Funhouse brings you four totally different guessing games. Some involve words, some involve pictures, some played with others and some played alone. These games are sure to keep you guessing.

Today’s Games

20Q Game

Discordi

Fake Out

Guess The Google

20Q Pocket Game Demo - Anyone for a Litle 21?

Everyone has played 20 Questions. So this cute online game demo should appeal to everyone. It certainly has a lot of appeal. Too bad the application only lets you play one side of the game. You must come up with a word and the computer will ask you 20 Questions and try to guess your word.

Start by classifying your word as animal, vegetable, mineral, other, or unknown. After the game asks each question, players have the option of answering yes, no, probably, sometimes, and unknown. Having these extra options helps a little, since not every word can fit neatly into yes or no answers.

The computer does a pretty good job of guessing the correct word as long as it’s fairly common. I didn’t find it too difficult to stump the game on a few occasions and when the little rugrat gets the answer wrong, it gracefully admits defeat. It will continue to ask questions beyond the original 20 until it gets it right or gives up, but if you stump it by 20, you win.

The game actually serves as an introduction to various handheld versions of the game available for purchase on the same site, but the free demo plays pretty well.

Discordi - What Would Other People Say?

I discovered Discordi several years ago when I still used Windows. Now I’m a Big Mac Paddywhack guy, so I no longer have access to this Windows-only game. Therefore, my review comes forth from the deep well-spring of my mind. Years later, this multi-player game still has a freshness to it. Just to make it clear, this is Windows Only and you must download the game to play.

Discordi brings together random gamers (at least 5 people must play at once, but the game accommodates many more). Players start as tiny people at the bottom of a large pyramid of steps, which looks like an extremely difficult Towers of Hanoi game. The game poses a series of questions to all players. The questions don’t involve facts, knowledge or trivia, but rather personal preferences, such as “Would you Live on a Lunar Base?” or fill in the blank questions, like “Mortal _____”. Players must choose the answer that they think the majority of the group will answer. The answers are tallied and the more popular your answer, the more steps you will climb.

Along the way to the top, players will have to face many obstacles. Several specialty steps cause various events to happen. You can get stuck on a step in goop or get shocked or lose IQ points, etc. Additionally, a series of random ’storm events’ randomly occur, including Ice Storms, Meteor Showers and Solar Winds. These events cause havoc to the players who get hit by them. Since players get hit more or less randomly, an optionto purchase insurance along the way can help protect players against these events. The player who makes it to the top of the tower wins.

I really enjoyed playing this game and I hope the designers port it to Mac or an online Flash version sometime.

Fake Out - Big Words for Little People

Fake Out comes to us from Education Place, a site for kids and teens to learn. So the game aims itself for Kindergarten through 8th Grade Kids. However, I found the game challenging and fun for adults as well.

In this simple concept, a new list of challenging words appears each week (divided into grade level). Choose a word and you will get a list of about 8-10 definitions for that word. Only one definition is correct and you simply choose the one you think is the correct definition.

Similar to party games like Dictionary (or the hilarious board game version Balderdash), Fake Out allows players to submit definitions for upcoming lists of words. After players choose an answer, the game displays the number of people who chose each of the answers listed. So you can submit your own answer and see how many people you fool next week.

I suppose since this game is really aimed at the educational demographic, it’s a bit unfair to throw it in with the other games today. Oh well, sue me.

Guess-the-Google - Google for Gamers

From the brilliant mind of Grant Robinson comes one of the most refreshing games I’ve seen. Based on a simple mash-up concept. Guess-the-Google chooses a random word and culls together 20 images from a Google Image search of that word. Your task is to guess the correct word in 20 seconds or less by looking at the various images. You get more points for speedy answers. A list of all your incorrect guesses forms to the side of the play field for easy reference.

The game puts you through a series of 10 questions. If you don’t get the correct answer, the game will give you the first letter as a hint, but won’t reveal the real answer. I’ve played the game numerous times and haven’t yet encountered a duplicate word, although I’m sure the word list has a limit eventually.