New Thing #72: 94 Seconds

94_SecondsI was browsing the App Store this weekend and came across a game I hadn't seen before. It's called '94 Seconds', and I quickly became addicted.

It's kind of like Scattergories - you get a letter and a category, and you have to come up with something in that category that starts with the letter you're given. (Examples to follow.)

And it's timed - you have 94 seconds to get as far as you can.

I dare you to play it and not get addicted.

The app is free, and when you start with it, you have 30 categories. There's a way to purchase more categories. I did that. There are other add-ons that are mixes and matches of what's available in the highest-level premium add (including getting rid of ads). I just wanted more categories.

There's a pretty good mix of brain-twisting elements to this game that I like. One is the timed element - it makes things like thinking of a fruit that begins with the letter 'F' harder than you'd think. Or sports that start with the letter 'M'. Some things come to mind right away for me - like states that start with 'T'...but others are harder. That's the second interesting piece - even before you consider time, there are certain words that pop into your head right away and others that take longer to think of. Like, I can be given fruits that start with 'G' twice in a row and I could struggle to come up with 'grapes'.

It's also interesting how momentum plays into the game. If I skip a category because I get stuck, sometimes it takes me a few more categories of skips before I can find my rhythm again. (The opposite is also true - sometimes my brain is clicking and I can get on a really good hot streak.)

My biggest complaint with the game is that it employs spell check - which is great for texts (I've become the person I never thought I would when I text, typing just a few letters, misspelled, for a word and then letting auto-correct fix my error), but not great for '94 Seconds.' When I want to write 'iditarod' for sports beginning with 'I', 'idiot arid' is not going to work for me. (I suppose it's my fault for not just going with 'ice hockey'..but like I said, it can be hard to think of what you want at the right time. Sometimes you have to go with what pops into your mind first.)

It's a great game, but I only recommend it if you have time on your hands - it gets addictive quickly. (And the alert that pops up when you reach 100 games is not helpful - it's especially alarming when it happens so soon after you begin.)

The categories are good - some are very challenging.

And that's why I have to go now. I need to brush up on my 'trees and shrubs' and my 'periodic table elements.'