Observation Game
Answer twelve questions about everyday things to test your powers of observation. Each answer moves your marker round a dial, and only one ending leads to the treasure.
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Observation Game
1. Start at point 1. The board is a dial with ten points. You answer twelve questions about everyday things, and each answer moves your marker round the dial.
2. Answer the first question. It asks how many times the letter F appears in a sentence. The answer is 6, and in the book 6 means 2 spaces anticlockwise. Counting back from 1 you go to 10, then 9, so you are on point 9.
3. Answer the second. It asks whether the green light is at the top or the bottom of a traffic light. The answer is the bottom, which means 4 spaces anticlockwise: from 9 back to 5. You are on point 5.
4. After twelve questions, dig. You end on one of the ten points, and each point leads to a different X on the treasure map. Only one X has the treasure, and a single wrong answer sends you somewhere else. The game tests how well you have looked at the things you see every day.
Now play it yourself below. Where you end up is up to your answers, and you can look things up in the real world.
Point 1
Question 1 of 12
1. How many times does the letter F appear in the sentence below? "When I visited Phil, finches of Japan were flying around the flourishing bonsai placed on the left of the lounge's entry."
Not sure? Go and look. That is the point of the game.
How to play
- Start on point 1. The dial has ten points, numbered clockwise.
- Answer a question. There are twelve, and each has two possible answers. One is right and one is wrong.
- Move your marker. Each answer tells you how many spaces to go and in which direction. Your position has nothing to do with which question you are on.
- Dig. After twelve answers you are on one of the ten points. Each point leads to a different X on the treasure map, and only one has the treasure.
Why it works
The Scavengers chapter says there is a treasure trove of ideas lying around, and the trick is to keep your wits about you. If you look carefully, you notice things that other people overlook or take for granted. This game tests exactly that, as a short attention to detail test, with questions about things you have seen thousands of times: a traffic light, a paper clip, a phone keypad.
A wrong answer sends you to the wrong place, so one careless guess can cost you the treasure.
Look things up
The questions are about the real world, so you can go and look. Check a traffic light, count the sides of a pencil, find a phone. That fits the chapter’s advice to keep your eyes open.
Where this comes from
This is the Scavenger Game from the Scavengers chapter, played on screen. The book’s board has a treasure map with ten Xs, and you find the grid reference of the right one. Here you get the same dial and the same twelve questions, and the game tells you where the treasure is at the end. The questions, the moves, the answers and the treasure reference are the book’s. The picture for question 12 is cropped from the book. Nothing you type leaves your browser and nothing is stored.
Questions
Do I get told if an answer is wrong as I go? No. You find out at the end, as in the book.
Why does the worked example give away two answers? It follows the book’s own answer page, which walks through the first answers. The other ten are yours to find.
Is this a way to practice noticing ideas? It is the first step. The chapter goes on to techniques such as listing what bugs you about an everyday product. Try the Attribute Listing Tool next.