User:5theye/The Wikipedia Game

The Wikipedia Game is a game played by at least two people, each with his own computer with an Internet connection. The game is usually played as a time-waster or entertainer, unless the players choose to keep score. The best places to play are in computer labs, or perhaps LAN parties.

How to play
The game is played in individual rounds. At the start of each round, one player chooses a page on Wikipedia (such as bubblegum). All players navigate to that page. Then, the same player (or a different one, depending on house rules) chooses a second, and quite unrelated, page (such as index card). All players must navigate to the second page, using only links provided in the Wikipedia articles. The first player to successfully bring up the second page wins the round.

In the example provided, the fastest route a player could take would be:
 * 1) Bubblegum
 * 2) What's My Line?
 * 3) Match Game
 * 4) Index card

However, most players will take a longer route, due to random selection of links.

Strategy
Some pages can be found easily if they can be associated with a certain area—for instance, kangaroos. A player could easily navigate to any country name, then to any continent name, then to Australia, then find kangaroos easily.

History
The creation of the Wikipedia Game is generally attributed to my friend Kane; however, others may have come up with a similar version besides this one.

Other Wikipedia Games
Another form of "The Wikipedia Game" popular on IRC is to select five pages with the "Special:Random" function. The user with the most stereotypical Wiki pages loses--points are deducted for pages about anime, Family Guy, insignificant American geographic places, and so forth. Pages about very worthwile academic topics may accrue positive points, but are obviously rare.

A minor, unnamed Wikipedia game, also played on IRC, involves each player offering up an academic article, then inviting other players to guess which longer article about a humorously related pop culture subject he had in mind for a wikigroaning pair. For example, the player on the spot might offer Spiral galaxy, which has 2223 words, to which the proper response would be The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, at 2719 words.