I came upon this Sheep Dash game in an article on sleep cycles. Supposedly it provides a measure of how sleep-deprived one is, though they admit reaction time is slowed by aging as well. I've found I score "Bobbing Bobcat" pretty consistently, and it tells me to go get a cup of coffee. I only score worse when a head-bobbing sheep tricks me into jumping the gun. Once I achieved "Rocketing Rabbit" but have not yet repeated the feat. Maybe after a nap....
I'd be interested in seeing how you video game players score. I expect you'll do much better, though it won't be a fair contest since none of the video gamers I know are as old as I am. :)I scored worse on my first try (armidillo) and got slug on one where I had a false start that I blame on a finger twitch. I did score a few bobcats, but don't see how I would improve beyond that.
Well, that makes me feel better. If you're not a youthful video game addict, at least you are considerably younger than I am. :)
I tried last night and got armadillo. I tried once this morning and got rocketing rabbit. Sleep is a wonderful thing, video games or no.
It's morning. I'm an ambling armadillo. Consistently, except for when I jumped the gun. I've never been good at reaction games and that's one reason I've never been good at video games, but I'd also submit that the equipment used may play a role. I'm using the clicker beneath my touchpad (because I turn off the clicking function on my touchpad) but if I turned on the touchpad I think I could probably climb a bit in the rankings, just because I'd need less force to shoot.
P.S. I misspelled my URL on my first posting attempt, which resulted in an error message; then, going back to change the "." into a ":" the Anti-spam code suddenly decided it was no longer correct, although I still had the same code up and the same code typed in. It must change the code after a invalid URL error, but obviously the back button doesn't bring that up.
The best I do is Bobbibg Bobcat with several Snails from false starts. I'll have my video game addicted son try today.
May I also suggest that you are probably a bit sleep-deprived, given your schedule and massive jet lag and all.
The anti-spam code changes after a while -- I don't know how much time, but I know I've been locked out myself at times when I've waited too long between starting a comment and sending it. (Perhaps that should be a sign that my comments can get to long.) I have a new system that should eliminated the need for the anti-spam code, but the first time I put it in, it didn't work, so naturally I put it on the back burner and there it has stayed....
I believe the anti-spam code changes after an hour, though your browser might cache it, if you saw it once and then later went back to post or something like that.
I know it gets changed on successful post, I thought it wasn't erased on an error.
As for the game, I scored Bobbing bobcat a number of times, and one snail for going too early once.
Jonathan scored snail both times, and might have only gotten one sheep out of all of them.
I think this game is different than video games, since you only have one button to push - I'll bet I would do better if you had to aim at the sheep to.
I definitely feel better now. I'm still awaiting the results from the "video game addicted son" though.
Give Jonathan more practice. I'm sure he'll be outscoring us all soon. :)
I allow that I may be sleep-deprived, and I failed to mention that "morning" meant "4:53 am" or something like that. I remember doing it before - and not during a spell of travel - without much better success. I also remember doing another game spectacularly well because I used a trackball, which allowed for much better minute directional adjustments than a mouse: that is what alerted me to the technical component of such comparative tests.
The video game addicted son didn't do better than bobcat, though it was morning.
I'll have the other try at some point - maybe as a finals break
I have a thought, related to Stephan's comment about equipment effects. I wonder if Sheep Dash was written back when computers were a lot slower than they are now, and if that makes a difference in the scores.
It's pathetic, but this game finally got me to change the battery in my trackball mouse and sure enough, with the mechanics more ergonomic and requiring less force I've improved to join the ranks of all the bobbing bobcats out there - and it's past 11pm.
Maybe the computer speeds influence the game, but I doubt it'd be much. It doesn't seem to be that old a game, but I may be wrong. A brief googlery leads no farther back than August 2006.
The computer speed may have an impact - I tried on our older machine and got a rabbit - only bobcats on the new machine. Could be luck though - it seems to matter where the sheep come from - is that a peripheral vision issue?
I have managed a few rabbits. The VG addicted son can do no better than bobcat and the hyper "I'm in Finals Mode" son kept jumping the gun and thus getting snails. He did get one rabbit though.
I do much better when the sheep come from the upper part of the screen. I find that if I concentrate on the one silly sheep near the bottom that keeps moving his head (but not running), I jump the gun less frequently and I can still see the upper sheep well enough. I'm still stuck in Bobcat, however.
I'm a little worried about you all. ;) If you put this much effort into playing a musical instrument you'd be proficient by summer. :) I'm off to decipher 13th c. chant, have fun sheep watching. xxoo
The operative phrase there is "by summer." Do you really think we'd be able to sustain this rhythm of 10 minutes of "practice" plus 5 minutes of blogging per day all the way until summer? I'd go batty first! ;-)
I don't think the game is quite fair to those of us running it on Pentium II's and Windows Vista.
:)
When I played it on my slow 98 machine, it looked as if I was doing very well, stopping the sheep quickly and having them clustered on the left side of the board. But alas the timing mechanism and the graphics are not completely coordinated -- my score wasn't any better.
