Rules
On the third day of University War, the ace selection was a memory test. Players had two minutes to learn the birth dates of ten well-known people. Then the people came up in a random order and the players had to give each one’s birth date. The first player from each school to get it right became the ace.
Our version
- Ten invented people, each with a drawn face, a name and a full birth date between 1930 and 2015.
- You have two minutes to study. Press I’m ready to start early. When time is up, the dates are hidden.
- The ten faces come back one at a time in a random order. Type the day, the month (1 to 12) and the four-digit year, then submit.
- An exact date scores 1 point. Your score is out of 10, and 7 or more is a pass.
- Show the right date after each answer (a setting, on by default): after each answer you see the right date and which parts you had right. Turn it off to get your results only at the end.
- The Daily set is the same for everyone each day. Free play sets can be raced against friends in an online room.
Strategy
Hook the year to something you know. 1969 is the Moon landing, 1989 the fall of the Berlin Wall. A year that already means something is easy to find again.
Turn numbers into pictures. Many memory athletes give each number from 0 to 99 a picture. A birthday then becomes a short scene with the person in it.
Link the face. Notice one thing about each face, such as glasses or spiky hair, and tie it to the date. On recall you see the face before the name.
Day and month as a time. 14 March reads as 14:03 or “3/14”, which some people know as pi day. Any shortcut that makes a date feel familiar helps.
Spend the time evenly. Two minutes for ten people is twelve seconds each. Do one pass for all ten, then a second pass on the ones that did not stick.