Random picks, memory games, and why they are not the same thing

Random picks, memory games, and why they are not the same thing

There is a family of small sites that look like they do the same thing and do not, and picking the wrong one is why a lot of people end up unsatisfied with a tool that was never going to work for them.

They all involve characters and a random component. That is where the similarity ends.

The one that decides things

A wheel that spins and lands on somebody is a decision device. You spin, it stops, you get an answer, and the answer is the point.

That is different from a list you read, because a list asks you to choose and a wheel removes the choosing. That sounds like a small difference but it changes what you use it for. Nobody spins a wheel to browse. You spin it to settle something you were already going to settle, usually faster and with less fuss than a comment thread.

SortSpin does exactly that, per universe, with the character wheel plus cards and numbered boxes if you want the randomness in a different shape. It is at SortSpin, and the site is at https://sortspin.com.

The one that trains you

A memory game is not a random picker at all. It is a very small, very efficient drill.

You are given a character, you have to hold their name in your head and match it to their face. That is retrieval practice with a very short interval, which is the part of studying that actually moves things.

The interesting detail is that the difficulty is adjustable without changing the subject. A small set, blurred images, sudden death, a guess-the-character board. Same material, different amount of load, which is how you know how much of it you have actually learned rather than recognised.

MemoriesGame runs that range of formats over the same library. It is at MemoriesGame, and the site is at https://memoriesgame.com.

The one that prints

There is a third thing that gets filed with the first two and is actually a different category entirely.

A printable page is not an interaction. It is an artefact. You open it, you print it, and the screen stops being involved.

For a lot of people that is the whole point, especially with a group, or with a kid, or on a bad connection. KolorPage turns a character image into line art you can print or colour in the browser, organised per collection. It is at KolorPage, and the site is at https://kolorpage.com.

It is worth saying that out loud, because people often reach for an interactive version of something that wanted to be a sheet of paper. Kyaneko runs the same character universe from the other side, with comparisons of heights and powers, at https://kyaneko.com.

A practical order

If you are putting several of these in front of someone, the order that works is: the printed one first, the drill second, the wheel last.

The printed one needs no explanation. The drill needs one sentence of instructions and then it teaches itself. The wheel needs the most framing, because a random answer is only useful if you have already agreed on what it is for.

Getting that order wrong is what makes one of these feel like a gimmick. Used in the right order, they are three different answers to three different questions: what do I want to do, what do I want to learn, and what do I want to decide.