First, a quick apology: This is a probably not so quick look into my head that may just leave you forever changed. The change will probably be along the lines of wondering what the hell is wrong with me everytime you look at an lcd clock, but it might just get you playing too, which is slightly more insidious.
The number game is something I picked up as a kid while I trying to fall asleep. Some people count sheep I counted numbers. The way the game works is fairly simple once you get used to it, but it does require an lcd clock and an abilty to count and add single digit numbers. First, lets discuss weighting of numbers. Each number 0-9 has a weight. To get that weight, you add its value (0-9) to the number of 'bars' in the lcd number. For instance, '1' is typically two vertical bars, so '1' = 1 + 2 = 3. '2' has five bars, so its weight is 7, and so on. Some clocks have little half bars on some numbers like 1 and 7, if you have seen one of these clocks, you know what I am talking about, they count as an extra bar. However, for the most part, the weights are as follows:
- 0 = 6
- 1 = 3
- 2 = 7
- 3 = 8
- 4 = 8
- 5 = 10
- 6 = 12
- 7 = 10
- 8 = 15
- 9 = 15
It may take a few glances at the clock to understand/accept these values, but once you have them you can move on. Once you do, look at the time. Right now, my clock shows .8:12. Ignoring the dots for a moment, we have 812. Now we reduce this number by adding the weights of each digit and continute to reduce until it gets to a single digit number.
- 1st reduction: '8' + '1' + '2' = 15 + 3 = 7 = 25
- 2nd reduction: '2' + '5' = 7 + 10 = 17
- 3rd reduction: '1' + '7' = 3 + 10 = 13
- 4th reduction: '1' + '3' = 3 + 8 = 11
- 5th reduction: '1' + '1' = 3 + 3 = 6
Once you get to a single digit number, you lose. As a sidenote, your losing single digit number will always be 6 or 9. Since you are always going from 2 or 3 digits down to 1, if you pay attention to the weights, the only single digit number you can get are 6 and 9, which would come from 11 and 111 or 16 respectively.
I know what you are thinking, if that loses, how do you win? Well, there is one number, and only one, that does not reduce to a single digit number: 18. 18 = '1' + '8' = 3 + 15 = 18. If you get 18, you win.
Now that we have an understanding of how the numbers work and how you win, lets introduce wild cards, which are simply anything else on the face of the clock. Boring, normal clocks like the ones we have (and that I have always owned) have the colon between the hour and minutes, the AM/PM dot, and the alarm dot. Basically, if it is lit up, it can count. The weights on these are up to you, but they have to be consistent (within the minute you are counting) and you have to decide and add them in with the 1st reduction.
For example, right now there are three dots on my clock, the PM marker and the two dots in the colon. I always treat the colon as two seperate dots. So with my three dots, I will do one of four things: Ignore them, treat all the dots as a weight of 1, treat each dot as a weight of 1 giving me 3, or treat each dot as a weight of 2 (basically giving the dot a value of 1 and a weight of 1). So my three dots can equal 1, 3, or 6. In my .8:12 example, if I give all the dots as weight 1, it goes .8:12=>26=>19=>18, any other choice loses.
Now go out and find 18s.
