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Show HN: I'm challenging your clicking speed with this game I rebuilt (projects.marcnitzsche.de)

25 points by mrccc ↗ HN
Hello HN, last week, I stumbled over an old project of mine called Click The Number. I built it about six years ago to compare my clicking and reaction speed with that of my friends. The idea is simple – just click on the numbers in orders as fast as possible.

I couldn't resist and rebuilt a lot of parts again, making them a bit nicer. I updated the design and added some features like a personal high score. It lets you keep track of your own best time (which makes it ever so _slightly_ more addictive).

I'm curious what you think about it, and if you have any ideas where I could take it. Have fun!

I wish you a great day, Marc

PS: btw it's much harder on desktop. What's your personal high score?

31 comments

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gus_massa
19.75 after a few attempts :)

It would be nice to have a reset button. Sometimes I get stuck in the first 10 numbers and it's obvious I'll get an horrible time, so I'd like to start again immediately.

Edit: Perhaps after some time like 1.5 seconds, highlight the next number so it's easier to find. I will not help too much to get a record, but it will reduce how annoying is to get stuck.

mrccc
Good idea with the reset button! For now, just reload the page :)

I already added this, but it only happens after about 4-8s. Would you suggest decreasing that time?

gus_massa
I think that 4 seconds is too much time. I'm now at 18.78 now (with a touchpad). That's slightly faster than 1 per second. Looking at other comments here, they are at almost 2 per second. So a 2 seconds pause is probably enough. You should test it with a few friends.
mrccc
Thank you for the feedback, I've decreased this time a by a lot now.
gus_massa
Another feature request: I'd like to see my record when I load the page, not only at the end of the game.
agentwiggles
I managed to get to 12.4 seconds. I noticed on my best run that I had a few lucky placements of numbers and also when I really managed to focus that I was doing some kind of mental lookahead. Funnily, whenever I would become conscious of that lookahead process and think about it, I slowed down drastically.
sdwr
14.7, had the same experience once, where the next number bubbled up to awareness right when I picked the previous one. It felt like "I" wasn't picking the next number.
texaslonghorn5
12.25 after a few attempts on mobile. I tried to use one finger only, maybe I can get much faster with two fingers.

on mobile it shows up as a 6x4 array plus a 25th box centered in the 7th row, so the key is remembering what the bottom cell is because otherwise that one doesn't immediate pop out to me. in desktop mode it looks like 5x5, time to test if that is easier or harder on the computer or in desktop mode.

mrccc
I was thinking about reducing it to 24 cards on mobile so that there isn't one left that sticks out
sand500
It needs a button that lets you easily share your score. That's what enabled wordle to spread so quickly.
mrccc
Good idea, thank you!
dankwizard
I don't think the games type is accurate. To me it was less about click speed and more about my eyesight - how quickly can I find the number?

Click speed would be a single button and a timer, click as many times in a second or something

That said, 11.78 on desktop mouse.

mrccc
I think you're right. It's more about scanning the page and your "reflexes" than the actual speed of your clicking. I would say, though, that once you found the number you want to click on, the _accuracy_ of your clicking is important.
pcthrowaway
I'm not sure why, but it made me wait ~8 seconds after each click. Really frustrating.
mrccc
What do you mean with "it made me wait"? I added some wiggles to the button so it's easier to find, but you should be able to click the button immediately after you've completed the first.

Can you try clicking the button before it wiggles?

pcthrowaway
How am I supposed to know which one is going to wiggle next?
mrccc
The idea is to click the numbers in ascending order – start with 1, 2, 3 all the way to 25.
pcthrowaway
It turns out I can just randomly click numbers, and if I happen to get one before it starts wiggling, it still works.

It still takes ~8 seconds from the last click for the next one to wiggle though.

But at least that took my time down from 224s to 119s

test1-test1
From all the other answers posted here, my 37.14s is pretty bad.

Implement a leaderboard on the game to make it more competitive!

mrccc
5 more days of practice and you'll get there ;)
patrulek
11.01s with mouse after about 20 tries. I also decreased page size to 80%.

Edit: 10.99s :)

Edit2: 10.32s

Edit3: 10.15s

Edit4: 10.04s

That who learnt speed reading may have a little advantage here. There is one exercise that is called `Shultz tables` that is basically non-interactive version of this game.

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_justinfunk
Maybe add a sentence saying what to do... I was waiting for some kind of prompt to tell me what number to click before I just starting clicking.
mrccc
Done that, thx for the feedback!
nashashmi
I thought it was testing reaction time. So I would wait for it to jiggle. Got a 165.76s. Then came here to check at the comments. And obviously I was confused.

All good now. Fastest time I got was 18.85s on mobile. 5 days of practice later will probably hit 15s.

mrccc
Thanks for the feedback. I updated the description to make it clearer :)

(you will probably be able to do 13s)

uptownfunk
Wow, simple and fun game. Would be good to see how you rank across all users and also between desktop and phone