Akinator, the Web Genius is an internet game based on Twenty Questions

Twenty Questions

Twenty Questions is a spoken parlor game which encourages deductive reasoning and creativity. It originated in the United States and escalated in popularity during the late 1940s when it became the format for a successful weekly radio quiz program....

 that can determine which character the player is thinking by asking him or her a series of questions. It is an Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 program that can find and learn the best questions to be asked to the player. Created by three French programmers in 2007, it became popular in November 2008, according to Google Trends

Google Trends

Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages...

. While playing "Akinator," the questions are asked by a genie. The game became famous in Europe in 2009 and Japan in 2010 with the launch of mobile apps by french mobile company SCIMOB, reaching highest ranks on app store.

Gameplay

In order to begin the questionnaire, the user must hit the play button and is then asked to input a user name, their age, and their gender. Then, it begins asking a series of 20 yes or no questions in order to narrow down the potential character that the user is thinking of. If the answer is narrowed down to a single likely option before 20 questions are asked, the program will automatically ask if the characters is correct. If the character is guessed wrong three times in a row, then the program will prompt the user to input the character's name, in order to expand its database of choices.

Critical reception

L'Express

L'Express (France)

L'Express is a French weekly news magazine. When founded in 1953 during the First Indochina War, it was modelled on the US magazine TIME.-History:...

rated Akinator a 5 out of 5 on their list of iPhone Apps of the Week for September 9, 2009. Excite France

Excite

Excite is a collection of Internet sites and services owned by IAC Search & Media, which is a subsidiary of InterActive Corporation . Launched in 1994, it is an online service offering a variety of content, including an Internet portal, a search engine, a web-based email, instant messaging, stock...

stated that Akinator "is just that interactive. It is revolutionary, attractive, and entertaining."