Flippy Bit

Q42

- March 31, 2014

Unrated

Educational

( 399)

Description

Flippy Bit And The Attack Of The Hexadecimals From Base 16

Hi

We at Q42 have teamed up with Russian psychologist Kateryna Afinogenova to create this experiment to test her recent study in which a group of 420 kids were shown to have a natural talent for doing bitwise operations and conversions to hexadecimals.

"Seven percent of the test group could bitshift" she said to Scientific World News in an exclusive interview, which caught our nerdy attention. Especially the following statement:

"While adults have trouble with binary numbers, from around the age of two, children can not only calculate on a binary scale, but even translate from binary to hexadecimal - and back."

We were able to contact her and collaborate remotely on this experimental game that allows kids to literally do that conversion. Afinogenova requested to omit a tutorial to further emphasize the adoption difficulty between adults and children.

We were amazed by the results. You can be amazed too! Play the game and find out!

Reviews

4.4

399 total

5 267

4 77

3 23

2 12

1 20

Joshua Wright

Cute Bin-to-Hex Trainer This is an amusing way to push a familiarity between hexadecimal and binary notation. As far as a percentage of children appearing to be skilled in this area, I think that most simply notice a pattern rather than do the math. Fundamentally, this isn't much different than grouping similarly colored or shaped objects. While unrelated to the intent of this game, I think that including a 10-key pad to punch in the base-10 value (a launch confirmation?) after setting the bits would enhance the experiment.

Jesse Kramme

Too fast too soon! Like other reviews have said around the 24-26 mark things just get unfair-seeming. There's a difference between a game over where I know I made a mistake and a game over where it's just like "Oh, that sucked" and they seem like the latter most of the time. Some rebalancing would be great because you just run into it like a wall every time.

BenRifkah Bergsten-Buret

Hilarious I can't stop grinning at the absurdity of a weapon system that requires bitwise programming to fire. I was surprised at how far I got. To get a higher score swipe adjacent bits instead of tapping each one. E.g.: for FE just swipe all bits from left to right, it will fire before you get to the one bit.

James McWhinney

Really fun Really fun game, and I feel like I can kid myself that I'm improving a useful skill too :p. Would love to see more game modes e.g Decimal to binary, or octal. EDIT: my highscore is now 26, and it seems impossible to beat, as the aliens come down the screen almost faster than the rockets fire. Could be improved if the number of aliens increased rather than just their speed.

Martin Kool

Haha my little girl taught me how to play! At first I was stumped to see my girl simply playing FlippyBit while I couldn't hit even one alien! But after a while I was starting to understand the mechanic and why she seems to know what missiles to launch :)

Martin

I have managed to get up to 25 points, but I can't get any higher. The problem is, that the missiles are just too slow. When I manage to enter the binary. The alien is already half a screen away from destroying my base and while the missiles gather, the alien manages to demolish my arsenal.

User reviews

Joshua Wright October 6, 2015

Jesse Kramme November 5, 2015

BenRifkah Bergsten-Buret February 16, 2016

James McWhinney May 14, 2015

Martin Kool April 17, 2014

Martin April 9, 2014

T McD October 4, 2015

Needs a little work. Educationally it would make sense to display hexes on the tiny computer at all times even during and after explosions so you can learn from mistakes. Also the pace gets too frantic after a while, better to have a slow endurance test than an impossible race. If the aliens get too low even correct hexes result in explosions, not a great learning outcome. All in all very good though but please improve it. A high score reset would be handy too...

Sporksticks March 6, 2015

Really teaches you about how hexadecimal work At first I was totally confused, I couldn't figure out how the numbers and letters work together and felt like googling for a Wikipedia about hexadecimals. However, as I continued playing this game I slowly but surely managed to grasp the concept somehow. This proves that there's endless possibilities to things you can teach people about entirely through a game.

Santosh Balachandra September 8, 2016

Easy to play, hard to enjoy The fkin animations make getting scores exponentially harder after 20 points because of the slow shooting animation. Scale it up with the speed of the aliens so it doesn't feel so clunky.

Robert Kulesza May 3, 2014

Every time I get to 25 the missiles start to go past the alien and blow up right after them and the alien hits me. Otherwise fun game. Easy. Took me a second to figure out that since 16 was a power of 2, specifically 2 raised to the 4th, the hexadecimal digits must be represented by different patterns of four binary digits.

Steve Andrews February 2, 2017

I cannot stop thinking about this game. I'm not a gamer really, I'm definitely no coder or programmer or computer person in any way. I love that there are no rules or settings available. You just figure it out.

Matt Kelliher February 18, 2016

Simple but needs one thing I like the game but it seems as if the time it takes from getting the bits correct to the missiles coming together and shooting is constant. If this is true, then it actually increases the game difficulty much quicker than it seems. Also, that would define a definite ending to the game (where the enemy falls faster than the time it takes for the missiles to fire). So, could you please make this time proportional to the speed of the enemies?

André Popovitch April 2, 2014

Amazing, but has just 1 problem that kills it It is incredibly annoying when you have the missiles to hit an alien, and they move towards it, but the alien hits you before they hit. You feel like you deserved that number but the game messed it up.

Celena Chen November 22, 2015

fun, educational game, great for keeping a nerd occupied. also useful for studying for those tricky science bowl questions that ask you to convert between bin and hex....my one qualm is that past about 24~25, it stops being feasible (time-wise) to enter numbers that require turning on more than 2 or so binary bits : (

Jordon Biondo April 12, 2014

A great time time killer Incredibly clever game that really makes you learn binary to hex conversions. I'd love to see an advanced mode where the numbers come down in base 10 and you have to convert to hex yourself.

Katherine Rodemann April 2, 2014

Rockets too slow Love this but the rockets take too long to combine. When the screen speeds up sometimes it takes the length of one alien to traverse the screen for the rockets to combine.

Paul L June 13, 2015

Intense Having a hexadecimal digit to four bits chart was necessary for me to start off, but now I'm able to do it all from memory [though B and D do give me some confusion.]

Daniil Kernazhytski August 10, 2016

Fun but I think it gets unreasonably fast in the mid 20s. Even of you get it before the bomb lands you still lose.

Jessy Williams September 20, 2015

Fun concept but falls short It is impossible to get a score outside of the mid twenties. It takes too long for the rockets to fire.

Jürgen Brandstetter April 4, 2014

Taught me what 10years computer science could not This game taught me hex to bin calculation in 1h. Computer sciences couldn't do it within 10 year

Chris Knowles September 29, 2015

Could do better with simple ui enhancements Absolutely needs a mute option. Would be more fun with a changeable difficulty in same options menu.

Rohan Singh April 5, 2014

Fun game, but limited replay value Once you get good, 25 points seems to be the limit since the aliens move so fast at that point that the missiles just can't hit them before they land.

Damon Jordan August 19, 2014

I got 26! It takes time, dedication and some luck but you can get more than 25 points.

Martin Stålberg December 4, 2014

Based on a good idea, but the implementation has some serious flaws. Still fun though, and a great way to practice hexadecimal and binary.

Benjamin de Jager April 1, 2014

My kids beat me at this it's amazing to see that kids are much better at this than adults

Justin Thibeault April 3, 2014

Finally I can use my computer science degree for something useful.

ian williamson September 29, 2015

A worthwhile time killer. Took me a minute to remember hex but once it clicked I was hooked.

Karsus Veling April 1, 2014

Actually quite nice to learn bit calc Difficult though

Alex West December 13, 2015

Great app But really hard to play

Maxwell Huang-Hobbs April 1, 2014

Great fun A seriously addictive way to improve your instinctual understanding of hex.

Nick R March 17, 2015

Awesome fun :) Took a little while, but soon I was converting hex to binary with ease! 5 stars.. Or was that 00000101 stars?

Joe Bizzarro April 9, 2015

You learn the concepts, but... As others have stated, it's all but impossible to do better than 25pts.

Emily Douglas-Gilbert April 29, 2017

I got up to 35 and I am 11...I think I did pretty well

Eric Winebrenner April 1, 2014

Addictive You don't even realize you're learning!

Zander Pangilinan December 30, 2015

Great for memorizing hexadecimal Simple but helpful. Helped me memorize hexadecimal in a fun way for my Digital Design Class

Andrew Merrell April 3, 2017

I recommend use on tablet or desktop. Or Bluetooth keyboard. I wonder if a landscape friendly version could be made.

Charley October 13, 2016

Fun and you learn. This game allows me to put what i learn to use and reinforce the akill in a fun way.

Korjan van Wieringen April 1, 2014

Flapcellent Love the flapping and the numbers, it brings back memories of base64

Arthur Bondarenko March 12, 2016

Cool But I think everything will be easier if you'll add a tutorial

Svend Hansen September 22, 2014

Great little game Addictive and fun, and then it's educational as well.

Additional information

Updated

March 31, 2014

Installs

10,000 - 50,000

Current Version

1.0

Requires Android

2.0.1 and up

Content Rating

Unrated

Warning – content has not yet been rated. Unrated apps may potentially contain content appropriate for mature audiences only.

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Offered By

Q42

Developer

Visit website Email support@q42games.com

Q42 Internet B.V. Waldorpstraat 17F 2521 CA DEN HAAG THE NETHERLANDS

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