A Cognitive Teardown of Angry Birds 220
Hugh Pickens writes "The 50 million individuals who have downloaded 'Angry Birds' play roughly 200 million minutes of the game a day, which translates into 1.2 billion hours a year, more than ten times the 100 million hours spent creating Wikipedia over the entire life span of the online encyclopedia. Why is this seemly simple game so massively compelling? Charles L. Mauro performs a cognitive teardown of the user experience of Angry Birds and concludes that the game is engaging, in fact addictive, due to the carefully scripted expansion of the user's mental model of the strategy component and incremental increases in problem/solution methodology. The birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user's mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased ... For example, why are tiny bananas suddenly strewn about in some play sequences and not in others? Why do the houses containing pigs shake ever so slightly at the beginning of each game play sequence? Why is the game's play space showing a cross section of underground rocks and dirt? One can spend a lot of time processing these little clues, consciously or subconsciously. 'Creating truly engaging software experiences is far more complex than one might assume, even in the simplest of computer games,' writes Mauro. 'You go Birds! Your success certainly makes others Angry and envious.'"
Snake (Score:5, Funny)
Can we just agree that Angry Birds is the new "Snake" and move on?
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What is "Snake" ?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(video_game) [wikipedia.org]
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A game people played at their telephones before the smartphones era.
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Arcades? But yeah, it was definitely a common game on personal computers, and IIRC there's a mainframe text-based version too.
I can't remember the Apple II variant of the game (not Snake Byte) where you could have PART of your snake bitten off by the bad guys in the game.
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I assume he means nibbles.
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Although I always though Gorillas was more fun.
Re:Snake (Score:4, Interesting)
OT, but I owe almost my entire programming career to Gorillas; it was just complex enough for an 8-year-old to make 'cool' modifications to.
The first 'development cycle' of my life was changing the explosion radius of the bananas (nuclear bananas, yeah!) and encountering dissatisfaction with the result -- the game drew a series of concentric, colored ellipses to represent the explosion, and then the same series with background color to erase them (and the damaged terrain). The ellipse-drawing library function in QBasic (understandably) has aliasing problems such that drawing radius 1, then 2, then 3, and so forth would miss some pixels which fell between the lines of the ellipses, leaving unsightly floating particles. I can't remember how I fixed it, but I think it was drawing horizontally-bounded background-colored lines down the vertical axis of the largest ellipse.
Anyway, that was the most fun I'd ever had, at the time. Now I think about that old, silly program and... want to go write a Gorillas clone *grin*. It wouldn't be the same with modern tools, though -- there was a lot of charm in that old, slow VESA pixel-juggling.
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Can we just agree that Angry Birds is the new "Snake" and move on?
Puts me more in the mind of Castles of Doctor Creep [wikipedia.org] or Pharaoh's Curse [wikipedia.org] games, which involved a certain measure of puzzle solving, on and off screen. Love to see these come back, particular Dr. Creep.
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> Pharaoh's Curse games
Montezuma's Revenge was better =) Ironically, as an Apple ][ fan, I still have a soft spot for C64 Pharaoh's Curse =)
http://symlink.dk/nostalgia/c64/montezuma/ [symlink.dk]
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> Pharaoh's Curse games
Montezuma's Revenge was better =) Ironically, as an Apple ][ fan, I still have a soft spot for C64 Pharaoh's Curse =)
http://symlink.dk/nostalgia/c64/montezuma/ [symlink.dk]
Ah, another game I really loved. Got tougher at higher levels with larger pyramids, IIRC.
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Yup, Aztec is another personal favorite!
The bugs definitely made it fun. So sad, but funny because it is true -- one of the few games that actually works.
That's a great bug list! Should almost start a FAQ for it =)
because? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:because? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:because? (Score:4, Insightful)
But from a cognition standpoint, those little bits of motion attract our attention, and make us go "Hmm...I wonder...". Sure, many of us in this particular audience realize the structure sometimes needing a few moments to stabilize is a consequence of the dynamic behavior of the physics engine, but we're not the rest of everyone else who gets sucked into it. That was the point of the article.
And it is some or all of those little other things, intended to do so by the developers or not, that suck more of us in to this version of a game archetype compared to other versions.
Also, read up on the design of casinos... there's a reason why they all basically look, feel, smell and sound alike. Or grocery or department store layouts...
Re:because? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:because? (Score:4, Funny)
Presumably we're to read into that that the developers had poor toilet training and had sexual fantasies about their mothers and cat.
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It could be an accidental discovery, but keeping the shake in the beginning of the levels is a conscious design decision by Rovio. The game could have easily implemented the engine without the initial shake, but they decided that it added to the look and feel of the game.
Angry Birds isn't successful because of a big profound idea. It is the attention detail and little things that add up to make a highly polished and interactive experience.
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"Why do the houses containing pigs shake ever so slightly at the beginning of each game play sequence? "
But not all of them shake and not on every board. They are using exagerated weakness to lure the user into specific attack points. This would be for the stupid people who didn't bother to check out the walk through's for every board on Machinima, you tube etc. Then again maybe it is just buggy code. Who knows but that game is damn fun to play and hard to put down. They need to come out with the cluster bomb bird for those really hard to crack fortresses. The blue guys just can't hack it.
Downtime (Score:2)
It takes no thought and works for clearing my head during a commute when I don't have the energy to think about work. Just like every other iphone game, nothing specific about angry birds here. It was just one of the first good ones.
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Angry Birds a real killer (Score:5, Interesting)
If a waking lifetime is around 450,000 hours then at 1,200,000,000 hours Angry Birds consumes nearly 2,700 lifetimes per year.
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If a waking lifetime is around 450,000 hours then at 1,200,000,000 hours Angry Birds consumes nearly 2,700 lifetimes per year.
That brings up an important question: is it better to be dead or to live out a normal lifespan doing nothing but playing Angry Birds? I'm leaning toward the former.
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Define "better".
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You know her(?) first name, that she was married, and for how long she was married? Get the fuck off /.!
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If a waking lifetime is around 450,000 hours then at 1,200,000,000 hours Angry Birds consumes nearly 2,700 lifetimes per year.
Tetris was a Soviet plot to undermine American productivity (and has consumed orders of magnitude more time and money than any other game).
The Swedes just stole a free flash game and drew some pigs and birds.
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That's assuming that Angry Birds provides no value or negative value to the players life. If we're ignoring the benefits, the same argument may be made about sex or sleep.
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It's just you.
Consider government public policy measures, such as a security check at an airport. They have a dollar cost but they also have a time cost. Walking through a metal detector has one consumes a certain number of hours of travelers' and employees' time each year. Taking off your shoes and belt, and then standing in a xray machine consumes another.
Human lifetimes correlate a little more easily with human lives than dollars do, so it makes it easier, on an emotional level, to understand the differe
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In other words, (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a pretty well made game. Lots of visual clues, depth of strategy, and a smooth learning curve. Really, while hard to do, it's not that hard to analyze. "Mental model of the strategy component"? I'm thinking your just trying to justify a degree there.
Now, if you can take that and make a good game, I'd be impressed. Just saying in long, complex sentences with technical words what any decent game reviewer can tell you already is not impressive. Or news.
Oh, and the crappy plays on words are definitely not making me like this story any better.
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Never said it was a great game (I haven't even played it, for the record), merely that it seems like it was very well made from a gameplay point of view. There are plenty of games out there that fail at that (mostly by being either too easy or too hard). Angry Birds seems like it's right in the middle: easy enough for casual players, but with enough challenge to keep people engaged. That is not easy.
And difficulty/complexity curves can be even harder, if you add anything beyond a mediocre level of complexi
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After playing for 20 minutes I was bored. Really, how does this compare to a truly great game? The fact that it is fun and caught on is about as important as Tetris. You aren't a world-minded guru because you do it better than someone else. And jealousy generated from my corner of the room is zilch.
It's not made to compete with traditional PC or console games. It's made for mobile phones, and for those it's an excellent game. You can launch it quickly, the levels don't really take that long to play (great for quickly playing with phone when you're waiting for something) and the physics make it fun. I can't really think of other mobile phone games which would be more fun and suiting. Maybe some tower defense games, but those aren't as quick to play as levels take a long time. You basically need to paus
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Um. If you're only playing games to show off.. no wonder you get bored. Try playing games for your own entertainment, not your ego.
Are you saying Tetris isn't a great game? WTF. There are some amazing Tetris players out there too. To me a grade A Tetris player is as impresive as someone who does Rubik's cubes blindfolded, etc.
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How about if we're bored after 5-10 hours?
Then again, I liked Lemmings, probably about 20 hours of that; but never cared for Tetris.
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I got bored when the twitch skill dominated the puzzle solving - a few hours in, I guess. When randomly firing birds became a the optimal strategy due to my inability to aim the little fuckers with pixel accuracy, I stopped playing.
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It's a pretty well made game. Lots of visual clues, depth of strategy, and a smooth learning curve. Really, while hard to do, it's not that hard to analyze. "Mental model of the strategy component"? I'm thinking your just trying to justify a degree there.
I agree about the visual clues and learning curve, but it's one of the shallowest games I've ever played. It compares well to Pac-Man in that regard, but not to many games in the post-arcade era.
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"It's a pretty well made game."
Angry birds is a clone of flash games that had been around for ages, the thing that angry birds got right was just sheer aesthetics that launched it into the statosphere. It has nothing to do with 'well made game' has everything to do with the bird aesthetic.
Check out crush the castle (the games angry bird copied) below:
http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle [armorgames.com]
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wikipedia (Score:2)
more than ten times the 100 million hours spent creating Wikipedia over the entire life span of the online encyclopedia
Well, there were 200 million hours spent, but they were deleted as not-noteworthy
Re:wikipedia (Score:4, Funny)
Citation needed
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Evil UI (Score:2)
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That's the nice thing about Tiny Wings. Just one control - you're either touching the screen (anywhere) or your not.
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So play it sitting down?
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Well, that certainly makes it unique (Score:5, Insightful)
The birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user's mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased ...
Translation: The game gets harder as you go along.
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I once heard an expert level racer describe his strategy for winning as "Brake less, and use the gas more." Yes, the game gets more difficult as you go along.... But how it does so is what's important. If you watch the Extra Credits video, you being to observe that a pretty key part of game design is how the tutorials are incorporated into game-play, and how complexity and difficulty is introduced.
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The birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user's mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased ...
Translation: The game gets harder as you go along.
I think a better translation is: The game offers you more tools for solving problems as it gets harder. Still not earth-shattering, since many games do this, but you oversimplified.
The shame is that you've offered a total of around 5 tools and 5 different problems to solve. After that they're just mixed, which could have been interesting if the simple concept became a complex game (like chess), but instead the tools and problems tend not to interact in a way that makes them greater than the sum of their parts.
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The birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user's mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased ...
Translation: The game gets harder as you go along.
I think a better translation is: The game offers you more tools for solving problems as it gets harder. Still not earth-shattering, since many games do this, but you oversimplified.
I think this is over-complicating things frankly. More tools unlocked required as you proceed through harder levels of the game is as standard as it gets.
This game is ballistics with cute birds and pigs (and later versions other animals).
- The guys get it because its' basically 1 player scorched earth with a limited number of shots. Firing missiles and using slingshots appeals to boys and men.
- Girls get it because they like the cute little birds and pigs. Then you add seasons and it brings the whole social
How does this make the dev managers feel? (Score:3)
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Working for XBox, and Sony Playstations, constantly looking for new ideas, new games, new strategies, new ways to expand their marketplace... All of them flunked. They did not see Wii coming. They did not see the Angry Birds coming. Why?
There are lots more casual gamers than dedicated gamers. Casual gamers generally don't buy gaming PCs or game consoles, unless they're cheap.
As for the Wii, I saw one once. I don't know anyone who owns one.
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I thought there'd be more good JRPGs on the Wii. Well, there *are*, but Nintendo refuses to bring them to the US despite there already being English translations for the UK market and despite a vocal market who would like to see them.
[rarity]See if *I* buy a Wii U. Hmpfff![/rarity]
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The same reason solitary is the most played game on PC. Popular platform, and after a while a game can feed on its own fame.
Mod Parent Up! (Score:2)
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Solitary? That some sort of prison game?
(sorry)
Don't read the news much do you? (Score:2)
Nintendo made a loss. The 3DS tanked and Wii sales are dropping.
The problem with going after casual users is that they are fickle. I got to buy new games to justify my expensive gaming rig. But a casual player? Here today, gone tomorrow.
Oh and it is Angry Birds that is hurting Nintendo the most.
Re:How does this make the dev managers feel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well they target different markets. iPhone games or the Wii are best for casual gamer. Who want a quick fix then get on with their lives.
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Seemingly trivial game that a self-described "gamer" would not even deign to take a second look at, and it is played by more people than the population of China!
The 50 million individuals who have downloaded 'Angry Birds'...
Population of China is about 1.3 billion. That's some serious software piracy...
learn anything through games (Score:3)
Their is some value in understanding just how powerful iterative learning tied with reward is.
Of course this is way easier to apply to a game then to real life subjects, but we could try.
Imagine a computer programming tutorial game. Problems are thrown at your to solve by writing a function, class, whatever. Successful unit tests bring rewards and so on.
Functions written in the early parts of the game could be used in subsequent challenges if not required. Use of them brings bonuses, achievements, etc. The faster your code runs the better...so replay would include rewriting older versions of your functions as to improve performance.
There are plenty of games out there for children around school subjects, etc, but I rarely see them marketed at adults. Could modern warfare 3 not actually teach something as the game play goes....seems like language would be a good fit. You have to interact with characters in the game with more and more complicated version of some language to proceed. Start with having to say hi to a guard in whatever language, end the game having to convince him your not a spy.
I guess the real point is creating a better sense of achievement and combining entertainment to overcome the usual tediousness associated with learning. I liked learning how to code because every time the compiler reported no errors it was like completing a level of angry birds. I can't say the same for economics and for many I'm sure they got no pleasure from cracking a calculus problem.
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In a similar vein, I've often wondered how accurate and extensive the medical knowledge I've gained over the years of watching ER, House, and the other medical dramas on television is. From time to time, I check on things that are said, and usually they're right, if sometimes over-dramatized. But then, would that not be a good way to educate the general public about medical issues? Or, really, anything? I don't know the symptoms of stroke from those stupid acronym signs on the subway (PACE? HELP? STROKE
Apple (Score:2)
From one of TFAs: "The developers at Rovio took existing gameplay, presented it in a unique style, and sold it to people who would never have looked twice at Crush the Castle or the games from which it had been derived." So Rovio is just like Apple then! Maybe Rovio's boss should be the new Steve Jobs.
This. (Score:5, Interesting)
"seconds are consumed as the pigs teeter, slide and roll off planks or are crushed under slow falling debris. "
This, this and this. There is something very satisfying about watching a structure teeter at the brink and then fall over in a spectacle of smashing debris.
Also, the other day i figured out that i could topple a tower by timing a bird strike to correspond with the pendular motion of the structure after an initial strike. It blew my shit away....that realization.....the satisfaction of that......the simplicity of it.... It's a good simple game, can't we just enjoy it?
Or... (Score:3)
While it is interesting to see a UI expert dissect a piece of software, this piece reminds me a bit of folks who do analysis of lottery ticket numbers and then try to convince us that the winners are geniuses. We all know of a bazillion games that are similar shoot-projectile-random-result games (golf, bowling, Bloons, Peggle, Darts) and why they are addictive. Angry Birds is good, but the amazing success probably has more to do with social mania than UI design. OH, and hitching your corporate bandwagon to the iOS.
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Simple, Yet Challenging (Score:4, Interesting)
I installed on my Android tablet (Acer Iconia, btw). I have not played games since Quake II - yeah, I'm old(er). But I thought I'd try it out just to see what all the hype was about.
Here's why I keep playing it: Learning the game was fast and the controls are intuitive. I can fire it up in seconds, play a few levels and be done. I don't feel like I need to invest hours in it just to get good at it. But the game itself is actually enjoyable and satisfying to play. Look, after a day of stress at work, I don't really want to "work" at playing a game. I want to relax and have some fun. The graphics are well done and the sounds made by the birds and pigs are humorous. Even after playing it for weeks, I still giggle a little at the sound effects.
But really, the biggest thing is that the game is good for time-fill rather than time-suck. Also, let's face it: There are millions (billions?) more people who are not "gamers" than there are "gamers". (Too many quotes? Possibly.)
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I too giggle at the humorous sound effects in nethack.
Lit Crit for Games (Score:3)
XKCD (Score:3)
"For example, why are tiny bananas suddenly strewn about in some play sequences and not in others? Why do the houses containing pigs shake ever so slightly at the beginning of each game play sequence? Why is the game's play space showing a cross section of underground rocks and dirt?"
Add another proof to the Connoisseur conjecture - http://xkcd.com/915/ [xkcd.com]
They're missing the real reason (Score:3)
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Even if it was a stupid game maybe having that effort stored into stirring pots of rice for hungry children in the 3rd world would be a good use of time.
Those hungry children can stir pots of rice too and they'd be far better at it, since they're there and not somewhere across the world. It makes more sense, if you're going to think about that sort of thing, to steer effort into stuff that the game players do better than the people who supposedly are being helped. You know, comparative advantage sort of stuff.
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I say it's a matter of scale, not a matter of who is better at a particular task.
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Relaxation is a meaningful use of time. Not to the extent people play Angry Birds (or other video games) or that there aren't better ways (girls come to mind... oh wait this is /., nevermind), but still, just saying. People do need enjoyment and relaxation in their lives. Especially when they have nothing better to do, such as sitting on a bus.
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... and this is why you can't have nice things.
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You definitely want to stir it a bit near the end of the cooking cycle.
I swear by Mahatma rice. Never had a bad batch.
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Well, maybe right after you put the rice in the pot of boiling water..but not after??
Rice: 2:1 ration water to rice, I like to add in some salt or a chicken bullion cube.
Boil water
Once water is boiling...add rice...stir...once water starts to boil again, put on lid, cut heat down to low so that just a little steam keeps coming out from the lid.
Leave this alone with lid on for about 20-22 minutes...then, remove from heat, open lid and fluff with a fork.
Unless yo
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It would be fantastic if all of that time (100M hrs?!?!) was recaptured into some meaningful or valuable effort. Even if it was a stupid game maybe having that effort stored into stirring pots of rice for hungry children in the 3rd world would be a good use of time.
99% of that time is spent multitasking anyway.
How much more productive can you be while taking a dump?
Here's how it goes:
Sit on the shitter.
Grab phone out of pants pocket.
Check email.
Read all tweets/social media bullshit updates.
Play all turns on Wordfeud (or Words with Friends, if you like buggy, inferior shit).
Load up Angry Birds because there's nothing else to do.
Play until you're done shitting, AND you've gotten 3 stars on the current level.
Re:Redirect of effort (Score:5, Interesting)
The iPad has revolutionized my poop time.
There's a sentence I didn't expect to type today. Or ever.
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Sit on the shitter.
Grab phone out of pants pocket.
Check email.
Read all tweets/social media bullshit updates.
Play all turns on Wordfeud (or Words with Friends, if you like buggy, inferior shit).
Load up Angry Birds because there's nothing else to do.
Play until you're done shitting, AND you've gotten 3 stars on the current level.
Get off the toilet and wait two minutes for the circulation in your legs to be restored so you can walk again, having spent twenty minutes sitting on the toilet.
FTFY.
I'm assuming this
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OK, but how does the stirred (not shaken) rice get from me to... ah! You're thinking with portals!
(QD goes to play Portal 2 again)
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Oh, now that you mention it, that's a pretty good idea. It would help with the insanity plea too.
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Didn't Bugs Bunny do something like that?
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It's analyse in British English
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Yeah, but less Ashley Judd, dang it.
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ST:TNG season 5 episode 6, "The Game".