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"Trap the Cat" or "My Wife the Genius"

If you have a single frivolous bone in your body you have probably stumbled across "Trap the Cat" which has been frustrating flash gamers around the world for the last few weeks. It is a maddeningly addictive puzzle game in which you must encircle a cat before he can escape.

After several hopeless attempts during which I always seemed to be one circle behind the fleeing cat I resorted to Google and finally learned how to do it. Even with this stolen knowledge I am still not perfect. Depending on the layout of initial dots I can probably trap him about half the time.

Anyhow, my wife likes this kind of thing so I decided to show her the game, perhaps guiltily anticipating schadenfreude at her mounting frustration with such a difficult puzzle. As expected she took to the game immediately and after one attempt I could see she was hooked. I sat back, deciding to let her struggle for a bit before magnanimously stepping in and demonstrating my own (unearned) prowess.

She trapped the cat on her second attempt.

Beginners luck? No. She went on to trap the cat again.

"I'm good at this game she said."

I said nothing.

Comments

Melmoth said…
I managed it on my second attempt, but then didn't manage it again for the next twenty or so. Ease of success does seem to be very dependent on the layout of the green dots that are initially present.
mbp said…
Its not as dependent on the initial dots as you might think although I do believe some games are un-winnable.

Personally I think there is a male female thing going on Mel. I, the man focus in on the cat and end up chasing it around the board. My wife takes a more holistic view of the whole board and seems to have intuitively stumbled on the winning strategy while I had to google it.
Nikola said…
Jesus mate, exactly the same story with me and my wife.
Freaky...
mbp said…
Hi Bojan thanks for the comment. There has to be some kind of man/woman thing going on here. At risked of being called out for chauvinism can I suggest that man the hunter tries to hunt the cat and ends up futilely chasing after it whereas woman the gatherer actually surrounds the cat and gathers it in.

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