Time Attack (Beta)--Let's Battle!

Combine writing prowess with a little bit of luck, and you get Skritter’s new Time Attack mode! Compete with other Skritter users to see if you’ve got what it takes to make it onto the top 25!

While this is a beta feature we will likely be resetting the leaderboard from time to time. Take screenshots of your scores to remember them by!

How it works

Each session randomly selects 20 items from decklists. The objective is simple-- write characters as fast as you can, and see your time after each attempt. Each deck shows your top times and the top 25 high scores (Chinese high scores are split between Simplified and Traditional character styles ). There are no penalties for stroke mistakes or incorrect characters, but they will slow you down! Gestures and button taps, however, do come with a time penalty.

Hint button (eye) +5 seconds

Teaching Mode (gesture) +10 seconds

Not satisfied with your results? No problem. Just try again. Good luck, and happy time attacking!

Time Attack is a new beta feature. Scores will be reset from time to time as we make improvements. Sorry in advance, and we hope you have fun!

Drop your ideas and feedback about this new mode below!

2 Likes

good feature. prob i will never use! now for next release the sentense filter! :smile:

I think the distribution of user’s fondness for this feature will not be a bell curve. Instead, many people will not care at all, whereas some will love it. I predict few opinions in between. It’s a little bit like speedrunning computer games: some people love the concept, others just aren’t interested.

Personally, I think it’s a pretty sweet way of refreshing basic vocabulary that I almost never write (most of those characters will have been pushed really far into the future by now). I probably know how to write them, but being reasonably fast at recalling and writing them is a bonus!

1 Like

I’m responding to your comment about sentences filters right now over here: Is there a way to ban all the sentences

@mikelimassol What specifically about this feature would make you never want to use it?

I’ve found that Time Attack for me has been a very useful review tool for the HSK 1, 2 and 3. I can already recognize all of the characters/words in them, but over time my ability to quickly be able to recall and write them without hesitation has lessened. If I do a Time Attack run and get stuck on a stroke in a character that ruins my score you can bet I’ll not be forgetting that stroke anytime soon. It’s also motivated me to spend more time with HSK 4 and actually finally finish learning 5 and 6. I’d love to be able to tackle HSK 6 without needing to reveal.

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i am srudying hsk3 at the moment. i will give it a shot! keep up the good job!

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I tried it. I like the concept, and it’s fun. Addictive, perhaps. However, I do have philosophical problems with it, and wonder if I will use it much except as an occasional time-filler. (And I am simultaneously concerned that I would use it for more than just a time-filler.)

The big problem I have with it is that at some point the difference between getting a good score and a great score doesn’t involve getting better at Chinese, it involves getting better at Skritter. As much as I like Skritter, if I have spare time, I’d prefer to spend it getting better at Chinese.

To elaborate: On a few occasions I sat there with some character that I knew how to draw trying repeatedly to draw a stroke that wasn’t being recognized. This happens. It’s just part of using Skritter and I normally don’t mind too much. But when you’re on the clock it is a problem, and also source of frustration. I could spend time honing my move-my-finger-exactly-as-Skritter-wants-me-to skills, but those skills aren’t useful for much except Skritter. I also believe it is very important to eliminate with prejudice learning activities that are a source of unnecessary frustration. There are better uses of your time.

The other side of the problem is recognition. Increasing your speed requires identifying words in isolation, which means getting faster at distinguishing Skritter’s definitions. That’s not a real-word skill. This is the same problem you have with any SRS system, really, but attaching a timer to it makes it more severe.

I felt the same way when I tried the Wii sports games. I had little desire to spend time developing the artificial motor skills that would let me play a pretend sport with a Wii controller when I could be developing the more valuable motor skills needed to play the real thing.

On the positive side, I felt that after several runs of Time Attack I was getting better at recalling and writing the characters. I’m just concerned about the degree to which the end result measures – and therefore is developing – my ability to react to the app and not my actual language skill.

I’m not sure there’s much you can do about this, but there are some things that could be improved:

  • Turn off the drawer (or at least, the drawer gesture) for this mode. You’re moving fast, so it’s easier to stroke it out by accident. I don’t want it in this mode (and certainly don’t want whatever penalty it incurs :wink: )

  • Ignore the user’s hide reading/definition settings, and always show both. The big problem with production tests is words with similar meanings, and it is frustrating to lose time because you were trying to correctly write the wrong synonym.

  • I felt like on some runs I got some pretty complex characters or words, and on others I had better luck. I can’t quantify that, but I definitely saw significant run-to-run variation and I didn’t ever feel like I was going at less than full speed. Trying to normalize for complexity would be nice; a simpler alternative would be to just use a larger test set.

2 Likes

I agree with most of what you say about Time Attack, but it’s not meant to be as serious as normal reviewing, which is obviously where we encourage people to spend their time. The game elements (timing and scoreboard) are meant to be fun and encourage a high degree of familiarity with basic vocabulary, not be an accurate assessment of your Chinese level. Therefore, I’m okay with it only partially overlapping with actual ability to write characters.

We have discussed various ways of making it more fair, but this is a continuous spectrum and we decided to draw the line at separating simplified from traditional for now. This has some consequences, of course, such as luck becoming a factor. I currently hold the record for HSk1 simplified and beating that record will require even more luck than I had, which was a lot. I’m pretty sure the record is almost impossible to beat if you get 怎么样, or 谢谢 in the run, because those take several times longer than writing say 几 or 去. Of course, it will also require you to know the characters very well and recall how to write them quickly.

However, I think that luck factor is only there if your goal is to beat the record for HSK1 and maybe HSK2. Higher levels have a much larger range of words, so knowing the words themselves will be much more important than getting lucky (although avoiding four-character 成语 is still nice). You can also focus on beating your own record, of course. Like I said before, this is meant to be a fun way to practise and compete with basic vocabulary.

Regarding your specific suggestions:

Turn off the drawer (or at least, the drawer gesture) for this mode. You’re moving fast, so it’s easier to stroke it out by accident. I don’t want it in this mode (and certainly don’t want whatever penalty it incurs :wink: )

Good point! I’ve done this many times myself, always by accident.

Ignore the user’s hide reading/definition settings, and always show both. The big problem with production tests is words with similar meanings, and it is frustrating to lose time because you were trying to correctly write the wrong synonym.

Also a good point! Since this is not reviewing, it seems reasonable to override such settings, especially if it’s also a kind of friendly competition. I actually rely on audio quite a bit when doing time attack, so I can see that not having readings at all would be a handicap.

I felt like on some runs I got some pretty complex characters or words, and on others I had better luck. I can’t quantify that, but I definitely saw significant run-to-run variation and I didn’t ever feel like I was going at less than full speed. Trying to normalize for complexity would be nice; a simpler alternative would be to just use a larger test set.

I already discussed this above, but yes, you’re right. I personally don’t think this is an issue since it’s meant to be more of a fun game than a serious assessment of one’s ability. Also, luck would still be a factor. Should we make sure that each run has the same number of characters? Won’t work, because writing two characters in one word is certainly faster than writing two characters in two separate words. Or maybe count the total number of strokes? Same issue there. It seems hard to come up with some easy way of balancing things that is clean and works well. As for the larger set, you already have HSK6, isn’t that big enough? :slight_smile:

Personally, I found it fun to explore the limits of HSK1, but I doubt I will spend any more time on the lower levels. However, I will try to incorporate occasional runs of HSk5-6 in my study routine. I know these characters and words, but I write them so seldom that I need to think too much sometimes. Time attack is a fun way to alleviate that!

1 Like

I can see that, and it succeeds at being a fun way to practice. On further thought I think it adds something uniquely educational as well. In theory, Skritter quizzes you on things you are on the verge of forgetting, whereas most of the stuff you see in a Timed Attack will be fresher. That means you’re thinking less and – even if the experience isn’t 100% authentic – training “muscle memory” more.

Tell me about it. After getting 醫生, 醫院, and 飛機, I was wondering who I had offended :wink:

2 Likes

Indeed! If someone told me a year ago that rage quitting Skritter would be a thing, I wouldn’t have believed them. But it is a thing… I mean, I was so close to beating Jake’s HSK1 time a few times, then got 谢谢 and 爸爸 as the final two. :frowning:

2 Likes

For years I’ve been asking the Skritter team to add some “bells and whistles” to make Skritter more fun.

Don’t get me wrong; I think Skritter is absolutely essential and is the number one reason I now read and write Chinese fluently enough to correspond - in handwriting - in long letters with friends overseas.

However, learning Chinese can get tedious even with the best app support, so I hoped that the team would create a few highlights like games and other fun in addition to the essential daily grind.

So I am an enthusiastic supporter of this initiative. These additions shouldn’t be meant to replace any serious learning. They should just be a way to use learned Chinese in a new, boredom-relieving, rewarding context.

I’d like to see in future other “rewards” and encouragements within the study/review aspects of the app that build on the voiced time encouragements and electric blue you’re-on-a-winning-streak script of the legacy app.

Things like visual “rewards” for getting particularly tough characters finally down a certain number of times in a row, etc. To give regular review a few highlighted moments that reward learning. Preferably visual rewards, rather than aural. Even Easter eggs. And not something that slows down review. I love the electric blue script of the legacy app, for example.

Good luck to the team on this. After five years of dedicated Skritter use, I look forward to some fun innovations.