This idea for a word reveal presentation stemmed from jamming with a friend of mine. Before it released and things died down, we were speculating about the notorious trick “Enigma” by Christian Grace.

Anyone that has spent longer than a decade on the internet would remember the “Akinator”. It’s essentially a website that has a little genie that tells you what person or character you are thinking of through a series of questions, similar to 21 questions.

I’ve always found that interesting, because people know how it can do that, yet it is still considered “impossible” or “scary” because of how accurate it is and what sort of questions it asks. If you’re thinking of Harry Potter and someone asks you “The character you’re thinking of, does he wear glasses?”, this would get a reaction out of you.

Analyzing it some more, I realized questions aren’t perceived as questions per se, but as statements regardless of the wording if they assume the correct answer. I believe that is why the Akinator was always praised and seen as “mind-reading”.

I wanted to take people’s pop-cultural understanding of the Akinator and flip it on its head for a one-on-one effect. Give them a billet and impression pad to write the name of someone famous. Then you have them fold it and place it in their pocket. Explain that you don’t want them to forget who they picked because they’re going to pick someone else too, and start off going through the Akinator experience by having them think of someone different. During this, you get your peek. Or, you can use a peek wallet, and get the peek earlier on.

After this, you start explaining that there is an algorithm programmed into the Akinator that can cause it to very efficiently fish through tens of thousands of people/characters to narrow it down to a select few. You can explain that through an email exchange with the creator, you have managed to memorize this highly intricate system for a magic trick. Because you’re a nerd and magic dork.

Now you reveal the information through Akinator type questions, optionally using the amazing poses he does. I try to ask oddly specific questions, like I am making a point. For example, if they were thinking of Harry Potter, after a few questions like “Is this person male?” and “Is this person fictional?”, you could move onto very specific questions like “Does your character know magic?” and “Does this person have a scar?” before you reveal. It is true that these are questions, but they act more as statements, given that they’re all answered with yes.

Just a fun thing you can do with a couple props (or just a billet, if you do a traditional billet peek) and a phone.

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