About the Game

Think you can tell a book by its cover? How about a CD? How about a person? At Plays-with-Matches.com, we offer fast-paced games that test your knowledge of books, movies, music, and people. It's part quiz, part window-shopping, and part social network.

How to Play

Each game asks you a question with a multiple-choice answer. Click on the answer you think is correct. If you're right, your score will go up. If you're wrong, you'll get knocked back to zero. For every five correct answers in a row, you'll earn a "golden ticket." You can use these tickets to skip tough questions later on.

If at any time you see someone who interests you, click on their name or picture. We've built a message system that makes it easy to hook up with new friends! If you see a product you like, click on it, too! We'll take you straight to a place where you can buy it.

Once you get familiar with a game, see if you can beat the Plays-with-Matches experts who've made it on to the high score board. (Trust us. It's not as easy as it sounds!) When you're ready to try a new game, click on the name of the current game (for example, "Anything Goes!" or "The Sixth Day"). A list will appear with all the other games you can play. Try them all!

To Register or Not to Register?

You can play the game without becoming a registered user, but if you do, you'll be missing the real fun. Register (it's free!), and you can upload your picture into the Plays-with-Matches database. Then, once you answer a few short questions, you can become part of the game!

Ever wonder what kind of first impression you make on people? Now you can find out! Registered users have full access to our First Impressions Analyzer™ and can see the kind of first impression they're making — filtered by numerous criteria. See how men see you! See how women see you!

Registered users also have full access to our First Impressions Message System™ and game statistics. If you register, your golden tickets are saved between game sessions. And if that weren't enough, only registered users are allowed on the high score board!

Spinning the Web

Remember, we harvest only the freshest data from the internet, then mix in piquant information from our users, to serve you the finest in web-based window-shopping match-making fun. Spinning the web into a new kind of game. That's us.

But enough talk! What are you wasting time reading this for? Turn up the heat! Get back into the game!

About Us

This web site was created by Rob Bearman and Mark Malamud.

Rob Bearman was born and raised in East Africa. He grew up amid one of the most irresistible bioscapes on Earth. He went to Oxford in 1964 as an undergraduate, and eventually came under the spell of Blue Nile Sampas, the upstart surrealist whose motto "Work leaps cheese dogma" profoundly influenced Rob's early academic development. Author of The Gravity of Truth (and the Necessity of the Lie) and winner of the Eggleston Prize in computer science for his pioneering work on exemplary models of active cessation, Rob left Cambridge in 1986 to become one of the first Microsoft engineers. He now runs Hyperfine Software, a company specializing in web services.

Mark Malamud was born in Istanbul, 1967, to Turkish and American parents. After completing his undergraduate work at Bogaziçi University, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1994, in theoretical and computational condensed matter physics. Working in diverse areas, from atmospheric modeling with collaborators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to the philosophy of runway modeling in a media driven and patriarchal oosphere, Mark is currently associate professor of education at Whatcom State University, Diploma Mill, WA where he writes mostly about animals in "farmyard fantasies," often about pigs and ducks, his special favorites. His company, busymonster, named after a poem by e. e. cummings, specializes in narrative architecture.

If you've enjoyed this site and would like to see others like it in the future, why not leave us a small thank-you in our digital tip jar? Click the link below, make a donation in whatever amount you feel is appropriate, and we'll thank you by staying hard at work.

Several other people provided invaluable assistance in the creation of this site. Don Barnett provided the foundation for our graphic design. Holly Kowitt dressed the duck. Susan Hautala provided the faveicon. Craig Downing provided inspiring animation. Erik Gavriluk provided the criticism. And Anthem R. Twinkle provided dinner.

Many thanks also to our many tireless Alpha testers. You know who you are. And we know where you live.