A brief storytime, darlings. It's a little fictionalized, partly for simplicity but partly because my memory is weak.
I don't watch movies. The last movie I watched was Glass Onion, one and a half years ago at this point. The last one I watched before that was Tongues Untied, in 2021? I couldn't tell you what Kate Winslet was in, other than the one with the iceberg.
My friend Riley is into movies, though (specifically, old movies like Casablanca). And she found an app called "Cinenerdle", what I can only describe as... a PVP version of the film buff thing where you go "oh yeah, she was in La La Land"? You start with a movie, and have to name another movie that "links" to it, by sharing an actor or director. Then their opponent names a link from that movie. Players can only use a given link three times before they've exhausted it, and have to move on to something else-- so eventually someone runs out of knowledge. What's more, you could "ban" a number of links before the game, giving you opportunities to ensnare your opponents.
Now I don't love movies, but I love games involving textured databases. Inspired by the story of Nigel Richards winning the premier francophone Scrabble tournament without speaking a lick of French, I decided to play. Not just play, either-- play to win.
I needed to prep.
Why is it called SCRAT?
