January 31, 2026
Chipmunk-gate: The Squeakquel
List animals until failure
Race the clock naming animals while the internet fights over AI, scores, and chipmunk truth
TLDR: A frantic animal-naming game went viral for rewarding real Wikipedia creatures and, surprise, using simple code—no AI. Commenters split between turning it into an AI benchmark and debating taxonomy (“chipmunks are squirrels”), while flexing scores and obscure species; the fuss shows how even tiny games spark big tech culture arguments.
Name as many animals as you can before the timer explodes — but don’t repeat “bear” with “polar bear.” That tiny twist has the internet hooked, and the comments are chaos in the best way. One camp wants to turn it into an LLM (large language model) showdown, while others beg, please, don’t ruin the fun with benchmarks and leaderboards. “Big bucks” optimizing a silly game? Peak 2026 energy, said one eye-roller.
The plot twist everyone loved: there’s no AI here at all. Just basic text parsing and a lookup table, which a commenter even linked for the curious here. Cue shock and delight that something so polished didn’t need a robot brain. The “we can still build cool stuff without AI” crowd is basking.
Then the score-flexing kicked in: 42 vs 68, with bonus geek points for someone who dropped “rotifers” and got credit for a microscopic animal. But the real drama? Taxonomy trouble. The game’s quip that “chipmunks are squirrels” sparked a full-on rodent identity crisis, with users taking sides like it’s a courtroom thriller. Meanwhile, those cheeky title messages for each animal had folks grinning. It’s simple, it’s fast, it’s weirdly addictive — and the comments made it a circus.
Key Points
- •Players list animals to gain time; when the timer ends, the game is over.
- •Only animals with Wikipedia articles are accepted as valid entries.
- •Overlapping general/specific names (e.g., bear and polar bear) invalidate the more specific entry for points/time.
- •Distinct species within the same broader group still count as separate valid entries.
- •The order of listed animals does not affect scoring or time bonuses.