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Clicksy

efficiency

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01 Opening
Clicksy beat 1 of 5

In the tall grass along the edge of the League Field, if you stand very still and listen, you will hear a small, bright sound: chirp, chirp, chirp. That is Clicksy. He is a slender green cricket with long antennae that twitch whenever he's thinking, which is nearly always, and he carries a tiny notepad no bigger than a leaf. Every time a player nearby clicks on a square, Clicksy makes one neat little mark on his notepad with the tip of a leg.

Clicksy counts clicks. Every single one, all day long.

"Not to scold anybody," he says quickly, whenever a player glances nervously at his notepad. "Never to scold. Just to measure. You can't get better at something you don't measure, and you can't measure something fairly unless you measure it the right way."

02 Clicksy
Clicksy beat 2 of 5

The two young hares whom Bevvy the honeybee had helped came hopping over to Clicksy the very next morning. Bevvy had taught them to count each board's hidden number, its 3BV, the fewest clicks a board could ever need. And now they had a new question.

"Bevvy showed us how hard each board was," said the first hare. "Mine needed at least forty clicks. My friend's needed at least fifty-five. But that still doesn't tell us which of us played better."

Clicksy let out a chirp so delighted it startled a nearby moth. "That's my favorite question in the entire League! And now that you've got Bevvy's number, the answer is simple."

He flipped his notepad to a fresh page. "First, how many clicks did each of you actually use?"

"Forty," said the first hare.

03 Clicksy
Clicksy beat 3 of 5

"Sixty," said the second.

"Now here's the trick," said Clicksy. "Take the board's fewest possible clicks, its 3BV, and divide it by the number of clicks you actually used. The answer is called your efficiency. It tells you how close you came to a perfect game on your own board, measured against what that particular board demanded."

He scratched out the sums on his notepad with one leg, quick and neat. "First hare: your board needed forty, and you used forty. Forty divided by forty is exactly one. That's a perfect score. Every single click you made did real, necessary work."

The first hare beamed so wide his whiskers stood out sideways.

"Second hare: your board needed fifty-five, and you used sixty. Fifty-five divided by sixty is a little under one, about nine-tenths. That's very close to perfect. Only about one click in twelve didn't need to happen."

04 Clicksy
Clicksy beat 4 of 5

The second hare's ears shot straight up. "Only a few wasted? But I used twenty more clicks than him! I thought I'd done way worse!"

"You did great," chirped Clicksy. "And now you can see why raw clicks were never fair to compare. Twenty extra clicks sounds like a lot. But you were playing a much harder board. Efficiency doesn't care how big or tough your board was. It only asks how well you did compared to what your board needed. A giant difficult board and a tiny easy one can finally be compared side by side, because each is measured against its own fewest clicks. That's what makes it a fair score."

"So what exactly counts as a wasted click?" asked the first hare.

Clicksy's antennae twitched thoughtfully. "Clicking a square that was going to open for free anyway, because it was on the edge of an opening. Flagging a mine you never actually needed to flag to finish. Opening several squares one at a time when a single chord could have opened all of them together. Any click that didn't move you closer to clearing the board." He tapped his notepad. "And here's something surprising. Your efficiency can even go above one. A clever move called a chord can open a whole ring of squares with a single click, doing the work of several. Use enough good chords, and you can beat the board's own number. But how to chord safely is Chordy the crab's story."

Then Clicksy lowered his notepad, and his chirp went soft and serious, because this was the part he cared about most.

05 Closing
Clicksy beat 5 of 5

"Your efficiency is for you," he said. "It's a mirror, not a medal. Try to beat your own best score, not somebody else's. Comparing yourself to your own past self means you're always measuring whether you're getting better, and you are always the right size for that race. Comparing yourself to someone else, on a different day, with a different mood, is how a useful number turns into a way to feel small. I'd never want my notepad to do that to anyone."

The second hare looked down at his score of nine-tenths, and for the first time it didn't look like a failure. It looked like a starting line.

Clicksy feels most like Clicksy when a player finishes a board, checks their efficiency, and discovers they wasted fewer clicks than the time before. It is a light, springy, hopping-up-and-down feeling, like finally landing a jump you've been practicing all week.

You have some Clicksy in you whenever you measure yourself fairly, against the real difficulty of the task, and kindly, against your own last try. After your next board, find your efficiency, and say it the way he does: "Clicksy divides the fewest clicks by the clicks you took."

Then see whether you can beat your own best.

Hear it as an audio drama

A short play starring Clicksy, from Sweep League. Different voices, same idea. Listen any time after you read.

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Read the drama script
  1. Narrator: From Spark and Anvil and Sweep League — this is Clicksy, in chapter 1 of the Sweep League cast.
  2. Narrator: This drama uses an AI-generated voice. Voiced via Gemini 2.5.
  3. Narrator: In the tall grass, Clicksy the cricket made a tiny mark in his notepad for every click.
  4. Clicksy: Not to scold anybody! Just to measure.
  5. Hare: My board needed forty clicks and I used forty. My friend's needed fifty-five, and he used sixty. Who played better?
  6. Clicksy: My favourite question! Divide the board's fewest clicks by the clicks you actually used. That's your efficiency.
  7. Narrator: Forty divided by forty is one. Fifty-five divided by sixty is a little over nine tenths.
  8. Second Hare: Only a few wasted clicks? I thought I did way worse!
  9. Clicksy: You did great! Efficiency measures you against what your own board needed. A hard board and an easy one can finally be compared fairly.
  10. Hare: Can it go above one?
  11. Clicksy: With a good chord, it can. But that's Chordy's story.
  12. Clicksy: And your efficiency is a mirror, not a medal. Beat your own best, never somebody else's.
  13. Narrator: Divide the fewest clicks by the clicks you took. That's Clicksy's whole idea.
  14. Narrator: You've been listening to a Spark and Anvil chapter, written by the Spark and Anvil writing team for ages 9 to 14.
  15. Narrator: Apps stay free forever.
  16. Narrator: Curriculum aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
  17. Narrator: Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 for educational reuse. Visit Spark and Anvil for the full transcript.

The Sweep League ensemble

Clicksy is one of the friends in Sweep League. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.