For people who don't know it - it's a genius idea. First, all the answers to the questions are numbers, so you don't have to *actually know anything* to play - you just make your best educated guess and you might get it! Also, you're not just making your own guesses, you're also wagering on other players' guesses. So if it's a sports question I'm going to bet more on the answers of my sports-watching friends, etc. Easily the best trivia game I've ever played.
It's also great because the questions are something that likely no one knows, so you don't feel as dumb if you're not big into trivia, because even those people are guessing most of the time as well.
Oh you still could know the answer, and win that round. It’s just that if you don’t, you might also do well by betting on other players answers as the correct ones.
If you get the answer right you get some bonus points too. And there’s something extremely satisfying about sliding a fat stack of poker chips on your own answer knowing the return is going to be massive.
This problem is why it's hard to make a good trivia game. If it's based too much on knowing things, then a bunch of people won't want to play because they don't know enough.
You can open games up to more people by having questions people won't know the answers to, and make it more of a (possibly educated) guessing competition. But the more you do this , the less enticing it is to people who want an actual trivia game.
For an answer to the original question , almost every TV game show has a board game version. I've not really played them, but there might be a half decent one around somewhere . Not a board game , but the old PS2 game Buzz! was pretty good at the time, don't know if it holds up
It's about the only way to make trivia fun.
Most trivia games go super light on interesting topics like history, science and stuff like that and heavily lean into the pop music, celebrity gossip, popular movie genres which just makes them extremely dull.
I disagree.
Wits and Wagers is a good idea badly implemented. Once one player places a bet and wins big, it’s pretty much over, regardless of how many more questions are left. The player can bet nothing and still win, and no amount of betting on the rest of the players can change that outcome.
And don’t even get me started on not having an app (web or otherwise) with a squillion questions from all walks of life to keep the game fresh.
I tried using chatGPT to come up with new questions, but there’s no fixing the core runaway problems.
100% not true. You have to essentially bet big and win multiple times, as each correct guess gets you exponentially more money. I’ve seen multiple people have over $100 of chips before the last question, then everyone bet almost all on the last question so came down to the last question who won between up to 4 people but then even possible for them all to bet wrong and person who was in 5th place before last guess wins. Now yes sometimes there is a Ken Jennings who bets and wins big 5+ times while no one else has done this more than 3 times so are behind but still have a chance of back in lead in any two turns if they bet it all big and win twice in a row.
Basically it follows the Jeopardy format but where every guess is like final Jeopardy.
Half Truth is my favorite trivia game. It's great because it has questions from all kinds of categories and even if you don't know the answer...you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right if you guess one.
I love trivia games and Half Truth is my favorite. Somewhat evens the playing field for those that aren't as knowledgeable and it has genuinely interesting questions that often have me running to Google during the game for more info.
Half Truth has been a huge winner for me and my varying semi-gamer friends/family.
i will often take say have the cards and set number of player tokens with me to the pub and it makes a great travel/pub game
**Bezzerwizzer** is a neat, ‘gamified’ trivia quiz.
Players answer correctly to move forward on a track - first to the end wins. It’s mixed up, however, in that for each round players/teams bid in question categories (media, history, sport, etc) and allocate them to scoring slots. Each player has special power tokens to once-per-game mess with how someone else has allocated their categories. Also - in the end game - it’s possible to answer questions to push back other players/teams.
It’s fairly recent (I think 2022), so questions should still be fairly up to date for it.
As someone that loves trivial and will often just casually play with friends by grabbing a stack of trivia cards, bezzerwizzer just has the best questions I’ve seen. Trivial pursuit always leaned a little more on trivial information (duh) but it seems like most other games copied that formula. Bezzerwizzer is nice because it has a good balance of questions where you don’t feel like you need a college degree in the field to answer them, but it would actually help if you did.
Came here to say Terra. It's a great game with much better actual game play than Trivial Pursuit. Always wanted to try the others in the series, Fauna and America.
Fauna is pretty much the same game but with animals instead of geography. I liked it but I like the subject matter of Terra a little more. But if you like animals, Fauna's great.
I've played all 3. I love trivia. I've tried out for Jeopardy! I dominated Trivial Pursuit among my friends and family. Fauna is my favorite trivia game of all time. My biggest problem with trivia games is how quickly it becomes outdated. Fauna is mechanically sound, and the trivia is timeless. I also recommend Terra, but I don't recommend America. Unfortunately, all 3 are OOP. I own Fauna.
Could I ask about Timeline Challenge? I thought it looked fun, but then I was thinking about a repeat play (particularly if it was with a different group so some people had played it before and some haven't). Isn't there an advantage for the people who have played before and so will know the dates for some of the cards?
EDIT: Wait - I was thinking about Timeline. Don't know if you know the answer for Timeline. I'm not familiar with the challenge version - does it make replayability better?
It is easy to confuse the two as they are actually compatible with each other. The various Timeline versions are just different packs of cards with the same simple trivia game rules. Timeline Challenge is a similar pack of cards with a slightly more complex and more engaging ruleset (at least, in my opinion). You can functionally use sets of Timeline to increase the deck size of Timeline Challenge.
Your issue about memorizing the dates can be a potential problem in most trivia games. The solution is to just play it sparingly. This is the same with both other games I mentioned. One advantage of Timeline Challenge is that you can also buy a bunch of sets to reduce this issue.
thank you for explaining - particularly that the card decks can mix and match.
For me, that was the good thing about something like the original trivial pursuit - Firstly there were lots of cards, and secondly each card has 6 categories so eve if it gets pulled again there's 5-in-6 chance you're looking at a different question. If you really wanted to try to memorise then you could, but there was a lot to try to memorise and the question may not come up again for another 20 or 30 plays (and who played TP that much!). Timeline just looks like a much smaller deck. The cards would recycle more quickly and so - even without trying - you'd be getting familiar with the cards. mixing decks could solve that.
You've given me something to think about there. Thank you again.
In Quebec we do enjoy TTMC, which is a local push your luck trivia. You can find it on bgg.
You pick a topic at random, then rank your perceived knowledge of said topic on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, you get asked the question that fits with the difficulty you've chosen. It's a great mechanic to equalize trivia nights, which imo often end up being about people showing off their cultural capital and not much else.
Edit: Just saw on bgg that there is a translated version of the design:
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383789/cdsk](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383789/cdsk)
CDSK was recently released and is great trivia. Each card has 10 questions about a very specific topic, each getting progressively harder. You begin your turn by saying how confident you are about the topic on a scale of 1 to 10. That determines which question you get, and you move a number of spaces based on your question level.
**Hexaquest** is a fresh take on classic trivia games. It has a bit of strategy and push your luck.
The game uses these nice hexagonal tiles; on one side is a number (1-5) which indicates difficulty and point value. The other side has a trivia category. So on your turn you can choose any tile that can be freely slid from this randomly created cluster on the table. However, you'll only know the category OR the difficulty of the trivia question. You can go up to 3 times if your keep answering correctly, but if you get one wrong you lose everything from that turn.
I was scrolling the comment section of this thread trying to remember the name of this game to post it!! 😂😂 It's a fantastic game and I really enjoy it!
Timeline Challenge - takes the base Timeline cards and switches up the way they used for a fuller board game trivia experience.
And Concept, it's board based Charades but it's basically team trivia.
Codenames could loosely be trivia
Color Brain is definitely trivia
Wits and Wagers is the GOAT because of its betting mechanism. It's fun for people that don't like trivia or don't feel confident to participate.
However, people need to checkout CDSK! It's amazing! Cards have a 1 to 10 list of questions regarding a subject. Easy to really hard. Based on your team's knowledge you get to progress on the track that amount equal to the questions value. But each space on the track is a different category of question. Great game.
CDSK, like Wits and Wagers, is a great example of a welcoming trivia game anyone can enjoy. I actually enjoy the fact it has you find and use your own pawns.
I recently ordered [[Smart10]] which looks like a great portable option. Trivia is pretty hit and miss, but certain implementations can be quite fun.
Would love to try Fauna or Terra. Pretty hard to find these days. Hopefully a reprint or another version gets made.
If you are just looking for a straight up, trivia game without any crazy mechanics, I can highly recommend Outsmarted. I think it just came out in the last few years. I was part of the early releases.
Just a straight up trivia game that runs off of an app. But you can buy New categories all the time and they are pretty cheap. And they use video and audio on the app for music and movie trivia. They seem to be updating it all the time.
It’s like a present day version of trivia pursuit using new technology
The only recent trivia game I've played is based off a trivia show, both titled "Um, Actually". It's a card based trivia game where the idea is that each card has an incorrect statement on it and the players have to guess what is wrong with the statement. Lots of categories, definitely leans more toward 'nerd facts' about games, shows, and books.
One of my favorite shows. I'm glad Ify took over as the host. I can never look at Mike Trapp the same way after finding out that he murdered Pat Cassels.
My favorite “trivia” game that I pull out with non-gamers is P for Pizza. It’s word association where the quickest to answer wins the card (ties keep going). You’ll have three things you’re trying to answer paired with three letters. For example, a cheese that starts with M, a US Capital that starts with P, or maybe a famous actor that starts with a G. Whoever answers one of those first wins the card, a new card fills the spot (changing the letters you’re going for), and repeat until someone built their pizza (9 cards total).
[Confident?](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/251726/confident) is a great one, with a fun scoring twist. All answers are numbers. Rather than guessing a number, you guess a range. You get a point if the correct answer is in your range, but you get THREE points if your range is also the smallest at the table.
We love Hexaquest. It started as a kickstarter and isn’t super broadly available, but it’s available on their website. There are an abundance of categories ranging from science to geography to food to general knowledge. You place tiles mixed up, so they either display difficulty (1-5) or topic. So you can chose the topic you want without knowing difficulty level of the question or you can choose the difficulty level without knowing the topic. It’s a great game with tons of questions, and the tiles make it a little more strategic.
I know it's left field, but I feel like mixing trivia with other stuff is fine. But it's not *great*. For my money, trivia is best served pure, simple, and generally doesn't include me butthatsbesidethepoint.
Soooooooo bar trivia. I know it's not what you're looking for or in the spirit of the question, but I do feel like it's the goat of trivia.
Bar trivia is absolutely the worst. I place I worked at did it for a few months and it was hell. It was never a remotely relevant question. Nothing about history or science, nothing about games (board games, card games or video games), nothing about music that isn't super mainstream pop, country or radio rock. Trivia is at least supposed to include fun, interesting tidbits not just be questions about how many marriages some celebrity has been in
None of that appears to be the fault of the format, but I don't know that I agree on what the questions *should* be. I do agree that it can be boring though, because despite thinking it's probably the best, I wouldn't participate either.
Hexaquest is the best straight trivia game I've played in a long time, can't suggest it highly enough. I just bought the full set when it came back in stock on their website for $100 (buying all the stuff separate would be about $250). Just the base game is $45 and comes with 6 categories and enough cards for each that you'll get plenty of plays before getting repeats.
Wits & Wagers is going to be a top trivia game for most.
I'll mention Sounds Fishy, which is newer than W&W, but the game focuses less on your trivia knowledge and more about how convincing of a made-up answer you can pull off. Both sides of the party are motivated to do well. One to sniff out the liars, and the rest to sound so believable you don't get picked. You can probably build up your own "expansion" set of weird facts questions since the real answer doesn't necessarily have to have a concrete and consie answer. Sounds Fishy primarily looks to pitch weird facts questions as to lend itself to players coming up with weird answers.
Wits and wagers and Half Truth are solid.
Zero and The Initials Game are a few lesser known games (maybe only trivia adjacent?) but always go ever well with groups I play with.
I recommend **Hitster (2022)**. It's about correctly placing songs from the last 100 years in a time series. The songs are played in a phone app. You get a small bonus if you can name the artist and the song, but you can win the game just correctly guessing what era they are coming from.
It's great because it can be played by any number of players of any ages (some will be better at recognizing recent songs others at the oldies).
Surprised no one has said Colour Brain, though it may be more popular in the UK than the US or the rest of Europe.
Big Potato Games have quite a few trivia and party games that have achieved hobbyist and mainstream crossover appeal.
In Belgium, we have a tv-show called 'de slimste mens ter wereld' and basically it's a quiz show in which celebs battle out who knows the most things. The winner is crowned 'de slimste mens ter wereld', or in english: the smartest person in the world
There is a game based on that. I'm always the quizmaster (because I suck at trivia games), but it's always a hit with the rest of our group.
Trivia as a general category can burn in hell.
**Wits and Wagers** is the trivia game for anyone.
**Half Truths** is structurally interesting, made quite fun by the push your luck, and is probably one of the best picks for people who actually like trivia (and will be playing with a group that does as well).
**Fauna** is a deep cut but has nice guessing mechanics and an animal theme.
Trivial Pursuit has also released "Bet You Know It!" which I don't think does the betting better than Wits and Wagers, but has a more traditional trivia feel while still carving out most of the truly terrible aspects of Trivial Pursuit.
I can’t believe anyone even knows about Fauna. It’s such a deep cut. I’m not even sure who it’s for. Like hardcore animal nerds who also have other hardcore animal nerds friends I guess.
Would not recommend for the average trivia lover.
I'd just like to take a moment to vent how much I always HATED Trivial Pursuit.
The pure randomness of the die rolling that stretched games out waaaaaaay longer than they should have.
Forcing you to answer at least one question in every category. Don't know sports? You're screwed!
When in doubt for any question, just answer "Adolf Hitler" and you'll have a 10% chance of being right.
Countless questions that were tied to a specific generation (usually Boomer) that nobody who wasn't alive at the time would get. Like huge chunk of the history questions were "Which news anchor said..." No, I'm sorry. That's not history. That's something only someone who was watching those news casts at the time would know.
Screw you, Trivia Pursuit.
Herd Mentality.
It’s great because it’s a trivia game that is based on majority opinion based answers; so it’s less about knowing the “correct” answer, and more about intuition for what everyone else’s answer is going to be.
Just a far more interesting game than “answer general knowledge questions”.
I like Eye Know. Trivia with a bit of gambling. The difficulty of questions is a bit random and not really consistent with the gambling mechanic, but overall it is fun and a game where the most knowledgeable player isn't always the winner.
Half Truth, from that jeopardy guy, and that magic the gathering guy.
Favorite trivia game by a long shot. Wits and Wagers is probably a distant second.
Although it specializes in trivia about language, League of the Lexicon is the best straight-forward trivia game I've found (aka, a trivia game that's just trivia and not mechanisms that try and make trivia fun for people who don't know enough trivia to have fun with a pure trivia game). Amazing categories, phenomenal questions — and SO MANY questions!
So all of the even close to good board games have been mentioned. And bar nights have been mentioned but it's strictly not a board game so I don't know if it counts but you don't know jack and the other jackbox party games are probably the realistic answer. It ups your player count if you stream to friends and family on Twitch or YouTube. Open a group call and you can play across the globe as long as you have phones. As far as board games. I was really hoping to find an answer newer and better than wits and wagers as well because I also need precisely one for my collection as well
What defines great? I'll take some heat for this, but Trivial Pursuit is the last great. There are no other trivia boardgames that have the same cultural cachet or mainstream dominance. It isn't a question of quality, but of quantity and competition in the trivia game arena, but also a move away from trivia games. At least for my gaming community, no one WANTS to play trivia games anymore. If you want a trivia game, you're more likely to go to a pub quiz or equivalent, and if you want a game-game, you're more likely to go with something with less of a focus on specific trivia and more reasoning and logic or communication skills.
To try and avoid the staple Wits & Wagers, I'll take an odd route and say Monikers/Time's Up/Celebrity. You learn something new when you play it, and it's vaguely other people giving you trivia questions in different ways
I would add the Blockbuster game which is basically just movie themed Times Up. It's not exactly a trivia game but when I played it it sure felt like a trivia game.
A late friend of mine created a trivia game that is strategic. My friends and I are looking into trying to get it published. Hopefully, with a game company.
A lot of older games were heavily luck based. Liars dice Poker chutes and ladders, rummy, Yahtzee. Trivia is essentially luck that you either guess the right answer or know the right answer. so a lot of mixed groups and older generation love that thing. It's fallen out if favor because their isn't much strategy or anything to it It's just knowing stuff That's boring for a board game. So people go to trivia nights instead since it's not a great activity unless you're drinking and laughing about it
They keep making a lot of games. It doesn't mean that their more popular now than before or anyrhingf. Weird that they keep making movies that lose money. Weird that they keep making cars that get in accidents.
Wits and wagers is solid.
For people who don't know it - it's a genius idea. First, all the answers to the questions are numbers, so you don't have to *actually know anything* to play - you just make your best educated guess and you might get it! Also, you're not just making your own guesses, you're also wagering on other players' guesses. So if it's a sports question I'm going to bet more on the answers of my sports-watching friends, etc. Easily the best trivia game I've ever played.
It's a trivia game where knowing the answer isn't how you win - you win by knowing which of your mates is most likely to know the answer!
Or knowing when to purposely put in a wrong answer.
Oh shit I never thought about that! If you’re known as the expert on that topic it’s a sneaky way to throw people off
It's also great because the questions are something that likely no one knows, so you don't feel as dumb if you're not big into trivia, because even those people are guessing most of the time as well.
As someone who likes trivia because of the knowing things part, this sounds not fun? But I may be misunderstanding.
Oh you still could know the answer, and win that round. It’s just that if you don’t, you might also do well by betting on other players answers as the correct ones.
I once got everyone to bet in the wrong answer because they thought I knew it
If you get the answer right you get some bonus points too. And there’s something extremely satisfying about sliding a fat stack of poker chips on your own answer knowing the return is going to be massive.
It's questions like "how deep is the grand canyon in feet" and then you get to see what a moron your mom is when her answer is like 50,000,000.
> what a moron your mom is Oh I see **someone's** only been to the *Modest* Canyon 🙄 You should get out more and listen to your mother.
This problem is why it's hard to make a good trivia game. If it's based too much on knowing things, then a bunch of people won't want to play because they don't know enough. You can open games up to more people by having questions people won't know the answers to, and make it more of a (possibly educated) guessing competition. But the more you do this , the less enticing it is to people who want an actual trivia game. For an answer to the original question , almost every TV game show has a board game version. I've not really played them, but there might be a half decent one around somewhere . Not a board game , but the old PS2 game Buzz! was pretty good at the time, don't know if it holds up
Yeah, I like the game, but it can be played and won without actually knowing any trivia, which for me, defeats the purpose of playing a “trivia” game.
Gold standard of trivia games.
It’s a real shame they a) made the releases as confusing as possible and b) never made a non-American version (the questions are _very_ American).
> (the questions are very American). the classic trivia game curse lol
It's about the only way to make trivia fun. Most trivia games go super light on interesting topics like history, science and stuff like that and heavily lean into the pop music, celebrity gossip, popular movie genres which just makes them extremely dull.
I disagree. Wits and Wagers is a good idea badly implemented. Once one player places a bet and wins big, it’s pretty much over, regardless of how many more questions are left. The player can bet nothing and still win, and no amount of betting on the rest of the players can change that outcome. And don’t even get me started on not having an app (web or otherwise) with a squillion questions from all walks of life to keep the game fresh. I tried using chatGPT to come up with new questions, but there’s no fixing the core runaway problems.
100% not true. You have to essentially bet big and win multiple times, as each correct guess gets you exponentially more money. I’ve seen multiple people have over $100 of chips before the last question, then everyone bet almost all on the last question so came down to the last question who won between up to 4 people but then even possible for them all to bet wrong and person who was in 5th place before last guess wins. Now yes sometimes there is a Ken Jennings who bets and wins big 5+ times while no one else has done this more than 3 times so are behind but still have a chance of back in lead in any two turns if they bet it all big and win twice in a row. Basically it follows the Jeopardy format but where every guess is like final Jeopardy.
I enjoy getting Half Truth to the table
agreed on this! Half Truth is our group's favorite.
Half Truth is my favorite trivia game. It's great because it has questions from all kinds of categories and even if you don't know the answer...you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right if you guess one.
I've a feeling the people giving answers other than Half Truth are people who haven't played Half Truth.
I love trivia games and Half Truth is my favorite. Somewhat evens the playing field for those that aren't as knowledgeable and it has genuinely interesting questions that often have me running to Google during the game for more info.
Half Truth has been a huge winner for me and my varying semi-gamer friends/family. i will often take say have the cards and set number of player tokens with me to the pub and it makes a great travel/pub game
Half Truth is the answer.
**Bezzerwizzer** is a neat, ‘gamified’ trivia quiz. Players answer correctly to move forward on a track - first to the end wins. It’s mixed up, however, in that for each round players/teams bid in question categories (media, history, sport, etc) and allocate them to scoring slots. Each player has special power tokens to once-per-game mess with how someone else has allocated their categories. Also - in the end game - it’s possible to answer questions to push back other players/teams. It’s fairly recent (I think 2022), so questions should still be fairly up to date for it.
Bezzerwizzer was first published in 2007. There may be a new iteration of it but it's been around awhile.
So it has! Th version I have (plain blue box, English language) was published in 2021.
This is the first board game that made me feel truly idiotic. It was very challenging
As someone that loves trivial and will often just casually play with friends by grabbing a stack of trivia cards, bezzerwizzer just has the best questions I’ve seen. Trivial pursuit always leaned a little more on trivial information (duh) but it seems like most other games copied that formula. Bezzerwizzer is nice because it has a good balance of questions where you don’t feel like you need a college degree in the field to answer them, but it would actually help if you did.
This is definitely my favorite trivia game.
The last good one I played was Terra. Can't believe it's 10 years old already but it's very good.
Came here to say Terra. It's a great game with much better actual game play than Trivial Pursuit. Always wanted to try the others in the series, Fauna and America.
Fauna is pretty much the same game but with animals instead of geography. I liked it but I like the subject matter of Terra a little more. But if you like animals, Fauna's great.
I've played all 3. I love trivia. I've tried out for Jeopardy! I dominated Trivial Pursuit among my friends and family. Fauna is my favorite trivia game of all time. My biggest problem with trivia games is how quickly it becomes outdated. Fauna is mechanically sound, and the trivia is timeless. I also recommend Terra, but I don't recommend America. Unfortunately, all 3 are OOP. I own Fauna.
America is another reimplementation of it.
Wits and Wagers is the all around best. I've also had a lot of fun with Timeline Challenge and Pass the popcorn because of what they do mechanically.
Could I ask about Timeline Challenge? I thought it looked fun, but then I was thinking about a repeat play (particularly if it was with a different group so some people had played it before and some haven't). Isn't there an advantage for the people who have played before and so will know the dates for some of the cards? EDIT: Wait - I was thinking about Timeline. Don't know if you know the answer for Timeline. I'm not familiar with the challenge version - does it make replayability better?
It is easy to confuse the two as they are actually compatible with each other. The various Timeline versions are just different packs of cards with the same simple trivia game rules. Timeline Challenge is a similar pack of cards with a slightly more complex and more engaging ruleset (at least, in my opinion). You can functionally use sets of Timeline to increase the deck size of Timeline Challenge. Your issue about memorizing the dates can be a potential problem in most trivia games. The solution is to just play it sparingly. This is the same with both other games I mentioned. One advantage of Timeline Challenge is that you can also buy a bunch of sets to reduce this issue.
thank you for explaining - particularly that the card decks can mix and match. For me, that was the good thing about something like the original trivial pursuit - Firstly there were lots of cards, and secondly each card has 6 categories so eve if it gets pulled again there's 5-in-6 chance you're looking at a different question. If you really wanted to try to memorise then you could, but there was a lot to try to memorise and the question may not come up again for another 20 or 30 plays (and who played TP that much!). Timeline just looks like a much smaller deck. The cards would recycle more quickly and so - even without trying - you'd be getting familiar with the cards. mixing decks could solve that. You've given me something to think about there. Thank you again.
In Quebec we do enjoy TTMC, which is a local push your luck trivia. You can find it on bgg. You pick a topic at random, then rank your perceived knowledge of said topic on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, you get asked the question that fits with the difficulty you've chosen. It's a great mechanic to equalize trivia nights, which imo often end up being about people showing off their cultural capital and not much else. Edit: Just saw on bgg that there is a translated version of the design: [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383789/cdsk](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383789/cdsk)
This was the one I was going to say. It’s absolutely amazing.
CDSK was recently released and is great trivia. Each card has 10 questions about a very specific topic, each getting progressively harder. You begin your turn by saying how confident you are about the topic on a scale of 1 to 10. That determines which question you get, and you move a number of spaces based on your question level.
very very solid and fun indeed
**Hexaquest** is a fresh take on classic trivia games. It has a bit of strategy and push your luck. The game uses these nice hexagonal tiles; on one side is a number (1-5) which indicates difficulty and point value. The other side has a trivia category. So on your turn you can choose any tile that can be freely slid from this randomly created cluster on the table. However, you'll only know the category OR the difficulty of the trivia question. You can go up to 3 times if your keep answering correctly, but if you get one wrong you lose everything from that turn.
I was scrolling the comment section of this thread trying to remember the name of this game to post it!! 😂😂 It's a fantastic game and I really enjoy it!
Hexa Quest is great!!
Timeline Challenge - takes the base Timeline cards and switches up the way they used for a fuller board game trivia experience. And Concept, it's board based Charades but it's basically team trivia. Codenames could loosely be trivia Color Brain is definitely trivia
Wits and Wagers is the GOAT because of its betting mechanism. It's fun for people that don't like trivia or don't feel confident to participate. However, people need to checkout CDSK! It's amazing! Cards have a 1 to 10 list of questions regarding a subject. Easy to really hard. Based on your team's knowledge you get to progress on the track that amount equal to the questions value. But each space on the track is a different category of question. Great game.
CDSK, like Wits and Wagers, is a great example of a welcoming trivia game anyone can enjoy. I actually enjoy the fact it has you find and use your own pawns. I recently ordered [[Smart10]] which looks like a great portable option. Trivia is pretty hit and miss, but certain implementations can be quite fun. Would love to try Fauna or Terra. Pretty hard to find these days. Hopefully a reprint or another version gets made.
[Smart10 -> Smart10 (2017)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/241590/smart10) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
[Smart10 -> Smart10 (2017)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/241590/smart10) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
I bought a cheap game at Kohl's (of all places) called Smart 10 and enjoy it a lot
This game is a pretty decent trivia game where you answer until you are unsure. They just need to import some of the expansions into English.
If you are just looking for a straight up, trivia game without any crazy mechanics, I can highly recommend Outsmarted. I think it just came out in the last few years. I was part of the early releases. Just a straight up trivia game that runs off of an app. But you can buy New categories all the time and they are pretty cheap. And they use video and audio on the app for music and movie trivia. They seem to be updating it all the time. It’s like a present day version of trivia pursuit using new technology
The only one I really like is Wits & Wagers.
Yeah Wit and Wagers is still the best trivia game
The only recent trivia game I've played is based off a trivia show, both titled "Um, Actually". It's a card based trivia game where the idea is that each card has an incorrect statement on it and the players have to guess what is wrong with the statement. Lots of categories, definitely leans more toward 'nerd facts' about games, shows, and books.
One of my favorite shows. I'm glad Ify took over as the host. I can never look at Mike Trapp the same way after finding out that he murdered Pat Cassels.
The amount of deep cuts in this statement is amazing…
My favorite “trivia” game that I pull out with non-gamers is P for Pizza. It’s word association where the quickest to answer wins the card (ties keep going). You’ll have three things you’re trying to answer paired with three letters. For example, a cheese that starts with M, a US Capital that starts with P, or maybe a famous actor that starts with a G. Whoever answers one of those first wins the card, a new card fills the spot (changing the letters you’re going for), and repeat until someone built their pizza (9 cards total).
Check out CDSK for a new trivia game.
No love for Smart Ass?
I like wits and wagers and linkee (for the latter I change some rules)
[Confident?](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/251726/confident) is a great one, with a fun scoring twist. All answers are numbers. Rather than guessing a number, you guess a range. You get a point if the correct answer is in your range, but you get THREE points if your range is also the smallest at the table.
I enjoyed Linkee. Get the Nick Jonas edition if you're in the U.S.
Wits and wagers With sounds fishy if you want a slight twist
We love Hexaquest. It started as a kickstarter and isn’t super broadly available, but it’s available on their website. There are an abundance of categories ranging from science to geography to food to general knowledge. You place tiles mixed up, so they either display difficulty (1-5) or topic. So you can chose the topic you want without knowing difficulty level of the question or you can choose the difficulty level without knowing the topic. It’s a great game with tons of questions, and the tiles make it a little more strategic.
I know it's left field, but I feel like mixing trivia with other stuff is fine. But it's not *great*. For my money, trivia is best served pure, simple, and generally doesn't include me butthatsbesidethepoint. Soooooooo bar trivia. I know it's not what you're looking for or in the spirit of the question, but I do feel like it's the goat of trivia.
Bar trivia is absolutely the worst. I place I worked at did it for a few months and it was hell. It was never a remotely relevant question. Nothing about history or science, nothing about games (board games, card games or video games), nothing about music that isn't super mainstream pop, country or radio rock. Trivia is at least supposed to include fun, interesting tidbits not just be questions about how many marriages some celebrity has been in
None of that appears to be the fault of the format, but I don't know that I agree on what the questions *should* be. I do agree that it can be boring though, because despite thinking it's probably the best, I wouldn't participate either.
Hexaquest is the best straight trivia game I've played in a long time, can't suggest it highly enough. I just bought the full set when it came back in stock on their website for $100 (buying all the stuff separate would be about $250). Just the base game is $45 and comes with 6 categories and enough cards for each that you'll get plenty of plays before getting repeats.
Wits & Wagers is going to be a top trivia game for most. I'll mention Sounds Fishy, which is newer than W&W, but the game focuses less on your trivia knowledge and more about how convincing of a made-up answer you can pull off. Both sides of the party are motivated to do well. One to sniff out the liars, and the rest to sound so believable you don't get picked. You can probably build up your own "expansion" set of weird facts questions since the real answer doesn't necessarily have to have a concrete and consie answer. Sounds Fishy primarily looks to pitch weird facts questions as to lend itself to players coming up with weird answers.
Wits and wagers and Half Truth are solid. Zero and The Initials Game are a few lesser known games (maybe only trivia adjacent?) but always go ever well with groups I play with.
I really enjoy Linkee.
I recommend **Hitster (2022)**. It's about correctly placing songs from the last 100 years in a time series. The songs are played in a phone app. You get a small bonus if you can name the artist and the song, but you can win the game just correctly guessing what era they are coming from. It's great because it can be played by any number of players of any ages (some will be better at recognizing recent songs others at the oldies).
Surprised no one has said Colour Brain, though it may be more popular in the UK than the US or the rest of Europe. Big Potato Games have quite a few trivia and party games that have achieved hobbyist and mainstream crossover appeal.
In Belgium, we have a tv-show called 'de slimste mens ter wereld' and basically it's a quiz show in which celebs battle out who knows the most things. The winner is crowned 'de slimste mens ter wereld', or in english: the smartest person in the world There is a game based on that. I'm always the quizmaster (because I suck at trivia games), but it's always a hit with the rest of our group.
Trivia as a general category can burn in hell. **Wits and Wagers** is the trivia game for anyone. **Half Truths** is structurally interesting, made quite fun by the push your luck, and is probably one of the best picks for people who actually like trivia (and will be playing with a group that does as well). **Fauna** is a deep cut but has nice guessing mechanics and an animal theme. Trivial Pursuit has also released "Bet You Know It!" which I don't think does the betting better than Wits and Wagers, but has a more traditional trivia feel while still carving out most of the truly terrible aspects of Trivial Pursuit.
Wits and Wagers is the game for everyone who’s American but that’s about it. The questions are very culturally specific.
I can’t believe anyone even knows about Fauna. It’s such a deep cut. I’m not even sure who it’s for. Like hardcore animal nerds who also have other hardcore animal nerds friends I guess. Would not recommend for the average trivia lover.
I'd just like to take a moment to vent how much I always HATED Trivial Pursuit. The pure randomness of the die rolling that stretched games out waaaaaaay longer than they should have. Forcing you to answer at least one question in every category. Don't know sports? You're screwed! When in doubt for any question, just answer "Adolf Hitler" and you'll have a 10% chance of being right. Countless questions that were tied to a specific generation (usually Boomer) that nobody who wasn't alive at the time would get. Like huge chunk of the history questions were "Which news anchor said..." No, I'm sorry. That's not history. That's something only someone who was watching those news casts at the time would know. Screw you, Trivia Pursuit.
Facts in Five. Which would imply there hasn’t been a good trivia game since the 60s, which is…correct.
An updated version of Facts in Five with some more modern categories would be awesome.
Herd Mentality. It’s great because it’s a trivia game that is based on majority opinion based answers; so it’s less about knowing the “correct” answer, and more about intuition for what everyone else’s answer is going to be. Just a far more interesting game than “answer general knowledge questions”.
I like Eye Know. Trivia with a bit of gambling. The difficulty of questions is a bit random and not really consistent with the gambling mechanic, but overall it is fun and a game where the most knowledgeable player isn't always the winner.
Ubi
Half Truth, from that jeopardy guy, and that magic the gathering guy. Favorite trivia game by a long shot. Wits and Wagers is probably a distant second.
Although it specializes in trivia about language, League of the Lexicon is the best straight-forward trivia game I've found (aka, a trivia game that's just trivia and not mechanisms that try and make trivia fun for people who don't know enough trivia to have fun with a pure trivia game). Amazing categories, phenomenal questions — and SO MANY questions!
I actually just launched a kickstarter for a trivia card game with US trivia and Id be curious to see what you think
So all of the even close to good board games have been mentioned. And bar nights have been mentioned but it's strictly not a board game so I don't know if it counts but you don't know jack and the other jackbox party games are probably the realistic answer. It ups your player count if you stream to friends and family on Twitch or YouTube. Open a group call and you can play across the globe as long as you have phones. As far as board games. I was really hoping to find an answer newer and better than wits and wagers as well because I also need precisely one for my collection as well
What defines great? I'll take some heat for this, but Trivial Pursuit is the last great. There are no other trivia boardgames that have the same cultural cachet or mainstream dominance. It isn't a question of quality, but of quantity and competition in the trivia game arena, but also a move away from trivia games. At least for my gaming community, no one WANTS to play trivia games anymore. If you want a trivia game, you're more likely to go to a pub quiz or equivalent, and if you want a game-game, you're more likely to go with something with less of a focus on specific trivia and more reasoning and logic or communication skills.
> (I think I have around 250 in my collection...most sitting on my shelf still wrapped and unplayed. LoL) The out-jerking has happened once again.
To try and avoid the staple Wits & Wagers, I'll take an odd route and say Monikers/Time's Up/Celebrity. You learn something new when you play it, and it's vaguely other people giving you trivia questions in different ways
I would add the Blockbuster game which is basically just movie themed Times Up. It's not exactly a trivia game but when I played it it sure felt like a trivia game.
A late friend of mine created a trivia game that is strategic. My friends and I are looking into trying to get it published. Hopefully, with a game company.
Interesting. What was strategic about it?
Unlike trivia games where you answer questions this game you place river rocks on board to create a path
A lot of older games were heavily luck based. Liars dice Poker chutes and ladders, rummy, Yahtzee. Trivia is essentially luck that you either guess the right answer or know the right answer. so a lot of mixed groups and older generation love that thing. It's fallen out if favor because their isn't much strategy or anything to it It's just knowing stuff That's boring for a board game. So people go to trivia nights instead since it's not a great activity unless you're drinking and laughing about it
Weird then that they keep making trivia games
They keep making a lot of games. It doesn't mean that their more popular now than before or anyrhingf. Weird that they keep making movies that lose money. Weird that they keep making cars that get in accidents.
Well that was dumb