Making a good trivia game can be a tricky thing to do. First, you have to actually create a lot of interesting trivia questions, then you have to present them in an interesting way. We have seen many simple trivia games come and go without creating much of a following, while game-shows like Jeopardy and Family Feud are still going strong after decades. Why? well, the answer is two-fold.
First of all, they have a host. The host is a vital part of a game, whether they are making friends, sharing jokes, grilling contestants with tough questions, or just declaring them the “weakest link”, the host brings something unique and fun to the show. Second, each game-show has a theme, and just like the host, they can vary from unforgiving questions, to light-hearted fun. When it came to creating the Big Bad Quiz, we here at Fierce Fun took that information on-board.
Thus, the Bag Man was born. He is our answer to hosts like Bob Barker or Anne Robinson, and his style of hosting is reminiscent of the “You Don’t Know Jack” series of quiz games. The Bag Man is sarcastic, insulting, but always encourages you to try a bit harder, to get the extra bonus points, or just to wipe the smile off his bag.
When making a game, especially mobile game, you need to consider the time constraint that people will be under. Consumers can’t devote an entire hour to a single session on a game. You need to be able to make a game that is engaging enough that it can be played during a quick-five minute break, or while commuting to or from the office. At the same time however, there needs to be a facility in place to keep people’s attention span over longer periods of time. Again, we looked at game-shows for the answer.
Rapid fire rounds were the best solution we found. You could quickly fly through a round or two while waiting for the bus, save your progress, answer a few texts, then come back to the game a little while later and pick up where you left off. Each round takes about ninety seconds to complete, which makes it perfect for “burst players”. In a survey of gamers in the United States, 44% of respondents said that they played on their phones for less than 30 minutes a day. Since the rounds are paced so well, and there is no limit on the number of rounds you can complete, the game can last however long or short you want it to. The biggest games these days, like Candy Crush, or Flappy Bird, also subscribe to this idea of rapid-fire gameplay.
Finally, we added some really tricky questions to the mix to liven things up, especially as you get further and further into the game. The rounds might go by quickly, but they won’t all be easy to finish. Adding that to the fact that there are almost two thousand questions, and they all appear in a random order each time you play, means that the game will be fresh, and tough every time you open it up.
So that’s our opinion, a good trivia game needs to have a unique host, the ability to be played for short or long periods and above all, needs to be fresh every time you play it, in order to keep players interested.
