Computer Gamer


Trivia UK

Publisher: Anirog
Machine: Commodore 64

 
Published in Computer Gamer #8

Trivia UK

This latest game from Anirog is the first of the British trivia games to put in an appearance. Each of the players attempts to complete six pieces of his pie by answering questions which fall in six different categories. Having achieved this, he must then answer a question in a category chosen by his opponents.

Play takes place by moving round the board according to the roll of a die and answering questions as you go. If you get the question right, you get another go. The object is to land on six key squares. A correct answer here gains you a slice of the pie. So how does the game play in practice? Well, like the curate's egg, it's good in parts.

On the plus side is the method of answering the questions which is simple in the extreme. The program asks the question and you shout out the answer beore pressing a key to see whether or not you were correct. This is a much better method than in US Gold's Monster Trivia where you have to type the answer in, as it avoids problems such as being marked wrong for "World War I" when the program was expecting "First World War". Any such differences can now be settled amicably between players.

Trivia UK

The questions also benefit from being geared to a British market. No more questions about obscure American quiz show hosts. The six categories are Geography, History, Sport & Leisure, Arts & Literature, Science & Nature and Entertainment. My overall impression of the questions was that they were well chosen, but all very sensible. Personally I prefer them to be slightly silly but this is a matter of individual preference. There are 1,400 questions in the package on two tapes, but you are supplied with a Trivia Editor program to add your own questions. The main drawback with this would seem to be that apart from typing the questions in, you would have a headstart in that you know all the answers!

The main drawback with the program is that the questions have to be loaded in in blocks. There is no turbo load and there is the usual long wait for the C64 to load (about fifteen minutes per block). Things get worse as you are likely to have to load a new block in the middle of a game. Apart from another long wait, there is the risk that you position the tape incorrectly and inadvertently load in the main program again, and so have to restart the game from scratch!

This is the second trivia game that I have seen so far with others in the pipeline. My feeling is that they do not work very well on a computer at all and that the boardgame plays a lot better. Certainly, putting the game on cassette has considerable drawbacks, but then, unlike the rest of Europe and the USA, not many people here own disk drives, which would immediately solve one of the main problems associated with games of this type.