Have you ever spent an entire dinner bickering with your brother over what Barney did in which season which episode of How I Met Your Mother?
Have you ever felt so peeved that you watched the movie in which Brad Pitt was actually Edward Norton and they were going mad, but it was your best friend who recalled the film title you forgot?
Welcome to Triviaville, where outsmarting our peers over the most trivial of pursuits would bring us the most therapeutic of sensations. We feel younger, fresher, more confident, sometimes even the mole on our forehead doesn’t feel so ugly anymore when we have had the satisfaction of giving those who lost the face of smug douche.
Now as a mobile gaming app comes a revolutionary solution where it is finally possible to end the bickering once and for all—QuizUp. Available on both the iOS and Android platforms, QuizUp has over 400 topics of every big, small, general, specific trivia question, where everyone, as in a free market, can randomly compete to have the sweet, sweet satisfaction of winning.
For aspiring winners and newbies looking to expel boredom, learn just a little something or just feel superior, below are some caveats and tips you might want to take note of before embarking on this curious QuizUp journey.
1. Do not underestimate Pokémon
You felt like you gotta catch em’ all, but in a bid to classify those cute cuddly creatures, their Fire, Water, Ice, Electric, Fighting, Poison, Ground/Rock, Grass, Ghost, Bug, Steel, Psychic powers would first ruin you.
Because the Pokémon are that complex, it certainly comes as no surprise if you were to catch nothing at all. I dare say that among all topics, Pokémon is perhaps as tough as the esoteric ones like Ancient Greece, Rome, Economics and Psychology in its level of difficulty. Who would’ve thought that Ash and Misty actually had such a demanding job?
Through QuizUp, it appears that the Pokémon have defied our assumption of its childlike simplicity. If you wanna catch em’ all, you gotta first study the Pokédex.
2. Turning the music down/off decreases your response rate
Imagine you’re watching the climax of a Bourne film as the best of hit men in the CIA closes in on Jason Bourne.
They leap from building to building, smashing through the windows of ordinary people.
Alas! They have cornered him, your knees weak as Bourne challenges his armed opponents bare-fisted. At which point, the music is suspenseful, matching the high tension, its tempo bursting out of your human heart. Could you imagine a fight scene without it?
In a similar way, the QuizUp soundtrack kind of mimics the effect music producers of the Bourne Trilogy were trying to achieve. Yes, you might be tempted to turn down the music or turn it off to overcome your fear of an impending cardiac arrest. While that may sooth your nerves and bring you temporary calmness, it is a wrong move to make if you are playing to win. Because Bourne always wins when the music intensity is at its highest, make sure not to mute yours.
3. The Indian showdown
There will come a time when you shall meet a certain death by a player from India. If you are up to the challenge, which you should be, topics they are unparalleled at include any category of English, Math, and the Sciences. This is a group of highly intelligent people who are always up for the challenge. And since the challenge itself is the most fun we can get out of QuizUp, people who take challenges seriously, seriously know how to have fun.
4. Beware the tenacity of elderly players
We might be more tech-savvy than our parents and grandparents, but let’s face it, the calamity of world wars and multiple financial crises have birthed a generation of survivors. They’re fiercely competitive and are trained to outdo their peers. Replicating real life in a QuizUp match, they won’t stop till they’ve won and they will win.
5. Error matches will save you
You haven’t scored a single point and palms sweaty, begin to feel intellectually inadequate. Cracking under pressure, you are quick to answer, but nothing seems to be going right at all.
All hope is lost when suddenly, the countdown ceases to tick, the screen freezes for a moment and you read: “OH NO! You have disconnected from your opponent. Either you or your opponent has a bad network connection.” OH YES, too bad for the one who was winning. You have been saved.
6. Level one Lager Lovers are a waste of time
Firstly, this is not something that I would say just to stir s*** because personally, I love my beers too.
For the real lager lovers who are exploring new topics out there, here’s an apology in advance. It’s just that, as a player of QuizUp since its launch on Android, is it just me or are these level one lager lovers so suspiciously stupid, that they seem unreal?
Too many times have I encountered a match with these lovers of a good beer who simply cannot or are computerized to not be able to answer questions correctly. But hey, since you’ve entered the game, here’s to some free points and a game unchallenged.
7. Not for the Faint-hearted
Among my group of friends who claimed they play QuizUp are the maniacs (like myself), the back-sliders and the drop-outs. Out of curiosity, I decided to quiz some of the not-so-enthusiastic on their inactivity since joining. Unsurprisingly, many of them cited “pressure” and “losing too many games” as reasons why they’ve ceased to play.
That got me thinking.
In a world that has so many other invisible, more powerful hands that strangle us on a daily basis, is the pursuit of trivia that intense to warrant tapping out? Can there no longer be fun if it means to lose sometimes?
As a last caveat of sorts, QuizUp may not be for the faint-hearted after all. If there’s a chance for us to be in control of what we can and cannot ‘fail’ at—even the slightest sense of it in QuizUp—perhaps the choice not to play when the pressure mounts too high is a wise one.
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