Interviews

The makers of Quizcover lay out their vision for trivia quiz games

Trivia with three question types

The makers of Quizcover lay out their vision for trivia quiz games
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iOS
| Quizcover

A new indie games company named Quizista has launched its first iOS app, Quizcover. The most striking difference between Quizcover and former number one hits Trivia Crack and QuizUp is that Quizcover comes with three question types: in addition to the usual PickOne (where one out of four options is right), it features two new types called PickSome (more than one correct answer) and MatchTwo (your task is to form pairs).

Quizcover embeds its three different ways to ask and answer trivia questions into a quiz game that has single-player and dual-player modes. Players can choose a broad mix of questions or particular topics such as Movies & TV or Geography.

You get to compete in rankings (worldwide, continent, country, state, city; all-time, year, month, week, day) and can build two kinds of streaks (which are ranked, too).

You can download Quizcover from the App Store for free. Optionally you can buy boosters, extra tries and other premium offerings. Some of these benefits are also available as rewards for watching ads or reaching goals.

We spoke to Quizista about their rather bold mission statement: they seek to redefine the entire genre of trivia games.

Trivia games that give you four choices have made, and are still making, many gamers happy. What's wrong with that question type?

"The only thing that's wrong is being limited to a single question type. PickOne is still the best choice for about 20% of the facts that come up in a trivia game. Some of our own favorite questions in Quizcover are PickOnes, such as why the Great Salt Lake is salty. But you could answer PickOne questions on a 1990s Nokia phone with number keys. Roughly 80% of the time, today's smartphones can present questions in different, more interactive and more interesting ways. We designed Quizcover for touchscreens."

What's your preferred question type on touchscreens then?

"Again, it's always about the most suitable type for a particular kind of fact. But if we could take only one question type with us to an island, that would be MatchTwo, where you form pairs by matching capitals with countries, actors with movies, or singers with songs. Its drag-and-drop interface lets you move items into boxes, which is more fun than just hitting 1-4. You can solve it like a puzzle by exclusion: basically, for the first item you have four choices, but with every part that you solve, the remainder gets easier. And you can use three kinds of boosters: hint (through colors), partial solution, and partial removal. Traditional PickOne games only let you throw out wrong answers. Or you can try again, but even retries work better for MatchTwo."

Single-player or dual-player -- which one is better?

"Either one has unique advantages. Quizcover lets you play with friends -- in-game friends, Facebook friends or anyone you invite by email or messenger -- and with random opponents. Head-to-head competition is always thrilling. But nothing beats the flexibility of playing whenever you want without waiting for someone else. It's the fastest way to accumulate points for the rankings. Quizcover's single-player mode supports streaks and superstreaks. A streak is a series of questions on which you score. A superstreak is a series of being 100% correct. With PickOne it's always binary, but PickSome and MatchTwo questions also award points for partially-correct answers."

You describe your content as U.S.-centric. What about the rest of the world?

"Over time you'll get different content in different countries. In the short term, you might just focus on global topics like Movies, Music, and Science."