Trivial Wars

I've always been a big fan of Trivial Pursuit and trivia in general. In fact, I used to host live shows in various pubs around the Santa Rosa, Ca. area as Mr. Quizzer. Recently, I began fooling around with the concept of making a point-based, strategy game loosely based on the Trivial Pursuit format. Using the Vassal Engine, I've now been able to develop this concept into an Internet based multi-player game. Here's a view of the game board in action. Click the pic for a bigger shot.

This online Vassal version of the game is specifically designed to use any 6-category card set (like Trivial Pursuit cards) and is best played using a shuffled mix of several card sets. Category lists for 77 different card sets (both official Trivial Pursuit cards and off brand card sets) are already built into the game so players simply click a button and select the card set being used for the next question from the list and the categories are displayed for the players. More card sets will be included in future versions as information on these sets becomes available. Here's some shots of a player (known as the Questioner) switching the current category list from RPM to Silver Screen.

From 2 to 10 players can play and each uses a token that represents one of 10 different items (Car, Jet, Skull, etc). The players attempt to accumulate points and collect gems while making it as difficult as possible for other players to do the same. One way of winning is to be the first player to score 50 points (or a set number of points established by your group). The other way is for a player to collect all 6 gems and make an End-Game declaration. If they accomplish this, the player with the most points after the End-Game round wins.

The main weapons used in Trivial Wars are called Zonks. These are cards that can be played at various times to affect one player, all players or the whole game environment. Each player has a private window where they can keep their Zonks secret. Keeping track of points, gems, turns and Zonks are easily done with the player statistics display at the bottom of the board. Here's a shot of a game in progress:

This shot shows the statistics display for 5 of the 10 players in the lower left corner. The number shown on their token symbol is the turn sequence for that round ...lowest numbers move first. The first tile next to the token symbols is a turn status marker - blue (no turn yet), green (current active player), red (turn finished). Next is the Zonk status marker. Players may only hurl one Zonk per round. This shot shows that the Car and Coin have used their Zonk on this round. The remainder shows the gems and points the players have collected along the way. As you can see, the Anchor has a considerable lead in both.

The rest of the shot shows the current action taking place. The Chaos Zonk was hurled by the the Coin making all questions for this round randomly determined. The Car has ended their turn on a Zonk Free Zone (shown but the small Z with a line through it). They can not be affected by any Zonk that is hurled while in this zone. These zones are randomly placed with each new round. We also see the Butterfly (current active player as their turn status marker is green) launching an attack against the Anchor in hopes of stealing some points and possibly a gem.

The game makes use of extensive automation. For example, clicking the New Round button will reset all status markers, create new Zonk Free Zones, remove old Zonks from the game board, present random game conditions for the current round, etc. All the player have to do is control their token, ask and answer questions, and update their own statistics as their round unfolds.

This game is best played online as a group using voice communication (Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc.). In fact, I don't see how you can play it without voice communication ...a player typing out questions for other player to answer would get old pretty fast. At least 2 of the players must have a trivia card set of some kind. This insures that a player receiving a question isn't the same person asking the question.

The game will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

You may want to drop by the forums to ask questions, report problems, read announcements, advertise scheduled games, look for games to get into, list what card sets you can bring to a game, or just chat and become an active part of the "Trivial Wars" community.

The best feature of the game is that it is free! No trial versions, no crippled software, no nag screens, no registration requirements, no anything. It is truly 100% free! Drop by the Download page for your copy.

Thanx for dropping by and I hope you like the game. You can contact me via E-mail and I'm usually on Skype when I'm online as dr_nostromo. I may also have a game room open on the Vassal server. Feel free to drop in ...I might be up for a game.