Game show trivia app gains popularity across UMW campus

By KYLE CLARKE

Staff Writer

While scrolling through the thousands of apps and games the app store has to offer, you may come across HQ Trivia, a game that has become popular among smartphone users and many students at UMW. All across campus, students pull out their phones at 3 and 9 p.m. to compete with other users for cash prizes on this game show styled mobile trivia game.

As you begin playing, a live game show host takes you through the questions with increasing levels of difficulty. While the host is there mainly to guide the user through the questions, he also delivers a corny punchline joke at the end of each answer that brings even the fiercest of competitors to a subtle smirk.

The questions that are asked range across a variety of fields, most of which are common knowledge high school level questions that cover history, science, English, etc. While many people, myself included, begin playing the game with an arrogant sense of high knowledge, I can assure you, the game is trickier than it looks.

Rhys Johnson, an undeclared freshman at Mary Washington, said, “The game is fun to play, you just pull out your phone and it’s like you’re on a gameshow.” He continued, “I haven’t won any prizes yet, but hopefully my luck will change as I play the game a little more.”

Freshman history major, Harrison Fuller had more frustrated feelings toward the app saying, “I enjoyed the app when I first downloaded it from the app store; it had a new spin on the trivia game, which I liked. But as I play it more and more, I just get frustrated with the questions that not many people would know.” He continued, “if you’re going to make a trivia game for everyone, make sure the questions are reasonable.”

Fuller said that he continues to play the game because of  how addictive and fun it can sometimes be.

After playing the game for a few weeks, I can understand the draw to the game as it can be quite fun. But after a while, the game does get a little tedious and boring with many of the questions being a little to routine. There is no telling how long this popularity of HQ Trivia will last, but if this trend, we could see HQ become one of the top games on the app store in the coming months. HQ currently sits as the number one trivia game on the app store and has been gaining notoriety throughout the tech/gaming community.