Building trivia games with people in mind

Building Trivia Games – When developing Muqaabla, we tried to put ourselves in the shoes of those who play trivia games

Building trivia game is quite an interesting task. One needs to know what will work with the audience and what won’t. There are many trivia games already on the market, so there is a lot to be learned from them. But one cannot stop at that. Is there any way we can be different? Can we introduce a feature that will bring in more users and make our game more popular?

At Muqaabla have been brainstorming on these issues. We wanted to find out what people expect when they play trivia games. Here is what we dwelt on.

Who is the game meant for?

This is where it all starts. We put ourselves in the shoes of prospective players of trivia games like Muqaabla. We did research on who they would be and how often they would be playing trivia games. How much of time would they like to spend on an average to play trivia games? Also, what would bring them back to play the game again?

We had to ensure that the game challenged the average player. So it meant we needed to have questions which were neither too easy nor too difficult. We realized that people find visuals more attractive when playing trivia games, so we decided to have picture-based questions. We realized that apart from answering questions based on trivia, players would also like to use their grey cells. So we included some trick questions in the mix. We decided to have a hint before each question. Basically, the idea was to make the game more attractive.

Building Trivia Games – How simple is the game design?

The best things in the world are simple. Think of the Google homepage. We had to ensure that the design of our game was simple and easy to understand and navigate. Today, people have very little time, anything complex and they will be put off. We spent the time to figure out if there were any elements in the game that would be an impediment to a player.

We simplified our registration forms and made the navigation easier. Our team tested the game several times and made some changes. We asked a small group of people to test our app and got their feedback and suggestions. Those we incorporated in the game as well. While designing the game we have kept in mind a three-year-old. We want the user interface to be as simple and clutter-free as possible.

Is there something for everybody?

Identifying the audience is the first step, but even then we had to make sure that the game had something for everyone. The idea is to accommodate differences among players in the target audience. So we designed the questions in such a way that they were spread over different topics. We have questions on cricket, Bollywood, science, politics, history and so on. Muqaabla can be played over 5 sessions daily at different times. So it suits the timing of the office goer, the college student, the homemaker, and the senior citizen. You can play Muqaabla in English, Hindi, and Bengali. So a player can play Muqaabla in a language of their choice. We plan to add more regional languages going ahead.

What are some of the features you would like building trivia games to have? Please tell us in your comments below.