A trivia night at home, with phones as buzzers
A trivia night at home needs the board on the television, a buzzer in every hand, and nobody stuck being the host. Party mode does the third part: the game reads the rules, opens the buzzer, and lets the room judge the answer.
Three steps
- Put the board on the TV. Open trinkotrivia.com/tv/CODE on any television that shows a web page, or cast it from a phone or laptop. Put it on the TV has the four ways; it is about thirty seconds.
- Everyone grabs a phone. One phone per team, and a team can be one person. Scan the QR on the TV, type a team name, done. No app, no account.
- Tap Start. In party mode nobody hosts: the question stays hidden until every team has tapped Ready, then appears on every screen at once, and the buzzer opens a moment later at a moment nobody can predict.
How party mode judges an answer
The first team to buzz says their answer out loud. The TV then shows the real answer and every other team taps whether they said it. Majority rules, and if nobody votes it counts as yes. A miss goes to the second buzz, and two misses open the square to everyone else for half, typed. The all-play squares and the Final are typed by everyone and the app marks them itself; spelling and capitals are forgiven.
The wheel spins on the TV and on the phone of the team that picked the square. Bankrupt still zeroes a score the moment it lands, which is the point of it. Everything a wrong answer costs goes into a pot on the TV that the next right answer takes.
Pick a board, or make it about someone
The shop has free boards written for a kitchen table: the 90s, Disney, Star Wars, one-hit wonders, sitcoms, twenty-five squares for ages ten to seventy. Or make a board about the person the night is for: pick an occasion, type a name, and you get five categories of prompts to fill in over ten minutes. A trivia game about someone explains it.
How long it takes
| Shape | Squares | Runs |
|---|---|---|
| 4 × 5 | 20 | about an hour |
| 6 × 5 | 30 | about an hour and a half |
| 6 × 6 | 36 | about an hour and forty minutes |
A four-by-five board is an hour, which is the right length after dinner. Every phone shows its own team's score, and the TV shows the standings all night.
Kids, grandparents, and the one person who knows everything
The buzzer is the equalizer: knowing the answer is only half of it. Put the family know-it-all on a team with the seven-year-old. Bonus points are yours to hand out for anything, and every award goes up on the TV. If someone would rather run it than play, hosted mode gives them a console on a phone or a laptop and the buzzer works the same way.
Questions people ask
How many people can play trivia at home with Trinko?
Two to six teams is the sweet spot at home, and a team can be one person or the whole couch. One phone per team. A bar night runs with twenty.
Do we need a smart TV?
No. Any screen that shows a web page works: a smart TV browser, a Chromecast, an Apple TV with AirPlay, or a laptop on an HDMI cable. A big tablet on the table works in a pinch.
Does it work on iPhone and Android?
Yes. It is a web page, so any phone with a browser is a buzzer. Nothing to install.
Is it free?
Running a night is free, and the shop has free boards written for a kitchen table. Bigger boards written for a bar are $14.99.
Can the night be about our family?
Yes. Pick an occasion, birthday, wedding, anniversary, baby shower, Christmas, a send-off, type the name, and fill in the prompts. The board is yours to run as many times as you like.
What if a phone dies halfway through?
Open the code again, tap Rejoin, and enter the team PIN the phone showed at the start. The score is where it was.