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Show Off Your Knowledge In 'QuizUp'

I don’t play many games on my smartphone. I don’t normally want to sacrifice the battery life, especially if I have a dedicated gaming portable like my Nintendo 3DS with me. But sometimes, smartphone games grab me, especially if they play quick and have a social aspect to them.

QuizUp does for trivia games what Words With Friends did for Scrabble, and what Draw Something did for Pictionary. It lets you play a short, seven-question game with either a friend or someone completely random. Each game focuses on one specific topic, and for each question, you can choose one of four possible answers. You’ll receive points if you get it right, and the faster you answer, the more points you get. At the end of the game, you win if you have the most points.

Credit Samuel McConnell / KMUW
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KMUW

QuizUp is the biggest trivia game I’ve ever played. There are more than 200,000 questions across more than 300 categories. There are quizzes on boxing, geography, biology, Playstation games, and even categories for Meryl Streep and Wes Anderson. You’ll almost certainly find a category or two you feel like an expert in, and there is nearly always someone else ready to play a round with you.

Every time you complete a quiz, you earn experience points for that category, and with enough points, you gain a level in that quiz. After 10 levels, you get a title that attaches to your name from that category, as an award and to differentiate yourself among your friends. You start out with the title “Beginner,” but after 10 levels in the Disney category, you, too, can have the title of “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

Like many apps, this game is free, and available both on Android and iPhone. You can pay for a booster to get double experience points for an hour, but unless you’re set on getting the “Headmaster of Hogwarts” title in the Harry Potter category, it probably isn’t worth the extra charge.

Samuel McConnell is a games enthusiast who has been playing games in one form or another since 1991. He was born in northern Maine but quickly transplanted to Wichita.